ShadowRAM: October 3, 2005

Phillips, of course, was kidding. Kurian looked rather stricken. Take it easy, Tom. Larry Ellison ain&t letting go anytime soon.

Panasonic makes one tough notebook, but its record underwater is spotty. We hear the Mayor of Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffet, was writing his last book on a pier in the Florida Keys when his Toughbook slipped out of his grasp and into the ocean. We hear he retrieved the laptop, but not his data. For the record, we&ve heard of instances where Toughbooks have been utterly flooded but worked fine after drying out for a few days. The key is not to turn it on until it&s entirely dried out.

If you need convincing about the seriousness of Intel&s plan to jump into the digital health market, consider who&s helping behind the scenes. Louis Burns, general manager of Intel&s Digital Health Platforms Group, has been getting advice from a well-known source: Andy Grove, co-founder, former chairman and current senior adviser.

Grove waged a battle in 1996 against prostate cancer and then wrote about his efforts to research the heck out of the disease so he was best-prepared to fight it.

“He&s our special adviser,” Burns said. “And arguably, it is a gift to have someone of his knowledge and intensity as a resource.” Then, as a nod to Grove&s reputation as an outspoken and notorious stickler, Burns added with a smile, “On most days.”

From the Adventures in Keynotes department: Suzan Delbene, Microsoft&s corporate vice president of marketing for mobile and embedded devices, admitted the new Treo for Windows is keeping her up at night. Holding up the device during her keynote speech last week, Delbene revealed that while Bill Gates was introducing the device, its phone number was inadvertently displayed on the big screen.

As a result, Delbene said, “The phone rang all night long.” There were also “several interesting text messages” when she turned it on the following morning. (We swear it wasn&t us.)

The market is still sorting out who&s having a good year and who&s having a bad year. So far, it looks like Sun CEO Scott McNealy is on the “good year” side. Sun&s proxy statement to shareholders reports McNealy&s bonus for fiscal year 2005 hit the seven-figure mark for the first time in years: $1,111,250. Sun President and COO Jonathan Schwartz was paid a bonus of $280,000. (Schwartz& salary, though, was $812,308, compared with McNealy&s paltry $121,789.)