I got a great little tip this week from my friend, Reuben Swartz, President of Mimiran based in Austin, TX.

Reuben's company develops and sells pricing analytics software and has actually just recently released a new version, in partnership with Salesforce.com, priced for smaller businesses. Poor pricing strategy (or no pricing strategy) has been the death knell for many a new business. Pricing analytics is much more effective than throwing darts in the dark. (There's your plug, Reuben).

As for the tip; just about every business on the planet is feeling the pinch of high fuel costs these days. However, fewer actually have the confidence to tack on a fuel surcharge or raise their prices to compensate for the added expense. Reuben advises companies otherwise. He says companies are more understanding about price increases when there's a tangible reason everyone can relate to like the price of fuel. And, he adds you'd probably be surprised how surprised your customers are that you haven't done it already.

Good tip!

This winter hosted two big showdowns. The New York Giants beat the Pats at the Superbowl and Sony's Blu-ray DVD format KO'd Toshiba's HD DVD format. I'm a Cowboys fan, so I really have nothing to add to any lingering post mortems about the Superbowl.

But this Blu-ray thing....

Now that it appears Blu-ray is a safe bet, PC makers are fast-tracking efforts to get notebooks out featuring Blu-ray DVD drives.

Here's why businesses should run the other direction, for now:

Apparantly, the Blu-ray drives suck up a lot of battery life. I've been reading up on this one. Numerous industry analysts warn the average laptop battery will likely give out about an hour before the credits.

For now, it's likely to take higher end laptops to support all the computing power required to run Blu-ray discs; although Dell is reportedly rushing a sub-$1000 notebook with a Blu-ray drive as early as next month.

If it takes that much horse power to run it off battery, I would advise thinking twice about buying it bundled into your next desktop, as well. Think of your utility bills.

And, of course, there's the obvious consideration: what can Blu-ray do for your business? Unless you are showing a slick, snazzy corporate video for a very important presentation, I don't see any business value.

Skip this one for now.

In this article, Scott Whitney explains how to avoid getting put in a bad situation when you have to figure out how to choose a data center, and points to power as one of the main considerations:

Power is one of the main reasons to go with a data center instead of the "host it myself" plan. It is obviously crucial to the proper operations and uptime of systems, and there's an awful lot to know about it in order to keep systems up and running 24/7. The network operations center (NOC) manager should be able to speak fluently about power requirements, loads, circuits to your equipment, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), power distribution units (PDUs) and so forth.

Cell phone sales broke a big barrier in 2007, according to new research released by Gartner. Worldwide, more than one billion mobile phones were sold; 1.15 billion to more exact.

Keep in mind, the world's population is around 6.5 billion. Just a little perspective I'd like to offer up as you digest that number.

I'm dating myself, but back in the 80's AT&T made the jingle "reach out and touch someone" a household euphemism and punchline.

Well, back to the future I say. It seems its the phone that really is connecting us together as global village, only less by voice and more by Internet connection through these mobile devices.

I'll leave it to you to do the math what 1.15 billion cell phones sold worldwide in just a year means in terms of just how many people on planet earth actually have a cell phone. (Mainly because I don't have those figures at my fingertips). You would have to figure in how many already had a cell phone, how many of those cell phones sold were replacing an old cell phone, how many were actually new users and how many have more than one phone, etc. Uh, if I could crunch those kinds of numbers and variables, I probably wouldn't be doing this for a living.

It does boggle the mind and give legs to those of who can't stop talking about the emerging mobile web; emerging perhaps more rapidly than any of us realized.

If this story proves to be true (let's let the courts decide), then there is a special place in H-E-double toothpicks for those responsible.

A federal class action lawsuit has been filed against Network Solutions and ICANN over something called "front running" domain registrations.

Here's the story in English.

