[That's what happens when there's no competition]
Is computer science dead?
,----[ Quote ]
| The university offers a general IT overview in the first year of
| its technology degree, branching into business analysis, software
| development, system administration and computer science. There
| are 40 students in computer science, down from 200 15 years ago.
`----
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/03/12/1173548107417.html?from=top5
Also today:
Sources say Microsoft near deal to buy Tellme
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is close to acquiring privately held Tellme Networks, a
| maker of products that bridge the worlds of speech recognition
| and the Internet, CNET News.com has learned.
`----
http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-6166481.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
Oracle buys another database
,----[ Quote ]
| Oracle and IBM are both competitors and partners. In the case of
| databases they are certainly rivals, with Oracle 10g and DB2
| going head-to-head at many sites. However, it has occurred to
| me to wonder if Oracle is seeking to rival IBM's crown as the
| owner of the most different databases.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/13/oracle_database_collection/
How can anyone compete against software patents, integration, and marketing?
The monopolies have built barriers and they just buy every potential threat.
Unless there's proper regulation (e.g. acqisitions antitrust), Free software
and services are the only hope. If you don't support Free software, then you
support Microsoft and its ilk.
Related:
Big businesses boast of patent benefits, for small businesses
,----[ Quote ]
| A report published by an EU task force on intellectual property claims
| that small businesses benefit from a patent system, despite lacking
| almost any participation by the small business community.
|
| Instead, the report, titled IPR (intellectual property rights) for
| competitiveness and innovation, was written up almost entirely by
| large corporations and the patent industry.
|
| [...]
|
| The report does note objections from the likes of patentfrei.de and
| Sun Microsystems, which were recorded at some length in the report.
| But this does not appear to have impacted the conclusion of the
| report in any way
|
| [...]
|
| Jean-Pierre Laisne, of ObjectWeb, an open source software community,
| said that he found the report useless: participants were told that
| all their contributions would be recorded but at the end only
| those of Business Software Alliance and Microsoft were used.
`----
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/99155/big-businesses-boast-of-patent-benefits-for-small-businesses.html
