Gartner yells whoah, Yahoo! copies! Skype! (and =A1+snare)

In today's IT Blogwatch, we stare like a sullen teenager at Gartner's advice to would-be BlackBerry users. Also Yahoo! does a Skype. Not to mention a drum machine running in Excel...

Hold your horses on BlackBerry deployments until RIM gets its legals in order. That is the warning from Gartner Group, as reported by Juan Carlos Perez, who writes that Gartner "issued its recommendation after a U.S. federal judge's decision last week opened the door to a possible injunction that would stop sales of BlackBerry mobile e-mail devices and shut down BlackBerry service in the U.S. ... The judge ruled that the settlement agreement reached in March between the companies is unenforceable and said his court can't suspend the case during a patent re-examination that could take years ... As a result, four Gartner analysts published a research brief this week alerting current and prospective enterprise RIM customers to 'stop or delay all mission-critical BlackBerry deployments and investments in the platform until RIM's legal position is clarified.'" [Cat, meet pigeons]

» GMSV's John Paczkowski: "Worth noting here as well is Gartner's suggestion that a workaround that would keep RIM's service running without relying on the disputed technology may not be as easy a solution to the problem as RIM would like us to believe. RIM claims its workaround is legally sound, but its history in the courts does not inspire confidence ... Moreover, end-user validation and implementation would take time, resulting in a temporary loss of service."

» RIMarkable: "This kind of recommendation clearly tells RIM that they need to settle with NTP as soon as possible. If Gartner put out a recommendation that light is no longer good for business you would start see many organizations change their standard to darkness." [Your humble blogwatcher wonders aloud if NTP is a Gartner client and RIM isn't]

» D'Arcy from Winnipeg: "DING DING DING! I think that's opportunity knocking at the door! There is now going to be companies asking what alternatives there are to BlackBerry devices. The obvious answer should be: Windows Mobile and PPC devices. I don't wish ill on BlackBerry or their company, but being a Microsoft mark I think this is a great thing for fellow cf developers to really show off what .NET can do to an all-of-a-sudden captive audience." [Yeah, and what about Palm Treos?]

» Mark Evans: "The big wildcard in the RIM-NTP catfight is the software 'work-around' that RIM has developed. Apparently, this work-around will let RIM provide Blackberry service without infringing NTP's patents. It makes you wonder why RIM hasn't implemented this work-around already. If it really works - and just isn't a negotiating tool for a settlement - then RIM would be able to easily resolve its patent problems without, in theory, having to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars to NTP."

Yahoo is entering Skype territory, or so Michael Bazeley of The Murky News says: "Yahoo is expanding its reach in the fast-growing Internet calling market, offering a service that will allow people to make and receive low-cost Internet calls to and from regular phones ... The service comes with a free voicemail box. Although the calls will not be free, they will be extraordinarily inexpensive -- a penny a minute to anywhere in the United States and less than 2 cents a minute to more than 30 countries, including China, Japan and Sweden." [Note that Yahoo!'s been doing this for a while in the UK]

» David Jackson: "Yahoo has upgraded its Messenger chat program with improved dial-out and dial-in features. Yahoo’s 'Phone Out' offers calls to regular and mobile phones ... According to Om Malik, Yahoo is switching network providers, dumping Net2Phone in favor of connecting directly to SBC, Verizon and Bell South ... Would you want to buy stock in Vonage with the VoIP market changing so rapidly?"

Buffer overflow:

• Richi Jennings: eBay phishing saga; in summary
• Ars Technica: Pocket Linux server showdown
• GMSV: I should have suspected something when the first IM had perfect spelling and grammar
• Ben Rockwood: HP Marketing: How to look like a complete retard
• GMSV: Cisco hit by security researcher overflow exploit
• IT Toolbox: The Purpose of Enterprise Architecture
• Freedom to Tinker: MediaMax Bug Found; Patch Issued; Patch Suffers from Same Bug
• Techdirt: Worried About Being Recognized Photographically Online?
• Douglas Schweitzer: Getting to the “root” of the problem
• Martin MC Brown: International communication costs, just in different places
• Ian Lamont: Stressed by compressed media files
• Robert L. Mitchell: Office Live: The demo
• Mitch Betts: Top transportation companies for IT ROI
• Shark Tank: What? You lied to us about being a Linux newbie?

And finally... An Excel-based drum machine

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.