Once upon a time Network Solutions was the only game in town selling domain names (i.e. www.thenameofyourwebsite.com). Several years ago, that nonsense was stopped and other private companies were allowed to get in on the game also selling domain names. Network Solutions likes to charge $35 a year. Other companies are known to charge less than $10 a year.

According to the lawsuit filed, Network Solutions (in collusion with ICANN, more on that in a moment) has allegedly been automatically buying up domain names the second a potential subscriber searches for the availability of a specific name. The person searching for the domain name gets a message that the site is unavailable, leaving them with the option to do without or go to Network Solutions and pay the $35 a year.

More allegations from the lawsuit; ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, what is supposed to be a highly trusted independent non-profit that is supposed to make sure everyone plays fair in the sandbox) is accused of being in collusion with Network Solutions.

So what does ICANN have to say about this, so far? Taking a look at their site, I could only find an enthralling read on confusion over IDN Wikis as discussed at a recent meeting in India as their latest news. Network Solutions latest press release is promoting a "To Blog or Not to Blog" webinar.

The lawsuit was filed by Kabateck Brown Kellner, one of the scariest consumer law firms in the country. KBK has won 750 million dollars for their clients off such big names as Google, Yahoo and Eli Lily.

Can you say www.yipes.com?

Man in the middle attacks, monkey jacks, evil twins! Isn't there enough to worry about when it comes to securing your laptop? Here's another; sleeping or hibernating is not the same thing as off!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (an organization I am happy to plug. They do wonderful things.) has just released a joint report, along with some of Princeton's best technology brainiacs, to announce they've found a serious security vulnerability in laptops when they are in that nether world between on and off.

This applies to both Microsoft and Apple's disc encryption programs like BitLocker and FileLocker respectively.

Researchers have found that encryption keys and passwords stored in RAM, home of the computer's short-term memory, tend to linger for awhile even after losing power or going into sleep mode. This allows hackers a window of opportunity to exploit your data's security.

Many notebooks go into sleep mode by merely flipping down the screen, a common move for the worker bee parked at Starbucks wanting to hop up to grab a latte without completely shutting down. If this means you, next time take the time and shut down.

File this under "what a pain". This is just another reason that I can't wait for the operating system to move to a flash drive and speed up booting up.

Pah, you say! Okay, so you're one of those fast growing online businesses serving clients online literally allover the world. You work collaboratively through web-based tools like Zoho and Google Doc & Spreadsheets with clients, vendors and 1099 freelancers all over the place; none of whom even physically live or work in your zip code.

In fact, the people you work most closely with you couldn't pick out of a line-up because you never see them.

Guess what? You're still a local business wherever you live and you need the support of your local business community.

Here's five reasons why:

1. It's the best place to start your business. Networking with people who share a common committment to a town, neighborhood or community are likely to be the most loyal and generous with their time and expertise to help you get those first clients. Nothing beats pressing the flesh and making eye contact.

2. Everyone needs help. If you need to borrow a conference room, use a superfast copy machine for free, outsource some admin work, get some extra help catching up on book keeping those Rotary Club contacts may suddenly come in handy.

3. Earlier this week on this blog, I talked about a credibility gap with online service professionals. If you are selling services of any kind online, you need a geographical location with some roots in the business community to proove your legitimacy. Okay, so you're the only one in your home town who even knows what business process management is. There's something to be said for one or two voices from the local chamber of commerce who can at least vouch for your personal integrity and work ethic; even if they have only a vague understanding of what you actually do.

4. Too much time in the virtual world will put you out of touch with the real one. You may think the Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce or Kiwanis Club is your parent's generation. Think again. There's a reason why all are still around. It's a great way to keep your self grounded in the real world - main street, not second life.

5. 'Tis better to give than receive. Or so, the quote goes. And it's true, even in business. What's the point of any business if it doesn't contribute something back to community. There's more to business than serving clients and making money. Any fool can do that! What's your give back? Are you helping to mentor that next generation of entrepreneurs coming up behind you, like someone helped you? Are you bringing your prosperity back to the community you live in and sharing it with those in need of help, those that are less fortunate? When your business lifts, shouldn't all the boats rise? Charity begins at home.

