(Credit:
Todd Bishop)

Disclosure: My company, Alfresco, has a product that competes with SharePoint.

Microsoft's R&D spending hit an all-time high in 2008.

In Microsoft’s defense, perhaps we’ve tapped out the desktop software metaphor, and there’s simply not much it can do there (beyond building SharePoint and the next tier of lock-in services to guard its cash cow product lines). Unfortunately, this “defense” is also my biggest critique of Microsoft: its future is so tied up in protecting its past that it’s unlikely to ever unleash true innovations from the labs that could destabilize the desktop.

Not that it matters. For all Microsoft’s spending on the future, it continues to focus its business on guarding the past. Yes, it builds cool (but useful?) things like the Sphere, but when was the last time you saw Office or Windows significantly improved by that R&D spending?

If you believe, as I do, that there’s a bright future beyond the traditional desktop, it’s hard to get excited about Microsoft’s R&D spending, knowing that it’s likely to lead to more of the same, with the occasional circus curiosity like Sphere.

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As a side issue, John also noted that, in the sciences, he does not recommend that work be limited to non-commercial use or to prohibit derivative (i.e. transformed) use of the work. He said that such restrictions have a very chilling effect on integration and federation. I’ve written previously about the Non-Commercial clause of some Creative Commons licenses in the context of photographs. Increasingly strictures against commercial use, an area that Open Source code licenses have largely stayed away from to their betterment, seem to be something that appear reasonable and fair but, in fact, have far more cons than pros.

One of the reasons I attend O’Reilly’s Open Source Conference (OSCON) is that, more so than others I go to, it gets into the intellectual and–dare I say–philosophical underpinnings of things as well as the things themselves.

Much of that background, the continuing areas of conflict that are part and parcel of it, hints at how Open Source may evolve, and some of the opportunities (and challenges) of bringing Open Source into domains other than code were on display at the Participate 08 panel discussion yesterday. The complexities of the many interweaving threads are neatly captured in these whiteboards drawn by Collective Next during the panel.

As open data, creative writing and media, and code merge, we’re going to increasingly need to reconcile the issues that matter most to the communities who own the copyrights to their respective bodies of work.

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One of the panelists was John Wilbanks, who run the Science Commons project (within Creative Commons). He had some interesting perspectives on the concerns of scientists, as opposed to programmers. For example, in the Open Source code world, as it has evolved, attribution (at least formal attribution) isn’t a component of most licenses. But, in the academic community, it’s all about attribution. As he described it: “the motivation is to be associated with the publication of an idea… to own a fact.”

To be sure, this sort of thing may not be especially important if we’re talking about things like servers–although these too interact with long-term undercurrents such as massively multi-core programming  that are largely removed from day-to-day concerns but which are immensely important in the long view. In the case of Open Source, however much it has blended into the mainstream of software, is still also very part and parcel of the history and motivations behind it.

This is a potentially huge disconnect between the data/science world and the code world. This is especially so because attribution clauses are not a part of most Open Source licenses for deliberate reason. The problem is that attributions “stack”–that is, they acquire threads of contributors that may go back years. Thus, to have a legal requirement to preserve some list of all that historical accretion of intellectual property would get enormously unwieldy to implement in a practical way.

Academics deal with this sort of thing all the time. However, it’s handled within the context of social norms and customs and violations are dealt with largely by corresponding social censures rather than legal ones. Attribution is serious business in academia–but it’s not implemented through formal legal strictures that require literature searches for previously unknown Russian papers of 30 years past. (Of course, there are often bruised egos and perceived slights all the time–welcome to the world–but these are issues mostly resolved within a community rather than in a court of law.

Via: Note 19

The latest version of Share offers PDF creation, updated Flash previews (supports full screen mode) and improved performance. The various rendition generations are based on Adobe LiveCycle,
Creative Suite and other core technologies. Share also offers Web Services that developers could use to create desktop or online applications.

The newly revamped Adobe Share (beta) 1.3.5 is out today and is based on Alfresco, everyone’s favorite open source ECM (enterprise content management) platform.

Mike McGuire, a music industry analyst for Gartner, said that the royalty board made a wise decision for consumers, musicians, and download stores by not raising rates. The download stores are competing against piracy, and obtaining illegal downloads is simple and they’re hard to compete with on price: they’re free.

What all this means of course is that Apple will not be shuttering iTunes–as if there was ever much of a chance of that–and appears to remain very much in control over the economics of digital music.

The Copyright Royalty Board on Thursday froze the rate that digital-music stores such as iTunes and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody must pay music publishers.

