Software

Rumors are flying that Google is in talks to buy Twitter. Microsoft should resist the temptation to become a "me-too" bidder to try to buy the company out from Google. Twitter might offer Microsoft some badly needed "cool," but that's about it.

IBM buying Sun is a done deal. But, what does that mean for Solaris and OpenSolaris? Java? NetBeans? Here are my best guesses.

A new book, "Why New Systems Fail," says there are mild failures, big failures, unmitigated disasters -- and "forthcoming failures" that will come back to haunt you in the future.

In Friday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings watches IBM move forward with its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Not to mention what Steve Wozniak did next...

[The title is with grudging apologies to Mike Rothman, but he still owes me plenty]

If you still think Ubuntu is just this cute little Linux for Linux fans, boy do you have a surprise waiting for you in Ubuntu Server 9.04.

According to the Wall Street Journal, HP and other major PC builders are considering building netbooks using the Google Linux-based Android operating system.

Almost everyone uses MySQL, if no where else on your favorite social network, but the wildly popular open-source database manager hasn't so much forked as fragmented.

A Linux newbie is frustrated by a widespread Ubuntu bug and goes straight to the source in London to get the story about how they're fixed.

Within the last few days Microsoft quietly announced it is killing its Encarta encyclopedia, with the actual date of death October, 2009. What it hinted at, but didn't quite say, was that Wikipedia killed it.

Worried about Conficker? You don't have to be. There's a software patch that will get rid of all your Conficker worries once and for all! Better still, it will also rid you of 99.9999% of all your malware concerns once and for all. Its name is Linux.

The education crisis is bad and getting worse. The US spends more on education than any other nation, so the problem is not (as commonly portrayed) a funding crisis. The causes for this sorry state of affairs are many, but one major failure is that too many teachers, schools, and districts reject powerful, free technology solutions that are handed to them on a silver platter.

I'm talking about mobile technology, the mobile Web and the Web 2.0.

The story on 60 Minutes about the Conficker worm missed the larger picture.

Free support for Windows XP ends on April 14th, and the Windows 7 release candidate arrives in May, coincidence? I don't think so.

Microsoft has unveiled a new ad campaign designed to hit Apple where it hurts: In people's wallets. A new ad shows real people trying to buy affordable laptops, and ending up buying PCs rather than Macs because they can't afford high-priced hardware. The campaign even uses jujitsu against Apple coolness, saying that cheap is the new cool.

In Friday's IT Blogwatch, we wonder if we'll be Skyping from our iPhones soon. Not to mention Atari 2600 powered by hope ...