Installing software is becoming passe'. Increasingly people are finding what they want out there on servers on the internet. But how can you be sure your data is safe on some server in Bangladesh?

"The issues raised when software applications are delivered as a service are not new, as many companies must allow data to reside or travel outside their premises for various reasons. SaaS vendors are now working proactively with their customers to assure data protection, and the customers are reaping the business benefits."

This excellent article explains SaaS, SAS70 (the government regulation that ensures your data is safe) and how they interact to your benefit.

Some of Google's applications are SAS70 and some are not. They've acquired a bunch of companies and one of them, Postini, is SAS70 compliant but the rest appear not to be.

Nicknamed "Cougar" (They even rip off Apple's nickname preferences - i.e. Leopard became OS X last year), Microsoft is dropping the big cat moniker and unveiling its soon to be released line of servers designed specifically for small to midsize businesses.

The press will get an up close and personal preview next week (so watch for the avalanche of reviews to come out of that). You can at least check out some screen grabs off the Microsoft site.

The new servers should be coming to market some time in the second half of 2008.

One wonders what those screen shots would look like in the next version if the Yahoo! deal goes through.

I love to tell this story.

When I was growing up, my father went through a period of time in his career as a doctor coming home night after night complaining about the "consultants" at his hospital who clearly believed they knew more about what kind of equipment was best for his patients than himself.

One evening at the dinner table, I asked him just what exactly is a consultant anyway. He sighed and said, "It's just someone from out of town with a briefcase."

I'm afraid he'd have to expand his definition now.

A consultant is someone who...

- and/or is a certified coach credentialed by an organization no one has ever heard of before.

The three w's in world wide web might as well stand for wild, wild west. Not since the days of Doc Holiday and Jesse James, has their been so much opportunity for the fly-by-night traveling snake oil salesman.

Certified public accountants, psychotherapists, doctors, lawyers, school teachers, college professors, even hair dressers and plumbers, are all subject to a rigorous process to become certified and licensed in their respective fields. All are subject to maintaining their license and doomed if they screw up and lose it, as well.

Why am I going on and on about this?

The web has increasingly become one big bazaar for services rendered. The best shorthand distinction I've heard describing the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is that Web 1.0 was about content and Web 2.0 is about connecting people. A big part of connecting people is for the purpose of selling services and not just the traditional kinds of services. New job titles are being made up as we go along in this brave new world.

My advice: the next time you're considering a faceless consultant you met on media bistro or Monster or LinkedIn to coach you in sales knowledge management or manage your google ad campaigns or to outsource all your search engine optimization strategy; don't be buffaloed by the shopping list of faux credentials above.

While there are plenty of highly skilled and professional service providers marketing themselves in such a way, how can you tell them apart from the charlatans out to make a fast buck in between layoffs from their real careers (whatever that might be)?

How's that for a play on words? The Street is reporting that the Sprint-Clearwire deal may finally be on again thanks to a big fat check from Intel.

Intel is expected to infuse two billion (as in "b") dollars into the shaky (understatement of the week alert) partnership between Sprint and Clearwire to hook up and create a coast-to-coast Wi-Max network. The deal has been on hold for a few months now, after Sprint's CEO flew the coop last fall.

Intel not only brings a very big bag of money to the party, it also brings its new set of Wi-Max compatible chips that should be standard fare in most new notebooks by summer.

If you'd like to read up on Wi-Max, here's an article I recently wrote for this site that's a good primer on the subject.

Every once in a while you try a new product on a whim, and you wonder if it really should be legal.

Stok is just such a product.

They have them at Sam's. Stok is a little vial of concentrated caffeine you can add to your coffee to kick it up a notch.

In the world of software development in which I live, Stok can have a performance boosting effect on your programmers.

