Microsoft’s About-Face on Windows 7: Three-App Limit on Netbooks (Perhaps) Removed
A few months ago I predicted Microsoft would be facing lawsuits due to the 3-app limitation of Windows 7 Starter Edition, or more precisely due to less than full disclosure on sales of netbooks crippled by Win7. The Wall Street Journal did not go as far as lawsuits, but it called it a big gamble: [...]
Predicting the First Windows 7 Lawsuits
Image by Getty Images via Daylife The Vista Capable lawsuit has not even settled yet, and I am predicting the next one: the first Windows 7 Lawsuits – not necessarily against Microsoft, but hardware manufacturers / sellers. Microsoft is setting the stage for these lawsuits now. The essence of the Vista Capable issue was that [...]
What the Next Generation Acer Aspire One Netbook Still Lacks
… is a screen appropriate for working on the Net (which is what Netbooks are supposedly for). Most websites today are designed at a resolution of 1024×768, and guess what: there’s not one single (good) Netbook on the market today that that can display that. All of the current crop, including the new 10.1” Acer [...]
What the New Day-long Use Asus Netbook Still Lacks
… is a screen appropriate for working on the Net (which is what Netbooks are supposedly for). Most websites today are designed at a resolution of 1024×768, and guess what: there’s not one single (good) netbook on the market today that that can display that. All of the current crop, including the deluxe Asus S101 [...]
CrunchPad: a Netbook Sans Keyboard
I admit I was skeptical when Mike Arrington first announced he wanted to build a lightweight Web Tablet. Skeptical partly because I had just witnessed Ismael Ghalimi of the Office 2.0 fame feverishly work on the Redux Model 1. I had been doubtful about his effort, too, but his energy level was just radiating, he [...]
Your Data May Be So Safe Even You Can’t Access It
When several, seemingly unrelated threads on TechMeme discuss the same things, you know they are onto something big. Today it’s data. Where you store it, how accessible / safe it is – and no, today’s s safety discussion isn’t about protecting it from intruders: it’s about whether you, the rightful owner can assess it safely. [...]
Should You Redesign Your Website to 800×600 – Or Wait For Netbook Makers to Wake Up and Give Us Decent Screens?
Oh, size issues again… Size Matters – said yours truly back in April, before returning the very first eee PC after only a day: I could get used to the screen size, my fingers would learn to deal with the keyboard, but it’s impossible to browse the Net with this thing. The problem is that [...]
Netbook or Notebook? It’s Not Only About Size.
Hardly a day goes by without another new Netbook announcement, at lower and lower prices. The first baby eee PC by ASUS was toy-like ( I returned it after a day), but the current crop are quite usable mobile computing devices. These new Netbooks are flying off the shelf, so much so that sometimes you [...]
Ready for Vista Final? (Code-named Windows 7)
For the second day TechMeme is overflowing with Microsoft news coming out of PDC: Azure, Windows 7, Web Office (whatever the MS name will be). But on the very day that supposedly all belonged to Microsoft there was a stream of seemingly unrelated items on TechMeme all pointing in the same direction, none too good [...]
The One Thing the ASUS CEO did Not Get Right | $279 Acer Aspire One?
Image by geognerd via Flickr Asus created the Netbook craze with the first eee Pc (the one I owned for a day) released last year, and it has become a huge market – in fact the most dynamic segment in PC sales. Laptop Magazine published an interview with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen. Key factoids: Four [...]
Cloudy News from Startup-Land
Just because I wrote How Software Can Be Resilient to Recession doesn’t mean I’m naive enough to declare that all SaaS businesses are recession-proof – they just have a better model to weather the storm, which is now inevitable. VC Preps Portfolio Companies for Survival Mode OM Malik, who is now a VC Partner himself [...]
