Barron's: What's going right at Microsoft? Many investors think that it's past its prime.

Rosenberg: Investors don't appreciate the growth in Microsoft's earnings coming from the developing world. Ballmer has talked about this. Piracy in the developing world is going away. Part of it has to do with the way the code was written in the new Vista operating system and part of it is that, as countries become more developed, they can't allow software to be pirated and sold on the street.

Interesting perspective, but is it true? Here's James Fallows:

This weekend, on the street in Beijing, my wife and I found a good video store -- they're slightly more discreet than in Shanghai -- and loaded up on every movie I've just named (*), plus a bunch more, at a little under $1.40 each. Extortionate, compared with Shanghai, but the best we could do.

(*) Juno. There Will Be Blood. The Great Debaters. No Country for Old Men. Charlie Wilson's War. American Gangster. Sweeney Todd. Eastern Promises. I'm Not There.

Joe Rosenberg, on Microsoft | Barron's

I think back to the fall of 2005, when Bill Gates visited The New York Times, and an editor asked him if Microsoft “would do to Google what you did to Netscape?”

“Nah,” laughed Mr. Gates, “we’ll do something different.”

This ain’t it.

Exactly.

See also:

The Microsoft and Yahoo matchup is like two tired swimmers who bump into each other and then wind up drowning each other in their scramble to survive.

A Giant Bid That Shows How Tired the Giant Is

File under "Atlanta is Hosed":

“The great news for me about these times of enthusiasm is that inevitably there’s a lot of bedlam, undoubtedly there’ll be carnage, there’ll be all sorts of carcasses strewn across the road,” he said. “But there will also be a handful of companies that will emerge to become very significant. And that’s what working and living and investing in Silicon Valley has always been about.”

“People in New York feel a chip on their shoulder because they’re not in the center of this thing,” says Seth Goldstein, a longtime Silicon Alley player now decamped to Marin County. “The question is, why didn’t Netscape start in New York? Why didn’t Google start in New York? Why didn’t Yahoo start in New York? It’s that things are able to percolate here, not because of idealism but because of a willing suspension of disbelief.”

Why the Web 2.0 Bubble Doesn't Bother Silicon Valley

Zivity [2] hits the Sunday NYT, in a profile about the young super-rich ...

They are happy to be wealthy, of course, but many of these baby-faced technology tycoons often seem indifferent to the buying power of their money, at least at this stage of their lives. Instead, nearly all of them have chosen to throw themselves back into a start-up, not so much because they want a spectacular new home or a personal jet — though many of them do — but because they are in a competition with themselves and one another.

Several times a week, he would listen to the gentle hectoring of older, well-dressed men and women whom he playfully mimicked, employing a basso profondo, game-show announcer’s voice.

“Think of the kids you don’t have,” Mr. Levchin quoted them as saying. “Think of your unborn grandkids.”

“This ‘next race’ attitude really shapes your brain.”

“Spending money is a fine pursuit, and anyone’s welcome to do it,” said Scott Banister, a close friend of Mr. Levchin’s since college who recently sold an antispam company to Cisco for $830 million and is now working on a social networking site, Zivity, which he describes as a “cross between Playboy and American Idol.”

“But then obviously at that point, you’re spending,” he said, “not producing.”

After Succeeding, Young Tycoons Try, Try Again

Google works from the bottom up. If you have a great technical idea, you don’t have your V.P. send out a memo telling everybody to use it. Instead, you take it to your fellow engineers and convince them that it’s good. Good ideas spread fast, and this approach keeps us from making technical mistakes. But it also means that the burden falls upon you to spread your idea.

The Google Way: Give Engineers Room

"IBM is in a long-term decline, and now they're talking about being a software company. This is my problem: They're still a massive services company," says Fred Hickey, editor of the High-Tech Strategist newsletter. "And buying back shares, generating 'other income' and enforcing patents is not, to my mind, a good long-term story."

Palmisano and his lieutenants aim to change that perception, in part by emphasizing strong profits, even in an environment where information-technology spending growth has slumped to single digits. The plan is to sell corporate "solutions" that integrate offerings from all three of IBM's massive product lines.

The vision now? To make the services division look more like software.

This is only one part of the full Barron's article, but it's what I could find for linking ...

The New IBM | Barron's

Heads have rolled ... but EFF isn't satisfied.

AOL announced the resignation of its chief technology officer today, following two weeks of intense criticism from privacy advocates after members of its research staff released hundreds of thousands of its customers’ personal Web search queries.