I put 2 in my coffee this morning. Now I'm feeling creative. Yay.

Happy programming.

Curt writes code really fast sometimes at Journyx.

Is it me? I find a certain sense of irony in the recent deal announced between Starbucks and AT&T.

The deal Starbucks has struck with AT&T, nosing out its current Wi-Fi partner T-Mobile, will make Wi-Fi free for just about everybody. For starters, free Wi-Fi will be a new benny for AT&T DSL customers (that's 12 million subscribers). Starbucks cardholders will be entitled to two free hours a day of wireless connectivity, as well.

For the two or three people this doesn't include, there will still be a charge of $3.99 for two hours of access.

Industry watchers are already speculating this deal is going to put big time pressure on other businesses with hotspots, along with the other major broadband carriers and telcos to bundle in public Wi-Fi access with similar deals. If true, I say good. Free is my favorite four letter word.

I just find it amusing that Starbucks, a company that owes its success to brilliantly cultivating a high demand for four dollar cups of coffee where none had existed before, has just inked a deal that will likely cheapen Wi-Fi access at hotspots to virtually zero dollars.

The strategy is obvious and brilliant, of course. Two hours of free Wi-Fi is just enough time to sip down two decaf cafe mochas, delight in a cranberry scone and pick up a CD of Sheryl Crow's favorite songs (because it sounded so good while I was checking my email in the big purple overstuffed chair).

Tell me again how the Wi-Fi is free?

I predict the score will be Microsoft - 0, Yahoo - 0, Google - 0, and you - 0.

All of Google's revenue comes from pay-per-click (PPC), 99% of it or something anyway. Everything else they've tried hasn't worked. They're not as smart as everyone thinks. They're a one trick pony, and their shining moment in the sun will last far fewer years than Microsoft's did.

In this article right here on Inc.com, Anita Campbell says essentially that the Yahoo/Microsoft merger will be a good thing in that it will make Google compete. Oh how I wish it were so. I hope she's right, but I doubt it.

I've been an avid user of just about every PPC engine around since the idea was invented about 8 or 9 years ago. Journyx received IPO stock in Goto.com (which became Overture, and then Yahoo) because we were one of their first customers. Google copied them, basically, and then did it much better, which is why they're winning - for now.

But after Overture was bought by Yahoo, Yahoo screwed it up. Their PPC machine is so hard to use now that it barely functions. Microsoft has their own and I've never used it because they told me I'd have to dismantle my Yahoo store before I could pile in. I imagine they've changed that rule by now but that's not where the traffic is anyway.

Most searches happen on Google. On my computer, right this minute, google.com takes 3 seconds to load. Yahoo.com takes 13 seconds. Msn.com takes 20.

It's as simple as that, and it always will be. We just do not live in an age where people want to waste time waiting for blinky ads to load. Google so far seems to still get that.

Anita's argument appears to be that maybe if two screwed up entities are merged they'll get smarter due to more resources etc.

I really doubt it. They don't have a lack of resources today, they have a lack of leadership, vision and good management. Google really isn't that superior, they're just "less bad" at the moment. The interface that an advertiser must put up with in Google Adwords has become increasingly complicated and slow over the last few years. Google.com may load quick but Adwords does not.

The industry is ripe for someone with half a brain to come along and do PPC right, but it won't happen at Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. They just don't get it.

If you want to make your business more of a labor of love; here's my list of five technologies you can invest in to make your work days more blissful (hopefully freeing up more evenings for time with your honey).

1. Go wireless. Get rid of all that CAT 5 cable around the office. Give yourself and your employees the ability to move around and connect more with each other without walking away from their connectivity.

2. Pick out a suite of Web 2.0 tools, whether its Zoho, Google Docs & Spreadsheets or something higher end like IBM's Lotus Web 2.0 software and get serious about online team collaboration.

3. Backup your data offsite; just in case.

4. Invest in a software dashboard to monitor the business's mission critical data in real-time; that way you can respond in real time in no time.

