Top Items:
Rob Hof / TechBeat:
Why eBay Is Buying Skype — Here's my quick take, below, an edited version of which will appear in a few hours at businessweek.com. CEO Meg Whitman & Co. gave an impassioned rationale for the deal. I can certainly see that if Skype meets its ambitious goals, the deal could pay off eventually.
RELATED ITEMS:
David Gibbons / poductivity:
Why eBay bought Skype — Amazing marriage today of the 2 most viral solutions online - ebay bought skype. — The pundits have been in a tailspin since rumors leaked a few weeks ago and since then, speculation has been rampant and varied as to whether or not this deal made sense.
BBC:
eBay to buy Skype in $2.6bn deal — Online auction site eBay has agreed to buy internet telephone company Skype Technologies in a $2.6bn (£1.4bn) deal. — eBay said it would pay half the amount in cash and the other half in stocks to create "an unparalleled e-commerce and communications engine".
Discussion:
TechSpot, Aqute Market Research, Alex Barnett blog, Associated Press and The Silent Penguin
Anne Broache / CNET.com:
eBay to nab Skype for $2.6 billion — update eBay plans to buy Net telephone provider Skype in a move aimed at boosting its sales volumes and supplying seamless voice communications to its consumers. — Company executives said Monday that eBay plans to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion …
Times of London:
New legal threat to Google over GMail — Google, the internet search engine, is facing a renewed threat of legal action from a company that claims to own the intellectual property rights to its GMail e-mail service. — Independent International Investment Research, a British company …
RELATED ITEM:
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Announcing Memorandum to track Tech and Politics/News blogs — Here's some very cool non-Microsoft news that I'm proud to announce (I am the first site to report this news). — I'm on the phone with Gabe Rivera, emperor of Memeorandum. He is, at this very moment, turning on major …
Yahoo! News:
Tech Notebook: We hear VoIP gets excellent mileage — All the major tech companies — including Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google — have been investing millions of dollars in VoIP, an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol, which is a fancy term for making phone calls over the Internet.
Alan Reiter / Wireless Muse:
First impressions: IBM X41 Tablet PC — A mere seven weeks (less three days) after I ordered an IBM/Lenovo X41 Tablet PC — only four weeks longer than the original estimate — it arrived. — Like so many others who ordered the X41 (and who also have been frustrated by Lenovo's rotten logistics …
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Note to Mary Jo: Sparkle is no Flash killer — Mary Jo Foley gives her predictions of what's coming at the PDC: More Developers, More Developers, More Developers! — One thing I gotta correct. I used to think that Sparkle was a Flash killer. Hey, that was good hype cause that team hired …
Ed Taylor / eastvalleytribune.com:
Motorola develops 'polite' phone to help reduce incidents of distracted drivers — With concerns mounting over the safety of cell phone use while driving, Motorola's Driving Simulator Lab in Tempe is testing mobile phones that can analyze driving conditions and avoid distracting the driver.
Andrew Donoghue / ZDNet:
Novell: Vista will drive users to Linux … Jack Messman claims the tipping point for desktop Linux will come at the end of next year when companies are confronted by the cost of moving to Windows Vista — The high costs of migrating from Windows XP to Windows Vista will be the catalyst …
extremetech.com:
Part I: 64-bit vs. 32-bit Windows — Windows XP Professional x64 edition is clearly not a mainstream product. For example, though you can order Dell Dimension XPS models with XP X64 installed, Dell gives you this rather dire warning when you try to buy a system with the OS installed:
Discussion:
TechSpot
PC World:
Sun Unveils New Servers — Trio of Sun Fire systems are first of 'Galaxy' class machines aimed at financial industry. — Sun Microsystems is expected to unveil the first members of its long-awaited "industry-standard" 64-bit server family at its quarterly product rollout in New York City Monday.