Stories by: David Coursey

Microsoft may be on its way to earning a percentage of every Android handset sold, something even Google hasn't accomplished.

Apple's notable successes, the iPad and iPhone, hide an important fact: Apple's secrecy comes at the expense of success with business customers. In essence, Apple accepts a position of limited influence in the business world in exchange for a marketing strategy that manipulates consumers brilliantly.

"Lucid Lynx" is the codename given to Canonical's Ubuntu Linux 10.04, now in beta, which adds social networking features and a new look to the popular Linux distribution. A final release is due April 29, the company said.

Yesterday's statement from Palm's CEO, lamenting how Motorola's Droid beat the Palm Pre into Verizon stores, I was reminded of a famous Marlon Brando line from "On the Waterfront." Many people know the words, even of they don't know they come from a 1954 motion picture.

What will HP's Slate Tablet have that Apple's iPad won't? It's Adobe Flash, a key Internet technology that HP is touting as the key difference between the two platforms. And, HP is right, though how Flash support will translate into sales remains to be seen.

In becoming CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium, Dr. Jeff Jaffe brings a resume filled with jobs that required building partnerships and finding consensus. Such business and personal skills will be critical for success in Jaffe's new job heading a standards body.

Google ad sales boss John Herlihy yesterday told an audience in Dublin that smartphones are on their way to replacing desktop computers. This is fine, except that he's wrong.

Apple's lawsuit against Nexus One maker HTC and its ongoing legal battles with Nokia and Kodak suggest a universal truth: that lawyers start where innovation stops. Maybe smartphone innovation has slowed so much that Apple now finds it easier to play defense than to invent cool new iPhone technology.

"The netbook is not an experience people are going to continue wanting to have," Apple COO Tim Cook said Tuesday at an investment conference in San Francisco. "When they play with the iPad and experience the magic of using it... I have a hard time believing they're going to go for a netbook."

That sound you've been hearing--that soft "swooshing" in the distance--isn't anything important.