5. Talk to my buddy Curt Finch, our other regular contributor on this blog, about time management software. Saving time not only saves money; it also prevents headaches and keeps marriages together.

If your postal and shipping costs are a big part of your overhead then you've likely already noticed a jump in costs. It's not your imagination. All the major shipping companies (DHL, FedEx and UPS) all goosed their shipping rates about 4.9% last month.

Here's a little site I read about on The Consumerist (great blog, by the way).

Shipgooder is a handy (and free) little online calculator that will comparison shop the cheapest shipping rates. Just punch in the originating zip code, the destination zip code and the weight and number of package(s).

I played with it; hypethetically sending my mother in Florida a ten pound box (regifting her own holiday fruitcake back to her for Valentine's Day?). I got rates for next day, 2 day, 3 day and ground shipping. When you see the prices side by side, let's just say shipping it ground suddenly doesn't look so bad.

Oh yeah, one other note just to make your day. The post office is jacking up the price of first class stamps - AGAIN! They will go up to 42 cents in May.

I'm still burning through the last of my 39 cents stamps with two cents stamps!

This is either a sign the rates are going up too often or I'm paying more of my bills online.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are appearing everywhere, from bottles to seweres to prescriptions to sugar. This article explains why.

Foodstuffs and documation are both big places.

It was a black Monday for Blackberry users yesterday, with RIM (Blackberry's parent company) admitting a major outage across North America characterizing it as a "critical severity outage".

Blackberry has about 12 million users in this part of the world. There's no word on just how many of those 12 million people were left without email. However all major Blackberry carriers iin the United States, including AT&T and Verizon were affected.

If you are a Blackberry customer, this may feel like deja vu all over again (to quote the great Yogi Berra). It was a similar story about 10 months ago.

So how does this happen? The Ziff Davis folks have actually dug up an interesting theory. Apparantly, all Blackberry email traffic goes through one of two IP addresses. Yesterday, one of those IP addresses went on the fritz. Customers routed through the other IP address were fine.

File this under "Is it me?"; but no where on either Blackberry or RIM's corporate web site can I find a presser admitting the outage. According to Reuters, RIM notified customers through email about the outage.

Through email!

Hello!

The high tech age has been brutal with the low tech age.

Try finding a typewriter these days. But, how many times have you wished you had one laying around the office to address that one envelope?

Low tech has a new addition to the extinction list: Polaroid cameras. Instant pictures are no more. Polaroid is closing the last of its factories that make both cameras and film.

The photo quality wasn't exactly suitable for framing and heaven help you if you if pulled the tab back prematurely. It was what can only be described as an unholy mess of gloppy chemicals as toxic as new toys from China (couldn't resist getting that one in).

Still, Polaroid instant snaps were handy in a million ways and for professionals of all walks of life - from insurance adjusters to school teachers.

Digital cameras and cell phone cameras have made Polaroid instant cameras obsolete. But, I argue perhaps a little too soon. Yes, you can take a picture on a dime with the former. But, you're still going to get a hard copy later. You still have to transfer the file into a PC or a digital photo-friendly printer to shoot off paper prints.

I guess HP will be putting a rush on ramping up that market for portable printers that attach to handhelds. Until then, I'll miss the gooey, grainy instant gratification of Polaroid.

There are many reasons why managers today fall into the trap of building software solutions in-house.

* Management often views its employees as free. They think to themselves, "Well, I have these people on my staff and I'm paying them anyway so I'll just make them build it." Not only that, but budgets for people and budgets for software or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are separated and unmalleable in many companies. People budgets are always much higher so the idea of employees being the better option is reinforced from a budgetary perspective.

* The ongoing support and maintenance cost of automated systems is often underestimated by managers. Software breaks all the time, even when you haven't changed anything: for example, Windows may ship a patch that breaks you or a slight change in usage patterns reveals a bug that was always there. If the employee who wrote your in-house system has already moved on by then, you are in big trouble.

