Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Category: Stories

  • Don’t shoot the Blackberry Messenger

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    BBM does things no web social network can do… it mirrors the flexibility of real life

    RIM’s fortunes have taken a catastrophic, Nokia-style nosedive in the past year – but it has a chance of pulling up. Admittedly, the odds are long, but this week the Canadian company began its fightback.

    It’s certainly right up against it.

    Fewer enterprise customers are dependent on RIM’s email servers. The trend to ‘bring your own’ device to work, one that works well enough … Read More

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  • “Daddy, what’s a Press License?”

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    It’s 2020, and a young girl is doing her homework…

    “Daddy, what’s a press licence?”

    “Oh, that. Well a press licence allows you to call yourself a journalist and get into official events, for official journalists.”

    “What for?”

    “Well you get into events held by the government or a company, or for example a football club, and can then write about them.”

    “So it’s like a parking permit. But I don’t understand. Everybody is writing about everything anyway. On the … Read More

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  • Five ways to rescue Windows Phone

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Windows Phone might be the most impressive bit of software Microsoft has produced – but it isn’t setting the world on fire. The iPhone and Android go from strength to strength – the latter proliferating so widely even Google doesn’t know how many Android systems are out there. (It can’t count the Chinese forks which don’t use any Google services and don’t phone home.)

    This discrepancy puzzles people. Reviewers like WinPho a lot – it’s clean, fast, functional and … Read More

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  • Furious freetards blitz the wrong SOPA

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Angry copyfighters barraged a small Scottish food certification agency with abuse last week – in the belief they were protesting against hated US anti-piracy legislation.

    The Scottish Organic Producers Association – whose website is at sopa.org.uk – was perplexed when it found itself on the receiving of dozens of nasty and illiterate emails.

    Remarkably, nothing about the site’s design – including pictures of sheep, vegetables, Angus cattle and fruit – did anything to suggest to the furious freetards that they’d … Read More

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  • We can ditch the laws when the Valley’s snotty web teens grow up

    We can ditch the laws when the Valley’s snotty web teens grow up

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    stop-sopa

    I am going to propose something that may sound radical, but really isn’t. Legislation like SOPA ideally isn’t necessary in an ideal world, and this idea comes about through voluntary agreement. The Stop Online Piracy Act was proposed because of a tragic impasse, a lack of agreement between two powerful and deeply entrenched sides. Although one side has moral force on its side, being ‘right’ doesn’t mean it’s going to ‘win’. Like a classic game theory tragedy, both sides are … Read More

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  • Perhaps there’s no ‘Third Ecosystem’?

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    There’s a whiff of something – it isn’t desperation, more like earnest exasperation – around Microsoft’s phone business these days

    Humiliatingly, Nokia was forced to deny rumours last week that it was planning to break up and sell its crown jewels to Microsoft. Normally a company can remain impervious to Twitter-born gossip, particularly from a known antagonist.

    Acknowledging the rumour simply gives it a chauffeured ride around the internet. But not this time: the ‘Microsoft buys Nokia’ story fulfils … Read More

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