One statistic that repeatedly popped up was the fact that more than 500,000 copies had been downloaded off BitTorrent sites. EA claims to have sold 1 million copies since launch, which would mean that there are potentially 1.5 million Spore instances. The big question is whether EA is losing money from this pirating.

Downplaying the piracy issue in this particular case, EA’s Sughayer says: “We’ve talked to people that made several unsuccessful attempts to download the game and ended up with incomplete, slow, buggy or unusable code. In one case, a file identified as Spore contained a virus.

“Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale,” she tells Gamasutra.

There doesn’t seem to be much disagreement that Electronic Arts botched the launch of Spore with heavy-handed digital rights management. However, the company reacted quickly and was able to update the game with a less oppressive scheme that calmed most of the masses.

What’s interesting here is the acceptance from EA that there will be piracy and that maybe it’s not affecting sales that dramatically.

“To say that every download represents a successful copy of the game–or that there’s been more than 500,000 copies downloaded–that’s just not true.”

The blog Game Set Watch talked about the matter with Mariam Sughayer of EA’s corporate communications office:

In my original post suggesting that EA could learn from open source, I said “maybe a better approach for EA would have been to consider a ‘community’ and ‘enterprise’ version of Spore, where it’s usable but not good until you pay,” and I still think that’s a good idea. If there are “users” and “customers” and they are both on your side, you always win.

Spout widgets also let viewers subscribe to updates to a presentation via RSS, share them, and so on.

Sprout is a Flash authoring environment that puts the two Flash authoring environments I just covered to shame. Completely Flash based, it lets you put all your media into a Flash app that’s easily pushed into widgets.

In the demo the CEO showed Spout’s clear and capable authoring environment. Unfortunately I can’t show you the authoring environment because it’s not yet live on the site. There’s a video of the authoring environment here. And here’s a widget created with it:

]]> http://www.b2boutsource.com/index.php/2010/08/29/sprout-now-thats-a-flash-builder/feed/ http://www.b2boutsource.com/index.php/2010/08/24/invitrogen-buys-into-novells-suse-linux/ http://www.b2boutsource.com/index.php/2010/08/24/invitrogen-buys-into-novells-suse-linux/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:30:53 +0000 admin http://www.b2boutsource.com/?p=247 Update: Charlotte Betterley from Novell PR responded to my question withthe following:

commentary (Credit:
Novell)

Regardless, it’s an impressive win and a further demonstration that Novell is finding its Linux feet without needing the Microsoft crutch. That’s good news for all.

Indeed, the press release calls out Invitrogen’s adoption of Novell’s new PlateSpin technology, which helps companies manage data center virtualization. I’d be interested to know if Invitrogen was initially interested in PlateSpin, and became interested in SUSE by extension, or the other way around. If anyone from Novell cares to comment below, it would be intriguing to know if PlateSpin is helping to drive SUSE sales, or whether it’s facilitating existing interest (i.e, a deal closer rather than a deal opener).

Invitrogen is a billion-dollar supplier to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, with 4,700 employees worldwide and a history of supplying many of the world’s leading laboratories in groundbreaking research like the discovery of the AIDS virus.

SUSE Linux Enterprise will allow Invitrogen to more easily manage its complex IT environment, consisting of a mix of different platforms and applications including HP servers, Oracle databases and Web servers, as well as PeopleSoft ERP applications comprised of e-commerce, human resources, payroll and customer relationship management. SUSE Linux Enterprise gives the company the flexibility to run its applications on any platform and better utilize hardware through cost-effective virtualization.

Invitrogen had already been using PlateSpin and the relationship with Novell may have been a factor in them selecting SUSE Linux Enterprise. However, they primarily chose SUSE Linux Enterprise because of the merits of the solution, as it helped them to virtualize their environment, reduce operating system costs and simplify IT management.

To help promote its innovative work, Invitrogen announced this week that it is standardizing on Novell’s SUSE? Linux Enterprise for its servers. From the press release:

I was impressed by the preview I got in September of the bookmarking and Web annotation tool Diigo 3.0. It’s taken the company until this morning to release this version to the public. In the interim the team has added features and tweaked the design. It’s been worth the wait. This is a powerful and deep tool for serious Web users.

Diigo's sidebar plug-in is surprisingly useful.

The service finds people who bookmark like you do.

I recommend Diigo, especially with the plug-in. It’s a complex tool but if you take a few minutes to learn what it can do and how it does it, it can make you a more productive, smarter Web user.

There’s also a very nice new browser sidebar that shows you a lot of useful and focused information, including your own latest bookmarks, those from your Diigo friends, and most cleverly, the Diigo users who have also saved information from the page you’re visiting as well as the site itself.

Diigo takes all the data it collects from users and lets them rotate it in interesting ways. When you’re looking at the page for a site, for example, you can easily see what other users who bookmarked that site also bookmarked (sort of like MyBlogLog, Medium, eSnips). The system will suggest other sites, based on the tag cloud for a site as well as the affinity you have with its other bookmarkers, that it thinks you might like (see also: Twine). There’s also a social angle: The system suggests people that it thinks you’ll find interesting, by identifying the ones closest to you in bookmarking behavior.