In terms of cost, many managers also underestimate requirements gathering, testing, documentation, and to a lesser degree, the design and creation of the software in the first place.

* If a company had a bad experience with a software vendor in the past, managers may be hesitant to follow the purchasing route again. Unfortunately, some vendors raise maintenance cost too rapidly or sell a solution that is too impractical to be used, which amounts to shelfware. In order to avoid this, companies must use forethought in the contracts they initially sign with the vendor - forethought that many people don't get around to spending time on.

* Opportunity cost is generally ignored because the lack of a time tracking system leads to the lack of understanding of per-person per-project profitability. In other words, there is one most profitable thing that a particular employee can be doing right now for the company. Building an in-house time tracking, CRM or issue management system is almost certainly not it. If managers have not been measuring costs (i.e. tracking time), then they cannot possibly know where the company is profitable and where it is not.

Curt authored a project management book in 2007

If you hear the sounds of plop, plop, fizz, fizz, that's just your IT department nursing the ache in their heads over Google's new release of Google Apps Team Edition.

Check out the official Google blog's take on this announcement,

Team Edition comes with the boast it will help groups collaborate and share everything from spreadsheets to calendars online. And the best part; all you have to do to confirm you really belong to the organization represented is with an email address from the matching domain.name.

To quote Google's blog annoucement, here's the best part:

There’s no hardware, software or setup involved (and no burden for IT folks).

No burden for the IT folks! In other words, teams can completely circumvent the IT department and use Team Edition on the company network. Memo to Google: I think most IT departments want to be burdened and have some admin controls over what's happening on their own network.

Other business editions of Google apps require some form of IT oversight, by the way.

It will be interesting to see how businesses react to this one.

If you've ever bought or sold on eBay, then you know buyer and seller feedback is a major cog in the wheels of commerce.

eBay just changed the rules and sellers are n-o-t happy.

New rules (as Bill Maher would say): sellers can no longer leave negative feedback about buyers, only degrees of positive statements.

eBay argues that fear of negative feedback can sometimes intimidate buyers from being honest about a negative purchasing experience for fear of retaliation.

Good point, I say!

Besides, what other business includes the public diss'ing of your customers. I live in Fairfield County, CT, home of Stew Leonards, a regional dairy and grocery store chain that is often voted one of the best midsize companies in the country. It's core company mantra is posted about every five feet as you wind your way through the store: the customer is always right.

Now back to eBay-land, which is not quite like the world the rest of us live in. The way you break into selling on eBay is to first do some buying. Getting favorable feedback as a buyer is the fastest way to establish a good enough reputation on eBay to become a seller. You need a reputation to start selling (that is, if you actually want someone to trust you enough to buy from you). If you've never sold anything, how do you do that? Thus goes the logic making it necessary to be a good doobie as a shopper first.

What is this really about? Here's a couple of theories, off the top of my head.

1. Without effort, anyone can now just buy a couple of things and get enough of a reputation to become a seller. Maybe eBay just wants to make it easier to become a seller. Maybe eBay needs more sellers?

2. What's good for sellers on eBay is also good for eBay. eBay wets its beak everytime a sale is made. A good chunk of buyers on eBay are repeat customers. If one customer gets flamed by a seller, there's a good chance the wounded party is going to take their business somewhere else and never click on ebay.com again. What if that customer shops regularly on any number of eBay storefronts and auctions to the tune of thousands of dollars a year? eBay stands the most to lose in the long run.

Memo to upset eBay sellers: get over it! I read one seller's comment complaining that eBay has now exposed them to shrinkage from naughty customers. Welcome to retail, I say. Shrinkage is part of the bargain. Deal with it.

Memo to eBay: figure out a new way for a new seller to prove their worthiness, other than their reputation as a customer. It was a bad system and now its a bad system that's broken to boot.

