Talking Tech, Friday, December 1

0.31 – The story of the week is Microsoft Vista.  The hype is over, the product has been shipped and Mark defers to Kevin for an expert opinion.  Vista is groundbreaking, but only from a product development perspective.  This will be better than most of Microsoft’s first tries but it’s still worth waiting for the kinks to be ironed out

 

1.55 – Neither Mark or Kevin think customers will be jumping on board right now, but as the saying goes, they’ll either pay now or they’ll pay later.  The upgrade cycle means Vista will be a success eventually; the only question is whether Microsoft can afford to wait for that revenue

 

4.27 – Mark thinks the next big cash cow for Microsoft will be Office 2007.  Enough time has passed since the last upgrade for users to be wanting more from their office suite

 

5.45 – Kevin moves onto the beleaguered newspaper industry, one of Mark’s favourite topics.  Last week Kevin Meaney (USA Today) asked hi-tech entrepreneurs/investors how they would improve the newspaper industry but surprisingly, they couldn’t come up with anything radical

 

6.58 – Mark believes the answer is in changing the culture of the newsroom from reporters to content producers.  In addition to writing articles for the paper, they should also be blogging, writing small, snappy, instant opinion pieces and recording video

 

8.33 – Kevin brings up file sharing and the fact that BitTorrent raised $25m (U.S.) and now looks to be legitimately moving into the mainstream

 

9.27 – Mark isn’t sure what to make of it.  Licensing deals have been made with content owners to distribute their content with BitTorrent technology.  There’s no network, so where’s the VC money going to go?

 

10.10 – Will the licensing of content really drive people to download legitimate, rather than pirated, content?  Kevin thinks it’s a great move and that the standoff between “rogueâ€? file sharers and content owners is coming to an end

 

12.18 – Mark believes most people want to do the right thing when it comes to accessing content, but at a reasonable price.  iTunes hit the sweet spot with the 99cents price point.  Can BitTorrent, and the movie/TV industry, access this market as well?

 

13.20 – However Mark’s been watching free episodes of My Name is Earl on French file sharing site, DailyMotion

 

14.25 – The  guys end the show with another plea for Starbucks sponsorship

 

Audio comments for Mark and Kevin can be left on the Talking Tech hotline: [phone] or emailed to [e-mail].

Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.