PROCEDURE DIVISION. RUN END_OF_WEEK. Stop Run.

Developing systems in COBOL is the next major leap in Agile programming. Or maybe not. Returning to serious programming:.

First topic: Why Microsoft’s Zune scares Apple to the core

“Apple faces the prospect of competing not with the Zune alone, but with a mighty Windows-Soapbox-Xbox-Zune industrial complex.”

Speaking to a new XBox360 user on Friday, he stated that the Media Center-XBox360 interconnect works just like Apple stuff. Seemlessly. The Microsoft Industrial Complex that all competitors fear. Adding the advertising announcements, which also state the platforms, it is going to be an interesting 2007.

“The iPod is the soul of Apple’s entire business. Apple has been relatively successful at winning converts from Windows to Mac OS X, for example, in part because its whole product line basks in the glow of iPod’s success, hipness and ubiquity.”

Microsoft has started to come out the IT geekdom of making things more complex for the sake of making things more complex, and entering the world of coolness by design: XBox360, Zune, Live.com.

And Zune is going to be a range of products. Wireless is the killer technology; whilst initially hobbled by peer-to-peer only; in the future this could really go over the top.

Wireless connectivity, initially peer-to-peer, fortells significant platform innovation:

• imagine playlist compatibility checking and proximity checking. find your perfect partner, just by the music you like!
• zunehubs; retails stores where you can go to a safe location, buy more points and get free music
• last.fm + zunetags automatically uploaded
• go to a live music gig; a zunehub emits sample/rare music tracks for attendees. Or maybe points for attending.

Would I buy one? Probably not. Firstly, no availability outside the USA. My SCRLTT (the red MINI) has an iPod connection inside; and I have yet to fill my 40Gb Revision 2 iPod. Then again, I am not in the target demographic.

Secondly, from the sublime to the workoriented. In the now distant past (earlier in 2006), I was a major spreadsheet user: Excel was used as much as Outlook as a means of decision making and communication. Now disconnected from the old job, I still have a need for spreadsheets: but not big old clunky spreadsheets.

Enter Google Spreadsheets and something I only tried yesterday: EditGrid. Save my spreadsheet as .xls from Google, open in EditGrid and I am away.

From Team and Concepts in Hong Kong, it has some extra coolness missing in Google Spreadsheets. Remote data (share prices, exchange rates) NetVibes integration. And it looks better.

Thirdly, as predicted here, Microsoft is releasing the latest “CTP” of Visual Studio code named Orcas as a VirtualPC package.

So, into the 10th month of the year. Hoping for a better month than the last, this end of the blog-posting and wishing well to all readers.