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As PC prospects decline, Microsoft has been moving toward a hybrid, cross-platform future with an eye toward opportunities in the server closet and the cloud. But the question remains, How might Microsoft evolve to get there? "It's tempting to say the past five years has seen Microsoft's desktop-centric strategy slowly give way to a pell-mell free-for-all made up of equal parts desktop, server, mobile hardware and software, cloud services, and auxiliary systems like the Xbox. Truth is, intention has always been present. It's only now, thanks to major upheavals in consumer tech and the cloud, that Microsoft's broad-spectrum plays are becoming more evident and critical. What may be new for Microsoft is the need to better cohere its strategy around an ever-widening array of services and technologies, especially as the breadth of competition it faces widens. Most of all, if there ever comes a time to stop being a consumer-oriented company, Microsoft shouldn't flinch. A future where Microsoft doesn't make hardware or end-user programs seems remote, but there was a time when IBM abandoning its PC business seemed jarring, too." And if Microsoft can't quite cohere its strategy, the best means to this end may be to divide.

Firefox 3.0.19 is being beta tested on IRIX. Yeah, I know, Firefox 3.x is really old. But this is a big deal for IRIX users, who have been stuck on Firefox 2.0.22 for years. With this breakthrough, I expect to see 3.5 or 3.6 follow soon. Not sure how much more recent than that can be accomplished.

Many people think that all Androids are equal and it's a race to the bottom where the cheapest vendor wins. This could not be farther from the truth. For me, it all began half-a-year ago, when I bought the Samsung Galaxy S III and was absolutely stunned by it, then exploring and comparing it with other Androids. Now that Google has fired a shot across the bow with its low pricing for the unlocked Nexus 4, where does that leave Samsung and its flagship handset?

Any modern operating system consists of layers upon layers of systems, services, and libraries. Increasingly, no one can possibly have full understanding of all the layers of the cake. Here's RedHat developer Peter Hutterer's description of what it takes to move the cursor on your screen. Interesting to get back to the basics, and a good reminder of how complicated this stuff really is.

The first preview release of RoboVM has just been made available. The primary goal of the project is to make it possible to develop native iOS applications in Java that use native iOS Cocoa Touch APIs. The RoboVM compiler translates Java bytecode into ARM or x86 machine code. The core classes (java.lang, java.util, java.io, etc.) are based on Android's runtime classes. RoboVM's compile time tools are GPLv2 licensed while the runtime is released under business-friendly licenses, mostly the Apache License v2.0.

"The first computers were gigantic, filling rooms and requiring constant care and maintenance. The computer stayed on the desk until the laptop computer, a smaller, more portable, but just as powerful machine, made it nearly obsolete. And then, the iPhone was released, followed shortly after by Android and the Palm WebOS, and the next step in computing was clear. What we did not immediately understand was if mobile computing was an accessory, or a replacement, for the traditional desktop machines." Jon-Buys at Ostatic believes the phone-becomes-computer paradigm is the next step.