Coop's Scoop: The perils of 'Pimpshiz' and the MP3 meltdown
Hewlett-Packard Co. will unveil its so-called "Superdome" Unix server, part of a wider strategy to recapture a share in that market, at a New York event. You may recall that weak Unix server sales drug down the company's sales last quarter. The stock market reaction was enough to knock the coif out of Carly Fiorina's 'do. Once was enough.
Apple Expo opens up in Paris. The timing couldn't be helped, but the big show takes place smack in the middle of a crippling labor dispute that has led to flight cancellations and the closure of about 85 percent of the country's 17,000 service stations.
Lotus is expected to unveil its new strategy for winning the hearts and minds of ASPs. Join the crowd.
And in the non-event of the month, Microsoft will start shipping Windows Me. Early reviews have been predictably lukewarm about the product. The hype notwithstanding, Windows Me is little more than a holding action until 2001 when the company finally ports Windows 2000 over for home use.
I know that it has become politically incorrect in certain circles to say or write anything mildly critical about the Internet music copyright issue without coming out on the "right side" of the debate. Well, when it comes to MP3, I find myself particularly unable to drum up much sympathy for current management, which now finds itself on the losing side of a copyright lawsuit filed by Universal Music Group. The fact is that CEO Michael Robertson and his team were only too happy to cut deals with the other corporate sloths who dominate the music biz. And they would have done the same thing with Universal -- had that management been so inclined.
Transmeta Corp.'s Crusoe chip is going to hit the market sooner than Intel -- and a lot of other folks-- expected when Sony incorporates the processor into its laptops. It shouldn't be overlooked that Sony owns a piece of Transmeta (and should profit handsomely when the company goes public later this year.)
The low-level rivalry between proponents of KDE and GNOME continues apace. Now word has it that the KDE camp is considering establishing a "foundation-like entity" to provide direction for the future development of the K Desktop Environment.
What with the FTC and the European Union giving the AOL-Time Warner merger the third degree, how do you think the stock market would react if the two would-be merger partners announced that the deal was off? That's not likely to happen, but AOL would revert to its previous role as the hottest-to-trot dotcom of them all.
Another week, another virus. But does the so-called Stream Companion technology in this virus really herald the dawn of "a new era in computer virus creation," to quote the head of the Russian anti-virus firm which first detected the Stream virus? Doubtful.
After the carnage among e-tailers these past several months, the tendency has been to accent the negative. But the latest Gartner report suggests that e-tailing during the upcoming holiday season is going to surpass $19 billion. It will be interesting to watch the performance of the traditional brick-and-mortar outfits who have since added or expanded cyberauxiliaries.
You know XML has hit the big time when the acronym winds up plastered on a billboard advertisement at Boston's Logan airport.
Ballmer: .Net our most critical event
KDE hits back at GNOME
New virus hides behind old technology
Apple fuels up for Apple Expo
Mac cubes selling to Apple faithful
Transmeta chip to debut in October
Web vandal strikes again for Napster
Judge says MP3 must pay
AOL-Time Warner plead case before EU
The inexorable rise of XML