Almost one month after Google began directly selling the HTC Nexus One smartphone to consumers -- and started getting heat for everything from shoddy customer service to a long list of bugs -- it has begun to make some healthy adjustments.

On Jan. 13, in the face of mounting criticism, Google told the media that the company was taking a flexible approach and was ready to "make changes to our processes and tools, as necessary, for an optimal customer support experience."

 

I read through the recently posted piece by Sam Gustin on AOL's beta site, Daily Finance, looking for the big deal after the headline:  Microsoft 'indoctrinates' Best Buy workers with anti-Linux 'lies.'

Uh, what?

I have been writing about open source technology relatively frequently over the last year and have been a little surprised at its growing acceptance in the business enterprise. (Perhaps this reflects 10 years producing a magazine about Microsoft in financial services - Microsoft folks not being big fans of open source.)

So I was interested in an editorial by Jason Pontin in MIT's Technology review.  Writing about an article in the magazine in which David Talbot reports on efforts to to make online video open, Pontin writes:

The innovations such openness would encourage are impossible to predict. Talbot quotes Chris Blizzard, director of technical evangelism at Mozilla, which develops the open Web browser Firefox: "Nobody is going to tell you they want something before it emerges--rather, the experience of the Web is: 'Holy Cow, I can do this other thing now!' Open standards create low friction. Low friction creates innovation. Innovation makes people want to pick it up and use it."