P.S. Make sure you click on that link to Stew's core company mantra. It's the famous eggnog story and well worth the read. Every small to midsize business owner should print it out and tack it over their desk.

A little over a decade ago, Netscape was the bomb. It was the first major web browser that not only put itself on the map, but made the Internet a household word and accessible to all. It was also the first tech IPO that was so crazy (it went from $12 to $75 the first day of trade) that it set off a chain reaction of other crazy tech IPOs and turned thousands of otherwise normal people into thrill seeking day traders glued to CNBC all day while logged onto their eTrade accounts.

Fast forward to this week. AOL, the parent company of Netscape (the other parent being Time Warner - a couple that can make us all feel better about our own dysfunctional families), has announced it will officially put Netscape out to pasture at the end of the month.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I wonder if AOL will put itself out to pasture too. You know AOL; the over-rated company that merged with Time Warner in what has to be one of the most disasterous corporate mergers of all times?

Is it me, or is there something ironic that the tech company that represents the pin that burst the tech bubble is shelving the tech company that blew it out of proportion in the first place? There's something very Zen about the whole thing.

In the mid-90's, America Online and Netscape were two of the hottest names in business. It makes you wonder where Google and Myspace and Facebook will be ten years from now?

There's a cautionary tale to be told in all this for startups.

Anyone can launch a startup. But, can you sustain a stayup?

Here are some walkaway lessons to be learned from Netscape and all the other dotcoms that have come and gone.

1. Don't be a one product or service wonder. Diversify your offerings for the long haul. Be open to launching new products and services and shedding the ones that need to be shed along the way.

2. Avoid having your company overvalued. It may be fun in the short term reaping all that funny-money wealth on paper. Unfortunately, that's where its likely to stay; on paper. Remember the tortoise and the hare and be the tortoise.

3. If your sudden success is to good to be true, it likely is. Call in the consultants and identify your weak points before they become pain points.

4. The time to write a business plan is not year two or three. That's when it should be revised.

In other news...

If you planned on cutting corners this year by scaling back IT salaries, think again. Despite the economic downturn, IT salaries are apparantly still on the rise.

John Longwell, research director at Computer Economics, has sent me some of his latest projections on IT salaries (Thanks, John. Always good to hear from you!).

Interestingly enough, IT salaries are still on the rise as they have been since coming out of the post tech bubble - post y2k downturn several years ago now.

Of course, it depends on what jobs within IT we're talking about.

The biggest jump in salaries will go to those that work in networking-related jobs (i.e. the people responsible for network security, compliance and integrating all that new VoIP and wireless gear). They'll be seing on average a 3.9% increase in salaries this year.

Coming in at number two: the developer's group (as in applications development, technical architecture and building databases) with a 3.7% increase in salaries, followed by management (you know they're always going to take care of themselves) at 3.5%.

Interestingly enough, it's midsize companies that will be hit the hardest with salary spikes in IT at 4%. Larger companies will fare better at 3.5%, as will the really small companies.

No surprises here. While predicting increases in those areas, Computer Economics predicts more cost-cutting through outsourcing. For IT professionals just starting out, fresh out of college, the news is not good. These increases only apply to the highly-skilled niche professionals.

For smaller companies looking for a bargain in IT-help, perhaps consider someone younger and less skilled and then invest in their training. Just make sure you lock them into place with a contract, so you know they'll be around to payoff your investment over the next two or three years as we ride out a shaky economy.

It's not a big shocker and yet, we're all shocked anyway. I'm referring, of course, to the big announcement on Friday about Microsoft's self-invited bid to takeover Yahoo! ("embrace and enhance" is baaaack!).

So when two megaliths like Microsoft and Yahoo! make headlines on the mergers and acquistions page, what does it mean to smaller companies?

In the short term, it means absolutely nothing. Let's see if it happens first and then let's see how long it takes for it to actually happen.

Then again, think about all the small to midsize businesses that use both or either company. Here's a great chart listing just some of the services of both companies and where they overlap.

