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T-Mobile declined to comment.

The soon-to-be announced, first-ever
Google Android phone will be priced at $200 with a two-year contract, according to a blog post on TechCrunch.

The HTC Dream will be the first phone that uses Google’s open-source operating system called Android. T-Mobile USA will be the first carrier to the offer the new phone, which is expected to be announced on Tuesday. Stay tuned for more rumors and details as the countdown to Android continues.

The tech blog said an “insider” had confirmed the $200 price tag, which is reasonable considering that AT&T is selling the
iPhone 3G for the subsidized price of $199. That said, it’s still about $50 more than what we had expected. Earlier reports were that the phone would cost $150 with a two-year contract and $399 without a contract.

Click here for full coverage of Google Android

A hybrid cloud is the use of both public and internal cloud capabilities to meet the needs of an application system. A private cloud meets the needs of an application system by any combination of public and internal cloud resources–and that combination can change moment by moment.

Cloud computing is Internet (”cloud”) based development and use of computer technology (”computing”). It is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.

It is a call to jettison traditional IT altogether, and focus efforts on leveraging the work of professional providers of IT applications, platforms, infrastructure, and services. By this definition, it is indeed a complete change in IT paradigm.

In the end, I think the debate will evolve away from “own nothing” vs. “internal clouds”, with the latter being replaced by “private clouds.” Then, over time, supporters of the “own nothing” vision will come to realize that private clouds give them a direct route to migrating all application workloads from wholly owned infrastructure to public clouds, achieving their vision.

Meanwhile, the enterprise continues to operate with the perception that everything is running in their own data centers, under their complete control. In the end, I think that is the factor that will make private clouds the winning enterprise cloud computing model in the years to come.

You can follow James Urquhart on Twitter.

The ‘private cloud’
The term “private cloud” is becoming associated with a third option–an option that has fundamental implications to the way in which enterprise customers will approach cloud computing:

The benefits of internal clouds, however, are a little more subtle. Most proponents will point to the inability of most public clouds to support legacy applications, while internal clouds can be built to handle old and new applications alike. Perhaps the most pervasive argument, however, is that internal clouds allow you to maintain control over security, service levels and regulatory compliance in a way that public clouds are not yet able to offer.

The ‘internal cloud’
At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe the road to cloud computing begins at home. The starting point for any enterprise with existing IT infrastructure investment, according to this camp, is an “internal cloud.” An internal cloud applies the concepts of cloud computing (on-demand resources, pay-as-you-go pricing, and the appearance of infinite scalability) to resources wholly owned by the enterprise consuming the service.

See also:
• Salesforce.com: Pondering the next 10 years

• Cloud computing: How we got here

Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com’s “pull no punches” supreme leader, represents one of the debate’s extremes. At “Whose Cloud is it Anyway?”–a cloud-computing roundtable put on by TechCrunch recently–Benioff stated (the emphasis is mine):

In other words, it’s not cloud computing to Benioff unless the IT department doesn’t have to directly handle any form of technology beyond a browser or perhaps an SSH terminal application. This is the very definition one would expect from the leader of possibly the world’s biggest software-as-a-service provider.

So, which is it for you? Will you be taking Benioff’s advice and cease to directly purchase software and hardware? Will you play it conservative and insist on turning your own resources into a cloud before venturing out in force to the public cloud?

(Microsoft was) a company that…had a lock on the entire industry in terms of innovation, and was able to hold it through a monopoly. So, that is really broken down through a new, next generation paradigm, which is cloud computing; which is no software, no hardware, don’t hire anyone, just sign up to these various cloud platforms and pick the flavor that is appropriate for your application.

On the other hand, choosing an “internal cloud” approach really doesn’t gain the full benefits of public cloud computing offerings. With much smaller scale, the economics are not in internal cloud’s favor. As this year and the next progress, I would expect to see it less and less justifiable to rely solely on an internal cloud.

There is no doubt that it is a view expressed by much of the traditional IT industry, but there are other voices out there as well pointing out the value of providing multitenant, on-demand, at-scale architectures to internal customers. Internal clouds are appealing to IT departments at many levels, though obviously they are not going to provide the economies of scale that public clouds will offer over time. (For a really good explanation of why large public clouds will dominate the next generation of IT, see the University of California at Berkeley paper titled “Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing”.)

