It's been a few days since my previous entry which is as long as I've gone without making a post in months. It isn't writers block, I can think of many things to talk about but finding time has been even more difficult than normal.
In no particular order here are some brief "drive by" comments on recent news items.
Google has apparently bought 1K plus more patents from IBM. Google started the current patent war woefully under armed and has been playing catch up over the last several months. Patents aren't granted quickly so to remedy their shortcoming they've been paying a premium to build their arsenal. They are likely to make additional purchases over the next several months. Google still has a lot of cash and it's not hard to figure out what their most pressing need is. They can keep up with anyone on the innovation front but that means nothing if they and their partners get sued into oblivion. Lesson learned, being disdainful of software patents may be hip and intellectually correct but sadly it's very bad for your business.
Facebook continues to add features at a rapid pace. Clearly they are emulating rather than innovating. They've had a history of confusing and annoying their customers and have continued to grow so the risk of making changes is probably low. There is a chance they'll probably lose a few people but they were having that problem anyway with Google+. On a positive note, I got an email from Facebook a few days back saying they would be sending me less email and explaining why. This was a very positive change for them and pleasant to experience. They are still prone to making changes with zero notice that have significant impacts on how people use the service but sending out that email was hopefully a sign of things to come. I can hope anyway.
On the jobs front, I don't see existing companies adding a lot of jobs. There are structural reasons for this. They are making record profits right now selling their goods and service to parts of the world were the economy is much better than in the US. When they are creating jobs those jobs are overseas. It also means that most of the profits are staying overseas as well. Net impact here, minimal other than an undervalued stock market. New jobs have been and will continue to be generated by new companies. Any jobs stimulus bill that wants to have a real impact is going to have to focus primarily on creating new companies.
Microsoft released the first Windows 8 preview. I really like what I'm reading in regards to the direction their heading and did take the time to download the preview. Unfortunately it doesn't run on a VMWare player so I'm SOL for now. There are reports that it runs on Oracle's Virtual Box and the full VMWare Workstation. I don't own either so that doesn't help. It does feel like an oversight on Microsoft's part not to run on the free VMWare player. Few people are going to be willing/able to install the preview on a dedicated piece of hardware. This isn't a fatal flaw but it is a small bump in the road. It is easy to get a thirty day trial of VMWare workstation but that is more work than I'm willing to devote to this for now.
Time to get ready for work and deal with a few other things. Happy Thursday everyone.
Image via Wikipedia
Hmm, I wonder if I spelled nick wrong in the post title.
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