Microsoft, Apple & Twitter News June 27, 2011

Originally posted on Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com, here: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/apple/microsoft-apple-twitter-news-june-27-2011.html.

It’s been a busy day in tech and communications news – so far these are a few of the stories worth knowing about:

Microsoft needs to get larger? Scott Rothbort at TheStreet gives us eight companies Microsoft should buy – and you know what, some of these make great sense such as Adobe & Netflix but in reading the article, I wonder if Yahoo! makes sense anymore. Then again a management shakeup could help get the company to start competing more effectively against Facebook and Google. There are some hosting/cloud vendors and hardware vendors suggested as well – but does Microsoft need to get bigger at this point? Many think it is too big already and if anything needs to start running in a more lean fashion – which of course means spinning some parts off or selling them. For more check out my critique of Microsoft and Steve Ballmer.

It’s raining iPhones: Earlier today I tweeted about the rumors surrounding the iPhone 5 but it seems perhaps – according to some analysts we will see not only an iPhone 5 this year but also an iPhone 4S. If Apple does come out with two new phones there will certainly be the potential for confusion in the market but if both phones are sufficiently differentiated from one another in features and cost it could really make life difficult for RIM, Nokia and Microsoft as Cupertino will have strong offerings the medium and high-ends of the market.

Reinventing the tracking device: Wired has an article about how complex p2p WiFi telematics systems are being experimented with to help reduce traffic congestion and to me this seems pretty silly as TomTom, Apple and Google already have much of this data via GPS devices located in hundreds of millions of cars. Do we really need a new and more complex investment from global governments which are mostly broke when there could be an app for that?

WiFi, WiFi Everywhere – Even in the air: Boingo is getting even better through its partnership with Gogo inflight wireless. Basically for the million plus Boingo users (like me) we can now access Gogo WiFi on flights from AirTran Airways, Delta Airlines, Virgin America, Air Canada, Alska Airlines, American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, United Airlines, and US Airways and pay around $5-$13 per flight for access based on flight duration. This deal is more about not needing to remember another password rather than saving money. Personally I think the airlines should be forced to chip in a few bucks towards passenger broadband access every time the pilot decides to make an unnecessary announcement about some trivial event taking place outside the windows which are always on the opposite side of the plane from where I’m sitting.

From breaking news to breaking tweets: Twitter launched a new guide for journalists and I am not thrilled with the ease of use of the new page they but the content is solid. Perhaps the best part of the guide is the testimonial from Jake Tapper of ABC News:

The way [Twitter has] been most useful is in terms of following people. I’ve been able to use it for reporting and to find sources. Last year when a health insurance company raised its premiums in California and it affected thousands of people, I didn’t know how to reach any of them, so I sent a Tweet out to my followers: “Is there anybody out there who is a customer of Anthem Blue cross who got their insurance premiums raised?”

@lemoneyes tweeted me that she had and so I followed her. I got her information through DM and then emailed her, we verified her situation and then we sent a camera crew to her. The next morning she was on ABC’s Good Morning America. There is no way I could have done that before.

Tags: apple, boingo, gogo, iphone, microsoft, twitter, wifi Related tags: microsoft, airlines, access, iphone, twitter, apple