May 6, 2008
Three ways to boost your career from reading CIO Canada
IT World Canada
Shane Schick looks at three things as discussed in CIO Canada that Canadian CIOs can do in their careers, “remove functions to test user demand, don’t hide behind the monitor and embrace strategic flukes.” Here are some comments on the last point.
“Aeroplan recently went through a major SOA project, which was driven in part by a company push to a new non-air rewards program. That meant it was a lot easier to make the business case and get senior management behind it. Remi Lefrance admits it was kind of a fluke, but that’s okay. “But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the whole experience it’s that this worked very well for us. I think it could work well for others too.” Best practices come in all kinds of ways. Don’t ignore the ones that come about as a happy accident.’”
Ballmer to Yang: How stupid are you?
Valleywag
Owen Thomas looks at Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer’s letter to Yahoo’s Jerry Yang concerning the failed acquisition of the company.
“Ballmer rails against Yang for considering outsourcing search advertising to Google, saying it will cause Yahoo’s engineers to flee and raise prices for advertisers. “By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table,” Ballmer concludes. If I were Yang, I would read this and wonder why I ever even contemplated getting into business with this guy.”
Blu-ray-for-Xbox 360 rumours restoked
Register Hardware
James Sherwood sheds light on the Xbox 360 Blu-Ray rumour brewing between Microsoft and Pegatron Technology.
“According to a report on Taiwanese Chinese-language newssite UDN, Pegatron Technology will assemble Xbox 360s equipped with internal Blu-ray drives. It’s claimed the first such models will roll off of the production line within six months, although where they’ll go on sale first is anyone’s guess at this stage. Microsoft has never really confirmed or denied that it’s working on a Blu-ray Xbox 360.”