• Palm’s former CEO Jon Rubenstein proves HP bought a bad apple, and worse he rebuts poor Touchpad reviews with correlation to the past. Poor strategy is once again married to bad PR. Success in technology is no longer dependent on just cool hardware, but a seamless user experience that blends the previously disparate components. And that emphasis does not only require a skill Palm does not have, it requires something HP does not have today either. HP needs to make harder calls to compete in this marketplace, self cannibalization would be an appropriate strategy for a company who’s customers have already voted against them. [Links: AppleInsider]

Tags: CalPERS, Palm

• I love how eBay started out with an electronic version of the Dutch auction free-market principles of selling. I have used eBay sporadically in the past and just recently tried it again by selling a fully maxed out built-to-order 2010 MacBook Pro that I had used for two weeks. My experience was not great: the first buyer was someone who used someone else's account without their approval, the second one was a new buyer from Latvia (even though the transaction restricted shipment to US only). So, rather than eBay swaying new transactions and launching 50 free-listings beginning the month of April perhaps it should ensure that the trust of its tenants is secured first. Because arguably, both of the above described fake transactions should not need to occur if eBay over the years had spent more time building software algorithms and protections to nail down those who inevitably try to abuse a free-market system. eBay's price reductions are a losing gambit if it does not protect the trust of those who enter its free-market system. If my third attempt does not reach a trusted buyer I will invoke the three-strikes-and-you're-out rule.
• I was an early adopter of the first iPad last summer and have since settled on a fully-loaded MacBook Air for work and passed my iPad to my eager six year old who now also enjoys watching Cable TV on it. The reason I am not buying the iPad2 is that there is no smooth migration strategy from the "old" way of computing to the new. Or perhaps more distinctly, the iPad is great for information consumption and not very suited for information creation. And once you find yourself switching those modes frequently, the iPad is not for you. Apple should focus more on the software support for iPad rather than trump the hardware specs, a "Rosetta"-like transparent migration to iPad would have been great. But then again, I can understand how chasing a massive greenfield of customers may just be too tempting for Apple. At least equip the Macbook Air with a 3G/4G antenna already, so we get parity on the connectivity side of things. [Links: Apple]

Tags: eBay, Free-market, iPad, Apple

• Everyone with loads of data collected on their computer over the last decade should buy a Drobo. Having daisy chained Firewire 800 external backup drives to a server for quite a while, I have seen the fragility of these commoditized (and sometimes low quality) drives with numerous failures. One such failure wiped out a set of original photographs of which only smaller digital replicas remained. No longer, Drobo can host a minimum of 4 standard SATA drives (one 2TB drive now costs around $79) and automatically and transparently protects against any single drive failure. Without any downtime the system reconfigures itself around one fewer drive, and a simple replacement (or upgrade) of the failing drive re-establishes the storage capacity. Drobo is a must have for anybody with a large iTunes, photography or business library of files and should really be built into many OEM computer strategies. Why VC investors Greylock, NEA, RRE and Sutter Hill have not been able to blow up this company in size and to an IPO already is a mystery to me, or is it? [Links: Drobo]
• Microsoft allegedly paid Nokia a $1B to play nice. Tells you who is the ugly rich guy in this marriage. Both companies need a pick-me-up, but not from each other. What do you think will happen when two losers collide? [Links: BusinessWeek, two losers don't make a winner]

Tags: Drobo, RAID, Storage, Microsoft, Nokia, Greylock, NEA, RRE, Sutter Hill

• AT&T’s chief wants cross-platform mobile apps sales through standardization of store programming methods (through the carrier). Oh please Randall Stephenson, now that your iPhone cartel ride has evaporated you want standardization. Like Java? Remember the damage that did to my DVD player at home? I prefer the rat race on completely proprietary, yet ultimate computing experiences that earn their merit based on authentic customer adoption, rather than complex developer collusions that break so easily.
• With Adium on a Mac you can now connect directly to Facebook chat, without a Facebook page open. Simply add a Jabber account with your Facebook username (not your email address, can be found under the account profile menu) composed as follows: username@chat.facebook.com and enter your Facebook password, and that’s it (do not add a Jabber server etc.).

Tags: Economy, Budget, Government, AT&T, iPhone, Facebook

• Nokia and Microsoft are teaming up. Do two losers make one winner? Good luck blending two losing platforms together. The problem is your business model Microsoft, from which you can never build an ultimate computing experience.
• Apple’s iAds are hurting according to TechCrunch. No surprise, since when does a company that builds great value to consumers and gained their trust expect to be successful in attracting technology that does the opposite? Traditional online advertising is dead anyway (in terms of producing real turnover), social recommendations are much more valuable and less disturbing.
• Cisco’s top consumer executive is leaving. What a surprise, coming from a little company called Flip video cameras that Cisco acquired in 2009. Cisco’s proficiency in consumer technologies requires a rebuild of their DNA. For the exact same reasons Oracle has a problem driving anything into the market beyond its core business model. I have been there, tried that.
• Did you know medical device introductions happen 1-3 years faster in Europe than they do in the US? So says the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency. Request the study here. I am sure the FDA has something to do with that. You can probably get them to market even faster in Mexico.

Tags: Medical, Innovation, Investors, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Apple, iAds, Microsoft, Nokia

• Sometimes my Macbook Air is without air, especially when switching screens with my 27 inch display. Panic crash report alludes to problems with NVIDIA, maybe time for Apple to make their own graphics cards and step away from PC derived commodities? But when it has air, this little computer is the best one I have owned so far, gotta love 6-7 hours of battery life.
• More free-market lies. Not only do travel sites suggest to give you the ultimate selection of available flights to a certain destination and charge airlines a fee to come out on top, they also omit certain flights that do not involve flying to a preferred vendor’s hub first. Such is the case with my flight to Amsterdam today, where the only way to book it from Raleigh to Amsterdam via (the shortest path) Washington is to do it the old-fashioned way, directly with the airlines. Good to know Expedia.
• More excellence needed at Apple. Ever noticed that the definition of iTunes varies based on the computing device you use? On the Mac it is the all encompassing music library, on the iPhone iTunes is where you purchase and iPod is where you play, on the iPad the same as the iPhone except that videos play in an external video app. Get it together Apple!

Tags: Macbook Air, NVIDIA, Apple, Expedia, iTunes

Tags: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Bosch, Macro-economics, Silicon Valley, Android, iOS, Photography, RIM, Operating System, Innovation

Tags: Limited Partners, Innovation, VC, Entrepreneurs, Eco-systems, Evolution, Experience, Subprime

Tags: HP, Microsoft, CEO, Innovation, Integrity, Oracle, Apple