This view is echoed by the current Wikipedia page for cloud computing, as originally authored by Sam Johnston:

Ten years after the creation of Salesforce.com, the future of cloud computing is not in doubt; it is just being heavily debated. Two opposing views of how cloud computing will play out–especially enterprise cloud computing–are making the rounds among thought leaders and customer decision makers alike. Interestingly, there is enough to question about both approaches that a third option may, in fact, gain importance.

A private cloud consists of IT resources under the control of the enterprise consuming it. Those resources may be owned by the enterprise, consumed from a public cloud provider, or some combination of the two. The only requirement is that the resources be under the direct control of the customer under a unified management system, as opposed to each separately consumed offering being individually managed through the interfaces provided by their respective owners.

Private clouds, by this definition, overcome the “rewrite everything” effect of “own nothing” cloud computing. On the other hand, they provide the degree of trust that enterprises were seeking from internal clouds, including the ability to change the mix of cloud services consumed completely at their own discretion.

Many of you may be thinking “hey, that’s just the definition of a hybrid cloud”, but there is an important, though subtle distinction to understand.

The strength of the “own nothing” argument is difficult to miss. Benioff put it very well. Don’t spend money up front on things that aren’t core to your business. Get them as “on-demand” services, instead, and pay for them only as you consume them.

What all sides agree on, however, is that some form of cloud computing is coming your way. As always, the devil is in the details.

Will you leverage both approaches as makes sense, a la David Linthicum’s frequent advice? Will you pushing the boundaries of what you call your IT resources to include third party services, yet tie it all together within one “trust boundary”? Where do you fall in the great cloud computing debate 10 years after the creation of one of its bellwethers, Salesforce.com?

So, what is an enterprise to do? Choosing an “own nothing” approach, like any other paradigm shift, is extremely disruptive and requires a major overhaul or outright replacement of existing IT software assets.

Balllmer says he knows what Yahoo is worth.

Ballmer, speaking to Microsoft employees in a so-called town hall conference call Thursday, also said an announcement regarding Yahoo is coming “in very short order,” the blog site reported. But what he meant by that is unclear, since he also noted that he had “nothing to say today.” A reporter for Silicon Alley Insider apparently listened in on the call.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says he knows exactly what Yahoo is worth and isn’t willing to go a dime over that, Silicon Alley Insider reported Thursday.

The Microsoft chief exec also explained to his employees that Microsoft needs Yahoo in order to gain scale in the online market. “(Yahoo) accelerates scale. Gets us more advertisers, gets us search. Yahoo’s not a strategy. It’s a part of a strategy. We’re interested in paying for it at some level, and beyond that level we’re not willing to pay for it,” Ballmer said, according to Alley Insider.

Ballmer also didn’t put a price tag to what he thinks Yahoo is worth, but his comments may indicate that talks between the two companies are still going on. The Yahoo comments came up during a question-and-answer session in which he reiterated Microsoft’s three options: Make a friendly deal, go hostile, or walk away.

Interestingly, Ballmer seems to believe that on the Internet, many people would think of his company as the underdog as it tries to play catchup with Google. “The world,” he said, “is rooting for us.”

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

MR Tech Toolkit can disable all add-on compatibility checks.

I can’t guarantee that this will work for everybody, but since I was having the problem on my home and work computers and the Flash 10 beta solution fixed it on both, I’m reasonably confident that it should work for most of you.

Let’s look at Flash first. Towards the end of my use of
Firefox 2, before upgrading to Firefox 3, I noticed a peculiar Flash problem: embedded videos would freeze after two or three seconds. Clicking on the video progress bar would start playback again, only to have it freeze shortly thereafter.

It took some digging on the Flash and Mozilla help forums, where people suggested everything from disabling any ad-blocking plug-ins to tweaking how Firefox handles cookies–all to no avail. Then I struck gold. The solution, as simple as it is, is to simply uninstall Flash 9. I recommend using the Revo Uninstaller.

For most incompatible add-on issues, I’d recommend MR Tech Toolkit or the Nightly Tester Tools. The former is a nearly omnipotent plug-in that can kill the compatibility check for all plug-ins, among its other powers. Nightly Tester Tools removes that check on a case-by-case basis. However, that won’t work for all users, and some people need Firefox 2 for only one or two specific tasks.

Just looking at the download count from Mozilla for the first 24 hours of Firefox 3, it looks like the browser upgrade is one of the fastest-adopted new program versions ever. Eight million downloads in the first 24 hours can’t be wrong, right? Of course, no new program–even one as heavily beta-tested as FF3–is problem-free, and so I’ve got two fast course corrections for those struggling with incompatible plug-ins and Flash foul-ups.

