A-K

It's nice to see that Zuckerberg's letter actually addresses some key concerns about Instagram's future--a courtesy I haven't seen offered by many recent "acqhirers". However, to echo several other comments, it'll be interesting to see to what degree the stated intentions are actually upheld.

There's the "more information at a glance" marketing angle that Microsoft initially took, but that doesn't strike me as being sufficiently captivating for the average smartphone seeker.

Which I think is the article's salient point. I can see how some might think otherwise if they didn't bother to read all the way till the end.

Adam Riess! One of my friends took "Stars and the Universe" with him last semester here at Hopkins and really enjoyed the class (perhaps corroborating the claim that the most capable researchers tend to also be great educators).

So effectively Apotheker was brought in, trashed Palm, spun off the PC division, and now is getting the boot? The suggestion that HP replace the entirety of its upper management, Apple-circa-1996-style, is becoming more and more credible.

"A senior developer is expected to be fluent in client-side and server-side contexts, and know his or her way around Python, Ruby, or whatever other arcane technology requires taming."

There are definitely arcane technologies that developers have deal with, but Python and Ruby? Really?

True. Most of his (relatively) recent interviews have a very wistful tone to them.

I wonder the same thing.

Heroku is killing it. It's great to see them adding features and functionality at such a brisk pace.

Firefox is #1 in India? Pretty big accomplishment for Mozilla, though by the looks of it that position won't last long.

I would say Google Hangouts emulates chatting in a bar more than any Facebook feature does. Facebook, for me at least, has become the service that I use as a messaging tool, a constantly-updated "social newspaper", and an online rolodex.

Good point. It seems rather unsettling and dishonest if this was the plan all along. I guess in the coming months we'll see how the service evolves (and users react).

Agreed! Expensive? Sure it is. But I applaud Razor for trying something daring. Given how slim it is, those specs are pretty outrageous.

I agree on both points. Parse definitely has the potential to gain a lot of traction, but I'm not sure we'll see a Heroku-sized buyout.

"I’ve often thought of Apple as something like Singapore. It’s closed, restrictive, and authoritarian. And there’d deserve to be insurrection if things just didn’t work so damn well"

Witty comparison; I'd never thought about the similarities there.

"Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA."

Let's hope.

That penultimate paragraph is certainly a change in tune from Vic's I/O keynote last year... ;)

Gruber at his best. I get the feeling that he's had large pieces of this particular post in the works for quite some time.

From the quotes that were gathered from HP's PR, it sounds like they weren't at all confident in the TouchPad's ability to turn profits in the coming years. Assuming they didn't withhold a bunch of evidence that led them to that opinion, they'd surely have had a tough time finding a buyer. It also doesn't inspire a lot of confidence if you're trying to spin off a product division after giving it only 49 days on the market.

"It's really just a matter of time."

Is it though? Shipments don't equal sales.

http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/ipad_dominance

$1.2B for the acquisition, sure, but what about the money put into the development of the TouchPad, Pre 3, etc, in addition to the costs of distribution and marketing?

Regardless, it does seem like they could still make a hefty profit off of selling the patents (and if there's one thing we all need more of, it's patent talk...)

Tragic. It makes me wonder: Now what is Jon Rubinstein's future at HP?

Considering that they're the guys making "Dota 2", I'm inclined to agree.

Lumberjack phase > other phases

Very nice! Wood floors, high ceilings, and lots of open space. Good deal.

Almost fifteen years later, and that snarky statement is still the first thing I think of when someone mentions Michael Dell: http://news.cnet.com/Dell-Apple-should-close-shop/2100-1001_...

Can't imagine how awkward a meeting between Jobs and Dell would be--at least for Dell.

I did confused Nortel and Novell. My mistake. The biggest issue I guess I have is that, in addition to causing a fair bit of confusion, David Drummond didn't do Google any favors by originally writing as if they were also excluded from being included in the Novell buy. It's easy to backtrack once your competition has some illuminating facts to put out into the open.

I'm of the opinion that there aren't really any true winners, at least in the public's eye, in patent bidding wars. But Google has definitely stumbled through the post-bidding PR.

5by5.tv podcasts--Back To Work and The Talk Show are among my favorites

This Is My Next Podcast

Jordan, Jesse GO!

Stuff You Should Know

If you're into games, I'd also check out the Giant Bombcast

But Google had the choice to be a part of the consortium, according to Microsoft's counsel. Assuming that invitation was indeed extended, how does that jive at all with what you just quoted?