You better know who to talk to before calling AMD UK

I just called AMD UK, on the number shown on their website, to know if they would have interest in the virtualisation event. But I got in the 5th dimension: when calling to that number, you reach the reception, and AMD has the policy to not transfer your call unless you give the exact name of the person you want to talk to. So saying "I want to talk to a sales representative" or "Let me talk to the marketing team to let them know about my event" is not going to lead you anywhere.

Makes me wanna sing: "Braziiil, lalalalalalalalaaaa...."

You can't please everybody

Yesterday I found this article: Some Open-Source Advocates Find Google's Android a Sinister Threat. The reason? It's under the Apache license, which doesn't require changes to be shared, enabling closed, modified, incompatible versions.

It's funny to see you had the opposite criticism from IBM when Sun decided to put Java under the GPL.

Same thing with Qt: when it was released under the GPL, people complained it should have been under the LGPL.

Each critics in these 3 examples had good reasons, that's not the point. The point is: whatever the field and subject, do your best, but never, never expect to please everyone, and, even more important, be ready to be criticised and don't let this criticism drag you down!

Android is now more than a press release

I have to admit I was disappointed by what went on last week. Even if I didn't believe all the hype around a GPhone, the announcement of the Open Handheld Alliance last week was really light as there was nothing concrete. This has changed now, as the Android SDK is available in an early version. The video below looks interesting, and there is quite some documentation available. There are even developers challenges organised with a total of 10 million dollars prices.

An interesting point is that the SDK contains webkit (although Google employs several Firefox developers) and an optimised JVM called Dalvik. This JVM requires byte-code to be optimised. This seems to be done with a simple command.

The prefered development tool is based on Eclipse, but other IDEs can also be used. Development tools are available for windows, Mac and Linux.

Could this be the phone platform I was looking for?

Share your professional virtualisation experience!

We just issued a call for paper for the next Profoss event, on 22 and 23 january, about virtualisation.

If you have deployed a Free or Open Source virtualisation technology in a demanding professional environment, if you're a services company with extended expertise with virtualisation, or if you have developed a virtualisation software under an open source license, or built a product based on open source technology, and want to share your experience with your peers, please don't hesitate to submit your proposal as described below.

Talks should not be commercial shows, but bring interesting information for professional ICT users, based on real world experience.

All info and submission form at http://www.profoss.eu/events/january-2008-virtualisation/call-for-papers

Rent-a-terminal disagreement: end of story

As I just received a mail from Rent-a-terminal threatening to take juridical steps against me if I removed their comment on my previous blog post, I think it's better to clarify some things, and definitively close the matter:

- I signed and agreed with their general conditions, and they are covered by these. If it wasn't the case, it is me who could have threatened of juridical actions
- I don't ask for compensation of lost revenue, even thought there have been some......
- I signed a contract wiht Rent-a-Terminal, they work with Taxipost (not De Post as I wrongly described). If something goes wrong, it's normal I complain to the company I signed a contract with., ie Rent-a-Terminal.
- I would have been a happy future customer of Rent-a-Terminal if they just hadn't invoiced the rent and transport costs. See this as a long-term investment

I also invite Rent-a-Terminal to comment further if they wish to further clarify things. I do not delete comments except for spams.