Linked List: April 24, 2011

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Big Number 

Mary Jo Foley:

Microsoft officials said on April 22 that the company has sold 350 million Windows 7 licenses in the 18 months the product has been available.

Credit where credit is due: that’s a huge number.

Yeah, That’s the Ticket 

Wayne Rush argues in eWeek that the BlackBerry PlayBook should not be compared to the iPad:

It turns out that the FedEx delivery got here first, but the PlayBook comes in a box that clearly can’t hold a ham. It also doesn’t look like it tastes as good as a ham, it doesn’t have a brown sugar glaze and I don’t have to warm it in the oven at 300 F. 

But wait. Why is it that I’m comparing the PlayBook against a Virginia ham? Well, why not? It makes at least as much sense as comparing the PlayBook against an iPad, except that the iPad doesn’t taste as good as the hams that Sam Edwards makes either. But in fact the iPad was designed to be a lot like the iPod Touch, except with a screen sufficiently large that it has a lot more utility for visually oriented tasks. 

Indeed, it’s very confusing and unfair that everyone is comparing the PlayBook to the iPad.