David Berlind referenced this open letter by Eric Norlin in a recent Between the Lines blog post. In it, Mr. Norlin argues that Microsoft needs to present its customers a unifying theme that will fit its disparate products into a cohesive whole.

The need for such a theme is obvious. Microsoft is now involved in desktop and server operating systems, office productivity applications, customer relationship management systems, databases, gaming consoles, cell phone operating systems, hardware (keyboards, mice, even XBox hardware through for-hire manufacturing facilities), handheld operating systems, development tools, television broadcasting software, email systems, etc, etc, etc. What theme runs through all these areas, and how can Microsoft unify them into one compelling message?

The Central Scotland Police is removing Sun Microsystems' StarOffice productivity software from about 400 PCs and switching to Microsoft's Office System, citing lower maintenance costs and the need to interoperate more smoothly with other departments running Windows.

It is the latest anecdote in a wider tussle for business between Microsoft and open-source software in Europe. Several organizations, particularly public bodies, have been adopting or experimenting with Linux and other open-source products, but the move by the Scottish police shows the migrations are not all one-way.

"It's not really based on any ideological argument about open-source software, it's based on pure business needs," David Stirling, head of IT for Central Scotland Police, said of the decision to switch.

The agency ... adopted StarOffice in 2000 when it was short of cash after paying out for a new crime reporting application, Stirling said. It retained Windows on its desktop PCs but ran the StarOffice applications from a central Sun Unix system and 30 Linux servers installed at branch offices.

Central Scotland Police has now signed a three-year enterprise license agreement that includes the Microsoft Office System, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for 500 end users.

What do you call a mobile computer that has no display, no keyboard and no other input devices? Apple Computer calls it the Mac mini and it is really a desktop PC that is designed and built like a laptop. A recent dissection conducted by iSuppli Corp.’s Teardown Analysis service reveals that the Mac mini employs a cutting-edge design that showcases Apple’s aplomb for developing elegant systems that pack a great deal of functionality into a tiny form factor.

iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis service estimates the bill of materials cost for the Mac mini at $274.69. With manufacturing costs added, the total rises to $283.37.

The people who have seen this technology, who have dived into the details, are hugely impressed. We understand that software vendors are going to do extensive testing. The proof is once you see your application running - a sophisticated application that you never thought could run under translation.

In general, computational performance is going to be around 80 percent of what you can achieve with a natively compiled application. Graphics and interactive performance will be transparent, meaning you won't be able to tell the difference between a natively compiled application and a translated one. You say Transitive does "binary translation."

Rosetta will lower the barriers to getting more software on more platforms. Some companies may be threatened by that, but technology marches forward. The companies that get behind new technologies and find ways to take advantage of them are usually the ones that are successful in the long term. Companies that try to keep new technologies from taking hold in the market are typically the ones that are hurt most ... We're solving an important problem in the industry, and when you do that the various players have to figure out how to adjust their businesses to take advantage of this kind of technology. They do that all the time.

The conspiracy theories [reported by Apple Insider] may not be flightworthy.

The AppleInsider story says the Apple application "to patent the menu-based software interface of its popular iPod digital music player has ultimately proved unsuccessful."

However that isn't the case. The story is coy about the patents it discusses, doesn't mention the Microsoft connection and upon further research, it's clear that several key aspects of the iPod are adequately covered by separate Apple IP applications. Both patents discussed have weathered multiple rejections by the USPTO.

One suit relates to a patent for the protection of software against unauthorised use, while the other relates to a patent for a type of musical jukebox.

Hong Kong-based Pat-rights has contacted Apple, according to a posting on its website, to discuss the alleged breach of its US patent number 6,665,797, which covers the provision of “identity information of the rightful user thereof for accessing a network central computer to obtain service(s) or software product(s) or alike”.

Apple’s digital rights management system, known as Fairplay, is in breach of this patent, says Pat-rights. The firm is demanding 12% of profits earned by the computer giant from its iTunes and iPod sales and is thought to have given the company until 21st March to respond.

