Dave

Transmeta founder Ditzel to join Intel

As they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Dave Ditzel, co-founder of chip company Transmeta, is joining Intel's Digital Enterprise Group to work with Steve Pawlowski, one of Intel's top architects. An Intel representative confirmed a report put out over the weekend by The Register that Ditzel would be joining forces with his one-time enemy.

Transmeta was way ahead of its time in pursuing a low-power microprocessor strategy, attempting to break into the notebook PC and blade server markets with its Crusoe chip. The trouble was, Crusoe's low-power design came at the expense of performance, and manufacturing issues… Read more

Miasole founder has new company

Dave Pearce, the founder and former CEO of thin film solar cell manufacturer Miasole, is tackling another angle of the solar economy with a new company.

The company, named Nuvosun, is trying to develop a film that will prevent moisture from penetrating, and subsequently screwing up the performance of, thin film solar panels, according to sources in the solar industry. Moisture penetration is a problem with thin film solar panels as well as organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDs, so Nuvosun may ultimately have two markets. Currently, however barrier films aren't cheap.

CNET News.com contacted Pearce, but have … Read more

One of the Open Season faithful

It's not often that I get to meet a listener of my Open Season podcast that I do with Ashlee Vance (The Register) and Dave Rosenberg (Mulesource). But today, I scored twice. I had a prospective customer meeting in the Northeast and walked into the room to discover that I was (in)famous.

It turns out that one of the two is married to a woman who used to date Dave Rosenberg back in college. Now, from this you could rightly guess that anyone married to anyone who dated Dave must have serious selection problems, making Alfresco a highly … Read more

'Before the Music Dies,' a documentary

Narrated by Forest Whitaker, Before the Music Dies, is a cautionary documentary focusing on the sad state of the music business. Or as someone so eloquently put it, "mixing music and art is a bad mix." The film is loaded with interviews and performances by Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, and Branford Marsalis.

Since its release in November 2006, the film has screened more than 200 times in more than 130 North American markets. Before the Music Dies is available as a download and DVD. Check the Web site for more info.

Episode 627: The first listener co-host show!

Dave Rosenberg joins CNET, takes on the world

Dave Rosenberg, my former blog partner and friend, has left Infoworld to join CNET as a blogger. His blog, Negative Approach, is classic Dave, and already has some great posts:

Novell as the new Metallica: Metallica went from being loved by millions to being whiny about Napster, taking the focus of the band off the music and onto the ugly business of the music industry. Ultimately, instead of proving a point, the argument took on a sheen of greed. This made people not like the band. Drawing a parallel to Novell, the company went from being a player in the … Read more

How cheap storage can hide criminal activities

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies recently stated that advances in technology make it possible for it to predict 4 terabyte drives on desktops by 2011.That's great if you're storing media files. It's a nightmare, however, if you're a digital forensics investigator, according to Dave Merkel, vice president of products for Mandiant. He's suggesting that to contend with advances in technology online criminal investigators such as himself may have to change the way they collect and analyze data, if only to secure any hope of an eventual prosecution.

"Something that's a continuing challenge in...… Read more

Technorati CEO Dave Sifry steps down

Dave Sifry, founder and CEO of blog search company Technorati, has stepped down from his post according to an entry on the company blog. The resignation is effective immediately; he will remain chairman of Technorati's board. Meanwhile, CFO Teresa Malo, vice president of engineering Dorion Carroll and vice president of marketing Derek Gordon will jointly run the company while seeking a new chief executive.

"Making tough choices is a daily reality," Sifry wrote. "But some choices are tougher than others, particularly when they involve one's own self." Technorati, an early entry in the blog … Read more

Aping the worst of proprietary software

Dave Dargo has written a thoughtful piece on one problem with proprietary software today: it spends too much time isolating itself as a product, rather than opening up itself and combining to create solutions. As it turns out, open-source software is following in these same destructive footsteps, as we notes:… Read more

Anatomy of an open-source decision: The Adobe Flex example

I just took the time to read through this interview with Phil Costa, director of Product Management for Flex at Adobe. (Many thanks to Dave McAllister for his link.) You may remember that Adobe announced in April its intention to open-source Flex.

Now, the company is talking about why. It's very interesting to see that the decision to open-source a product is somewhat universal in the considerations that go into it. It brings back memories of early 2003 when we (at Novell) were giddy about releasing the company's UDDI server as open source...

I particularly found Phil's thoughts on the LGPL (i.e., why Adobe opted not to go with LGPL and instead used MPL) fascinating.

At its core, Adobe's decision to open-source flex stemmed from a desire to make the project bigger than the company. That is, independent of the company. Something you could embrace without embracing the company, too. This is precisely the same reasoning that went into Alfresco's decision to GPL our enterprise content management system, so Phil's comments resonate with me.

In response to How Software Is Built's question as to why Adobe decided to open-source Flex, Phil replied:… Read more