AOL And Plaxo Team Up - And This Is A Good Thing???
It's hilarious to some that this is touted as progress. Has anyone else noticed that those damned Plaxo invites freeze e-mail? Or maybe that's just another "feature" of Plaxo and/or Domino. In any case, yours truly is no fan of Plaxo updating.
More generically, how lazy do people have to be to ask their business/social contacts to update their own contact info? You want my data pal? You keep it up to date. It's like the banks making you do all their data I/O and then claiming they offer better service than ever.
Ok. Rant over. On an interesting side note, blogger king Jason Calacanis last year speculated that AOL would buy Plaxo outright. Hmmm.
AOL also claims that its new freebie mail service for AIM users-—the one that lets you be [email protected], has hit the one-million account mark after just five weeks.
IBM Marketing Rears Its Head Again
In IBM/Lotus news, the computer giant's updated its IBM Workplace for Business Controls and Reporting (wait for it.) 2.5.1. (Yet another stellar name from a company just chock full of them.)
IBM Workplace for Bus, er let's just call it WBCR 2.5.1 is customized for work in the federal sector, IBM says. That means it complies with the OMB's Circular No. A-123. Could it be that only the U.S. government offers naming conventions more deadly dull than IBM itself? (Or maybe Microsoft?)
Chief benefits of this release are said to include integrated analytics—one must assume that means using the customer's existing analytics products or else how IBM claim to be the ISVs best friend?
This nifty piece o' software goes for $28,750 for 25 users. Or IBM will host it for you for $65 to $100 per user per month with initial start fee of $5,000. It was unclear if partners can also host.