Isle of Man IT community…

A few weeks ago I received an invitation from director of information systems at the Isle of Man Government’s Allan Paterson to attend a two-day workshop for IT organisations.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend but by all accounts it was a great success. The programme was funded by Microsoft but was not focused on its software [...]

BCS event on Windows 7

Image via Wikipedia The British Computer Society Isle of Man section continues to offer up great events for Island residents who work in IT and anyone who just likes to use computers. Last week, the group held one of the most popular events so far this year: Microsoft’s Huw Turvey’s preview of Windows 7. More [...]

Webmail to the fore

Image via CrunchBase There was a time, not so long ago, that people would have refrained from using Hotmail or Gmail as their email domain for business. Now, according to Gartner, the research company, that’s all set to change as the software as a service (SaaS) model for email is leading the way to the [...]

Windows 7 Are you ready?

Image by Stijn Vogels via Flickr Windows Vista got mixed reviews and created a healthy debate, it’s true. The next iteration promises to build on user feedback to produce Microsoft’s best OS yet: “Windows 7 was built around your feedback, so you’ll see a lot of things you’ve asked for. You asked us to make [...]

BizSpark now in Isle of Man

Image via CrunchBase Last week my firm launched a tech start up at the DEMO conference in Palm Springs, California.  Our client was the only British company participating this time and the overall number of star-ups was half what it had been in previous years. But still, the place was packed out with venture capitalists [...]

Patents are the currency of innovation

Image via CrunchBase THE United States Patent Office was established in 1790 and the very first patent was issued to a gentleman named Samuel Hopkins who patented a process for making potash, a type of potassium compound used to make soap.  The patent was signed by President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. [...]

News release blast let down

Yesterday we accidently sent a news release about a Microsoft compatible product to a reporter that covers Linux exclusively.  Almost immediately we got a reply that more than a little sarcastic along with a threat to block our email. Some might say there is no reason to be rude or hostile over a genuine mistake [...]

Microsoft extends services via web

At their professional developers’ conference that took place last week in Los Angeles, Microsoft revealed the many ways it intends to extend its software services via the web. In a long expected answer to Google Apps, the folks from Redmond demonstrated, for the first time, their new Web applications for Office, which are lightweight versions [...]

September 21: PR top 5

1. Rohit has a right good rant about Kellogg’s Lego Fun Snacks.  Why do people hate marketers? 2. Jeremiah gives a interesting explanation of how VCs and tech analysts are similar yet different in their perspectives when engaging with entrepreneurs. 3. Chris Brogan has an excellent discussion going about defining web authority. There’s a lot [...]

30 August: PR top 5

Image via Wikipedia I just spent 3.5 hours reading PR blogs.  What an excellent way to while away a cold damp Saturday morning. It’s tough to boil it down to just five favourites, but here goes. 1. Dave Jones has posted and invited us to steal his blog stats dashboard template.  It seems to be [...]

Firefox 3 aims for record

Image via Wikipedia Tuesday 17 June 2008 was a pretty important day in the Internet world. It’s the day that Mozilla released Firefox 3, a new and improved version of its free web browser that has become the biggest rival of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. As part of Mozilla’s launch strategy, they planned an attempt to [...]

May’s fave five

Each month, I write up a round up of the previous month’s most popular posts on Strive Notes.  Interestingly, this month only one of the fave five relates to PR…the rest are tech stories.  Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm.  Perhaps we’re not engaging in the PR conversation the way we should be?  I’ll think [...]

Microsoft goes social

When software behemoth Microsoft jumps on any one bandwagon, trends and fads immediately turn into real world propositions. So when our friends in Redmond revealed their new Live Mesh last month, software as a service (SaaS) had fully come of age. Of course MS doesn’t use the SaaS category that we’ve all come to understand, [...]

Vista Windows Server 2008

The Isle of Man‘s BCS is holding a talk on Vista Windows Server 2008 on 13 May 2008. They’re bringing in someone from MS to discuss the new operating system that is designed for next gen networks, applications and Web services. 18.00 Claremont Hotel in Douglas. Admission is free. Everyone is welcome. I’ll be there. [...]

European court ruling on MS

It looks like the times they are a-changing for our good friends from Redmond, Washington. The European Court of First Instance upheld the European Commission’s findings that Microsoft abused its dominant position by refusing to make its products operable with those of its rivals and by tying Windows Media Player to the Windows operating system. [...]

Fine art of surfacing

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has unveiled the company’s first surface computing product — Microsoft Surface. Its supposed to be an innovation that will change the way people shop, dine, entertain and live. Surface is a horizontal display on a table-like frame that goes from being an ordinary tabletop into a new tool for bringing [...]

October 6th: this week’s top 5

Take humour and mix in some thoughtful debate. Then add a pinch of sound advice. The result: this week’s reading round up!  Here are my faves for this week, in particular order.   1. Drew B takes a look at how Web 2.0 is influencing politics.  He pulls together a number of references about the UK Tory [...]

Targeting end-users in the enterprise software market

Over the past four weeks, I’ve met with reps from more than a dozen technology companies in the Isle of Man.  I learned that the Island boasts a broad offering of software, hosting, business continuity, telecom and other services. But one theme that came up time and again, in these conversations, was the challenge of building [...]