“We’re pleased with the CRB’s decision to keep royalty rates stable,” said an Apple spokesman.

Alarm bells were set off on Tuesday when Fortune magazine reported that Apple had told the CRB that “it most likely” would shut down iTunes if forced to pay too high a royalty rate. Eddy Cue, Apple’s iTunes manager, had told the royalty board in April 2007 that the company “would not continue to operate (iTunes), if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

Pandora, an online radio service was part of a movement to negotiate a new rate for streaming music (as opposed to downloads) with the music industry. That movement lobbied hard in Washington and won congressional OK to reach a settlement with the music industry on a compulsory license.

That would have created huge accounting headaches, according to the source. The decision also prevents DiMA from going to Congress in the same way that the Webcasters did last week, according to the source.

The group representing music publishers had sought a per-song rate boost from 9.1 cents to 15 cents, a 66 percent increase. The rate is paid to music publishers by the record companies, which deduct it from the 70 cents Apple pays them for every song it sells. Certainly, nobody can predict what Apple will do, but at this point, it looks as if the company got what it wanted. In short, Apple won.

Music industry sings the blues
The group representing music publishers applauded the CRB’s decision publicly but not everybody on that side of the debate was happy. One music industry source familiar with the negotiations said the publishers would probably have liked more money but should be happy that the CRB didn’t attach the rate to a percentage of a music store’s revenue.

” What DiMA had asked for was a reduction to 4.5 cents (or 55 percent). When you look at 9.1 it’s only a disaster but 4.5 is Armageddon.”
–Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America

But in my dealings with music publishers, I’ve heard them complain for a long time about the 9-cent royalty rate. In some corners, the lack of any increase will not be received well. Nobody has been a more vocal proponent of raising rates than Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America. On Thursday, Carnes acknowledged he had hoped for an increase. Still, he insisted there was still plenty to be happy about.

Mark Litvack, an entertainment and copyright attorney and a former legal counsel for the Motion Picture Association of America, said rates have traditionally gone up during these kinds of negotiations. But Apple has “effectively set the economics of the music industry, which now appear to be frozen.”

A music industry source said that Cue’s statement to the CRB may have gone a long way in persuading the CRB not to boost rates. “Sure it was posturing,” said the source. “That’s what you do in court. I don’t think Apple would have gone out of business but a statement like that from the biggest music retailer is going to carry some weight.”

“What DiMA had asked for was a reduction to 4.5 cents (or 55 percent),” said Carnes, who has written songs for Alabama, Reba McEntire, and Dean Martin. “When you look at 9.1 it’s only a disaster, but 4.5 is Armageddon…If you look at record sales, they’ve just been a disaster. It’s hard to go to the judges and ask for money at this point of time… Everybody is hurting, frankly, and until we get a solution to the massive looting on the Internet we’re not going to be able to move this thing much.”

“This was a smart move by the CRB,” McGuire said. “This is still a new and struggling industry and now isn’t the time for a drastic rate increase that will have an effect on pricing.”

“Software is still the largest segment for funding, even though it is flattening out,” said Deepak Kamra, a venture capitalist with Canaan Partners. “Within software, software as a service and open source are doing well. Open source is a cheaper way for companies to develop applications.”

If you did, that road down the IT path would likely lead you to clean-tech and Internet-specific businesses, according to results of the 2007 MoneyTree Report released Friday by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

Venture capitalists get their investment back through an IPO or sale of their portfolio company. Last year, venture capitalists were able to ride the IPO ride on several notable deals.

Internet companies, which rely on a business model that’s largely dependent on the Internet, also attracted a substantial slice of venture funding last year, according to the report. This sector attracted $4.6 billion in funding, accounting for a 12 percent increase over the previous year.

Clean-technology companies attracted $2.2 billion in investments last year, a 47 percent jump over the prior year. And the number of clean-tech deals rose by 58 percent to 202 venture financings last year, compared with 2006 .

The software sector, which historically grabs the largest slice of venture funding, had less than spectacular year in 2007. Funding levels for the software sector remained virtually flat, rising to $5.3 billion with 905 deals, compared with $5.1 billion for 920 deals in 2006.

U.S. venture capitalists invested a total of $29.4 billion in 2007, up 10.8 percent from the previous year. That marked the fourth consecutive year of growth. The number of deals reached 3,813 last year, a modest rise of 5 percent over a year earlier.

“The market was good for IPOs in 2007, but now we’re concerned about the IPO market shutting down,” Deepak said. “Ultimately, the IPO market will come back.”