The second suit, which has already been filed in a US federal court, charges Apple with breaching US patent rights owned by Chicago-based Advanced Audio Devices. The patent – number 6,587,403 – was granted in July 2003 and relates to “a music jukebox which is configured for storing a music library therein”.

A near three-year-long attempt by Apple Computer to patent the menu-based software interface of its popular iPod digital music player has ultimately proved unsuccessful, AppleInsider has discovered.

The company's patent application, which lists Apple vice president Jeff Robbin and Apple chief executive Steve Jobs as two of its primary inventors, received a final rejection last month from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Standing in Apple's way appears to be a prior filing by inventor John Platt, who submitted a patent application for a similar software design for a portable device in May of 2002 -- just five months before Robbin submitted his claims on behalf of Apple.

Platt's application describes his invention as a system or method that "generates playlists for a library collection of media items via selecting a plurality of seed items, at least one which is an undesirable seed item." The process by which the iPod's software displays its own menu-based interface is very similar to the process Platt's filing goes on to describe.

In an attempt to trump Platt's application, Robbin through his patent lawyer petitioned the patent office to review an amended set of claims last November, shortly after his initial filing had been rejected in light of Platt's.

Upon review, the patent office in July issued a 6-page document pointing to prior claims made by Platt and offering its final rejection of Robbin's application.

Recently I had lunch with an old friend who had been a client while I was with Giga (now a part of Forrester). He worked for a large multi-national firm and remains a huge Apple fan. As a senior IT manager and because his firm, like many others, was upset with Microsoft, he was able to set up a meeting with Apple's executives to talk about a migration.

His firm was skeptical but relatively open-minded. They started off making the same request of Apple they make of companies like Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) Latest News about Dell and Microsoft. They wanted a two-year hardware/software roadmap and assurances they could buy a platform that would remain stable for at least 12, and hopefully 18, months.

In addition, they wanted early warning on all patches and changes to any of the platforms they were buying and solid assurances on price. They had issues with the fact they would have to single-source their hardware vendor but felt if Apple could meet their other requests they were willing to continue the discussion. (As is the case with any vendor, Microsoft has its share of very unhappy customers.)

The Apple executives, smiling, said "We're Apple and we don't do that." The meeting ended relatively quickly and my friend has since moved on to another, much smaller company, where he began the same process. Here the issue was compatibility with existing applications -- and the firm just wasn't willing to take the risk of buying a platform that couldn't run what they needed to run native or tying their future to one, single-sourced, hardware company.

It doesn't matter what Apple does to the product. Until the company can address the need for a multi-year roadmap that businesses can refer to, get a stable platform that will be deployable over a long period of time, and designate multiple hardware vendors clients can bid against one another to ensure the lowest price (as well as to avoid getting nailed by internal audit), enterprises simply won't buy Apple broadly.

Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller announced that the next update to its operating system "Tiger" would come with a blue screen of death widget. He said that this is being released in response to users that need to blend in with their corporate standard operating environments.

"Many users prefer to use a Mac at work but fear the persecution from the IT support staff for not complying with the corporate standard," said Schiller.

Now Mac users can install the BSOD widget and when they see the IT manager approaching simply press "F12." Their screen instantly becomes filled with an image of the blue screen of death. Not only does this fool the IT manager into believing the user is adhering to the corporate standard, it also sends him scurrying back to his office as quickly as possible to avoid fixing the problem.

Schiller suggested that this continues the trend of making Mac OS X more "enterprise friendly."

Peter Jennings, the suave, Canadian-born broadcaster who delivered the news to Americans each night in five separate decades, died Sunday. He was 67.

Jennings, who announced in April that he had lung cancer, died at his New York home, ABC News President David Westin said late Sunday.

“There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe,” he told author Jeff Alan. “I don’t subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially — sorry it’s a cliche — a rough draft of history. Some days it’s reassuring, some days it’s absolutely destructive.”

Jennings’ announcement four months ago that the longtime smoker would begin treatment for lung cancer came as a shock.

“I will continue to do the broadcast,” he said, his voice husky, in a taped message that night. “On good days, my voice will not always be like this.”

But although Jennings occasionally came to the office between chemotherapy treatments, he never again appeared on the air.