To many companies and independent developers -- not just software publishers -- mobile apps represent something even more powerful and important than a brand-new platform to deploy apps on. It's a new and dynamic source of revenue, one with a lot of room to grow. And given how tough it can be to make money selling software at all, especially in this world of open-source and free Web apps, any proven way to make money in that field can become a magnet.
Most everyone who's had some experience with free open source software has learned about the OpenOffice.org suite of productivity programs: a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and drawing tool that provide a good deal of the functionality of their commercial counterparts. For users who need powerful productivity tools but don't require a high degree of compatibility with Microsoft-formatted files, OpenOffice.org is almost a no-brainer.
When word began to circulate about <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/16974/diaspora_its_no_facebook_yet">Diaspora</a>, the hype about it being a potential <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9157638/Facebook_Complete_coverage">Facebook</a> killer took on a life of its own before a single line of code had been released. Now the <a href="http://www.joindiaspora.com/">first developer's alpha version of Diaspora</a> is out in the wild, and the hype is being replaced with scrutiny and well-deserved skepticism.
The term "disruptive," a common buzzword in tech journalism, is typically used to describe something that jars people out of existing ways of doing things, and provides them with both new ways to do the old things and new things to do. Weather-beaten as the expression might be, it fits when talking about two products that took personal computing by storm over the past couple of years: the iPad and the netbook.
Jolicloud 1.0 is a new edition of Linux aimed at non-technical netbook users.
If you want to watch Internet-delivered video on your PC, the vast majority of Web sites have settled on a single, consistent way to do that. That's the good news. The bad news is that this single, consistent delivery system is Adobe Flash, with all its security and stability issues.
It's been 20 years since Adobe 1.0 was released, and graphics professionals everywhere are still using Adobe's products to produce videos, Web sites, images and other creative material. We've taken a look back to see where Adobe Creative Suite has been and where it's going.
Twenty years ago, Adobe Systems Inc. introduced a little program called Photoshop -- and launched desktop graphics as we know it.
This week Google whisked back the curtain on Buzz, its dive into the world of social-networking technology.
