News Mueslix

This week's meeting probably had the largest attendance EVER. There were so many people in the room the fire marshal busted through the glass doors and counted people. They quickly realized they were supposed to be on the 2nd floor of the building fixing the faulty fire alarms. But, before they left they did say that we had a whole bunch of people in the conference room and they could tell this was a pretty hard-hitting meeting.

As the Biggest Loser competition kicks off, chocolates o'plenty were passed around the table to discuss the following:

Microsoft makes bid at Intelligence
Microsoft announced they have a BI solution. Steve Lohr of the NY Times reports:
Microsoft Office, the familiar toolbox of desktop computing, is a huge and lucrative business, but demand has slowed. In a new bid for growth, the Microsoft Corporation plans to announce today that it is making an ambitious push into the $13 billion-a-year market for business intelligence software. Full article here.

A brief discussion ensued about what implications the news will have for our clients. The consensus was, none. The MS strategy will need present itself further. We should be cautious of how we discuss this news with people. Wouldn't want to re-position anyone because of Gates & Co.

Roker Me Like a Hurricane
A very disturbing trend is blowing through the minds of the media, reporters going outside to chronicle the force and power of hurricanes. MB recalled a GMA doing a segment from Texas Tech during Rita that said when hurricane wind speeds reach 140 mph there is a possibility to remove skin.

NBC weatherman, Al Roker, apparently did not see rival GMA's spot and instead reported from Florida this morning. He was swept away by its power, literally. Wiiilllllmmmmaaaa!!!

Gartner IT Expo
MC reported that the major news coming out of Garter's annual exposition was HP's news of no news. HP continues to anger the media as it keeps to its message that it's going back to basics. No more iPod, no more flashy keynotes, no more Carly.

HP will continue to build its enterprise software business, most notably in the storage software management category. It seems Mark Hurd was reading all those articles and books about the Dell model and, now wants to get him some. More information here.

Other events going on:

• Novell has laid off 20% of its workforce. I've emptied a 40* for my homeys. (*40GB harddrive that is)
• Unisys has said it too will lay off workers. Almost 10%*