azaaor.org

Flexing its muscle at online retailers.

(Credit:
Nvidia)

If you’ve gone video card shopping online lately, you may have noticed that you certain retailers are now asking you to click through to your shopping cart to see a price for Nvidia-based 3D graphics cards. As H Enthusiast reported earlier this week, that newly inconvenient shopping experience is part of a calculated effort by Nvidia to regulate the advertised pricing of its 3D cards.

The gist is that Nvidia is conducting a test run of this pricing scheme, and if online retailers like NewEgg, Buy.com, and others don’t comply, they will face a series of penalties, and ultimately they will be cut-off from Nvidia-based 3D cards after a certain number of infractions. This strategy, called Manufacturer Advertised Pricing, is not exactly price-fixing, but it’s illegal in other countries, and, as H enthusiast reports, it’s only recently legal in the U.S.

Compliance thus far seems spotty. Some cards listed at NewEgg obfuscate the price, others with the same chip do not. The same with TigerDirect. Amazon, Buy.com, and ZipZoomFly all list prices as normal.

Nvidia’s reasons for implementing this strategy are unclear. H Enthusiast was not able to get anyone on the record, although the going theory seems to indicate that it’s a way to regulate non-US certified board partners from undercutting the Nvidia-approved US competition.

With only some vendors complying with Nvidia’s request, and only then partially, it seems that Nvidia’s plan is only an occasional annoyance. Whether Nvidia makes the plan permanent, cracks down on stray listings, and forces other retailers to go along all remain to be seen.

UPS delivered a new Lenovo computer yesterday. It was supposed to go to my wife, but no such luck.

We live in an apartment building that has been accepting UPS packages for over 30 years. The system is pretty well grooved in by now. So it was quite unusual for a package to be missing, seven hours after the UPS website said it was delivered. Also strange was the name of the person who signed for the package; it wasn’t anyone who works in our building.

Last night, my wife called UPS and was told the computer was not delivered to our building at all. Instead of being delivered to 8 East 8th Street (the addresses are fictional but illustrative), it went to 777 East 77th Street. You have to call UPS to learn the actual delivery address because the website tracking says only that the package was delivered, it doesn’t say where.

But is the computer really at 777 East 77th Street? As I write this, it has been about 20 hours since the first of multiple phone calls to UPS. No one there knows exactly what happened to the package. Their first reaction was to trace the package, a process that takes a week. A week, as if it were 1977 again.

Needless to say, Lenovo was contacted too. You might think they could lean on UPS to get a straight answer. So far, multiple contacts with Lenovo have produced nothing.

Looks like we have to wait all over again for Lenovo to build and ship a new computer, a process that took ten days the first time around (four to build, six to ship). But that process can’t start until Lenovo or UPS declares the first machine missing in action and we don’t yet know when that will happen.

With all their many computer systems, how can UPS lose a package? Was it stolen or sold rather than lost? Can UPS ever make a final determination about what happened? Is there a Bermuda triangle in New York City? We’ll see. Watch this space.

Who really gets screwed here? That is, if the computer never turns up, who is out the cost of the machine? Lenovo? UPS? One of their insurance companies? If you know, please leave a comment below. Thanks.

Over the years, my wife and I have had many computers delivered to us. This was the first time anything went wrong. If something like this has happened to you, please leave a comment below.

Defensive computing even extends this request to the shipping company.

Update. January 18, 2008. After dealing with UPS for a day or so, and getting nowhere, Lenovo agreed to build and ship a second computer.

Update. February 15, 2008. The replacement computer showed up today. Finally. The majority of the delay was on Lenovo’s end rather than from UPS. For whatever reason it took Lenovo a much longer time to build the second machine than the first one. Both were made and mailed from Mexico. If I had to do it again, I would cancel the original order, make sure the credit card company didn’t bill me for it and place a new order - one unrelated to the original order. That would have saved about three weeks. Neither Lenovo or UPS ever got back to us about what happened to the original computer.

