Tech News

Microsoft has just announced that it will purchase Skype for $8.5bn.

On the surface of it it seems as though it's a great purchase with possible integration with Xbox, Windows Phone 7, Live.com etc. But has it come at too high a cost?

In 2009, 70% of Skype was sold for $2bn. 2 years later, it's bought for $8.5bn? I doubt that Skype's value has increased to the degree which justifies the price and the stock market seems to agree - Microsoft's share price is down slightly for the day by 0.62%, in spite of the NASDAQ gaining 1.01%.


If Microsoft can integrate it successfully with the rest of it's products, it may be able to create an even stronger suite which might also strengthen it's case against iOS from Mac and Linux. There may not be any direct profits, but may be worth it when considering total sales and products.


It's yet too be seen whether this will be the right decision...

"South African software industry players are pushing for changes in legislation to help reduce piracy"

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/19277-Fighting-Piracy-with-the-law.html

Is there much of a point? The industry moves faster than law can keep up. Back in 2002 the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act came into being. Prior to the ECT act, there were virtually no laws governing many areas of the industry. But even by the time it came into being, there were already shortcomings/ loops.

So, are we ever going to beat the piracy... not easily.

One of the less vaunted characteristics of open source software, is that it can't be pirated, as nobody really "owns" it. Ok, it is kinda possible to include open source with proprietary software and possibly violating the licence, but it's not really the same as pirating a game. Businesses built around services as opposed to products do not suffer the losses due to pirated software.

Another emerging technology/ approach/ philosophy is cloud computing, or maybe just web based apps in general that make it impossible to pirate without infiltration the physical infrastructure.

An approach that seems to work for certain software is the augmented services offered by online subscription/ registration. For example, in certain console games, you can play online - without this feature, the game is severely limited. This acts as a some deterrent to using pirated software.

I seriously doubt that it'll ever be possible to get rid of pirated software without a combination of these factors. I'm certain that it's not going to disappear by just modifying the law.

Gnome 3 has finally been launched after what seems like years! So long in fact that Canonical/Ubuntu has decided to drop it from their upcoming version. But even if you don't want to wait for the major editions to release it in their next versions, you can install it right now.

This is probably one of the biggest changes to the Gnome interface for the past few years, so it's a big change.

Have a look at the following to see how to install it:
http://digitizor.com/2011/04/07/install-gnome3-desktop-ubuntu/

I came upon an interesting article this morning about HP presenting the Linux based WebOS which it acquired when buying Palm Computing as its future and "dumping Microsoft Windows.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/19279-HPs-bold-move.html

Not that WebOS is new, or that Windows is going to be totally left out in the cold, but it certainly seems to have a slightly higher profile now. So, it's going to compete head on with Android and probably a host of other Linux based OS's. Once again, the question around a fragmented Linux world comes to mind. There seems to be very little consensus - Many people and myself think that it's hindering progress to some degree. Maybe there isn't a single silver bullet to solve all problems, but do we need all these "flavours"?

I wonder how much overlap is there between the different projects? I'm pretty sure that there's a growing pool of developers, tools, code base, drivers, standards etc. which can only be a good thing. Another thing is that since HP is one of the biggest hardware manufacturers in the world, I'm guessing that hardware support can't be hurt either. So, in spite of another OS "on the market", I'm sure that overall it's going to be a positive impact.