silicon.com - Apple 'world's fastest' ad banned from UK TV

silicon.com - Apple 'world's fastest' ad banned from UK TV: Television regulators have banned an ad for Apple Computer's Power Mac G5, saying its claim to the title 'world's fastest personal computer' is not fully supported.

"While reviewers initially gave the ad the OK, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) this week decided to take action after receiving eight complaints from viewers. The agency concluded: 'There was insufficient evidence to support the claim 'world's fastest, most powerful personal computer'.' "


SAD: Tough audience...I guess someone actually pays attention to ads, go figure!

IMPlanet News Briefs

IMPlanet News Briefs: "'With the number of IM sessions taking place in the business sector expected to almost triple this year, and so much uncertainty regarding IM products, integration strategies and business value, there's a significant need for comprehensive research examining these issues,' says Paul Ritter, Yankee Group program manager for collaboration research, said in a statement released earlier in the week. "


SAD: I imagine we'll see more comprehensive research reports on IM, dynamic collaboration and more importantly the 'P' word -- presence...

Cisco Joins Conferencing Battle

Cisco Joins Conferencing Battle: "While Cisco examines ways to tie MeetingPlace into its offerings, Latitude has made some recent steps of its own toward integrating the product into related technologies. In August, the firm struck a deal with FaceTime Communications, an instant messaging management gateway vendor, that sought to create an MeetingPlace add-on enabling users to launch Webcollaboration, document sharing and voice conferencing from IM sessions.
Slated to be launched later this quarter as the MeetingPlace IM Gateway, the add-on would provide these capabilities to business workers using the major public IM networks -- such as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger -- or enterprise IM solutions like Lotus Instant Messaging, Microsoft Exchange Messaging and Live Communications Server. "
...
The Redmond, Wash., giant recently released a new version of LiveMeeting with the Office 2003 package. "Microsoft's desktop franchise provides a big competitive advantage through integration with Office and Outlook," SG Cowen analysts said.

Cisco's arrival on the scene is likely a negative for WebEx, the San Jose, Calif., company that controls about 65 percent of the Web conferencing market, SG Cowen analysts said.

SAD: I would be looking for an extended relationship between Yahoo and Webex at this point...desperation isn't a strong basis for a relationship, but that hasn't stopped others from using it as a model...

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Free calls? So what's not to like?

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Free calls? So what's not to like?: "'If I were running an incumbent carrier, I don't think I would be terribly concerned about Skype at the moment, but I'd have it on my radar screen,' said Nancy Kaplan, a vice president with Adventis, a Boston telecom consulting firm. 'Having it be strictly computer-to-computer is somewhat limiting, but I think anybody who has to make a significant amount of international calls will find this interesting.'
Even if Skype is not a silver bullet aimed at the heart of conventional phone companies, Kaplan and other analysts expect it can be one more factor accelerating the erosion of their business. Skype could make deep inroads in certain now-lucrative markets, such as college students who make long phone calls or people who call family and friends overseas."

SAD: The title sums it about here. It's true that the short-term threat is for long distance services, but it's too easy to see the long-term threat against the Bell companies and cable companies (who want to extract dollars above the IP packet traffic). The quality, which I'll continue to crow about, is simply amazing - with only brief annoyances that, when you're paying nothing, are very easy to deal with.

"Linux is great" says Microsoft That magpie attitude, according to Microsoft, is mutual. Red Hat’s decision to end support for its free software and the Novell-SuSE link-up have put the last nail in the coffin of the free software model, the Redmond behemoth believes - even going so far as to speculate that the move from free to paid-for open source software is a validation of Microsoft’s way of doing business and the only way the open source movement can survive.

SAD: Sometimes there are a few things that only your competitors can answer for you...such as this