Sun finally shines under Oracle
In its last full year as an independent company, Sun Microsystems suffered an operating loss of $775m. Now, less than two years later, Oracle says it’s well on the way to making a $1.5bn profit from the same businesses.
So did Sun shareholders make a big mistake in selling out too soon, or has Oracle really pulled off an overhaul in record time? Read more
Duke Nukem shortest delay ever shocker
In the annals of video game history, Duke Nukem Forever stands alone as the title that never fails to disappoint. Disappoint in the sense that, 14 years after development began on the sequel to 1996’s Duke Nukem 3D, the game has still not appeared. This despite countless tentative release dates and its developer 3D Realms being reduced to saying in 2001 that it would be released simply “when it’s done”. Read more
Huffington Post to launch UK edition
The Huffington Post will launch a British edition this summer, its founder announced in London, in what could be the first of a raft of international versions of the blogging site. Read more
Two weeks ago, I had what I thought was a clever idea. I owned an iPhone that I had not been using in New York because I did not want to pay AT&T’s data charges of up to $45 per month for e-mail and browsing. Why not just connect it to the network on a voice plan and use it for this alone when not in WiFi range? Read more
In the days immediately after the Japan earthquake, there was great concern of a worst-case scenario of severe disruption to the global technology supply chain that would halt or severely delay production of computers, smartphones or – horrors of horrors – the iPad 2.
Now more than a week later, it is still difficult to quantify the exact toll the quake will exact on tech production. But a somewhat clearer, and more measured, account of what is or is not under threat is emerging. And, thankfully, the situation for now looks to be not as dire as many people originally thought.
Tech news from around the web:
Valley-backed Color’s “miraculous” new app
Color, a new app that makes social connections and captures events “in the round” through the medium of location-based photographs, has officially launched, with major VC firms putting $41m into the six-month old company behind it. That’s the snapshot on the Silicon Valley startup, but the bigger picture is that Color makes possible a new kind of automated “ad hoc”, content-sharing and social networking. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
