Almost missed this one from last week: Microsoft buys up Connectix' Virtual PC product line. (It's a Windows simulator for Macs, just so you know.)

"Adding Virtual PC to its product portfolio is yet another example of Microsoft's continued commitment to the Mac platform," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "For 14 years, Virtual PC has helped people who want to own a Mac but need to run legacy PC applications. We're glad to see Virtual PC go into such good hands."

10:16:18 PM    

So the new blog-meister of Harvard unloads some baggage from the Valley past onto the Blogger/Google deal, gets called on it by Ev, and squirts a little PC ink on the whippersnapper. Before getting down to substance, I'd like to award Mastodon (you ask him) a well deserved membership in the Old Farts' Club of this blog, with badge #2, no less. Now to it:

No, dude, it's not about age, it's about attitude. Yes, growing companies in the Valley necessarily suck in some of the same recycled folks we met in our last lifetime - we seldom give up and leave. But a company is an organization with a life and continuity and value system all of its own, and it does matter. The starting vision, the shared goals, the people mix, the inside jokes and little rituals are part of how we build and replicate culture here. Not many of us are given hits, and not many of those products and companies last for more than a cycle. All I'll ask is: What did they do with the time when they danced in the sun? Did they make the lives of their users and people more interesting, productive, challenging, awesome? Because of Ev and his Godforsaken yoyo servers I've met the Instapundit, the Pejmanpundit, the Blogger of Baghdad and a host of others, and I'm the richer for it. Google was a breath of fresh air in a portal business besotted with rich media and stickiness, and they've held to that vision. I've been repeatedly awed looking at a results page and realizing that they are running algorithms in production that qualify as cutting edge research. They've earned every freaking bit of share the hard and honest way. So this Old Fart wishes well upon the marriage and its fruits. Mazel Tov!

It won't last, of course. Schumpeter lurks round every corner out here, in the headhunters, the bogus mergers and bad hires, and down at the Repo Depot. Maybe what Dave means is they will get you in the end, and maybe sooner. Yeah. But how will you dance in the meantime?
9:58:44 PM    

Google at least internally has a thing about 'not being evil' - which seems to translate to not taking egregious advantage of their users and their attention and computers - which has been rewarded with growing share and acclaim (and maybe an IPO someday). Now maybe a little devil has crept into the details: Kottke describes a lawyerly letter received by one who dared to lexiconize 'to google (v.)' I suppose they've got to nominally protect the trademark, and it may indeed be the case that they have little intent or actual recourse to litigation. Still, I'd like to see them specify the damages for putting around a word that can only lead to more site traffic. Maybe put a smiley at the end of that lawyerly letter, eh?

And just so I can possibly have a little of that fun: You realize that trademark/IP attorney must spend a fair amount of his day googling for Google? And if Wordspy were hosted on blogspot, then he would be googling bloogle for Google? Just thought you'd want to consider it. I also award cluepoints to entrepreneurs who have googled me when I show up, and of course I google them in return if I'm really interested in their deal. (And we know all about caches and Internet Archive and deja, so those ill-considered alt. posts and the frat party photos will follow you forever, just like a bad credit report. Bwahahaha!)

Via BoingBoing
5:51:34 PM