Links for August 8th through August 16th

• Flexible Routing in the Cloud
• Google hits back at Oracle's lawsuit
• Oracle sues Google over Java in Android
  I suspect there was some permissiveness going on between Sun and Google – Sun just wanted more Java everywhere, never mind the monetization. Oracle, of course, is not like that. Or, maybe this lawsuit was brewing (pun!) for awhile: who knows?
• Oracle, Amazon help users remotely run Linux
  Amazon and Novell announce that some day soon you can get commercial support for SUSE in Amazon's cloud.
• Android big winner as smartphone sales increase 50 percent
• How virtualization shakes up the way servers are sold
  "Converged Infrastructure": building the new mainframe. Or, if you prefer, "private cloud," aka, "one throat to choke," aka, "one check to write."
• H-P Board Felt Hurd Settlement With Contractor Impeded Probe
  Things are getting stranger – supposedly the board was happy with how Herd was handling the scandal, then suddenly were very upset.
• OpenSolaris axed by Ellison
  "In short, the Oracle executives said that the open source, community-driven OpenSolaris project as conceived and built by Sun Microsystems five years ago is dead. Get over it."
• vzaar video case study: IBM Lotus
• IBM Embraces Web Video As A Vital Internal Communication Tool
• IT executives and developers on open source collision course
  survey data shows open source is getting even more use
• Free Webinar – Riak in Action: Wriaki – August 19 @ 2PM Eastern
• Skype and Google next against the wall in India
  Nevermind privacy concerns from private industry.
• Location social network Gowalla launches campaign tool kit « – Blogs from CNN.com
• Google buys Instantiations, gets Eclipse, Java, and Ajax expertise | ZDNet
• Zenoss Blog: No Node Left Behind: Zenoss Core 3.0.1 is Now Available! – Open Source Network Monitoring and Systems Management
  Nice use of a vacation photo of mine 😉
• AT&T Lets U-Verse Customers Download TV Episodes To The iPhone
  Sounds like it's be good. Let's hope T doesn't go all TimeWarner and merge with Yahoo!
• Who Is Left At Palm? Hint: Not Execs Katie Mitic Or Jeff Zwerner
  A bit obsessive about the exec level and leaving. One would assume with Palm having been not so great, seems HP would clean up management ranks a bit, what?
• H.P. Followed a P.R. Specialist’s Advice in the Hurd Case – NYTimes.com
• Intuit Buys Personal Finance Management App Cha-Ching
  It's good see that Intuit is being aggressive about keeping up with the times, being humble enough to buy startups that are innovating in Intuit's wheelhouse.
• Managing a virtual desktop environment • The Register
  "This raises the opportunity for vendors to put their money where their mouths are, and to demonstrate their own best practice capabilities in the real world."
• New Delphi, RAD Studio XE announced
• SeeWhy | Boost website conversion with real-time abandonment remarketing
• Dell launches 'zero client' VDI hardware
• CallVine Launches
  Reverse conference calls.
• Tech Companies, Google Sold You Out
  Stacy paints a grim picture: "Google gives a little but wins, Verizon gives a little, but wins, and consumers and innovation ultimately lose. That’s usually how these compromises work. "
• The Evolution Of User Manuals
  "Documentation, once siloed in the realm of how-to guides, is actually feeding top-of-the-funnel activity. In fact, some companies that I have spoken to are reporting that their documentation is bringing in over 50% of their qualified leads. I can report that my company receives 70% plus of our site traffic from organic sources, and our documentation generates more than half of our overall site traffic. Furthermore, over half of our lead generation is driven by our documentation."
• Bazaarvoice's Sam Decker moving on, recruiting successor
• Enterprise Adoption of the Public Cloud Hinges on Liability Policies
• In Defense of Listservs
  I always have kookie ideas about email groups and newsletters, probably just nostalgia.
• Abolish Software Patents? Be Careful What You Wish For
  —
• IBM vs. Microsoft: The Big Iron Battle
  "I don't think IBM is especially interested in managing Windows on the zEnterprise," Cote said. "Technologically it wouldn't work out [because IBM can't access the source, Steve Mills claimed], and they probably are unwilling to do whatever it would take to make Microsoft help them out with it. But I think in the wider context of things, IBM's not really out to help Microsoft out really."
• Desktop virtualisation: why, how, and how much?
  There's so much hype around desktop virtualization, but adoption seems slow. Check out the FreeformDynamics boys for some pragmatic info.
• 'Year of the Virtual Desktop' a Flop So Far
• Why Microsoft took its cloud private
• Old Enough To Drink
• How we buy plane tickets and why it's ruining air travel
  When the only feature you care about is lowest price, you get lowest quality.
• Austin startup launches Web-based service to help collectors feed their passions – Austin Business Journal
• Illumos sporks OpenSolaris
• Microsoft turns on Visual Studio LightSwitch
  "Microsoft says that LightSwitch dramatically decreases the time it takes to build a custom application by automatically handling routine code; it's a rapid application development tool that offers application shells and screen templates to allow the developer to concentrate on the core business logic."

Disclosure: see the RedMonk client list for clients mentioned.