Joe Peichel

New Kid In Town During a lunch meeting the other day, my wife called and asked, "Honey, can I buy another horse?" When she asks a question like that, there's only one possible answer. Meet Simon, the latest addition to the ranch. So far, he seems to be everything my wife wanted (but didn't get) when she bought a filly about 5 years ago. Simon's calm, friendly, very rideable, and brings a little color to the current bunch. He's only been here a couple of days and has already integrated into the herd. Most horses fall victim to the bullying of my wife's older gelding, who tends to dominate any new blood who dares to approach. Simon simply looks at him and wonders why he's making such a fuss, screeching and snorting and rearing while Simon stands calmly. Bodes well for getting him into an arena to show! Welcome, Simon.

OLPC project clarifies: no plans for Windows support I'm a big OLPC fan, and an advocate of open source. When news surfaced over the last few weeks of a Windows-based version , I was concerned about the potential negative impact of commercial forces on the admittedly idealistic goals of OLPC. It turns out that the way AP and other news sources reported the original story, attributing comments (but not directly quoting) Nicholas Negroponte, head of the nonprofit organization operating the OLPC project, mischaracterized the relationship between OLPC and Microsoft, drawing implications which may occur as a result of market forces but not due to any special relationship between OLPC and Microsoft. The following quote from Walter Bender, president of Software and Content at OLPC, certainly clarified things for me: "We are a free and open-source shop. We have no one from OLPC working with Microsoft on developing a Windows platform for the XO. MS doesn't get any special treatm...

Bare Metal Restore important to SMBs CMP's ByteandSwitch news source offers The Bare Metal Facts , an interesting tidbit about what SMBs consider most important in backup products and services. I was particularly interested in the bulleted list near the beginning of the article, and several of those points stand out for me as significant opportunities: SMBs think archiving and backup go hand-in-glove. SMBs would prefer to deal with a bundled hardware/software solution from one vendor, instead of buying point products. SMBs are looking to get off tape and onto disk archiving. It would seem to me that a company that could address these concerns effectively could capture significant marketshare, given the current competitive landscape. As the article points out, many of the traditional storage giants seem to be too focused on other aspects of the market to accurately meet the needs of SMBs, creating a gap into which a smart and agile competitor can step. I expect even the big guns i...