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This year had its moments alright, and this article highlights some of them – from the advent of mobile video, to the flaming laptop controversy.
Let’s start with the HP spy case, though. For sham, subterfuge and sheer skullduggery, that whole sorry fiasco has few rivals this year.
Back in 1999 – the halcyon days of IT- the tech trade media carried several stories about the lucrative salaries and signing bonuses offered to top IT execs – especially those lured away from rival companies. (I remember doing such a piece myself).
In 2006, some of those worthies grabbed the headlines again…but for the wrong reasons, such as falling foul of the law, and vying with one another for longer prison sentences.
Who Dunn it?
Talking about falling foul of the law – there’s an old legal doctrine that states “ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
Perhaps the top guns involved in HP spying scandal were not aware of this basic principle of jurisprudence.
Many have commented on the episode’s uncanny resemblance to Watergate…both episodes had that element of bleak humour.
There was, for instance, that self-righteous posturing by the persons involved in both scandals. "I'm not a crook," exclaimed Richard Nixon in his infamous November 1973 televised address when Watergate had reached its climax. Yeah, right.
Fast forward 33 years to the congressional testimony of Patricia Dunn, the deposed former chair of HP.
Quizzed about the questionable techniques used to obtain the personal phone records of directors, employees, reporters and their families from telecom companies, Dunn responded: "My understanding was that these records were publicly available."
“You honestly believed that it was that simple - that anybody in the world can call up and get them," asked her questioner, Republican Congressman from Oregon, Greg Walden.
"It really didn't surprise me," Dunn said.
Now why do we get that nagging sense of déjà vu?!
Have a blast
Who would have thought some obscure conference in Japan on June 21 this year would eventually turn out to be so explosive. An igniting Dell laptop immediately transformed another run-of-the-mill conference, into a global event and international news fest.
This episode was followed by several similar explosions – almost at the rate of one a month.
For instance, in July there were reports that a Dell Latitude C600, belonging to a family in Coventry, England spontaneously ignited and exploded setting fire to carpets and a settee.
In August, Sony announced that it was investigating a report from the U.S. that a Sony Vaio computer burst into flames while charging. Firefighters were called to the residence in Kansas City.
These and other incidents triggered a spate of battery recalls. In August Dell Inc. recalled 4.1 million of them, a total that it later increased by 100,000.
Following that other vendors including Apple Computer Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and Sony itself recalled batteries sold with their laptops. Then in October Sony issued a new recall in the U.S. and said it expected to replace 9.6 million batteries altogether.
Some analysts focused on the total costs of such recalls – factoring in battery replacement expenses, work time lost by end users and IT technicians, as well as the cost of shipping new and old batteries between venues.
One practical suggestion came from an ITWorldCanada.com reader, who suggested that we don’t call these machines laptops any more. “After all,” the reader said, “your lap is the last place you would want them to explode.”
Ouch!
For love of Linux
Some will remember 2006 as the year Linux was co-opted by the competition.
Whether that’s the politically correct way of stating it or not – it’s certainly the year when the once clear demarcation between “proprietary” and “open source” got distinctly fuzzy.
And when folk think about that in years to come, the first example that will probably come to mind is Microsoft’s controversial deal with Novell over Suse Linux in November.
Both companies announced they would collaborate on certain technologies, including an initiative to enable Microsoft's Windows (a proprietary operating system) work with Novell's Suse Linux (that’s based on open-source code).
On the business side, the duo agreed to promote each other's products, and collaborate on interoperability and patents, such as their inter-office suite (Office to OpenOffice).
What's wrong with that? Aren't interoperability and patent protection worthy goals – something everyone running a heterogeneous IT infrastructure should aspire to?
They could be. Except that while extending the sign of peace to Novell, Microsoft – many felt – was doing some very different finger pointing at other Linux vendors.
For Microsoft's guarantee not to sue is restricted to the Novell version of Linux (as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer referred to it). So now have a divide in the Open Source community. Novell's customers are protected from patent lawsuits. Customers of other Linux vendors don’t have the same assurance.
This is nothing short of a “divide and conquer” strategy, some observers say.
Oracle has chosen another strategy and another target. While Microsoft decided to partner with Novell – Oracle opted to directly compete with another major Linux software vendor – Red Hat.
Oracle’s game plan over the past couple of years has been: "if you can't beat 'em, eat ‘em (People Soft and Siebel) or unseat 'em” (Red Hat).
And while the ground-level reality may be pretty brutal, Oracle’s messaging was couched in the most altruistic and affable terms.
Flashback to Oracle OpenWorld 2006 and CEO Larry Ellison's announcement that his company would be offering full support to Red Hat Linux customers regardless of whether they are also Oracle customers or not.
Ellison sounded like he was accepting the Philanthropist of the Year award: Oracle's going to drive adoption of Linux in the enterprise; Oracle will offer indemnification protection to its Red Hat Linux support customers; Oracle's support would cost much less et al.
Wonderful rhetoric. And some of it probably true.
However, the question remains: was this an Oracle initiative to promote Linux, or to kill Red Hat?
Granted that Oracle offered a great introductory support price for Red Hat, how long will that last? As Bruce Richardson, an analyst with AMR Research Inc. in Boston observes: "Some companies are never going to want Oracle to support them. They will say: 'you've got a great introductory price now. Red Hat disappears and suddenly you may double the [support] price on servers because we're a captive base.'"
Video – and the power of portability
At a meeting of online editors in Munich, Germany this April, Colin Crawford, senior vice-president, online, of IDG Communications described the shift from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. Web 2.0 – a phrase reportedly coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004 - refers to a second generation of Web-based