It wasn’t long ago that Apple and Google were allied against Microsoft and the broader market. The marriage of the two Silicon Valley giants was torn asunder by Google’s ingression in the mobile market with Android. The former confederates went their separate ways with Google CEO Eric Schmidt leaving the Apple board. Now it’s on like Donkey Kong between the three tech behemoths – and cloud computing is a new frontier in the ongoing war.

In the enterprise space cloud is less remarkable than its most vehement proponents would have you believe. The IBMs and Microsofts of the world have established metrics, case studies and methodologies for how it’s done. And, as IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said in a meeting with press at Armonk, New York Yesterday – this cloud stuff is “nothing new”. He’s seen it all before. In the consumer space things are different, however, and here I include small business.
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After threatening to pull out of the People’s Republic following hacks on its systems, internet search giant Google is likely to make good on its warning and is preparing to shutdown its operations in China according to an insider at the company who spoke to the Wall Street Journal last week.

Google Search is one of the last major international internet services accessible in China after the government in that country banned Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and several other sites in 2009, making them inaccessible to local internet users. (more…)

With the preview of Google Wave underway there are a lot of questions being asked about the platform, especially surrounding when it will be made available to the public, what new features Google is working on and whether or not more invites are going to be issued for early testers.

I discussed Wave with Lars Rasmussen, a member of Google’s technical team who is based in Sydney where he developed the product with his brother Jens. The audio is available for streaming or download in this post.

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The first smartphone based on Google’s Android mobile operating system is being launched on September 23 2008, on the same day as the Apple iPhone media launch in South Africa. Available on the T-Mobile network internationally, the HTC Dream G1 should soon be available on local cellular networks.
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