Google, of course, is having a hissy fit crying foul already and speculating anti-trust issues of biblical proportions (all the mirrors must be broken on their campus).

What would it mean to end users like you and me?

Pollyanna Scenario - Maybe Microsoft will use Yahoo! as a launch pad to become more of a Web 2.0 company, instead of a Web 1.0 company scrambling to put out some token Web 2.0 offerings. I have a long memory. Microsoft was pretty thick about the arrival of Web 1.0 back in the mid-90's. Remember: Microsoft at it's heart is a software company. Yahoo! could be very good for them, if they allow it. A big physical prescence in Silicon Valley might be good for their corporate culture, as well.

The Sky is Falling Scenario - - Microsoft beats all the fun and innovation out of Yahoo!. The two cultures couldn't be more different. Microsoft is the alpha cat. Do the math.

Predictions:

- Microsoft combines all those hotmail users and yahoo mail users and out-Google's Google positioning itself to become the turnkey web-based solution for small businesses to outsource their email. Microsoft manages, stores, encrypts all of your email.

- Yahoo! toolbars built into Internet Explorer, of course. This is really bad for Google. By far, their stickiest feature is still search. If their search engine gets severely winged, they get severely winged.

- Yahoo! mobile and Microsoft Mobile. Microsoft's elegant mobile operating system combined with Yahoo's mobile optimized search engine. Bad news for iPhone and the mythical Google phone. Remember: the emerging mobile web is the next big battlefield and Microsoft knows it.

- Vista is the Edsel of Windows operating systems. Next time around, not so. The next version of Windows will have much cooler bling from Yahoo! (better widgets, personalization pages, user generated content, features and mashups) and hopefully keep it simple and less bloated. But by that time, how many Windows users will have already jumped ship for good moving to Apple's' highly-touted Leopard or a Linux O/S?

- Web-based Office on Yahoo! There will be a stripped down free version just a step above Google Docs & Spreadsheets. The days of EULA-based Microsoft Office will be numbered, replaced by a subscription-based model with various levels of packages. It's heading there anyway.

I'll stop there for now. It's enough to make your head spin, isn't it? Bottomline: I think it'll be a good thing for us all, because it slows down the Google juggernaut. I think it'll be a bad thing, because it will slow down the move towards more open source.

Ye'sterday's posting about the shutting down of Dell's Kiosks and Palm's retail outlets got me to thinking.

The two announcements are really apples and oranges with different issues and different motivations for those decisions.

Palm is getting out of the retail business, it appears, to pay off a lawsuit. Handheld sales will go on at most of those airport outlets, just under new signage with an expanded array of name brands.

Dell's decision to sell low end PCs at WalMart seems to be working out well. (Is it possible to fail in retail sales at WalMart?). But the kiosk thing is a bitter reminder of Gateway's attempt at bricks and mortar storefronts. Granted the kiosks were not about selling on the spot, but rather checking out the goods and having someone help you order online from their counterspace.

My question of the day: Why have PC sales always been an iffy proposition in traditional retail outlets, while cell phone stores continue to pop up like mushrooms in strip plazas everywhere?

I don't know about you, but where I live in CT; when my community sees a "coming soon" sign in an empty retail space, it usually means either another (*&^% bank branch or its a cell phone outlet. We haven't gotten a new Starbucks or Borders in ages where I live. But you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a new T-Mobile store or Commerce Bank.

Is it because:

a) handhelds are cheaper and, therefore, more attractive to impulse shoppers?
b) The younger generation of mobile users likes to touch, feel, comparison shop and buy accessories for their latest wireless toys. The older generation may prefer buying their PCs out of stores, but they've accepted the online method.
c) People make their buying decisions about PCs based on functionality. With mobile devices,there's a cosmetic need and a need to accomodate each users own personal ergonomic comfort zone.
d) all of the above.
e) none of the above.