It’s been a wild few days in the tech industry, from AT&T’s $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA to Microsoft suing Barnes & Noble over Android in the Nook. We recapped the top news in our weekly podcast, but we’ve also been monitoring the chatter on GeekWire as well. Here’s a look back at the past week through the words of some of our favorite reader comments. Thanks to everyone for joining the discussion.
A blown transformer early Saturday morning knocked out a key computer system for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, causing the Seattle carrier to cancel 150 flights and frustrating thousands of travelers in the process. Our story on the computer problems, sparked this reaction from one reader:
“In other news, Alaska Airlines is looking for a new VP of IT.”
Full story: “Computer glitch causes huge delays for Alaska Airlines”
Readers debated whether Walgreens planned buy of drugstore.com for $429 million was a good financial outcome or not, especially given the history of the dot-com survivor. At least one reader didn’t think the deal looked to0 sweet.
“John, Drugstore is a bust unfortunately and you should be more blunt in characterizing the deal. The price is a premium over the 30 day average because the performance had been poor. Excluding the .com bust period is reasoanble [sic] but the sale price is about the same as it was 1 and 5 years ago. Certainly rebounded from the 2009 sub-$1 lows, but this is not a good performance. I’d be curious if the sale price is greater than equity cash raised less profits, if any. Presumably the best they could do though in a very competitive market.”
Full story: “Walgreens to buy drugstore.com for $429 million.”
Trulia CEO Pete Flint had some blunt things to say about his company’s competition with Zillow.com in a candid interview with GeekWire. Some readers liked that Flint spoke his mind, but others thought he came across as cocky. Meanwhile, Findwell CEO Kevin Lisota thought Flint underestimated Zillow’s reach:
“Flint also seems to underestimate the “stickiness” value of the Zestimate in terms of audience loyalty. I think Trulia has primarily driven traffic via boosts to their SEO that get them high in the (Search Engine Results Pages). Zillow, on the other hand, has a large chunk of traffic that is not search engine reliant, as people come to them organically looking for home values. In a world where being ranked high in SERPs will gradually diminish (think Facebook social search) in terms of driving traffic, I’d prefer to be Zillow in the long term.”
Full story: “Trulia CEO Pete Flint on Zillow: ‘Just a question of time before we overtake them.’
Nothing gets people fired up like browsers and operating systems. That’s what GeekWire discovered after we published a story about Firefox 4 supporting older operating systems like Windows XP. Rick Gutleber wrote:
“Your logic is ridiculous. I use XP and have been running Firefox Minefield nighties for months. There is no reason for me to pay all that money to upgrade when I won’t get anything new that I need or care about.
The problem with XP isn’t that it’s old; it’s that it’s good. When I bought a Vista laptop I hated it so much I bought an XP license just so I could downgrade. Based on my experience with Windows 7, I would keep that, but there’s absolutely no reason to upgrade. I’ll get it when (or if) I buy a new machine that has it installed.
You see, some of us don’t follow the upgrade cycle in lockstep. Some of us choose to use what works best for us and suckered into marketing and hype.”
Full story: “Firefox 4 soars, thanks to Microsoft’s luddite customers”
Some readers couldn’t believe that Google was granted a patent for Doodles, the custom logos that the company puts on its home page to mark special occasions. Ronald Woan wrote:
“Oh dear, for crying in a bucket! Digital equivalent to the store holiday window display…”
Full story: “Google gets ‘Doodles’ patent”
One time rivals became potential partners when AT&T announced plans to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. One reader noted the potential irony of the situation, especially given T-Mobile’s critical ad campaign against AT&T.
“Friday at T-Mobile: Fire up the troops by reviling AT&T. Monday at T-Mobile: Oops. We just got bought by AT&T. Should be an interesting all-company conference call.”
Full story: “Holy Crap: AT&T buying T-Mobile USA for $39B”
John Cook is co-founder of GeekWire. Follow on Twitter: @geekwirenews and Facebook.
