ShadowRAM: March 20, 2006
It must sting Eisner to see Pixar and Steve Jobs—with whom he had a famously contentious relationship—in the Disney fold. It’s almost as if they were waiting for Eisner to leave.
By all reports, he seemed remarkably forthright about getting wiser with age and learning from mistakes.
Autodesk, BTW, is slated to officially roll out its AutoCAD 2007 lineup this week. The new apps will be able to save to the popular Adobe PDF format.
Geekerati reactions were split on Google’s recent takeover of Web word processor Writely. Some viewed the deal as a sign that Google is ready for the steel-cage match with Microsoft and plans to go mano-a-mano with Office. In that quest, they speculate Google will field its own suite of Web productivity apps (including the mysterious storage GDrive and CL2 calendaring services the company is allegedly incubating).
Others opined that Google has a nasty reverse alchemy going on with acquisitions: Its touch seems to turn promising projects into lead. Exhibit No 1: Blogger, which Google bought two years ago and has since failed to keep competitive with rival tools like WordPress and Six Apart’s Typepad. Users grumble about the blogging service’s limited functionality and infestation by spammers. “Google, please don’t break Writely,” pleaded one blogger upon hearing that his favorite collaborative document management app is being assimilated by the Googleplex.
On the bright side, when its acquisitions really flop, Google has plenty o’ dough for do-overs. Last year, it bought Web analytics software Urchin. Eight months later, Google launched the renamed service as Google Analytics, which promptly crashed under the crush of demand and has remained open to new users “by invitation only” ever since. In February, Google bought Web analytics software Measure Map. It’s Web 2.0 dj vu.
What’s with IBM’s Led Zeppelin fixation? First, the band’s music could be heard throughout most of Donn Atkin’s PartnerWorld QandA last Monday morning. Then at the Beacon Awards dinner, a string quartet played “Kashmir” and several other tunes. Here’s something you won’t hear every day: Led Zeppelin sounds really great in classical mode.
The other big question: Why, oh why, did IBM give out those Fred Flintstone PDAs? Those things were like bricks. Note to Big Blue: Stick with BlackBerries next time.