Rodent Regatta

IBM is doing two things of importance in my view. First, they are giving another boost to the notion of software-by-subscription. They’ve called it utility computing and on-demand computing. It was once hyped as the ASP model. Essentially, it treats reliable bandwidth as a given.

The second thing that they are doing is providing a multi-platform alternative to the productivity applications from Microsoft. This could become a much bigger announcement than it first appears to be. Prices appear to be between $2 and $4 per month per user. This means the annual cost for a 20-employee company might be as little as $960. Contrast that with Office 2003 which would likely cost at least $6000 or so.

More news and analysis concerning Blogger’s rebirth is flowing. There’s a long entry at the Stopdesign site.

• * * UPDATE * * * Here is Todd Dominey’s take on the project.

• * * UPDATE 2 * * * Jeffrey Zeldman discussed the announcement and proclaimed, ”Now anyone, at virtually any level, can own and manage an attractive and standards-compliant personal site.” [Just what I’ve always wanted, but I have not a clue as to how to get there with Movable Type.]

The ultimate timeline of Unix history.

After all the hoohah over the HP12C Platinum, the original remains as the one to beat. In spite of some new cosmetics and features, the new one simply doesn’t show enough improvement as a 20-year update of its predecessor. HP is still updating the calculator line since launching it in 1972.

What’s your current household data capacity? David Shea explains his own.