Update. February 20, 2008. The original computer showed up today. I refused delivery.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

commentary

The key is not to find the one customer in 1,000 who is willing to pay for something they can otherwise get for free. The key is to create value and processes that turn this into a one in 10 relationship of download to sale, or better. Open source is not a volume business. It’s an online business that requires online intelligence.

Because JBoss discovered added value that it could sell to these downloading prospects, and because it became a much safer bet as a company. Hence, it became easier to give money to.

Disclosure: I am an employee of Alfresco and an advisor to Loopfuse.

Of course, the statistic [in Loopfuse's results] that will have jumped out for many people is the drop from a 40X increase in qualified leads to an 8X increase in engagements. The theory that leads are not enough in open source software has also been well documented. The ability to turn those qualified leads into paying customers remains a missing piece of the commercial open source puzzle.

The 451 Group’s Matt Aslett points out that marketing automation software like Loopfuse can help to supercharge an open-source company’s conversion rate. Same number of leads in, many more conversions (sales) out. I agree with that. Aslett writes:

This is why Alfresco can make considerably more money on 30,000 downloads per month than other open-source companies have with significantly more downloads at a similar period in their corporate existences. We’ve learned from JBoss, Red Hat, and MySQL. They paved the way. What are you doing to follow their lead?

So, if you’re an open-source company and you’re patting yourself on the back for your download count, don’t. Downloads are nice because ubiquity/abundance is nice. But if you’re not selling real value into that abundance and if you’re not finding those downloaders efficiently then you will fail.

If you’re in open source and you want to make money, you need product differentiation (in the way of value-added services of some kind) and you need marketing automation. Period. No leeway on the two. They’re required.

As I’ve written before, it’s not how many downloads an open-source company has, but what it does with them. JBoss’ downloads largely flattened out over time, but it’s revenue against that “fixed” number of monthly downloads exploded. Why?

I’m not sure why we continue to persist in talking about downloads, but I’m with Stephe on this one: downloads are not the best measure of success in open source. In fact, they’re often not even a remote predictor of success (i.e., sales). Having them, as Stephen O’ Grady notes, is much better than not having them, but it would be erroneous in the extreme to assume a company with 100,000 downloads per month necessarily has a bigger market opportunity than a company with 20,000 downloads per month.

Downloads are useful in and of themselves because they allow an open-source company to permeate a prospect for very little cost. But turning those downloads into dollars is not a given. It’s hard work. Tools like Loopfuse make that work easier and more productive, but you have to use them intelligently (which is why one of Alfresco’s first hires was the man who built JBoss’ marketing infrastructure).

It’s also set about making its presence known, scooping up U.S. PC maker Gateway in August for $710 million, and declaring its intentions to snatch Packard Bell even when rival Lenovo also publicly expressed interest. Buying Gateway was key for Acer to get the much-smaller Packard Bell, since Gateway possessed the right of first refusal, or right to make any counter offer if another company tried to buy it.

The Taiwan-based computer maker officially purchased 75 percent of Packard Bell parent company PB Holdings for $48.5 million, according to a statement made to the Taiwanese Stock Exchange Thursday, PC World is reporting.

Why Acer wanted the small PC maker with a negligible market presence outside Europe so badly seemed puzzling to some initially. Now the move is seen as a smart defensive strategy to block any attempts by rival Lenovo from increasing its presence in Europe.

Acer has been the fastest growing PC company in the world over the last year, rising through the ranks to become the No. 3 PC vendor at the end of 2007, with 8.9 percent of the overall market, according to research firm Gartner.

Through a rather circuitous route, Acer finally brought home the prize it had long been eyeing: European PC vendor Packard Bell.

At Microsoft’s MSN, the news was flat-out bad. Paid clicks in March dropped 15.1 percent. For the quarter, paid clicks declined 12.3 percent. At AOL, March paid clicks dropped 2.3 percent. For the quarter, paid clicks declined 5.8 percent–a noticeable turnaround from the 29.3 percent drop in the fourth quarter.

Google’s first-quarter earnings report, scheduled for Thursday afternoon, just got a lot more interesting.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

So by the end of this week, we’ll have a better sense of whether it’s time for tech companies to batten down the hatches.

