Posts tagged software
HP makes Web OS open source
Dec 15th
by Kye Husbands
You read that right and the first question probably going through your mind is, well, why the heck not?
Three months ago HP’s Touchpad, Web OS and their whole computer business were in the garbage, but HP’s recent move could resurrect Web OS and spur a whole new level of interest and traction for HP down the road.
HP Toucpad
Let’s be clear about this. This is a gamble by HP but they really don’t have anything to lose by doing it and rather, everything to gain. However, this move has the potential to be very disruptive to what was quickly becoming a two horse race between Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
So what does open sourcing Web OS mean for the smartphone industry?
There are more losers than winners with software patents
Dec 8th
by Monica Goyal
Today, it seems to be common rhetoric that if you are a successful software startup, you will eventually be sued. If you have conducted business in this industry for any length of time, you likely know of a company that has become the target of a software patent suit.
Monica Goyal
At times, the persons who come knocking on the door are those, whose only business assets are patents, where they don’t actually make any products. They usually seek some form of royalty from a legitimate business enterprise. Intellectual Ventures, for example, is reported to own 35,000 patents and earned $700M in revenue in royalties in 2010.
Another example can be seen with interactive television programme guides. Gemstar, acquired by Macrovision (now Rovi Corporation), holds the intellectual property rights for numerous interactive television programme guides, effectively controlling how millions of people find their favourite television shows. Read the rest of this entry »
Canada: We are not as simple as 10 per cent of the U.S. Market
Jul 13th
By: Krista Napier
What’s wrong with simply taking 10 per cent of the U.S. market for a rough estimate of the size of a particular sector in the Canadian IT space? A lot, when important decisions depend on accurate information.
Krista Napier
Yet, at a recent conference, I had someone ask me what was so wrong with that method. The “10 per cent rule” works with respect to population — as of July 5, 2011, there were around 311,699,825 people in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau population clock, and around 34,506,947 in Canada, according to Statistics Canada’s population clock. That’s 11 per cent.
So the assumption seems to be that if Canada’s population represents around 10 per cent of the U.S. then everything else we do with respect to technology will as well. That’s a bad assumption, and here are just a few reasons why: Read the rest of this entry »
Canadian businesses deserve price parity on hardware and software
Apr 21st
Canadians are getting ripped off.
For too long, we’ve been overpaying for software and hardware compared to our neighbours south of the border. Much like we also pay more for many retail goods including books, movies, clothes, and the list goes on.
Some salt was poured in that metaphorical sore point by the just-launched Apple iPad 2. Not only was tablet available sa couple of weeks earlier south of the border, but Americans paid $20 less for the tablet – $499 instead of $519 for the 16 GB, Wi-Fi only version for example.
Brian Jackson
Why IBM’s Watson is not smarter than a 5th grader
Apr 13th
By Lucas Mearian
As smart as IBM’s Watson supercomputer may have seemed while defeating two former Jeopardy champions , it wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation with or speak intelligently to the attendees at its own conference, according to artificial intelligence (A.I.) experts who spoke at MIT Monday.
“Although Watson is a tremendous engineering achievement, there are some things it can’t do,” said Patrick Henry Winston, a professor and former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. “For example, if there was a conference about Watson, Watson couldn’t attend. It would have nothing to say about itself. It can’t participate in discussions about how it works.” Read the rest of this entry »
Get 100 per cent tax write-off on computer purchases
Nov 17th
With the finicky economy and rising prices, things have not been good for many small and medium sized enterprises.
But as the year closes, it might bring some warm thoughts to business owners that they can take advantage of changes in Revenue Canada’s computer capital cost allowance (CCA) regulations. The CCA is a means by which Canadians may claim depreciation expense on tech products they have purchased for their business.
Nestor Arellano
The CCA rate for computer equipment acquired after January 27, 2009 and before February 2011 has been increased from 55 per cent to 100 per cent with no half-year rule.
The half-year rule allows tax payers to claim only half of the CCA available on n asset in the year that asset was purchased. Doing away with the rule means businesses can claim a full-write in the first tax year that CCA deductions are available. Read the rest of this entry »
6 things we hate about Google
Nov 12th
By Keir Thomas
I’m starting to get the feeling that Google’s Websites are over-engineered–so much so that I’m feeling nostalgia for the days of simple search when you just typed what you’re looking for and got a page of results.
Alas, somebody at Google headquarters believes those days are long gone.
With this in mind, here are my top six Google annoyances. Read the rest of this entry »
Free Linux tool determines open source compliance
Nov 9th
There are many ways that vendors of proprietary products try to scare business customers away from open source software, and one of the more commonly heard examples involves vague fears about compliance with open source licenses. There’s nothing like the specter of a good lawsuit to scare a company back into a paid vendor’s welcoming arms.
Katherine Noyes
Open source software such as Linux does involve licenses, it’s true, but complying with those licenses should not impose any significant burden on the company using such software. Nor should it be a reason to use proprietary products instead.
Aiming to help quash such fear, uncertainty and doubt, and to help companies focus their compliance efforts, the Linux Foundation this week unveiled a free self-assessment checklist designed to reduce the cost and complexity involved for the increasing number of companies using Linux.
