Linked List: May 25, 2011

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

The Gathering Storm 

Reuters:

Influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn has called for Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to step down, saying the world’s largest software company’s long-time leader is stuck in the past.

Expect more of this. And see if you can find high-profile investors defending Ballmer. (Via Ben Vaughan.)

Pay Attention but Don’t Panic 

Rich Mogull:

So I understand that some of you worry that Mac Defender is a scary sign of things to come. But while the Mac security situation really is changing, those changes are due almost entirely to attackers’ changing tactics and have little to do with the inherent strength or weakness of Mac security. The bottom line: You should pay attention to Mac security. But you don’t need to freak out about it.

Smart, rational look at the state of Mac malware.

Claim Chowder, TweetDeck Edition 

MG Siegler, reporting for AOL/TechCrunch back in February:

The number of companies in the Twitter ecosystem keeps contracting. But not for a necessarily bad reason, but because they keep getting purchased. And what’s crazy is that it’s largely one person who has been buying them up: Bill Gross. We’ve just learned that his company, now called UberMedia, has just acquired TweetDeck.

We’re hearing that the deal, which happened recently, was in the $25 - $30 million range. And this is clearly the largest deal they’ve done yet as TweetDeck is the largest Twitter client outside of Twitter’s own properties.

Close, except that UberMedia did not buy TweetDeck.

Twitter Buys TweetDeck 

Peter Kafka interviews TweetDeck honcho Iain Dodsworth:

Kafka: So to beat this into the ground: TweetDeck will continue to exist as a standalone product? There’s been a lot of speculation that Twitter would buy TweetDeck and then shut it down.

Dodsworth: Yes, they will continue as standalone products. From a technical standpoint we’ll move towards becoming part of the platform. They won’t be shutting it down, they are in fact investing further in its future.

My question: will TweetDeck have to use OAuth?

Tumblr Founder David Karp: Android ‘Absolutely Sucks to Develop For’ 

Tell us what you really think, David.

Small Print 

Charles Arthur:

Noted in passing: advert for the Dell XPS-15, containing the phrase

Finally, the power you crave in the thinnest 15" PC on the planet*.

Wow, the thinnest? But wait, what’s the asterisk?

Small print time: “Based on Dell internal analysis as at February 2011. Based on a thickness comparison (front and rear measurements) of other 15" laptop PCs manufactured by HP, Acer, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, MSI. No comparison made with Apple or other manufacturers not listed.”

Maybe they should call it “thinnest-plus”.