All three laptops include an eSATA port for high-speed data transer, and Toshiba’s “Sleep-and-Charge” USB ports, which let you charge USB devices (cell phone, MP3 player) even if the laptop is in sleep or hibernate mode, or is powered off, as long as it’s plugged into an outlet. Another new addition: a tweak to the integrated Webcam that lets you scan and store business cards.

The small-business-oriented Satellite Pro S300 also incorporates the EasyGuard technologies–a first for the Satellite Pro line. In another first for the Satellite Pro line, the S300 has built-in support for Toshiba’s express port replicator.

All three systems will be available starting in early August.

Designed for large businesses, the 14-inch Tecra M10 and 15-inch Tecra A10 incorporate Centrino 2 components and vPro technology for remote management, plus a common motherboard and image that the company claims will make service and support easier for IT departments. Both Tecra systems also offer the option of a 64GB or 128GB solid-state drive, and they incorporate Toshiba’s EasyGuard technologies, which include hard drive protection, spill-resistant keyboards, fingerprint readers and Trusted Platform Modules.

(Credit:
NZXT)

NZXT, a company that makes accessories for gamers, released on Monday the newest of those mice. Called Avatar, the mouse is designed to provide gamers with significant enhancements in gaming with a few breakthrough features.

Secondly, the Avatar comes with a great deal of customization. It has seven programmable keys that can be assigned specific functions to accomodate different genres of games such as first-person shooter, real-time strategy, or MMORP all within the macro and profile settings.

This sounds like a great gaming mouse. There’s a catch though: it’s not cheap. You can get the Avatar now for about $60, which is relatively hefty considering you can get a regular optical mouse for one-third the price or even less. However, glorious victories or honorable defeats never come cheap. You should know that by now!

And not just any mouse, a good gaming mouse.

Avatar: the no-more-excuses gaming mouse.

First, it sports a 2600dpi optical sensor, providing maximum sensitivity and responsiveness to yield unparalleled onscreen accuracy. To put this in context, most optical mice have a sensor with 1000dpi or less. The Avatar also has an LED dpi indicator that gives the user improved usage and feedback. It also incorporates a four-speed dpi switch that enables you to go from slow movement–perfect for sniping–to quick attack movement in a matter of seconds.

It’s always been my pet peeve in gaming when the guy on the other side blames the equipment (i.e. “I have bad lag” or “my mouse skips”) for his defeat, making my pwnage a little less glorious. Well, get a new mouse, I say.

I’m joined byEugene Ciurana, director of systems infrastructure at Leapfrog. We’ll talk about how enterprises bring SOA outside the firewall and how the Cloud comes into play. It’s a good time for all.

I’m doing a session on “The Borderless Enterprise” today as part of InfoWorld’s Reinventing Enterprise Architecture: How to hit the Reset Button.

Apple has applied for a patent that could let you record David Letterman interviewing Ben Affleck (we think that's Ben Affleck).

The standard patent application disclaimer applies: Don’t expect to see this device on store shelves in the coming weeks, as patent applications don’t always make their way into products. Still, an Apple TV that could play live television–whether that’s over cable, satellite, or the Internet–as well as rent movies directly from the iTunes Store would be an interesting device, especially if you could use your
iPhone or iPod as the clicker.

(Credit:
USPTO)

An Apple patent application unearthed by AppleInsider shows a proposed system for using an
iPod-like device as a remote control for an Apple TV-like device with DVR capabilities. (They never use the actual product names in the applications, but it’s not too hard to tell.) It also suggests that Apple is thinking about making a version of Apple TV that could watch and record live television programming.

Apple TV got a little more interesting in January with the release of the second version of the product, which can play rented movies from the iTunes Store along with purchased videos. What it can’t do, however, is replace your living room set-top box from your cable or satellite provider and deliver live television.

But in a series of illustrations, the patent application shows how a video player could scroll through a lineup of programs that looks an awful lot like the TV Guide channel. Viewers could watch, pause, and rewind live television when controlled by an iPod-like remote control device. In keeping with Apple’s latest push toward multitouch interfaces, several gestures could be used on the remote control to fast forward, rewind, or pause, among other things.

Such an application would add momentum to Apple’s unveiling of its iPhone software development kit in March.

The report offers these details from the developers pre-release version, based on the “Read Me” area of the iTunes installer:

Apple is working on an application aimed at letting people remotely control iTunes in the home via their
iPod Touch or
iPhone, according to a report on MacRumors.com.

Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home–a free download from the App Store.

According to the MacRumors report, the application will “presumably” allow people to play back their iTunes audio with the help of Wi-Fi.