Sony versus Apple

PC World: "Sony is preparing to take another swing at Apple Computer's iPod digital music player."

This is interesting news, but I wonder how much of a "full solution" to portable music and media management Sony will offer and how consumer friendly it will be. Does anyone really want the Sony versus of iTunes or Windows Media Player? I'm not really sure yet. After their rootkit issues I'm not sure how excited anyone will be to rush out and buy media players from Sony only to find out after the fact the influence that Sony Media may have had on the product.

Kingsley Idehen on Virtuoso and Open Source Databases

Jon Udell: A conversation with Kingsley Idehen

What the heck is going on over at Oracle?

ZDNet quotes Jesper Anderson, a senior executive at Oracle: "I mean I've been in meetings with Larry where people walked in with purchase order requests for big Sun Solaris or HP-UX servers and Larry just looked at it and said 'Nope, denied'. And then he turned around and said 'it's not the money, you come back to me with a purchase order, same amount or more for Linux, and I'll approve it right away'."

Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that Larry Ellison is personally handling purchase orders at Oracle? Weird…

Naked marketing

Robert Scoble: "Force marketing to explain their decisions – in public on their blogs."

McNealy steps down as Sun’s CEO

Between The Lines: "Scott McNealy stepped Sun CEO after 22 years at the helm, replaced by President and COO Jonathan Schwartz today, after the company announced its quarterly results. McNealy will remain as chairman."