] Microsoft Internet Explorer is continuing to lose share
] in the browser market, as its much-smaller competitors
] chisel at its dominant position, new Web site visitor
] data shows.

[ Thank fucking god. Maybe someday i'll be able to implement a site according to web standards and have it actually work. -k]

Internet Explorer Loses More Market Share

] Here is IBM's Redacted Memorandum in Support of Motion
] for Partial Summary Judgment On Breach of Contract
] Claims, filed by IBM on Friday. As you will see, they are
] going for the jugular now. Astoundingly, they say that
] all parties involved in the contract between AT&T and IBM
] have now provided testimony in discovery that IBM has the
] right to do whatever it wishes with its own code,
] contrary to SCO's claims, or as the memorandum puts it,
] they all provided "unequivocal testimony that the
] agreements were not intended and should not be understood
] to preclude IBM's use and disclosure of homegrown code
] and contemporaneous documents reflect this interpretation
] of the licenses".

[ *SMACK*

Bold mine. -k]

IBM Goes for the Jugular vs SCO -- GROKLAW

] Royal Bank of Canada has notified SCO it has elected to
] convert 10,000 shares of SCO's Series A-1 Convertible
] Preferred Stock it currently holds into a total of
] 740,740 shares of SCO's common stock. Further, it has
] sold 20,000 shares of Series A-1 stock to BayStar so that
] "after completion of the conversion, Royal Bank of Canada
] will have no equity interest in SCO other than the shares
] of common stock it receives from the conversion."

[ Well, we knew that was coming, no? SCO continues it's circumnavigation of the bowl, on their way down the drain... -k]

RBC Cashes out of SCO

] U.S. radio broadcasters have asked federal regulators to
] bar rival satellite radio services from offering content
] tailored to local markets, according to a petition
] obtained on Friday.
]
] The National Association of Broadcasters, which
] represents radio conglomerates like Clear Channel
] Communications Inc. , filed the request due to concerns
] the up and coming satellite services are trying to
] replace local radio outlets.

[ Awww, poor Clear Channel, I forgot the government is supposed to protect your virtual monopoly. Boo hoo hoo, bitches. Fuck you. -k]

Broadcasters seek ban on local satellite radio Broadcasters seek ban on local satellite radio Broadcasters seek ban on local satellite radio

]
] Now it's getting interesting. BayStar wants SCO to
] immediately redeem BayStar's 20,000 shares of SCO's A-1
] Convertible Preferred Stock. They say SCO has breached
] their agreement. SCO denies any breach. Here is the
] agreement that they are fighting over. Here is the press
] release. My, this was a short honeymoon.

BayStar is basically telling SCO they want their $20M back.

[ HA! Fuck you BayStar! You bet a lot of money on a very, VERY uncertain outcome (SCO beating IBM) and only then realized you'd tied yourself to a ship that's this close to a major iceberg impact, followed by flooding and lamentations and SINKING.

It was a risky speculation, investing in a company as, uh, tainted, as SCO, and they got hosed. Even if suits are brought, SCO may not even exist long enough to be served by them. Painful, but, man, I wonder if selling off those shares before demanding redemption was an option... SCO was at 9.66 this morning, it's at 8.40 now... that's a 13% drop. I see no good outcome for SCO or for BayStar. -k]

Baystar Sends SCO a Letter

] Democracy and freedom are coming to business, says Tom
] Malone. And it's all because of technology.

[ Very interesting article... ties together a few memes that've been percolating for a while. Very much worth the quick read...

-k

p.s. wtf is with the "apprentice" in the title? I surmised, and was then proven right, that the word was just to grab attention, given the popularity of the show. Nothing in the article referenced TrumpTV at all.

The Future of Work: An 'Apprentice'-style Office?

] No sooner has digital tunes really started to catch on,
] we hear that the $0.99-per-song -- or less, if you go to
] Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) -- price tag is being threatened.
] According to The Wall Street Journal, the recording
] industry has been trying to cook up ways to charge folks
] more for music. Even Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTunes and
] Roxio's (Nasdaq: ROXI) Napster services have been
] charging premiums for some of the big names and hot new
] releases, the article said.

[ Yeah, awesome. Lets kill this whole music downloads thing before it even starts. -k]

The Death of Dollar Downloads? [Motley Fool Take] April 7, 2004

]
] NEW YORK, April 2 (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc.
] (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people) and Microsoft Corp.
] (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people) on Friday settled their
] long-running legal battle over patents and unfair
] competition, setting the stage for the arch-rivals to
] enter a new era of cooperation over their competing
] technologies.

[ Also noted are 3300 new people to add to the unemployment rolls as Sun slashes 10% of it's workforce. -k]

Sun, Microsoft settle long-running disputes

Outsourcing actually brings far more benefits than costs, both now and in the long run. If its critics succeed in provoking a new wave of American protectionism, the consequences will be disastrous -- for the U.S. economy and for the American workers they claim to defend.

[ Is it maybe just the timing that's got everyone up in arms about outsourcing? The economy already sucks, so people are even less apt to condone a long term strategy that hurts in the short term?

Or maybe there's a disjoint between prediction and reality. My initial reaction was highly negative, but I'm softening just a little bit. I understand some of the arguments in favor of, and I'm willing to give them some credence, though I still don't trust the motives of big business. Big business tends to consolidate wealth, and "job creation" in and of itself isn't a pure good -- such as when the jobs are sweatshop class, for example. I'm begining to believe there's a solid economic justification for outsourcing, but that the real-world implementation of the practice by greedy magnates and politicians falls short of the idealized case used by economists to justify the practice. That's just a feeling I'm getting. I'm still no economist, but if there's anything life has taught me it's that everything's gray, and the tone shifts wildly based on how certain details are handled... I think outsourcing *could* be good, but *is* not. God knows we have little reason to trust Bush, his pack of wolves, or the multi-millionaires who benefit disproportionately from his economic policies. -k]

The Outsourcing Bogeyman

Jeremy wrote:
] inignoct wrote:
] ] certainly we need to take a long look at the kinds of jobs
] ] we're likely to be able to retain. ... what can we keep?
]
] This is the wrong mindset. It's not about "retaining" or
] "keeping" the jobs we have today. Give them away ... they're
] already dead.
]
] Success will require creating entirely new categories of jobs
] for which today there is no description. This is the future.

[ good point. so, what are the most likely new categories? What's bleeding edge right now? Nanotech? What else? -k]

] In America, we make money the old fashioned way. We earn it.

[ Meh. regular people everywhere make money by earning it. famous people everywhere make money by being famous. the point that we're gonna have to bust our ass and figure out which direction to aim ourselves is well taken though. -k]

RE: Theory vs. Reality