Stories about: Driveway

It has been a year of transition for Microsoft in 2008, with the biggest being co-founder and company icon Bill Gates stepping aside and Ray Ozzie assuming the role of chief software architect. On the technology side, Microsoft's services push dominated its agenda. Microsoft introduced Azure, its cloud operating system, and released online versions of Exchange and SharePoint, two of its most popular infrastructure servers. "Exchange Online could be a sleeper product," says Peter O'Kelly, principal analyst with O'Kelly Consulting. In addition, the company revealed it was developing for the first time Web-based online versions of popular Office applications. It's all a setup for what will define Microsoft's 2009. Here is a look at five key issues and a handful of honorable mentions that will be in the spotlight over the next 12 months.

What responsibility does Google have in terms of your "visual privacy"? Meaning, should they be "privy" to the junk that is laying about my yard, the car in my driveway, the cat in my lawn?

Cisco is famous for its venture capital interests. (The company says it currently has more than US$2 billion in venture capital investments under management.) But its i-Prize Contest is a little different. Like a reality T.V. show, the winner of the i-Prize will be financed by the router giant for the next two years, Cisco says. Who knows, maybe the winner will be the company's next billion-dollar business? While the contest technically ended on May 3, Cisco is keeping mum about the 12 finalist entries. It says it doesn't want to tip its hand about what ventures it might be interested in. Nevertheless, we scoured the i-Prize Web site to select our own picks of the 10 most interesting projects. (Please note: these are probably not be the finalists.)

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates expressed his goal many years ago to put "a PC on every desktop, a PC in every home" -- all running Microsoft software, of course. He didn't mention a PC on every driveway.

Designers of portable computers for military personnel are giving soldiers more options to take into the field, including tablet PCs and fully functional notebook devices so small that they can fit into someone's pocket. But one thing the vendors aren't giving users is Windows Vista.

Designers of portable computers for US military personnel are giving soldiers more options to take into the field, including tablet PCs and fully functional notebook devices so small that they can fit into someone's pocket. But one thing the vendors aren't giving users is Windows Vista.

By now, you've read all about the wildly hyped MacBook Air, the slenderized version of Apple's MacBook line that looks like it's been run over by a steamroller.

Remember Y2K? Remember how all the computers in the world stopped working at midnight? Remember the Congressional congressional hearings, the martial law, the show trials? It didn't happen. Remember .Net? Remember how it threatened the very survival of Windows? Remember HailSHailStorm and its Passport lock-in? Remember the antitrust trials, the breakup, the hijacking of XML? It didn't happen. Journalism is history on the fly. Every day, when we pick up the newspaper, we arrive fresh and innocent, anticipating a new series of facts to advance the story as we last left it.

Delphi is giving Bluetooth wheels: The mobile electronics company has several cars with systems using the wireless radio technology on show at its stand here.

Looking for a slam dunk with their audience in a highly competitive arena, the Orlando Magic have turned to third-party customer relationship management (CRM) software to try to keep fans happy.

If you're having trouble sparking innovation in your company, maybe it's because your focus is too narrow. In October's Harvard Business Review, Darrell Rigby, director of Bain & Co.'s survey on management tools and trends, and co-author Chris Zook suggest that looking outside your company for ideas can increase innovation while helping you better define your core business. Rigby spoke with Kathleen Melymuka from his Boston office.