In fairness to Google, it did better than its competitors, according to a JPMorgan report issued Wednesday morning. (ComScore’s paid-click numbers are not typically issued directly to public. We hear about them when Wall Street analysts issue their own reports on the data.)

Google, of course, is one of those big tech companies people closely follow in order to get a read on the health of the high-tech industry. We watch Google’s results more closely than any other Internet company for good reason: because of its dominant search market share, Google is a good indicator of the health of Internet advertising. A slowdown at Google can be a sign of big trouble ahead for smaller companies.

On Tuesday afternoon, Intel executives signaled confidence in the coming year. IBM, another one of those tech bellwethers, reports its first-quarter earnings after the stock market closes this afternoon.

But competitors did worse. Yahoo paid clicks declined 3.1 percent year over year in March (all percentages are year-over-year comparisons), though for the quarter, paid clicks at Yahoo grew 5.4 percent, also marking a drop-off from the fourth quarter’s 9.8 percent growth.

What will Google's Schmidt have to say about the first quarter? We’ll find out Thursday.

In total, the market wasn’t healthy. In March, it declined 1.5 percent. For the quarter, it managed 0.3 percent growth, versus a 15.8 percent increase in the fourth quarter.

Late Tuesday night, those Internet traffic trackers at ComScore put out some lousy news: growth in paid-search clicks in the United States is slowing down.

Analysts and Google pundits are split on what the ComScore numbers mean. Google maintains that its deceleration has more to do with its efforts to improve the quality of its ad leads (which should drive up average selling prices) than a broader economic slowdown. But disappointing numbers at all the major search sites may indicate that there’s a broader economic explanation than Google’s improved quality control. Is the paid-search advertising business as immune to a sour community as Google executives like to believe? We’ll find out tomorrow.

What remains to be seen, of course, is whether the ComScore results have any correlation to Google’s financial results. Similarly disappointing news earlier this year led to a significant drop in Google’s share price. In fact, since November, Google shares have dropped about 40 percent since hitting $747.24.

Paid-search clicks at Google were up 2.7 percent in March, compared to the same month a year ago. That means that growth for the full quarter was just 1.8 percent year over year, a rapid drop from 25 percent year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter. (Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider has a good take on the worst-case scenario for Google’s first quarter.)

So far, there’s certainly no panicking because of the ComScore numbers. Google was up about 2 percent to $456.20 in midday trading Wednesday.

They give me a line of movies that were enjoyed by “People Like You.”

Here’s how it works. I declare that “Climates”, a very sensitive and refined Turkish movie, deserves five of my stars. The Netflixsters tell me that they have no doubt I will surely, therefore, enjoy “Rumpelstiltskin”. Then they throw me a mind-altering gem.

I would very much like to know who these People Like Me are. As I would just as dearly love to know what these Netflixsters know about me.

It’s over to you, Netflix. Work with me here.
Together, we could bankrupt Match.com overnight.

Is there some secret cabal of just four of us who gave five stars to “Dodsworth”, “Inspector Morse” and “Metallica-Some Kind of Monster”?

How have they discovered there are People Like Me, when I have spent my whole life attempting to find them on four different continents and failed?

Then I will hold an open experiment, with all readers of Technically Incorrect as my witnesses. I will meet each of these People Like Me and report on our supposed similarities.

Am I not within my rights to demand that they reveal everything they know?

If the Netflixsters are so sure that there exist People Like Me, they should prove it. They should send me the email addresses, phone numbers, pictures and all other personal information of all the People Like Me in America. (Do they like lemon scones? Are they prone to hissing at anyone in a Prius? Do they find Lindsay Lohan and Gene Simmons strangely fascinating? Do they think Britain is responsible for 63% of the world’s ills? )

Might.

What about those wise few (of us) who gave the minimum single star to “Johnny English”, “8 Mile” and “Click.”?

(Credit:
darkpatator)

I know that some people are worried that mad scientists can now clone sheep.

