If..Else Log

BBC News: Oracle is buying US rival Siebel Systems in a deal worth $5.85bn (£3.2bn) in cash and stock.

"In a single step, Oracle becomes the number one CRM [customer relationship management] applications company in the world," said Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison.

When I used to work for Oracle, I remember Peoplesoft, Siebel, IBM and Sap were the companies to watch out for; now that Oracle has bought out 2 of their big rivals, it'll be interesting to watch how the market place shapes out.

Ars Technica review the iPod Nano; the interesting things was how strong the thing was. Even driving over the thing didn't kill it

Surely, we thought, it could never withstand the crushing power of German automotive engineering… Baffled, we did the only thing we could think of at the time: we ran over the nano again!

Oh, how I want one…

Online auction site eBay has agreed to buy internet telephone company Skype Technologies in a $2.6bn (£1.4bn) deal.

Media reports have speculated that as well as looking to tap into the growing internet phone market, eBay is also attracted by the idea of letting its buyers and sellers talk to each other via their computers.
BBC News

So, according to the BBC News article this is about "letting buyers and sellers communicate via phone". Whilst there are advantages in opening up communication channels (as well as grabbing a greater slice of the burgeoning IP telephony market), as a reason for spending 3 billion on a company, it falls quite short.

By combining the two leading ecommerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with the leader in Internet voice communications, we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net.
Skype press release

This is more likely to be less about eBay integrating their auction business with Skype and instead, about them creating a new market using Paypal. I'm not necessarily talking about moving from a free service to a low cost, topup service using Paypal as micropayments though this would be viable. The reason this is risky is because of the upcoming increasing competition from open systems as well as from the powerhouse of Google (via Google Talk)

The more likely scenario would be eBay utilising their Paypal infrastructure and tying that in with Skype to create a low barrier service for small businesses. With nothing more than a Paypal account and Skype, any person can set up a paid for service without any cost; eBay would simply take a cut similar to what they do in their other businesses.

Together we feel we can really change the way that people communicate, shop and do business online.
Skype press release

Phone competitions, chat services, tech support, up-to-date information services such as sport results; these can all be setup without reams of paperwork and with a lesser cut all from the comfort of your living room.

Regardless of whether this is the reason or not, it's without question that the the purchase would be primarily influenced by money. eBay will be looking for a healthy ROI on their 2.6 billion dollars. The question is, where would that return come from?

Other thoughts on the web: Mark Evans believes that the purchase was defensive; Andy Abramson believes that contrary to my opinons, that this is predominantly integration driven. Om Malik and James Enck raise questions before answers.

The Guardian have an article on the bad reporting of Science in the media. It's a good read and something that I'd considered writing about myself.

MS KB 276304.

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For some bizarre reason, O'Reilly decided to use a generic girl in a tank top as their cover image for their Heads First Design Pattern book (quite what she has to do with the GoF and DP, I'm not sure). However, it seems that she's been found moon-lighting on the Vagisil Teen Center web site. The perils of using stock photos…

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

So according to O'Reilly, personal hygiene products and hardcore programming techniques go hand in hand… [via]

Paul Thurrott has revealed the product names for the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista Line. All seven of them.

• Windows Vista Starter Edition
• Windows Vista Home Basic Edition
• Windows Vista Home Premium Edition
• Windows Vista Professional Edition
• Windows Vista Small Business Edition
• Windows Vista Enterprise Edition
• Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Now my question is, should I go for the Home Basic Edition, Starter Edition or Home Premium? Or maybe I should plump for the Small Business Edition. No, I think the Professional Edition is for me. Or maybe I should play it safe and go for the Ultimate edition? Decisions, decisions…

Still, I think they missed the opportunity for Super Windows Vista II Turbo: Hyper Fighting edition.

Flow|State is a brilliant User Interface Design blog by Jan Miksovsky. Whilst the frequency of posts is less regular than most (though in my case, the words pot, kettle and black spring to mind), each entry is well worth the wait. [via]

Andrew Sutherland (aka Jalenack) has released a Mint Pepper plugin for tracking outgoing clicks.

Dave Shea has finally given CSSZenGarden a proper gallery archive.