Collusion allegations against Apple, Palm (Jaideep Venkatesan)

The stepped up regulatorenforcement of the new regime seems to have settled on a new target - allegations of collusion between Palm and Apple to not poach each other's employees. The allegations are not sourced, and neither company is commenting (nor its seems, is the DOJ), so it is hard to determine the accuracy of the allegations.

Feds May Be Investigating Apple's Request For Palm To Stop Hiring Apple Employees

Microsoft and Google: A Recap (Jaideep Venkatesan)

So much has happened between Microsoft and Google, a recap seems to be in order.

Microsoft launches Bing , replacing its moribund Live Search.

Google announces the development of the Google Chrome Operating System.

Microsoft announces that it will offer a a free online web version of its Office applications, which will compete with Google Docs for hosted software applications.

Note the antitrust issues raised in the Google OS release. The FTC is currently investigating Apple and Google under little-used section 8 of the Clayton Antitrust Act.
Michael Arrington's interviewed Gary Reback , author of the excellent book Free the Market! about his experience in antitrust issues in the technology industry over the past thirty yeares. Arrington and Reback discussed some of these issues. Reback argued that even though the DOJ's civil actions against Microsoft did not result in a concrete remedy, they achieved their purpose by spurring competition among browsers. A large share of the credit for this competition is due Mozilla and its Firefox browser. The New York Times examines the impact of Google's entry in the browser and operating system spaces on the future of Mozilla.

There is also a good analysis of the Microsoft-Google battle in CNN - Google vs. Microsoft: What you need to know.

The upshot of most te analysis is that Microsoft and Google are battling for position on the "webtop", when businesses and consumers move away from locally owned storage and memory to computing on the cloud. While it is not clear how it will shake out for either company, consumers are likely to benefit from increased competition in browsers, operating systems, and web applications.

Financial Reform and Venture Capital (Jaideep Venkatesan)

Last month, President Obama unveiled his plan for financial regulation. The administration's
draft included a provision to bring "private pools of capital" under regulation, potentially subjecting venture capital funds to disclosure requirements, margin and reserve limitations, and other regulations that govern traditional banks and bank alternatives.

Financial reform bringing "shadow banking" under regulation is essential to prevent a replay of the financial crisis of 2008 that froze credit and ushered in the current recession/depression. However, it is an open question as to whether venture capital funds function in a manner similar to banks and pose the same systemic risks if left unregulated.

The National Venture Capital Association wasted no time in opposing the financial regulatory plan. The Association made the boilerplate opposition to financial regulation typical of the Washington Consensus. Given the current plunge in Venture capital funding, poorly designed regulation can exacerbate the economic downturn. Nonetheless, the current crisis requires a financial overhaul, and given the importance of venture capital funding to technological innovation and the economy, it should not be left out of the new financial regulatory regime.

Web 2.0 and the Federal Government (Jaideep Venkatesan)

The Center for American Progress has an interesting report on the Federal Government's potential use of Web 2.0 technologies (defined as free hosted services for posting and sharing content) both for internal government processes and in its interactions with the public. The Report notes the need to update Federal government procurement rules applicable to the software, which predate the internet (much less Web 2.0 technologies). It recommends that the government bridge the tension between encouraging government employees to use hosted services as much as possible with the potential that the government be seen as endorsing certain services without following the strictures of procurement rules.

Web 2.0 Report (pdf)

Oracle & Sun: Concentration in IT (Jaideep Venkatesan)

The reaction to Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems has people buzzing about the potential combination of Oracle's database and enterprise application technology with Sun's hardware expertise (as well as its software innovations such as JAVA). The San Jose Mecury news notes that the acquisition makes sense in light of the efforts by other IT giants such as IBM, Cisco (noted in this post) and HP to acquire smaller companies at bargain prices to expand their product line. Cisco Subnet (a blog serving members of the Cisco customer community) relates that at least one analyst suggests that the merger is good for Cisco, which has partnered with Oracle and generally has a good relationship with Sun. InfoWeek contemplates whether Oracle's acquisition will spell the end of Java, by manipulating the development of a language relied upon by Oracle competitors IBM and SAP.

Cisco Expands in the DataCenter and Consumer Electronics (Jaideep Venkatesan)

Cisco was in the news last week for two ambitious but seemingly disconnected expansions from its core of dominating electronic equipment.

Cisco first announced its entry into server market, offering its first blade servers for Datacenters, many of whom already use Cisco's networking equipment. The server will be part of Cisco's Unified Computing System, which would include a Cisco Switch and third party software, and is offered to reduce DataCenter costs. It is widely seen as a threat to IBM and HP, who have traditionally partnered with Cisco in offering complementary products to its networking equipment, including servers. It has also provoked a Youtube video response from Mike Klayko, CEO of Brocade Communications Systems, another Blade server provider threatened by Cisco's new foray. Klayko argues that customers will not want to buy into Cisco's propietary system, as that risks higher costs and lock-in.

Cisco also announced its acquisition of Pure Digital , maker of Flip digital camcorders, signaling a foray into consumer electronics and inspiring immediate speculation that it would challenge other consumer electronics firms or companies such as Apple with a presence in several markets.

Curiously, no one has really linked the two developments or explained how they fit into Cisco's overall strategy.

Atari video games (Jaideep Venkatesan)

Slate Senior Editor Michael Agger has an interesting article about the Atari 2600, Montfort based on a new book by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, Racing the Beam. Montfort and Bogost are professors in Media Studies who have written the first book in what is to be a series on technology platforms. Reading about Atari certainly brought back memories of playing Combat, Yars Revenge, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is amazing how Atari started the home video game industry, was seemingly successful in the early 1980's, only to fizzle out and then watch Nintendo flourish and take over the industry.

Agger doesn't really explain how Atari failed, other than to say:

"A lot of us started playing games on home computers. A bunch of big-time cartridges, like the infamous E.T., were huge busts, and retailers became gun-shy about ordering more titles and sent the ones they had on the shelves back. The returns bankrupted third-party game developers and fueled an industry consensus that video games were a fad—a toy whose time had passed. In two years, Nintendo would prove everyone very wrong."

It would be intriguing if Atari suffered, at least in part, because of the availability of home computers, a general purpose technology that allowed access to some interesting games but nothing like was available on single purpose devices such as Atari or Nintendo. The video game industry eventually evolved to use both general purpose PCs or Apples and single purpose devices such as the Xbox or the Wii. So I suspect that the availability of home computers wasn't really what did Atari in, but further investigation is needed.