As before, the service has a plug-in (I tried it in Flock) that lets you clip and save text from Web pages, or just page URLs themselves. You can categorize and tag your findings for later, and keep your stuff private, shared with friends, or make it public. It’s also very easy to annotate pages and send your mark ups to other users. Diigo is not the only product that does these things (see ClipMarks; BlogRovr), but this version’s implementation is especially strong, which is not something I said about previous releases.

(Credit:
Dell)

The move to make its PC available in retail stores follows a strategy the company began laying out almost a year ago when it first announced it would offer some PCs through Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Since then the Texas PC maker has added U.K. electronics retailer Carphone Warehouse, Bic Camera in Japan, Gome in China, Staples, and Best Buy.

In the announcement, Dell said it plans to offer Inspiron desktops and notebooks, and XPS notebooks through Indian electronics outlet Croma. Dell has a presence in India, but prior to this announcement, only via direct sales channels where customers could call or order a PC online.

Some Inspiron notebooks will be sold through Indian retailer Croma.

The company hinted that it would make this move last week, saying it planned to increase its presence in China and India, two of the world’s biggest emerging markets for computers. Dell already has a relationship with one of China’s largest retail chains, Gome.

Oh, really?

Even when Wal-Mart has made motions toward Linux and open source, Microsoft (no doubt inspired by Turner) has been there to help it see the light. It was likely Turner who pushed Wal-Mart to go on the record as adopting SUSE Linux for its Linux deployments because of patent protection. Wal-Mart never goes on the record for anything related to IT purchases. The fact that it did in this case says a lot about the exeuctive sleepovers that happen between the two companies.

It may well be that Wal-Mart simply didn’t push enough units to make the grade. Many great products simply don’t sell for Wal-Mart, and it dumps them. But in this case, it could well be that Linux’s success paved the way for its downfall due to a too-cozy relationship between the world’s largest retailer and the world’s largest software vendor.

Remember Microsoft’s COO, Kevin Turner? He’s a former Wal-Mart executive. Turner used to run Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club business unit and before that was Microsoft’s chief information officer.

But maybe the decision was much more personal. There is a strong executive tie between Microsoft and Wal-Mart.

Indeed, the more successful this retail Linux PC experiment by Wal-Mart, the less likely it was to continue. Had the PCs sat on the shelves Microsoft would have been gleeful to let it continue.

Wal-Mart has ended its experiment with selling Linux-based computers in its stores, suggesting that “This really wasn’t what our customers were looking for.”

commentary

P.S. I don’t care what Steve Jobs thinks about the masses: I read, and I would love to be able to read books on my
iPhone or
iPod touch. Betcha lots of other folks would, too.

(Credit:
eReader)

I love e-books. For years I’ve read them on whatever PDA or smartphone I happened to be carrying at the time. (Currently it’s a Palm Centro.)

That’s great news, as I think part of the resistance to e-books in general has been their pricing. Surely a book that has zero printing, distribution, and shipping costs should sell for less than its dead-tree counterpart, no?

Sure, the screens are small, but you get used to that pretty quickly. For me, nothing beats the convenience of having a good book in your pocket (or clipped to your belt) everywhere you go.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

Anyway, the required eReader software is available for Palm, Windows Mobile, and Symbian devices, as well as for Windows and
Mac PCs. While you’re at it, sign up for the free eReader newsletter to get an additional 10 percent off each purchase.

Vudu: now 25 percent more affordable

Vudu is knocking 25 percent off the price of its eponymous video-on-demand box. Effective immediately, the Vudu is now $295, down from its original $399 asking price. Customers who’ve purchased the unit in the past 30 days can get a $100 movie credit by calling the company’s customer service line (888-554-VUDU).

(Credit:
Vudu)

Ultimately, of course, Vudu’s success or failure versus Apple TV will be judged in the consumer marketplace–and if you’re reading this, that means you. So: which product would you prefer: the new Apple TV, or the Vudu?

Sanyo Katana Eclipse

Sprint has announced that it will launch an update to the Sanyo Katana Eclipse, dubbed the Katana Eclipse X. The primary difference is that the Katana Eclipse X will have Sprint’s new One Click user interface. One Click, as seen on phones like the Samsung Rant, the Samsung Highnote, and the LG Lotus, consists of eight shortcut tiles along the bottom of the home screen that gives you quick access to your favorite applications. Aside from that, it has the same unique lighting effects of the original, as well as EV-DO, a megapixel camera, and more. The Katana Eclipse X will be available in Nightlife Black and Hypnotic Pink.

It’s also got two things we specifically look for in a Netbook: a 6-cell battery (adds some bulk, but also 5-plus hours of battery life), and integrated Bluetooth (important for tethering a smartphone for mobile broadband access on the cheap).

We previously noted that, “Samsung has made laptops for pretty much every market except the U.S., and generally, we’ve been pretty fine with that arrangement,” but that doesn’t mean we can’t get behind a potentially cool new Netbook, as seen on whatlaptop.co.uk and pocketables.net.

This new Netbook is expected sometime in October in Korea, the U.K., and other markets, for around $550. With some unexpected recent buzz around Samsung laptops, maybe we’re inching closer to getting a few of these in the U.S.

The specs on this still-unnamed system are fairly standard Netbook fare: a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 10-inch screen, 1GB of RAM, Windows XP, and a choice of 80GB/120GB/160GB hard drives (no SSD options as far as we can tell).