Om Malik has a great piece today over on GigaOM. He points out that Microsoft has fallen to the Mafia tactics of the music industry and will pay $1 for every Zune device to Universal Music Group (UMG). At one point, he wonders if this would have happened at Microsoft’s height of dominance.
In this battle of the monopolists, Microsoft blinked and decided to pay up. (Would this have happened a few years ago, when Microsoft ruled the technology planet?) Remember how Jobs stood up to these music industry bullies. Today they are asking $1 a device; what is to stop them from asking for say $10 or $20 per device down the road. This shakedown should result in a serious investigation into the music industry cartel.
The music industry has really lost its marbles, they do believe that their customers are crooks, they do believe that they are being cheated by “fair use”, they do believe that they should get a payment every time one of their songs is heard by anyone anywhere from any media source.
The sad fact is that these once-powerful media companies are crying like children who dropped their candy, and it is obscuring their ability to logically think and plan out a relevant business model in the “new media” world.
This will be interesting, UIQ has been the Symbian OS varient that has powered Sony Ericsson phones for the last few years instead of rival Nokia’s S60. UIQ has had several advanced features from its inception, and has one of the best GUIs in the smart p
Ina Fried has a great writeup of some of the goings on during the Windows Vista final release cycle. Its an interesting read that gives you an inside look at what the Vista development team goes through to get the code out the door.
Mathew Ingram asks some direct questions about why Intel is getting into the social software reselling business. Is it just to be associated with “Web 2.0”?
Today Microsoft Office 2007 went “Gold” and was released to manufacturing. Availability will be on schedule for business and consumer users.
I’ve been using Office 2007 B2TR through September & October with good result. While the overall layout of the Office suite has changed dramatically for the better from Office 2003, its the ease of use that really starts to stand out.
The product is simply much better for creating visually rich documents than any other office product. You cannot screw it up, its that simple. There are pre-configured fades, gradients, lines, shapes, borders, etc… that you can simply click on and have it apply to your selection.
Now, I’ve gotten really good at subtle color use in Office 2003, but it’s stunning what you can do in 2007 – there are actual color pallets that have been professionally matched, so you simply choose the one you like and select a color blend from it.
I’ve said recently that I am moving away from client-side applications, and I’m planning on sticking to that. But if there is one application that is capable of so many things – it’s Microsoft Office. And it is one of very few applications that would make me rethink my approach.
I can’t wait for OneNote 2007 – and the OneNote Mobile 2007 client that will come with the product. All during the beta of Office 2007, I’ve been using the mobile client with great success.
Its progressed from a rough form early on to a very usable tool as Kevin Tofel over at jkOnTheRun mentions. He also has a link to a Quick Start Guide for OneNote Mobile.
So, I’m betting many, many people are flipin’ out tonight with the recent news of the Novell & Microsoft Linux partnership. Though I may be surprised by the timing, I’m not surprised at the news.
Microsoft has been heading this way for some time, and the only thing I didn’t see was Novell as a partner. Though I guess it makes sense in a way, as they have historically targeted the same markets, and have the same customers in many cases.
The interesting thing is that Microsoft is accepting Linux in their plans. Of particular interest is the OpenOffice and eDirectory compatibility. It’ll probably be Novell moving closer to Microsoft than the other way around, but having Microsoft involved in the process will improve the end results.
First Lady Melania Trump: "Most know my husband as the strong Commander-in-Chief, but his empathy transcends the role and shapes a caring leader who constantly remembers each and every American soldier is someone's child."