Why can’t I meet these people? This could change my life. This could actually give meaning to my tawdry existence. By finding people who might like me, this might make me actually likable.

Think of it. Tasteless nerds creating hundreds of Thomas Kinkades and David Archuletas to alter the cultural balance of America.(Or, perhaps, confirm it.)

Have they dumped a surveillance cookie onto my laptop and discovered that I have been buying music created by Van Der Graaf Generator, Little Acre and Sugarland? Have they sent the mailman to peek through my windows and take notes on all the Michael Dibdin and Neil LaBute on my bookshelves? (Well, the US Postal Service has to find some way to make a profit out of Netflix.)

Soon, they say, they will do the same with human beings.

I am here to tell you that those very probably nice, sane scientists at Netflix are surely ahead of the game.

Do they know about my cute little smile, my tendency to arch an eyebrow beyond my hairline when I’m cross, and my deep aversion to anyone who says “that’s funny” when you tell them something funny?

First, many people are willing to contribute directly to the artist–or even invest in them–if they are given the opportunity and easy access to digital music that they can use how and where they please. In fact, there are those of us who believe that given the choice between this and getting free music from a questionable source, the overwhelming majority will choose the former. This also plays nicely into the idea that people value something more if they pay for it (even if it’s just a penny), and this is an important thing for the musicians and many of the listeners. Not to say people still shouldn’t be able to buy from stores such as iTunes, but once you take away the DRM it frees people up to purchase from many different sources for a variety of players, rather than getting stuck in a monopolostic “one device, one service” situation.

Earlier this week, I attended the SanFran Music Tech Summit, best described as a meeting of the minds of those who are deeply involved or invested in the music technology space. To quote the event Web site: “We will meet to discuss the evolving music/business/technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive to deal-making environment.” I know…sounds a touch boring, but it was actually quite the opposite. In fact, I’ve come to the realization that conferences with an emphasis on panels are infinitely more informative, entertaining, and relaxing than those centering around massive product launches (ahem, CES). The panels covered topics of varying interest in the music space, and although none really focused on hardware devices, each offered some interesting insight into how technology continues to change to music industry as well as what it is doing to help consumers hear what they want and discover new content.

The other point is that not all DRM is bad. For example, music subscription services could not exist without it. The copy protection is necessary in order for the services to keep track of the time cycles of the subscriptions and to cut off access when a user ceases to pay. It’s also necessary for Internet radio services to use some encryption–also DRM–in order to stay up and running, and I think we can all agree that having Internet radio readily available is a good thing. Innovative devices such as the Ibiza Rhapsody, the Slacker Portable Player, and the Sansa Connect would also not survive without DRM. The bottom line is that there should be different types of DRM to serve different purposes, but in the end what it should do is open up more opportunities for users to listen to music, rather than restrict and confuse.

OK, after that little DRM love fest I just had, I’m feeling a little dirty and would just like to state for the record that when it comes to piecemeal purchased downloads from online stores, I think they should all be DRM-free. And based on the existence of Amazon Digital Music and recent announcements from Napster and iTunes (not to mention a conversation with Rhapsody), that’s the way things are headed…and soon, at that. In the end, the consumer will win (I hope) and that’s all that matters to me. In closing, I’d like to push my personal agenda/belief that subscription music is the wave of the future, and quote Ted Cohen, who was the panelist from TAG Strategic: “You don’t need to own it anymore…and it’s not about ‘renting’ music; it’s about gaining access.”

But back to the panelists. There was quite an array of backgrounds represented, which is always good at these “round tables.” The moderator was an independent musician, as was the representative from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the founder of CD Baby (who, incidentally, founded the site to promote his own music–gotta love that). Then, there was the CEO of Songbird, the CEO and Chair of TAG Strategic, and a lawyer specializing in artists’ rights. The moderator and the EFF rep (unsurprisingly) were the most outspoken against DRM, essentially noting that it restricted the artist and consumer alike and was the reason that many people acquired music through illegal means (P2P services)–they want to be able to get the music they like and play it on any device they want, i.e. fair use. That seemed to be the general feeling of the audience as well. For the most part, positive comments made by other panelists about DRM were met with at least a hint of disdain. Mostly, I think, because people have trouble separating DRM from its reputation, but there are some logical points to be gleaned from both sides the conversation.

