Intel and Yahoo announced a partnership (also with Comcast) that they will be providing the embedded technology for set top boxes to provide widget for a TV environment. I’m here at IDF and had a chance to talk to a few Intel super geeks and basically it’s all vapor at the moment. It’s mainly a developer oriented showcase so it’s not meant to be a shipping product. The demo they are showing is very sexy but it’s vapor - at least for now.

The demo really shows the benefit of the user experience. The notion of having prefabricated widgets coming from…

Though the company is still a relative newcomer to the political lobbying game, Google showed Monday it knows how to get everyone’s attention with its creation of a public-advocacy organization aimed at freeing up the so-called “white spaces” of empty wireless spectrum between TV channels. Though we’re still years away from anyone being able to use new gizmos to connect via white-space channels, the conversation about finding new spectrum for communications in the U.S. seems to be a good one to have.

Why is this a big deal? If you remember the $19.6 billion the FCC raised in the recent 700 MHz…

According to Eric Eldon Android is more than just a phone platform. It’s the weapon on choice in Google’s quest for world domination. The prevailing wisdom is that mobile is the future; that’s no surprise. “Android” has been the codename for google’s mobile phone platform but Eric and John speculate it’s part of a much larger strategy.

Google is one of the founders of consumer-oriented cloud computing. It’s one thing to be the leader in free webmail but quite another to be the sole provider to an untapped market. Currently mobile devices have limited non-phone capability. I use mine for email mostly but…

Android is looking like a possible Unified Communications killer. Google is changing the game here. Eric Eldon has a fantastic reporting piece that Android isn’t just for phones.

Some snips from Eric’s piece…“this is where some of Google’s other initiatives could come in, one source speculates. If the wider-ranging operating system is really what Google is doing with Android, well, the App Engine, Google’s web hosting and support service for developers, wouldn’t just be about helping web developers, it would provide services for Android developers. And, Google is also constantly improving the artificial intelligence capacity of its search engine, its spam…

Padmasree Warrior, is the new CTO of Cisco Systems of San Jose, and former CTO of Motorola.

Padma’s interview with Peter Shaplen in this recently released podcast is dripping with overtones from the term “collaboration”, but vows to maintain the company’s commitment to its core.

An interesting podcast and a must-listen for those watching Cisco and their reach out into Unified Communications. She mentions market shift opportunities, and innovation as well. It is worth the short listen.

She ties it up nicely with her vision of Cisco as the “iconic incubator”. I believe Padma has excellent points and a sound perspective of the history and…

Reaching beyond traditional managed services, Adobe systems selected OpSource’s On-Demand Web solution for its Acrobat.com online services offering. OpSource, which I covered before, is a leading SaaS or Software as a Service provider based in Santa Clara, CA.

The release indicates Adobe’s Acrobat.com services include file sharing, storage, PDF conversion, online word processing and web conferencing. Utilizing OpSource’s unique cutting-edge operations, Adobe’s offering will likely be significant. No timeline was established in the release, but expect an establish offering phase quickly. Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource is quoted as well.

This is a big win for OpSource and Adobe and big news for…

Convio, an online startup based out of Texas no less, has withdrawn its IPO. They mentioned a “weak economy” and “skittish stock market”, but what may have really spooked them was the fate of Rackspace, who had their IPO last week. Rackspace had all indicators going for it yet has pretty much tanked, not completely, but surely not as successful as had been hoped. There is no shortage of theories or analysis why this has happened to Rackspace, but what is clear is that something affected this company’s fate.

Solid performances and sustained financial success could get the company back to what they had…

I’ve heard a lot of buzz on social media and even mashups in the workplace. John would call it “sizzle”. And I say “Where’s the steak?”. With a few exceptions the enterprise is ignoring social media in the workplace. And, though it may surprise you, I tend to agree with that strategy. Although there are certainly some organizations where social media can provide substantial benefit I don’t think it fits into the critical business processes of most enterprise environments. In my opinion, where it does fit is in the startup environment. Building a successful startup is all about communication and…

Everybody’s talking about the Olympics, including a post I recently made .

Avaya has announced their Unified Communications solution to NBC Universal in support of their coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The press release, dated Aug 12, 2008 goes into details:
"NBC Olympics operates under a unique set of IT circumstances: every two years the organization needs a complete, business communications network set up in a new location that is in use for little more than a month. Demands for high-availability, resiliency and cutting edge technology are weighed against cost, since once the Games are over the equipment goes into storage ."

Described are some…

VMWare is posting about a major issue with VMWare.  I’m calling around to find out what the heck is going on.

Here is information from Mattjk on the VMWare community forum (I think it’s a blog):

serious bug with our ESX cluster - serious enough that I thought I should post about it here as a prior warning for others running ESX 3.5 Update 2.

The VMWare tech support person we spoke to wouldn’t 100% confirm whether this was / would be affecting all ESX3.5u2 installs, but he strongly alluded that it was widespread. For others sake I hope I’m wrong and it’s…