Between the Lines

News to know: Zoho; HP; Windows 7; Patch day

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:12:20 +0000

Notable headlines: Dennis Howlett: Zoho’s Googley login raises interesting questions Ed Bott: The key to Windows success? It’s all about the drivers News.com: Facebook pulls ‘stalker list’ tool after Gawker exposes it Mary Jo Foley: Gates emphasizes PC-phone connectivity in Windows 7 Microsoft to raise Windows Small Business Server price 80 percent Microsoft vs. Google: Are all monopolies created equal? Craigslist [...]

Craigslist fires back at eBay; Bogus Google ads to Kijiji alleged

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:44:31 +0000

Craigslist has filed its response to eBay’s lawsuit and the company hits back–hard. Craigslist alleges that eBay participated in everything from “unlawful and unfair competition,” false advertising, business interference and even phishing attacks. The official list via Craigslist: “We filed a complaint in California today, charging eBay with unlawful and unfair competition, misappropriation of proprietary information, deceptive [...]

Icahn reportedly eyes Yahoo proxy fight

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:14:29 +0000

Just when you thought the Microhoo saga was over billionaire investor Carl Icahn wants in on the act. According to CNBC, Icahn has amassed as many as 50 million shares of Yahoo and is mulling over a proxy war. He has until Thursday to declare an alternate board. The problem with this master plan: It’s unclear [...]

No Brotherly Love: EarthLink will pull its Wi-Fi network from Philly

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:48:52 +0000

EarthLink on Tuesday threw in the towel on its Philadelphia Wi-Fi project, which the ISP was trying to transfer to a non-profit or the city’s operating group. Now EarthLink is trying to pull out its gear. EarthLink says in a statement: After months of negotiations with the City of Philadelphia and a non-profit organization in which EarthLink [...]

EDS internal memo on the HP purchase

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:25:05 +0000

HP acquired EDS in a deal valued roughly at $12.8 billion. The move was outlined Tuesday morning amid a healthy dose of skepticism. Here’s a memo from EDS CEO Ron Rittenmeyer, who will now report to HP CEO Mark Hurd. To the EDS Worldwide Team: Today is a historic day for the future of all of us [...]

Does Larry Ellison have the best SaaS strategy?

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:46:17 +0000

Software as a service sounds deceptively simple: Host an application, charge folks monthly and customers come running because they don’t have to implement software. The reality: SaaS is rocket science and few do it truly well. This perception vs. reality SaaS gap bonked me over the head at the SAP Sapphire conference last week. Much of [...]

HP seals EDS deal; Services No. 2 behind IBM; Can Hurd run EDS better?

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:20:16 +0000

Updated: Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd said Tuesday he plans to use a familiar playbook to integrate Electronic Data Systems: Leverage scale, squeeze costs — and underpromise and overdeliver. “We’re running the playbook we know how to run very well,” said Hurd, on a conference call with analysts. “We know how to get significant leverage out of [...]

Microsoft delivers Office for Mac SP1; Will bring back VBA

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:24:02 +0000

Microsoft on Tuesday said that it is releasing Service Pack 1 for Office for Mac and outlined a future roadmap that brings back Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The software giant outlined the changes in a statement touting that Office 2008 for Mac is “selling faster than any previous version of Office for Mac in the [...]

HP’s bid for EDS: Opportunity costs loom

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:59:54 +0000

The debate around Hewlett-Packard’s purchase of Electronic Data Systems follows three primary questions. Is the EDS acquisition another Compaq–a deal that will take years to pay off? Is EDS the right acquisition for HP? Are there other places where HP should spend its money? HP on Tuesday officially acquired EDS for $25 a share, or roughly [...]

News to know: HP’s to buy EDS; AMD; XP SP3; iPhone; Spam attacks

podcast@zdnet.com (Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind) — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:16:04 +0000

Notable headlines: Larry Dignan: HP bidding for EDS; Deal would ramp up services. Dennis Howlett: HP to take out EDS: does it make sense? AMD rejiggers management; Forms central engineering group Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Integrate Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0 and Windows Media Player 11 with XP SP3 slipstream ISO Creating an XP SP3 slipstreamed ISO file. Gallery: Slipstreaming XP SP3 David [...]