If you’re on a
Mac, I’d recommend using the Multi-Firefox app. For PC users, the best bet is to download the portable version of Firefox 2. You can’t run both versions simultaneously, but you can have them both installed since they have different profile locations–just quit one before you start the other.

Then, grab the Flash 10 beta for Windows or Mac.

Nightly Tester Tools makes its case for compatibility on a plugin-by-plugin basis.

Also, for Firefox lovers and haters who missed out on the Firefox 3 chat that Webware editor Rafe Needleman and I just did, you can check out the Ask the Editors archive.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Ron Conway of Baseline Ventures: “React proactively. It’s all about months of cash.” If you have less than a year, he says, you are at risk. Go to your current investors and get a bridge loan. If you can’t get a loan from your existing investors, then you know they are not “with you.” And forget bank loans or new investors. They take too long.

2. Protect the vital core of your business. If you have to cut, use a scalpel, not an axe.

If you can’t make it work, says Conway, do an “orderly shutdown.” Don’t put your team through the agony, he says. “It’s not easy, but it is simple.”

Also, says Conway, “Renegotiate your rent. Your lease is not sacrosanct.” In fact, he says, you can offer equity instead of cash for your rent. During the last downturn, he says, about half of landlords offered this deal took it.

10. Over-communicate. With employees, investors, key customers. Don’t sugarcoat things (and reread tip No. 5).

But I found the upshot was still oddly positive, considering the bleak economic outlook. There are opportunities. And some of the most interesting current Web businesses started in the last downturn, as well as major shifts in our economy, such as blogging. Nirav Tolia, founder of ePinions, echoed Bill Campbell. “Cut expenses. Don’t cut hope.”

3. Get 18 months or more of cash. And do it against a conservative business plan. Plan for the worst.

The strategies for muddling through this economy start with these 10 tips from legendary VC John Doerr:

7. Offer equity instead of cash. For people who can accept it, offer to swap cash remuneration for shares of the company.

At a VentureBeat panel about managing through the economic downturn, the vibe was oddly upbeat. Yes, we’re in a slump. Yes, it is systemic, not limited to the tech economy. But each of the venture capitalists on the panel said, “We’re open for business.” There is capital available. Although, perhaps, not for business as usual.

Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital: Don’t panic. Look at things seriously, but breathe and be rational.

However, all entrepreneurs should be warned: “Our first priority is to our current portfolio companies,” Kolluri said. And as Jason Calacanis, serial entrepreneur now at Mahalo, said on a later panel: “The VCs lie. They’re circling the wagons. They’re going to invest in their winners, shut down their losers; that’s what they do. Their whole business is hit-based.”

4. Defer expansion. Delay facilities and capital expenses. Instead of buying PCs or software, use “our technologies,” by which he means, Google Docs (which is free) and similar Web-based back office tools. Reprioritize and rationalize all your R&D.

9. Make sure you have leading indicators for all your revenues. 90 days is a good benchmark. You want to see the trouble coming before it hits you.

VC panel, left to right: John Doerr, Ram Shriram, Matt Cohler, Kittu Kolluri, Ron Conway, and moderator Matt Marshall.

5. Negotiate. In this climate, everything is negotiable, including your lease.

New entrepreneurs, according to the panel, will find the doors of VCs wide open. “To be clear, we are open for business to new investments,” Cohler says. Doerr concurred, vehemently, that Benchmark is investing in digital technology, as well as
green tech and bioscience. Conway said, “I still see five new opportunities a day.”

6. Everybody sell. It’s an honorable profession. Everyone in the company should have a focus on bringing in customers.

Ram Shriram, an individual investor, echoed Doerr. “Right now, equity is cheaper than cash. Use it.”

8. Pay attention to where your cash is. Put all your cash into the most secure possible instruments. Money market funds are not guaranteed. Look at treasuries.

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman / CNET)

1. Act now. Focus your business, cut what you need, or sell if you must.

Other VCs chimed in with their tips:

Kittu Kolluri of New Enterprise Associates: “Your time is more valuable than our money.” Look at your business and ask yourself if it is going to become a long-lasting business. If not, the best thing may be to go in a different direction. “If you have an idea that is worth funding, you will get funding.”

The Google-emblazoned rocket.

