The NOSE

US Patent and Trade Office Grants Re-Examination Request to Desire2Learn

Seb Schmoller in Fortnightly Mailing reports that the USPTO has granted Desire2Learn's inter partes application for re-examination of the Blackboard patent. Schmoller notes, "So US Patent Number 6988138 is to be re-examined from two directions: firstly as a result of the ex parte application by the Software Freedom Law Centre;  and secondly as a result of Desire2Learn's inter partes application.  You would expect both Blackboard's and Desire2Learn's patent information sites to carry commentary on this in the next few days, but from a common sense point of view the refusal of the East Texas patent court last year to stay Blackboard's patent infringement claim against Desire2Learn, pending the results of the re-examination requests (if granted), makes for a particularly messy situation."

It's anyone's guess but I think it's inevitable that the patent will eventually be overturned. However, if the East Texas patent court rules in favor of Blackboard Inc. before the USPTO ruling. D2L could still be in a world of hurt. In the Blackberry patent case RIM ended up paying $612.5 million as settlement  to NTP even though the re-examination later went in its favor.

Portfolio and Project Management

There are numerous definitions of portfolio vs project management. Here is how I think about the distinction.

My organization recently launched a project management office (PMO) and we are learning something new every day. The right side of the diagram is about project execution: the core set of skills and discipline an organization needs to deliver projects well. The left  side of the diagram is about project selection and prioritization: the mechanism by which the right  projects appear on the doorstep of the PMO.

Portfolio management unites the two by ensuring that the "right" projects are selected and then those projects are delivered "well". Portfolio management presupposes ongoing assessment of every project from suggestion to inception and then to completion. The concept is simple. Is it easy to achieve? Not by any means.

Developing Java on MacOS X

I am not a software developer but I do like to muck around from time to time.

If you are dying to know "how to setup everything necessary to develop Java on Mac OS X", Sam ("19clicks") has put together a handy guide.

Via Code and Whatnot

ODF Under Consideration in Minnesota and Texas

Following in the heels of Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas might soon become ("Texas, Minnesota move to ODF") the second and third states to adopt ODF (Open Document Format) as the standard file format for government documents.

The open format debate is an important for one higher education, particularly for libraries where preservation of electronic documents is a key service.

Strictly speaking the Minnesota and Texas legislation doesn't call for ODF but an "Open, XML-based file format", which means that Microsoft's "open XML" format could be considered as compatible.

 

Sun's Strategy

I spent most of the week in San Francisco attending Sun's Worldwide Education and Research Conference 2007. It's been a qood quarter for Sun and it's nice to see the company return to profitability.  Overall, the company seems to be getting its act together.

Sun's strong engineering focus has not eroded during these lean years. On the contrary, Jonathan Schwarz's leadership and turn to open source seems to have revitalized the company by bringing it back to its academic roots. It's a joy to see a management team driven by a passion for science and solving engineering problems. It shows.

The best presentation was by Greg Papadopoulous, Sun's CTO and Exec. Director of R&D. He gave the same talk ("Redshift: The Explosion of Massive-Scale Systems") at the Sun Analyst Conference and you can watch it here. You will get insight into Sun's strategy and IT trends by one of the industry's brightest stars.