Now I could go on and describe the three panels that I attended in excruciating detail, but in the interest of not putting you to sleep, I think we’ll discuss something that never fails to incite some form of interest: good ol’ Digital Rights Management. Ah, DRM…what a tangled web you weave. The technology was a hot topic throughout the course of the conference. Unsurprisingly, the subject turned into a rousing debate during the Artists, Copyrights & Technologies panel, with panelists talking over one another and audience members chiming in out of turn. It was quite the frenzy. And it was great. Clearly, DRM is a touchy topic for many people who are involved in digital content–and that’s a lot of people. We have the producers, negotiators, marketers, distributors, purchasers, and even educators, which is the term I apply loosely to myself and other tech editors who have the job of explaining DRM to frustrated users. Indeed, it takes very little provocation for me to get riled up about it myself–if you have any doubts, have a listen to the MP3 Insider podcast.

Bulk delete and move
This works in your e-mail boxes only. In your in-box you’ll see a small “edit” button at the top right-hand corner. When you press the button a small circle will appear next to each e-mail. Touch the circle to highlight as many messages as you like and then select the “delete” or “move” options.

GPS
As the iPhone Atlas reports, the 2.0 software update also brings GPS tracking. We tested both while walking in downtown San Francisco and riding in a taxi. Considering that the tracking is relying solely on cellular towers and Wi-Fi hot spots, it was pleasantly accurate. When walking we could see the little bull’s-eye moving along with us. Not surprisingly, the tracking was a bit off when we were in a
car. The bull’s-eye jumped block by block as we came to stoplights. On the whole it works well, but it’s no replacement for a standalone GPS system. Also, remember that while you can get directions through Google Maps, the iPhone does not support real-time turn-by-turn directions.

Parental controls
You now will find a “Restrictions” selection under the General tab of the main Settings menu. There you can restrict access to the
Safari browser, explicit songs, YouTube, and the iTunes and iTunes Apps stores. You can select as many restrictions as you like.

Ready for your work e-mail.

When we deleted a message on our phone, the same e-mail vanished on our PC just a couple of seconds later. Messages deleted on the PC took longer to disappear from the phone; typically, we had to do a manual update to see them gone. Messages deleted on the phone will show up in your PC’s Recycle Bin and vice versa.

The new scientific calculator

Language support
The software update will brings language support and typing keyboards in French, Canadian French, UK English, German, Japanese (QWERTY and Kana), Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish. You can select as many languages you want by opening the “International” selection under the General tab of the main Settings menu. For Chinese you choose from Pinyin or a graffiti-style application for writing characters. As you enter characters, suggestions will appear to the right. To change between menus, choose from the small globe icon next to the space bar.

As an alternative, though, you can sync e-mail without syncing your contacts and calendar. Also, you can keep work and personal e-mail accounts open at the same time. You’ll just have to switch between the two.

Once you’re ready to go, it will sync your Outlook e-mail, contacts, and calendar. Be advised that the iPhone can sync only with one calendar or contacts list at a time. If you have a separate personal calendar, your work calendar will replace it, once you start the sync (you’ll be notified before it happens).

Your choice of keyboards

Though according to AT&T, using Exchange server support on the iPhone 3G will require the business data plan (the one that costs $45 per month), we received no notice on the original iPhone advising us of any data plan issues (not that we would). It will be interesting to see how AT&T enforces this policy on the iPhone 3G.

It gets updated.

Click here for CNET News’ complete iPhone 3G coverage.

Once you’ve chosen to add a new e-mail account in the main Settings menu, you’ll be taken to the standard list of available e-mail systems. “Microsoft Exchange” and “MobileMe” (we’ll try that later) will appear at the top of the list just above the choice for Gmail. You’ll then be prompted to enter the applicable e-mail address, domain/username, server, and password.

