The IBM tools, dubbed Symphony, are available for download free of charge online and will provide access to documents, spreadsheets and presentations on machines supported by Windows and Linux desktops, according to IBM. Customers who purchase the latest version of IBM’s Lotus Notes will also receive Symphony.

Symphony will also feature optional, fee-based support for businesses, Ed Brill, a business unit executive for worldwide sales at IBM/Lotus, said at a Tuesday launch event in Manhattan.

Symphony is based on the open document format (ODF), which allows for the open standards favored by IBM but generally shunned by Microsoft. IBM last week joined OpenOffice.org, an open source project founded by Sun Microsystems in 2000, to which IBM will be making code contributions.

Source: PCMag.com

Since IBM is joining forces with OpenOffice.org my questions are:

Will IBM’s joining of the party help OpenOffice actually penetrate the Office app market? (to a serious extent)

Any predictions as to how long this venture will last?

Finally will Microsoft’s earnings be hurt because of OpenOffice’s success?

OpenOffice has definitely “stayed the course” I was using OpenOffice and Abiword for a few years before I went back the evil side.

“NORTHERN Rock has turned to the Bank of England as the “lender of last resort” after difficulties raising cash from the wholesale markets.

The move is expected to spark fresh concerns that the impact of financial market turmoil is having a deeper impact on some banks than previously thought.

A £4.4 billion relief fund offered by the BoE yesterday was drained by banking giants in less than an hour as they struggled to secure finance.

The BoE pumped the extra cash into the system in a bid to ease soaring overnight inter-bank borrowing interest rates.

But the move did not help Northern Rock’s share price, which fell 5 per cent yesterday.”

Source: Scotsman

The same thing is happening over in the States as well with Countrywide (America’s largest Mortgage lender) getting bailed out by numerous players and its still apparently not enough. However, the mortgage/credit crunch crisis is moderating a bit lately. The question is how bad will this get in the UK and the rest of Europe? Will France and Germany have equal trouble?

Yeh you heard me, the Terrorists are now messing up my hair. Its all over the news of big terrorist plot breakup over in the UK today. 21 suspects caught.

Here’s a blip:

Airports across the UK were thrown into chaos after the government imposed immediate hand luggage restrictions and extra security checks in the wake of Thursday’s major anti-terrorist operation.

The ban on all but essential hand luggage caused long delays at London Heathrow and other leading UK airports, prompting hundreds of flight cancellations by European airlines.

British Airways said it had cancelled all short-haul flights to and from Heathrow Airport for the whole of the day. It added that some flights to and from Gatwick would be cancelled and that long-haul flights would be subject to delay.

The Department for Transport advised passengers to stay at home unless their journeys were essential.

BAA said it had asked airlines to temporarily halt all in-bound flights from Europe. The airport operator later lifted restrictions and warned of severe delays.

Lufthansa, Iberia and Olympic cancelled flights to the UK, and there were no flights from Brussels to London. Air France grounded all flights from Paris to Heathrow until congestion problems eased.

Source: Financial Times

More air mashalls are going to be put on the US-UK routes now, but more importantly, people can’t bring carry on luggage anymore? WTF?! So I was considering a European trip this summer and with the current rules of no carry on luggage how can one arrive with styled hair after a 8-9 hour flight?

If I can’t bring my hair mousse on board, the terrorists win.

In all seriousness, I don’t see how the TSA/Airlines can keep up this idea for long.

Here is an interesting article where Cait Murphy, points out some interesting facts about The Kyoto Treaty and how much America is hated for avoiding it, but in reality, other countries should harbor blame just as much.

But is it? Take a close squint at the numbers, and frankly it looks as if many of the countries that did sign Kyoto share Bush’s concern that the economic pain might outweigh the green gain.

Look at those nice people north of the border: Canada agreed to cut emissions by 6 percent. Whoops. The country is running 24 percent ahead, a lot more than the United States, which is 15.8 percent above 1990 levels. Japan has the same 6 percent target, and is also missing big, by about 13 percent.

–Are you shocked Canadians? Take your comments here.

Source: Fortune

Maybe Frith was on to something when he wrote back in 2005, “So anyway, I was surfing the internet when I came across this totally awesome website called “I Called It”, and it looked like it was about making predictions, and what do ya know…I like to make predictions!

For example, I predict that BUY HIGH AND SELL LOW Microsoft, McDonald’s, and Kran Bioengineering will be the companies to invest in. This is not spam. This is not a joke. This is the chance of a LIFETIME to make a LOT of MONEY during your LIFETIME. Don’t you want to LEAVE A LEGACY for your CHILDREN? Do you want them to think you were a LOSER?”

He may have been slightly joking, but McD is up 4 bucks since that prediction back on 3-20-05 and now get this, McDonald’s is changing their entire look of their stores.

Read the rest of Frith’s prediction over here.

I think this is a good move for McDonald’s. Their menu has been evolving over the last 2 years to include healthier more modern options, yet their stores today still have that brick like flooring and yellow and red fiberglass/plastic benches. I’ve been eating at Mickey D’s since I was a baby where I ate their famous Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. I still eat at McDonald’s today 29 years later, however, most of the time I opt for their salad’s when I’m out running around. BTW the new Asian salad is pretty good.

I don’t own any McDonald’s stock, but I sure could get behind the company with this new look and new successful menu.

Source: MSN, Business Week Online

“It’s unbelievably tone-deaf politically at this point in our history, four years after 9/11, to entertain the idea of turning port security over to a company based in the UAE, who avows to destroy Israel,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview.

DP World would gain control over most operations at ports in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans through the acquisition of Peninsular and Oriental.

Source: Bloomberg

–Gotta be some predictive theories from this?

Is this a trend?

What’s ailing the movie industry? Did rising ticket prices and overpriced tubs of popcorn keep people away? Are moviegoers simply more interested in staying home and watching DVDs that they rented from Netflix on their home theater systems? Or maybe, consumers are just bored with the derivative fare that Hollywood has to offer? It’s probably a combination of all these factors.

Check it out here

You’re not going to see this on realtor.com, realestate.yahoo.com, realestate.msn.com or any other sites that deal with real estate. Thats probably because of advertising spending.

The number of previously owned homes on the market rose last month to the highest level in more than 19 years, while sales fell for the second-consecutive month, raising concerns that a housing bubble might be about to burst.

But many economists said the increase in homes for sale was actually a sign that the housing market was gradually cooling rather than threatening to implode.

Source

Nevada is once again the fastest growing state. You go girl.

For the 19th straight year, Nevada was the fastest growing state. Its population rose 3.5 percent for the year ended at mid-year in 2005.

It even moved up a notch – from No. 18 to No. 17 – in the list of top 20 most populous states, bumping Missouri down a notch.

The population in Arizona, the No. 2 fastest growing state, grew at just under 3.5 percent.

The other fastest growing states were Idaho (up 2.4%), Florida (up 2.3%) and Utah (up 2%), in the top five.

Then came Georgia (up 1.7%), Texas (up 1.7%), North Carolina (up 1.7%), Delaware (up 1.6%) and Oregon (up 1.4%).

With the exception of Georgia, Idaho and Texas, much of the increase in the populations of the fastest growing states was due to migration of residents from elsewhere.

The Census findings are in keeping with a trend among home buyers and home owners to move away from high-priced markets to more moderately priced ones.

–Now how will this effect consumerism and retail development, housing, etc.?

Source