Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Oh, Snow Leopard Frees Up Disk Space All Right
Apple has finally acknowledged that a bug in its new Snow Leopard operating system can, on rare occasions, result in a catastrophic loss of data. The glitch, which first surfaced in support forums in early September, is triggered by logging in and out of a guest account and wipes the main user account of all data. Clearly, this is not what Apple meant when it claimed the OS would free up as much as seven gigs of space upon installation.
The majority of Windows Mobile users have no idea what operating system is running on their phones, a recent survey from the CFI Group found. Microsoft is hoping to change that with the release of Windows Mobile 6.5 and the opening of Windows Mobile Marketplace, its long-awaited answer to Apple’s iTunes App Store.
The passing of a year hasn’t much changed Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s opinion of cloud computing. Remarking on the industry’s sudden fascination with the concept at Oracle OpenWorld last September, Ellison reduced it to a thin sheen of windshield condensation. In conversation with former Sun CEO Ed Zander at a Churchill Club event a little over a year later, Ellison expanded on those remarks, suggesting that if the cloud is anything, it’s a cloud of BS.
No wonder Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is so dismayed by the company’s Windows Mobile division: Most Windows Mobile users aren’t even aware their phones run it. In fact, according to the CFI Group, WinMo has such poor brand recognition that it was forced to group it in the “Other” category in its Smartphone Satisfaction Survey. 
The Cliq, Motorola’s first phone based on Google’s Android operating system, is headed to market and will arrive there Nov. 2. Sales to existing customers will begin Oct. 19 and open to the general public Nov. 4. T-Mobile USA has priced the handset at $199 with a two-year contract, which seems a bit dear considering you can get a 16GB iPhone 3GS for the same price. 
Palm has begun rolling out webOS 1.2.0, a minor point release to its new flagship operating system, which boasts some 70 improvements. Notably absent from this update: The reenabling of iTunes synchronization, which Apple spannered when it released iTunes 9.0 earlier this month. 
Though its shares are up more than 900 percent since January, Palm remains a “show me” story. So says Susquehanna Financial analyst Jeffrey Fidicaro, who seems to think the Street is putting a bit too much faith in the company’s next-generation platform, webOS, and the devices that run on it.
The iPhone is finally coming to the world’s most wired country. South Korean regulators on Wednesday cleared the iPhone for sale. Great news for Apple. The South Korean market is a robust one, and analysts say that with the right carrier partner, Cupertino could be looking at first-year sales ranging from 500,000 to two million.
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. 
