IBM with Solaris?

An interesting change of attitude for a compnay that was trying so hard to convert people from Sun systems to IBM's. With the opening of Solaris to the opensource community Sun has ensured its survival. All the big computer palyers now are positionig themselves against Microsoft. I think that now there will be a combined push. There may even be some choice in the fututre available to consumers.

Google moving to Arizona

I see in our local paper that Google is looking to move to AZ. OK. Where are you going to get more programmers? While it is cheap to operate here, well at least it is now, the availabilioty of good programmers will be limited. The idea is that with ASU Scottsdale and Intel here I guess that Google will be on the leading edge of innovation. ASU will be an interesting one to watch. If More companies invest in it then the idea of having a good campus to draw from may work. If Sun, IBM and Apple along with HP also invested then there could be some advantage. Everything seems to revolve around Stanford, Berkely and MIT when it comes to technology. I doubt ASU can be much of a contender without serious investement. Google will most likely drive up wages in the long run and it may prove to be counter productive to their mission. Cash is king and Google seems to have lots of it but without some sort of revolutionary product they are destined to fail. So far they are far behind in the portal business, and sorry, while Google Earth is cute it is only a toy at this point. If they partnered with Sun for RFID and made images availbale in real time then tracking would be possible.

Strange things going on?

What is the deal with the Google/AOL partnership? Why would anyone want to sink anymore cash into the Titanic of all money pits is beyond me. AOL was on its way out a decade ago and to put money into it seem to be a misuse of valuable resources. I just had to shake my head after reading about it. Google needs to start putting at least some thought into its investments. WHile they are indeed the best in obtaining subscribers for paid search it is time to get serious and start working towards soemthing different. So they added chat, mail and a few other goodies that they shoul dhave been offering long ago to compete but to throw money at AOL? I think maybe they want to take a bit of a loss to decrease reveune? Great way to go, put cash into something no one wants. Love those worthless AOL CD's that keep filling up our landfills. No one wants them, take a hint!

Sun and Google?

This one has me wondering. I think they plan to split the cost of development and that is what the partnership is really about. Sun can't do it without the big money and Google has the big money but not enough talent on hand to propel their projects forward at the desired rate. Two very different companies with very different needs. I can understand Google wanting good server hardware it only makes sense but why does Sun even care about googol beyond the sales relationship? What does OpenOffice and StarOffice have that Google would even be remotely interested in? People may like the functions of the Google toolbar but they won't like the intrusive nature of another office suite no matter how functional, to be installed on their computers in a piggyback way. I think the amount of people downloading the toolbar will fall with the move and in the long run it will hurt both companies. I've been wrong before but on this one I'm pretty sure.