The authentication process took just a couple of minutes, and we were up and running fairly quickly. Installing CNET’s security certificate posed a bit of a challenge–we ended up mailing it to ourselves through Yahoo–but we installed it eventually.

By and large, those updates were quick, but there was at least one instance where it took a couple of minutes. In fact, it was so long that we thought that the phone had frozen. We also noticed that if the iPhone loses its Wi-Fi connection, the syncing is interrupted. But even with these caveats, the experience was satisfactory. Syncing via EDGE took a few seconds longer, but it wasn’t too bothersome.

When using Wi-Fi, the syncing was very quick most of the time. As new messages came in, the iPhone registered them almost immediately. It seemed to get bogged down when we received a large clump of messages at one time. In those cases, we had to update the phone manually.

iWork documents and PowerPoint
We haven’t tried iWork documents just yet, but we were able to view PowerPoint e-mail attachments. The attachment was rather large (1.3MB) but it didn’t take very long to download.

(Credit:
Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

With the iPhone 2.0 software update, the first
iPhone is getting another day in the sun, and it’s a nice toasty sunshine at that. Although Apple has yet to release the update officially–it should happen Friday as well–the software became available on Thursday through the magic of the Internet.

As we reported during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference last month, the 2.0 software update adds a number of important features to the original iPhone, including Microsoft Exchange server support and access to the App Store. After installing the new iTunes 7.7 (available for Windows and Mac) update on our PC, we downloaded the update and installed it on our phone. Here’s what we found.

Download process
At the moment, the downloading process is a bit convoluted, though that experience will change, once Apple releases the software update officially. But once we started the process of installing it on our iPhone, it proceeded successfully without any hiccups.

That’s it for now, but check back tomorrow as we divulge into more details on the software update and delve into our full review of the iPhone 3G.

You can access all folders in your in-box and move messages from your in-box to a specific folder. You can’t search for messages, but you can call a contact if they include their phone number in their e-mail. Opening attachments worked as promised, and we like how the software update now lets you save attached images directly to your photo gallery simply by tapping the image. To e-mail photos, you will need to do so in the traditional manner by opening the photo, selecting the e-mail option, and choosing which account you’d like to send from.

Exchange server support
One of the most coveted additions is the full support for Microsoft Exchange server. Adding an account was ridiculously easy, once we had the correct settings from our IT department.

The iPhone Apps Store

We purchased two applications from the iPhone: AP Mobile News and a currency rates application. Downloads over Wi-Fi were pretty quick; it took just about 10 seconds total. Though wireless iTunes song downloads are available only through a Wi-Fi connection, you can purchase applications over EDGE. Just keep in mind that downloads will take a lot longer.

We also purchased applications through the online iTunes (7.7) store. Though you could access the applications store only through a back-door method this morning, it’s now prominently featured in the store. We downloaded Super Monkey Ball and then synced it to our phone–a new applications tab appears under the iPhone menu. The process was quick and painless. What’s more, navigation through the online apps store is easy.

Although Friday’s launch of the iPhone 3G is grabbing all the headlines, there’s no need to put the original iPhone out to pasture just yet.

What’s most remarkable about the online applications store is the sheer breadth of titles available. As of this writing, there are 27 pages available in a staggering range of categories. If there is one thing about the software update that changes the original iPhone for the better, it’s the Apps Store–even if not all the applications are keepers. Of course, before you get carried away, remember that some apps are free but others will cost you.

The whole process took about 10 minutes from start to finish. Since the iPhone treats the update as a system restore, it will erase any saved information. Fortunately, iTunes creates a one-time media backup of your files. Although some users have reported that iTunes failed to create a backup file for them, we didn’t have any problems.

What we didn’t get
As we’ve told you already, the software update didn’t give us a lot of things we were hoping for. But if you’d like to see the list again, Nicole Lee has the details.

Scientific calculator
As Steve Jobs said in his WWDC keynote, you’ll now get a scientific calculator when you turn the phone on its side. You’ll see a lot more buttons that will set a mathematician’s heart aflutter. Jobs said a lot of people asked for this but again, I’d like to know who they are.

