Stories by: Galen Gruman

Microsoft revealed this week at its Mix 10 conference for Microsoft-oriented Web developers that its forthcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile OS will not include a clipboard capability for copy-and-paste operations -- at least not in the first version.

It's never been easy to access - much less analyse - the vast amount of data available to, for example, determine changes in customer behavior or sentiment, optimize routing of telephone switches based on call patterns, or analyze financial portfolio pricing or risk. Traditional business intelligence systems rely on highly structured (and usually transactional) data stored in massive data cubes and data warehouses, which requires significant upfront work to decide what is being analyzed and to ensure all the data is consistent with that goal - that is, you know what you are looking for. But that approach isn't useful for exploring trends or patterns, especially in external data that wasn't formatted for your needs.

As the smoke clears from Steve Jobs launching the Apple iPad, missing details suggest there's less to Apple's tablet than meets the eye.

Last summer, it looked like Apple was finally going to make its Macs and iPhones enterprise-capable, giving hope to those who wanted a more stable, less failure-prone option at the office.

Very soon, we'll know whether Apple has changed the world again. The company has scheduled a press conference for 1 p.m. Eastern time today. For months now, the rumor mills and blogosphere have been abuzz with speculation that Apple will debut a new class of device based on the iPod Touch and an updated version of the iPhone OS that uses a larger screen (10 or 11 inches diagonal, perhaps 7) to provide a multitouch, gesture-based media slate for e-books, electronic magazines, Web browsing, video playback, and apps.

Palm has stayed very quiet since its releases of the Palm Pre and Pixi devices this summer, which debuted the WebOS that was at one point seen as a key rival to Apple's iPhone.

This month's purported "iPhone killer" is the Android-based Motorola Droid, which Verizon began selling in the United States on Nov. 6. Unfortunately, it has some real flaws that make it less enterprise-friendly than the iPhone, so it won't kill off the iPhone in business. But the Motorola Droid is a surprisingly good device for individuals and businesses that uses Gmail, POP- or IMAP-based e-mail, or Exchange with no ActiveSync security policies.

Everyone, it seems, has a mobile SDK. Apple has one for its iPhone. Likewise, Google, Microsoft, Palm, and RIM each have one for their mobile OSes. Then there are the third-party, multiplatform mobile dev toolkits such as Rhomobile Rhodes, Nitobi PhoneGap, Appcelerator Titanium, and Ansca Corona, plus the Eclipse Foundation's forthcoming Pulsar.

There's been one promised iPhone killer after another -- the Google Android-based Dream, the RIM BlackBerry Storm, the yet-to-ship, years-delayed Windows Mobile 7 -- but none has given it worthwhile competition to date. Now Palm has its Pre, a device that looks to be a serious contender for the best next-gen mobile device crown.

The new iPhone 3.0 OS is now old news, but does its enhancements overcome any advantages that the BlackBerry has over the iPhone? In May, I pitted the BlackBerry Bold in a head-to-head competition against the iPhone 3G, which handily beat RIM's business standard in most areas. After all, the iPhone 3.0 OS enhances the e-mail, calendar, and search functions that many BlackBerry users focus on and that IT loves about the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).