Today, I had the opportunity to speak with Iyer Venkatesan, Product line manager for StarOffice at Sun Microsystems. He spoke to me at length about StarOffice 8, which will be released tomorrow. Read on for a summary of the interview, and be sure to check out the review at Newsforge as well.

As expected, Palm has announced the Treo 700w, a Windows Mobile powered smartphone with a square 240x240 resolution. Top brass from Palm, Microsoft (including Bill Gates) and Verizon Wireless gathered in San Fransisco this morning to launch the device. Palm noted that this project has been in the works for, "a couple of years" and that it was one of the worst kept secrets in the industry. In addition, here (.pdf) are some Windows Mobile UI design tips and tricks. Update: Here is the official press release.

"I have noticed these days that the computer market is either falling into some sort of dictatorship or some other power of influence that is forcing the computer market into a no choice market where the choice is handpicked by either some monopoly or by a misperception made by the wrong decision makers in today's computer industry. The computer market of today as we know it is being prefabricated by influence while hypnotizing the public of that influence."

Jonathan Schwartz keeps singing Sun's favourite tune - that Web services, not desktop apps, are the future. "The majority of the applications that will drive the next wave of innovation will be services, not applications that run on the desktop. The real innovation is occurring in the network and the network services," Schwartz said.

"We chat to Gnome and OpenOffice.org coder Michael Meeks about all things Linux. Here's a few of the questions we asked the Novell employee."

Open-source databases will not succeed without commercial support, says Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. "One of the myths of open-source is that it's built by a bunch of guys who work at RadioShack."

A new release candidate of NetBSD 2.1 is now available for testing, 2.1-RC5.

Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft Corp. executive, walked into Bill Gates's office here one day in July last year to deliver a bombshell about the next generation of Microsoft Windows. "It's not going to work," Mr. Allchin says he told the Microsoft chairman. The new version, code-named Longhorn, was so complex its writers would never be able to make it run properly.

"Earlier in the week, I conducted a lengthy phone interview with Aaron Seigo about the Open Source Desktop Workshop being held in San Diego on October 13th and 14th. Fast approaching, we discuss the workshop's inception, target audience and expectations."

To respond to the somewhat alarmingly real threat of spyware, malware, and to a lesser extent viruses on the Windows platform, Microsoft used its recently-acquired security technology combined with its own in-house work to build Windows OneCare Live (codenamed Atlanta). Read here for a preview. Please note that the 'next' button is placed underneath the Google ads, almost invisible.

"This is a detailed description about the steps to be taken to setup a Ubuntu based server (Ubuntu 5.0.4 - The Hoary Hedgehog) that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/POP3s/IMAP/IMAPs, Quota, Firewall, etc.)."

Shed Skin is an experimental Python-to-C++ compiler. It can convert many Python programs into optimized C++ code, without any user intervention such as adding type declarations. Its main purpose is to optimize algorithmic-like Python code, by applying advanced global type inference techniques.

"With release, Apple was tested - and they failed miserably. Not only did I warn Apple to take 95 more seriously, I also accurately forecast the massive decline that would happen to them if they didn't do just that. The MS platform has changed dramatically and it is much greater than just the operating system these days. Apple, on the other hand, hasn't advanced nearly as much but they are predominantly consumer-based today and less vulnerable to this comparative weakness as a result. Just like the last time, they will largely leverage hardware this time, and, as before, they will be up against companies with resources that eclipse their own."

Ubuntu Breezy Badger Colony CD 5 (what's in a name) has been released. This will most likely be the last test release before the final release. You can download it here.