Due to the fluid nature of the web, we can't guarantee these links will work past the original posting date.

In case you missed it, this is last week's column about IBM selling its PC division.

This is the weblog for Bill Moffitt, Sun's top Solaris guy. Notice that the last entry was September 8th. While this might indicate a flurry of creative activity that will save the company, my guess is no.

For the moment at least Microsoft's File Allocation Table (FAT) patent has been denied, perhaps sparking this rise of cross-licensing deals that concentrate future legal action on the competitors least able to afford it. Sound familiar?

IBM is the world's largest ASIC supplier. The chip business is a VOLUME business and unless you sell millions and millions of the things you aren't going to be successful. But if you DO sell millions and millions the economies of scale can cover a multitude of other corporate sins, which is exactly why IBM is targeting this business. They can keep the overblown management if most of the revenue generation is automated.

Some folks think Microsoft will start to compete with its hardware OEMs as early as 2006 with a workstation version of the xBox 2. I don't think so. The product will be late, Microsoft will back down, but they'll finally do it with xBox 3.