Contacts search
A search bar now appears above your contacts list. Typing in any portion of the same will take you immediately to that person. The software update also added a special Contacts to the home screen, which is something we weren’t expecting.

Third-party applications
Once the software update installed, an icon for the App Store appeared on our iPhone’s home screen. When selected, you’re taken to the Apps Store main menu, which somewhat resembles the mobile iTunes store in design. You search applications by name and category and you can browse through the lists of Featured applications or the Top 25. There also is a feature for seeing if your purchased applications have any updates.

But rather than being tied to a particular cloud, DreamFactory works with many of them. Relying on a rich client that runs as a browser plug-in, DreamFactory’s application only needs the cloud for storage. It can use Salesforce, Webex Connect and Amazon EC2. Quickbase support is just around the corner, with Google BigTable hot on its heels. It will even run on your hard drive.

The next stage of the cloud is the maneuverability of data regardless of its location or destination.

The applications that are built on top of a particular vendor’s infrastructure are locked into that provider’s way of doing things. I always expect the cloud to be about freedom from vendor control–much like how open source gives control to the users.

Right now there only a few options if you are a cloud or PaaS provider:
1. Cordon off virtual machines and use VM images (like Amazon.com or Joyent)
2. Allow development on some programming language (like Google App Engine)
3. Force users onto your platform (like Salesforce.com)

Over at GigaOm I read about Dreamfactory which provides some cloud-agnostic/opportunistic offerings to integrate its own applications with other SaaS vendors.

Where is the “write once, run anywhere” ideal of Java? Sun should be the next big Cloud vendor–it’s got hardware, virtualization, and Java all under one roof and yet it remains late to the game.

The fact that the Dreamfactory plug-in runs locally solves a major issue–what happens when you are not connected. It also means you can move from platform-to-platform.

As the cloud continues to emerge as a serious option, many people are starting to catch on that there are limits to what can be done outside that particular platform.

But this approach is merely the tip of the iceberg. When you consider the domination of the Flash plug-in, you can certainly imagine Adobe making strides very quickly. For that matter, this approach could be Microsoft’s first step into being cloud-relevant.

In addition to the phone companies, so far it looks like cable operators are also in good shape to weather the current economic downturn.

Thanks to reduced capital spending, Comcast also improved its cash flow by 77 percent to $928 million. Comcast is now expecting to exceed its free cash flow target for 2008 of $2.3 billion. This is largely due to a reduction in capital spending, as the current housing crunch has lessened the need for new cable equipment.

Despite feeling confident that they will weather the economic storm, Comcast’s executives still said they plan to be cautious. The company said it might curtail its stock buy-back program. It said last year it planned to buy back $7 billion in stock. It still has $4.1 billion worth of stock to go.

Still, the economic crunch is also likely to increase competition between cable and phone companies especially when it comes to price. Consumers may look for better deals and could be more likely to buy the triple-play package of services at a competitive price.

Verizon Communications’ CEO Ivan Seidenberg suggested earlier this month at a conference that he believed his company and others that provide home entertainment services, like TV and broadband, could actually do slightly better during an economic downturn because people are more likely to stay home and watch TV and surf the Internet.

On Thursday, Comcast, the largest cable operator in the U.S., reported solid earnings for the third quarter of 2008. The company’s net income for the third quarter rose 38 percent to $771 million compared with the same period a year ago. Revenue was up 10 percent to $8.55 billion

While an impending recession could still ultimately spell trouble for Comcast in the next several quarters, it appears the subscription TV, phone, and broadband businesses are largely resilient. For many Americans cable TV and high-speed broadband service are seen as must-haves now in addition to home phone service, even when times are tough.

So far Comcast appears to be winning the battle to win new customers, especially when it comes to high-speed Internet. During the quarter, Comcast reported it lost 147,000 basic cable subscribers, but it added 382,000 broadband customers. Compare that to Verizon Communications’ and AT&T’s results. Verizon added about 225,000 fiber Internet subscribers, and AT&T added only about 148,000 broadband connections.