(Credit:
GeoEye/ULA)

“The GeoEye-1 satellite has the highest ground resolution color imagery available in the commercial marketplace and will produce high-quality imagery with a very accurate geolocation,” said Google spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz, adding that most commercial satellite imagery has a resolution of 60cm. “It is our goal to display high-resolution imagery for as much of the world as possible, and GeoEye-1 will help further that goal.”

Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery, said Mark Brender, vice president of corporate communications and marketing. Google uses satellite imagery in its Google Maps and Google Earth product.

Google got a sponsor logo on the side of this rocket, set to launch the GeoEye-1 imaging satellite on September 4.

GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters, Brender said. Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50cm because of the terms of GeoEye’s license with the U.S. government.

Google has signed a deal under which GeoEye will supply the search giant with imagery from a satellite due to launch in coming days, the companies said.

Google’s current imagery in Google Earth spans a range of resolution, the coarsest being 15 square meters per pixel, which is only good enough to see larger geographic features.

ITT built the imaging subsystem, and General Dynamics built the overall satellite, Brender said. GeoEye also contracted with ITT for the imaging in the GeoEye-2 satellite, due to launch in 2011 or 2012, Brender said. According to ITT, that satellite will have a resolution of 25cm, or about 9.75 inches.

Each day, the satellite will be able to gather a high-resolution “pan-sharpened” format surface area equal to that of about New Mexico, the company said.

(Credit:
GeoEye)

And as a little icing on the cake, Google’s logo is on the side of the rocket set to launch the 4,300-pound satellite in six days from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Why the switch? According to a blog posting from Appcelerator CEO Jeff Haynie, it’s all about adoption and matching one’s code (and its license) with one’s community:

I’m a big fan of the GPL, but I completely agree that it’s not always the right tool for every job. Adoption is the first order of business for any company, and Apache-licensed code is going to be more broadly adopted than GPL-licensed code in many instances.

We’ve seen a groundswell of support for the GNU General Public License (GPL) and its variants among commercial open-source companies, including MySQL, Funambol, Alfresco, SugarCRM, and others. But Appcelerator is bucking the trend and changing from the GPL to the Apache Public License for its Rich Internet Application developer tools.

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I would assume that this will therefore lead Appcelerator to turn to commercial extensions for its Rich Internet Application solutions, similar to how IBM marries Apache-licensed projects with proprietary complements. Given the increased flexibility of Appcelerator’s licensing at the core of its product, this may well be a trade-off worth making to ensure that Appcelerator is able to feed its community…and itself.

Where Apache is weak, however, is in facilitating direct monetization of software, an issue that Haynie highlights in his blog.

We’ve clearly heard a very resounding theme: GPL is not the right license from a community perspective because of the implications that it brings to redistribution, especially as it relates to building Web applications and how they are incorporated and downloaded by a Web server…This was a clear indication that our license didn’t match our business and technical goals.

U.S. officials and lawmakers have complained about specific incidences where they believed Chinese representatives breached their systems. This summer, two congressmen who have been longtime critics of China’s human rights record accused China of compromising computers that had information related to political dissidents. In the spring, government sources told the Associated Press that they were looking into allegations that Chinese officials copied data from a laptop left unattended in China by the commerce secretary.

China is actively conducting cyber espionage as a warfare strategy and has targeted U.S. government and commercial computers, according to a new report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

“China’s current cyber operations capability is so advanced, it can engage in forms of cyber warfare so sophisticated that the United States may be unable to counteract or even detect the efforts,” according to the annual report (PDF) delivered to Congress on Thursday.

The Chinese government is training citizens in cyber operations at military academies, and tolerates, or even encourages, actions taken by an estimated 250 hacker groups there, the report said.

Chinese military officials believe the U.S. is doing cyber espionage against China, and believe that by striking first with a cyber attack they can plant misinformation and hide their tracks, according to the report.

China is targeting government and private computers in the U.S., including systems operated by the biggest U.S. defense contractors, according to the report, which cited news articles. In 2005, hackers from China nabbed NASA files on the propulsion system, solar panels, and fuel tanks, and an aviation mission planning system for Army helicopters and Army and Navy flight planning software were stolen from the Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, the report said.

A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, Qin Gang, said the report was misleading, impeding cooperation between the U.S. and China, and “unworthy of rebuttal,” according to an article published late Monday in Secure Computing Magazine.

China can access an unclassified U.S. military network called the NIPRNet (Non-secure Internet Protocol Router Network) and “views is as a significant Achilles’ heel and as an important target of its asymmetric capability,” according to the report. This “gives China the potential capability to delay or disrupt U.S. forces without physically engaging them–and in ways it lacks the capability to do conventionally.”

