Upgrades Vs. Upgrade: Two, count them, two companies making their bread, as well as their butter, on virtualization software for running the Windows operating system on Macs have hit with upgrade announcements this week. VMware’s planned release, a late response to archrival Parallels February 27 release, rolls out in June with Fusion, noteworthy in its ability to run Windows-designed 3-D gaming software on a Mac. In a great “oh yeah” moment Parallels claims its Desktop for Macs will meet and match VMware’s claims, as well as let existing users have it for free. Now, while VMware’s is currently free, there’s been no word on what the price will be when it hits. Score one for Parallels.
EA making music easy: Electronics Arts, the big giant video game publisher is starting to offer music from its gaming titles through iTunes. The songs are going to be priced along the now-familiar 99 cent range and will widen their offering from the already iTuned games like “Tetris” and “Sudoku,” which sell on iTunes for $4.99. Which means? That your complete and total escape from reality is almost completely and totally possible. Perfect.
If it walks like a Zune…: Another patent, another peek into the mind of Jobs. Late yesterday Apple was granted a patent for an “electronic device formed with doubleshot injection molding.” Even though the patent was filed in August of 2005 it kinda-sorta seems to refer to the glowing border effect in Microsoft’s Zune. While patent apps are notoriously and distinctly uninformative, images for the patent seem to point toward this being used in the first iteration of the iPod shuffle and either being canceled or held over for use in some sort of mysterious Apple future offering.
Lehman Brothers likes: And speaking of futures, Lehman Brothers analyst Harry Blount in some pre-market trading yesterday upgraded Apple on the basis of growth expectations from product launches while Morgan Stanley believes the market is underestimating the likely success of the iPhone. Well, not this side of the market.
We KNEW it: Meetings make you dumberest. So says, um…er, oh yeah, an MSNBC report. Purportedly groupthink is bad think. No arguments here. Right, folks? C'mon don't all rush to say something stupid all at once.
And finally…is it love? The Filter, this iTunes-iPod instant playlist creator? An app that turns the best 10,000 songs of your life into something you’ll actually want to listen to? Genius. Like a DJ in your pocket. Oh yeah. It’s that tasty.
