Scot Petersen

We knew the Internet was going to change everything. We just didnt know by how much. Its not exactly what we had in mind, but the future is here, now. So we might as well deal with it and make the most of it. Some technology companies already are. Whereas a company like Microsoft is […]

In this summer of our discontent, its hard to see any sign of the drastic cuts corporations are making in business travel budgets. The last plane I took met the “very full” standard set by the flight attendants, at one point there was a line 20 minutes long to get into the bathroom, and I […]

Its difficult to be optimistic about much these days. I dont need to go into the gory details. Yet I just returned from a place where the future is bright, the bandwidth is plentiful, and everyone is plugged in, online and interacting. The place was the CTAM Summit, held in San Francisco. The participants were […]

Part 2. Last week, I tried to explain why I think so many online businesses have been failing: I attributed the failures to a lack of consumer demand for Internet-based services when traditional retail and service outlets serve just fine. In other words, consumers have let us know what it is about the Internet that […]

Part 1: the post-mortems continued this month in the wake of the latest high-profile dot-com failures, including online grocers Webvan and HomeRuns. Some observers have speculated that the closings of these ventures were particularly cruel in that, unlike other dot-bombs, the grocers at least offered some real value and convenience to their customers. That may […]

You may be set to embark on your summer vacation. Its a time to get away from the things you deal with the rest of the year. Heres my list of things to do or not do: Get away from your computer. Do you ever get the feeling that your world exists only inside 1,024 […]

Im not the first to notice that theres a certain relationship between Microsoft and its customers—especially the developers, who enjoy all the benefits of being part of the worlds largest computing community, one that is led by one of the worlds richest and most powerful companies. There are complainers in the group, but, overall, the […]

I always get a little suspicious when some of the worlds richest executives, such as Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, take it upon themselves to donate millions of dollars to fund university research centers. The latest is Ellisons decision to fund, at either Harvard or Stanford University, a $150 million “politics, economics and technology” center […]

The summer blockbuster season is upon us, and i dont know about you, but I cant wait. If you cant either, why not just sit back and get your preview of summertime action here: “Perl” Harbor (PG-13): The tranquil setting of this out-of-the-way scripting language is ripped apart as the evil forces of Visual Basic […]

I hope these are the last words I write about Microsoft Office, at least as the giant application suite is currently configured. As strongly as officials in Redmond deny or deflect any notion that XP, the latest version package, is the last of a dying breed, it would be good for all of us—and Microsoft—that […]