David Coursey

Theres an interesting story on our ExtremeiPod site in which Dell CEO Kevin Rollins calls Apples music box “a fad.” In another story there, the head of Creative calls the iPod shuffle “a big letdown,” accusing Apple of rehashing “a four-year-old product … worse than the cheapest Chinese player.” Why are these two competitors going […]

SCOs win in its request for a boatload of IBM Unix code and documentation is likely to accomplish only one thing: It will delay the trial on SCOs charges that IBM has violated its intellectual property rights. What will be left of SCO when the case comes to trial is becoming a serious question. Originally […]

As many times as Intel has reorganized lately—four times since 1997 according to published accounts—I have to wonder whether it really matters how the company is structured. About the time the old order is out and the new order is in the new order becomes the old order and the process starts anew. This years […]

If Apples new products were school projects and I were the teacher, Id grade them like this: an A for the Mac mini, a B+ for iWork, a C+ for iLife 05, and a C- for the iPod shuffle. I purposely avoided Steve Jobs Macworld keynote, instead relying on the Apple Web site, news releases […]

Can the Macintosh survive without Microsoft Office? Its a question that has followed Steve Jobs since his return to Cupertino in 1996. At the time, Apple was in deep financial trouble, and a bailout from Microsoft—of all people—got the company back on its feet. The concern isnt that the typical Macintosh “consumer” customer requires MS […]

Its barely started, but 2005 already looks like a challenging year for Microsoft. In fact, the company faces more challenges than it ever has, and serious ones, too. No, Microsoft isnt sinking, but its not gaining very much, either. The Microsoft that everyone used to fear no longer exists. This is in part because Microsoft […]

This is one of these “and then the other shoe dropped” stories, and it involves the IBM-Lenovo deal that sent Big Blues PC business to the Chinese. It turns out, according to SEC filings reported in The Register, that IBMs PC business wasnt just a low-margin business. Rather, it had lost nearly a billion dollars. […]

The problem with the future is that its often blocked by the present, which in Microsofts case is as hard to get beyond as it is to change. I am thinking about this because Ive just read Mary Jo Foleys story about “Bigtop,” the code name for a future grid-computing operating system that my friend […]

If Microsoft wanted to make me happy in 2005—which the company keeps telling me (and all its other customers) is a top priority—I have a very easy way they could do it: Make me a non-combatant. Like most of you, I am spending inordinate amounts of time and a fair amount of money (even with […]

Could a computerized system for monitoring and predicting tsunamis really have saved thousands of lives following the earthquake Sunday beneath the Indian Ocean? Id like to think so, but Im not so sure. Heres why: A few years ago, I was sitting in the emergency operations center of a coastal California county that shall remain […]

OK, I love technology and have spent a lot of money on it. My TiVo and XM Satellite Radio are among my prized possessions. That is, if you dont include my Canon Digital Rebel camera or the iPod whose earbuds sometimes follow me around almost like a tail. Did I mention the cool Treo 600 […]

The first thing to be said about the European Unions anti-Microsoft decision is that it hardly matters in the great scheme of things. Very little, if anything, is going to noticeably change as a result. And Microsoft appears to have been fully prepared for the adverse ruling. Microsoft doesnt generally outright lie to people, so […]