The researcher, Dr. Abdur Chowdhury, and a manager overseeing the project were dismissed.

AOL also said it planned to beef up data privacy protections, reconsider the length of time that it holds onto the millions of search queries that customers make every day, and re-educate its own employees about the sensitivity of personal data.

In another article, Marc Rotenberg says:

"AOL could do a real service to the online community if it would commit to permanently (deleting) all personal search details and challenge other search companies to do the same."

Also in this article, CDT's Ari Schwartz disses the Markey bill, instead calling on the industry to fix itself.

Meanwhile, Chertoff moves to outflank the public:

"As we have broadened information sharing, we have made sure that there are strict rules in effect...that prevent people from misusing that information or putting it out improperly," he said. "That's built into the DNA of this and all of our intelligence-sharing capabilities."

I can see Jon Stewart making fun of "built into the DNA."

In case the bio metaphor didn't do it for you, he also offers an EE/astro/aero option:

"The whole name of the game here with counterterrorism is information sharing and early warning," Chertoff said. "Our radar for terrorism is intelligence...It is the radar of the 21st century, and if we let that radar go down, we're going to be flying blind."

It's radar, for Pete's sake! Don't you realize that radar defeated the Nazis? Either you're for data retention, or you're a Fascist.

AOL Technology Chief Quits After Data Release

InterViews provides first-person accounts of the lives and work of National Academy of Sciences members. In these hour-long interviews, members talk about their research, why they became scientists, and other aspects of their research and careers.

Three interviews you might find interesting:

Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson began his career as a mathematician, but then turned to the exciting new developments in physics in the 1940s, particularly the theory of quantized fields. He wrote two papers on the foundations of quantum electrodynamics that have had a lasting influence on many branches of modern physics. He went on to work in condensed-matter physics, statistical mechanics, nuclear engineering, climate studies, astrophysics, and biology. Dyson was born in 1923 in Crawthorne, England. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge in 1945 and came to the United States in 1947 as a Commonwealth Fellow at Cornell University. He settled in the United States permanently in 1951, became a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1953, and retired as professor emeritus in 1994. Beyond his professional work in physics, Dyson has a keen awareness of the human side of science and the human consequences of technology. His books for the general public include Disturbing the Universe, Weapons and Hope, Infinite in All Directions, Origins of Life and The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet.

Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond is professor of physiology at the School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. Diamond received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1958 and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1961. He has several appointments at UCLA: professor of physiology at the medical school, professor of environmental health sciences at the School of Public Health, and professor of geography. Diamond is also a research associate in ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and a research associate in ornithology and mammalogy for the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Diamond is a contributing editor for Discover Magazine and director of the U.S. Division of the World Wildlife Fund. Diamond has led 19 expeditions to New Guinea and nearby islands. He is the author of eight books, two monographs and 577 articles. In 1992, Diamond received both Britain's Science Book Prize and the Los Angeles Times Science Book Prize for The Third Chimpanzee. For Guns, Germs, and Steel, he received Britain’s Science Book Prize in 1998, the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, the Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Prize in 1997, the California Book Awards Gold Medal in nonfiction in 1998, and the Lannan Literary Award for non... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

National Academy of Sciences: InterViews

All serial entrepreneurs end up looking like IETF old-timers, minus the beard and the belly.

Sketch of the day: Generic PCForum2006 Middle-Aged White Guy

ICANN policy wonks and CircleID readers (is that redundant?) may flock to this report, if they haven't already seen it.

This document is the Preliminary Task Force Report on the Purpose of Whois and of the Whois Contacts. The report was produced by the Whois Task Force of the GNSO, and published following a unanimous task force vote on publication for public comments on 18 January, 2006. The report comprises the task force's work on tasks 1 and 2 of its terms of reference. On 2nd June, 2005, the GNSO Council agreed terms of reference for the Whois Task force. These terms of reference required the Whois Task Force to complete the following tasks regarding the purpose of Whois:

(1) Define the purpose of the WHOIS service in the context of ICANN's mission and relevant core values, international and national laws protecting privacy of natural persons, international and national laws that relate specifically to the WHOIS service, and the changing nature of Registered Name Holders.

(2) Define the purpose of the Registered Name Holder, technical, and administrative contacts, in the context of the purpose of WHOIS, and the purpose for which the data was collected.

I'm sure the serious wonks have already seen this ...

Preliminary Task Force Report on the Purpose of Whois and of the Whois Contacts