The report cites news articles and testimony from U.S. officials like Col. Gary McAlum, chief of staff for the U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations. It concludes that Chinese cyber attacks, authoritarian rule, and trade violations are impediments to U.S. economic and national security interests.

The U.S. government also is at risk as a result of the global computer supply chain, the commission said. Computer components used by the U.S. and manufactured in China are “vulnerable to tampering by Chinese security services, such as implanting malicious code that could be remotely activated on command and place U.S. systems or the data they contain at risk of destruction or manipulation,” the report said. Hundreds of counterfeit routers made in China were found in systems throughout the Defense Department, it said.

Yahoo, however, still plans to retain the ability for users to continue receiving paid game downloads, sans advertising appearing on the games.

Yahoo Games announced on Thursday that it will expand into ad-supported online games by the end of the year, a move not without its controversy.

That flexibility may be key in satisfying players who may not necessary want ads tucked into a shooter game or a jam session, nor ads scrolling by before or after a game. Nonetheless, Yankee Group Research projects worldwide in-game advertising to soar to $971.3 million by 2011 from $77.7 million in 2006.

Under the partnership, Double Fusion and NeoEdge will sell and integrate video ads before, during, and after a game, which is downloaded from Yahoo Games. NeoEdge also is providing technology that will enable Yahoo to insert ads into its game library without requiring the game source code.

Yahoo Games expects to offer more than 400 ad-supported downloadable games via assistance from casual-game advertising network and technology players Double Fusion and NeoEdge Networks.

Yahoo Games plans to offer ad-supported downloadable games from such publishers as Alawar Entertainment, Big Fish Games, and Last Day of Work.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

(Credit:
CNET)

Wrong. A quick survey of the site’s top 100 list (and the top 25 list for each genre) reveals that little more than 5 percent of the site’s most popular movies and TV shows are available for streaming. For instance, March of the Penguins is the only movie in the top 100 that’s available for streaming (and it’s also one of the 4 streamable documentaries). Meanwhile, several key genres have no streaming titles in the top 25, including action, children, comedy, drama, horror, musicals, romance, sci-fi, and thrillers.

Out of 41 titles currently in my queue, only 4–The King of Marvin Gardens, Das Boot, The Good German, and Pickup of South Street–are available to be streamed. OK, fine–my taste for older movies is probably throwing things off. Surely plenty of newer, more popular movies are available to be streamed, right?

Given the on-the-fly nature of such most popular lists, these numbers will no doubt fluctuate a bit. And Netflix has definitely been building up the Watch Now library–there is, believe it or not, a better selection than there was a few months earlier. But it seems clear that the Watch Now library is going to remain woefully underpopulated for the near future–and it’s unclear how much Netflix can do about it.

The “Watch Now” feature on Netflix is a great idea: instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows, available for instant streaming to your browser at the touch of a button. There’s just one big problem: despite an advertised library of over 8,000 titles, very few of them seem to be movies or TV shows that I want to watch.

Unlike buying bulk orders of DVDs for its disc-by-mail business, the Watch Now queue is determined by the deals it can cut with studios. And while those same studios will let the likes of Apple and Vudu offer a decent selection of download-to-own movies on their respective streaming boxes–often available the same day as the DVD release–they seem far less willing to negotiate deals that will allow most services (with the possible exception of cable video-on-demand) day-and-date streaming rentals on a pay-per-view basis.

What do you think: do you enjoy the offerings on the Netflix Watch Now feature? Or do you opt for competing offerings such as Hulu, iTunes, CinemaNow, or Vongo?

Netflix Watch Now is currently only available to subscribers on Windows PCs using Internet Explorer. The company has hinted that the service will be coming to Macs by the end of 2008. Indeed, a recent demo of Microsoft’s Silverlight technology showed that–theoretically, anyway–the company could deliver high-quality on-demand video streams to Macs–using the
Firefox browser, no less!–replete with a variety of social networking and interactivity that bests current DVD offerings. And Netflix has also confirmed that four hardware partners (one of which is LG) are scheduled to release a “Netflix box” by year’s end, which will allow the Watch Now library to be viewed directly on your TV–no computer necessary. But until Netflix is able to negotiate deals for a wider range of compelling content–something far better than the five percent of its most popular titles that it’s currently offering–the Watch Now feature will remain more a gimmick than a compelling service.

March of the Penguins: the only movie in Netflix's top 100 that you can stream