Links for July 23rd through July 26th

• Empires built on free code aren't cheap • The Register
  Matt Asay has a weekly column in The Register now. This week, helping give VCs a reason to exist: "we seem to be entering an age when it's dirt cheap to start a company."
• IBM Reorganization Tucks Systems Under Software
• Wanted: An AS/400-Centric System of Systems
  "I was thinking of something with a bit tighter coupling than two private 10 Gigabit Ethernet links between the mainframes and the blades for data exchange and management. While the Unified Resource Management extensions to the Systems Director stack will no doubt make it easier to manage external AIX and Linux servers, the machines are no more tightly coupled than what companies can build today."
• IBM Revenues Hurt By Server Transitions and Currency in Q2
  Break down of IBM reported revenue and much commentary in Power/i
• Apple Wants Your SMB Business
  Apple looking to more SMB work , explicitly.
• Unisys to offer mainframe cloud services
  If it's expensive and tedious for dev and test to setup and maintain, cloud it!
• Pinning Down Zynga’s Revenues Is Like Playing Pin The Tail On The Bullet Train
• Austin's budget picture not as dire as once expected
• "The Old Line State"
• The Secret Relationship between Enterprise Architecture and Outsourcing: Part One
  "An enterprise should always ask themselves how can they increase response times not just with customers but throughout the pipeline." Good tie in of social CRM too.
• The Turkish Towel
• Big Money: AOL’s Beauty Pageant With Google, Microsoft For New Search Deal
  "AOL visitors tend to click on search ads at more than twice the rate that people click on ads on Google’s search engine. So that 2.5% market share is really more like 6% of total search advertising market share."
• Dell’s Trouble Kicking the Intel Habit – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com
  Dell's payola from Intel. Salacious quotes like "for 3 qtrs now, Intel money has made the qtr. A bad way to run the railroad."
• Technology fetishism is skin deep | Guy Dammann
  A sort of weirdly cynical take on people not being sincere with their gadget lust. Kind of like if Jaren Lanier was obsessed with computers instead of octopuses and funky instruments.
• Is Canada the Worst Consumer of its Own Innovation?
  Canadian innovation is often sold of to California, the piece contends, mostly because Canadian tech culture isn't setup to acquire.
• Bloatware Creeps Into Android Phones | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
  "It is amazing how any app or widget on the phone associated with the handset maker (HTC) or the network provider (Sprint) is invariably a P.O.S."
• Global SaaS Enterprise Application Sales to Exceed $8.5 Billion in 2010
  "Global sales of software-as-a-service (SaaS) in the enterprise application segment will jump more than 14 percent to $8.5 billion this year when compared with the $7.5 billion generated in 2009, a spike attributed largely to the business community’s growing endorsement of cloud computing, according to data compiled by researcher Gartner Inc."
• The future is female. And Republican | Clancy Sigal
• IT departments swamped by consumer devices
• Leaving iPhone for Android
• Financial Advisors Spend 23 Hours A Week Online, Mobile Use Increasing
  Not sure what to do with this: financial advisors want more (free, I'm guessing) sources of info on the web..?
• Nokia’s fall from grace: The Background Story
  "Suddenly in 2007 Wall Street lost its respect for facts, and started to believe Apple’s version of the story, ignoring the truth."
• The Risku Manifesto: A radical plan to rescue Nokia
• HP Windows Slates Coming “This Fall”
• Developers and End-Users Driving Google's Enterprise Strategy Says Forrester
  'Hammond calls information workers Google's "Trojan horse" for enterprise adoption. Forrester's Workforce Technographics Survey, from Q3 2009, found 39% have used online productivity tools such as Google Docs for work related purposes. Hammond speculates this sort of independent end-user adoption will spur further enterprise adoption. "If you've been in the enterprise IT space for any length of time, Google's strategy should feel familiar to you; it's right out of Microsoft's playbook," write Hammond. "As Google appeals to individual users, it opens up a pathway into enterprise IT budgets."'
• Microsoft Skips Over Mobile And Talks Xbox Live Instead
• Microsoft 'record' results beat Jedi mind trickery

Disclosure: see the RedMonk client list for clients mentioned.