Sometimes big news comes in small packages–especially in the world of high tech. This week, AllThingsD covered some little changes that mean serious consequences for the companies that make the stuff and consumers who rely on it.
We knew it had to happen. There was no way the great white (and blue, and whatever color Yahoo is) search engine sharks could resist the fire hoses full of text chum Twitter produces 24/7. Heck, Twitter even chops its textual fish heads into lovely bite-sized chunks.
For those about to rock, All Things Digital salutes you.
Former Genentech chairman and CEO Art Levinson has resigned from Google’s board, where he has been a director since April 2004. No reason was given for his departure, though his membership on both the Google and Apple boards, and the Federal Trade Commission inquiry into into possible implications of such dual memberships, surely played a role.
Though he resigned earlier this year, former MySQL boss Mårten Mickos still has strong opinions about the open-source database outfit, which was acquired by Sun in 2008. In a letter to the European Commission Thursday, Mickos urged regulators to green-light Oracle’s takeover of Sun, arguing that to delay it will only harm competition.
Brocade investors are smiling into their coffee cups this morning after reports that the networking-gear maker has put itself up for sale sent the company’s shares soaring. People familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg that Brocade is seeking a buyer and that both Hewlett-Packard and Oracle are among its potential suitors.
Randy Seidl’s bio is still live on the Sun Microsystems Web site, but the exec who once oversaw the company’s North American sales has new digs. At Hewlett-Packard.
Four years after separating its PC business from its imaging and printing group, Hewlett-Packard is planning to merge them, undoing one of Mark Hurd’s first big moves as CEO. “People familiar with the situation” tell The Wall Street Journal that the plan under consideration would combine HP’s printer and PC businesses under Todd Bradley, who currently oversees only the latter.
Kara was half James Bond, half Indiana Jones in the cities and jungles of BoomTown this week. She jet-setted, jet-lagged and still managed to report on a genuine cougar fight.
Looks like the worst is once again behind us. In remarks at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said the PC industry is headed for recovery, albeit slowly.
Though some analysts claim otherwise, MySQL is an asset, not baggage, and Oracle has no plans to unload it. Nor does the company think it will be forced to win regulatory approval for its proposed purchase of Sun Microsystems. “No, we’re not going to spin [MySQL] off,” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told attendees of a Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley Monday evening.
The European Commission’s inquiry into Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun is costing the database giant dearly. Speaking at a Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley Monday evening, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said Sun is losing $100 million a month because of the extended European antitrust review. He also said he’d like his company to be “the successor to IBM.”
Geekfighting may never become its own UFC event, but following tech news this week seemed, in places, like a view to a big, well-funded cage match.
Silicon Valley luminary and Golden Geek cover model Marc Andreessen is adding another gig to his CV: Hewlett-Packard director. Andreessen, who sold his software company, Opsware, to HP two years ago for $1.6 billion, will begin serving on the board immediately, bringing its total number of directors to 11.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
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