Joe Wilcox

Today Groupon finally responded to naysayers expressing deep caution about its upcoming IPO -- the so-called great cash grab before burning through venture financing. Groupon coyly used the so-called "quiet period" defense for defying news media requests for comment about its business model. I'm confused. Didn't the Security and Exchange Commission largely eliminate the quiet period six years ago?

"The 'Quiet Period' is the time right before a company 'goes public', during which it is legally prohibited from saying anything to the press that may make the company look 'good', 'successful', or 'not currently on fire'", according to a blog post on Groupon's website.

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If your business isn't spending big on cloud computing perhaps it should, or will. Today, IDC forecast that public IT cloud spending would reach $72.9 billion in four years, up from $21.5 billion in 2010. That works out to 27.6 percent compound annual growth rate, which the analyst firm applied to five categories.

Those categories -- applications, application development and deployment, systems infrastructure software, basic storage and servers -- will account for nearly 50 percent in new net growth on IT spending, not just cloud computing, IDC claims. Software-as-a-service will account for about three quarters of public IT cloud spending.

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Could Microsoft be less subtle? A press release issued today proclaims: "Microsoft Office Division to make announcement" -- "detailing the latest on Microsoft Office 365," which if you didn't know is the company's "next-generation cloud service." This is what companies do when there aren't enough rumors or buzz about a forthcoming product release. They desperately try to make some.

So to help Microsoft get that buzz lift, I'm taking a chance with a headline that definitely asserts Office 365 will be available next week. What else could it be? CEO Steve Ballmer is leading the launch event -- in New York City, where Microsoft does nearly all its big product launches.

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Marco Arment's post, "The Android tablet problem, nicely summarized by one review's conclusion", stirred up some fierce debate here at Betanews on Friday. Instapaper's creator uses an ArsTechnica review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to diss Android, for which the Mac fan club of bloggers and journalists beloved with links over the past two days. But Arment's assessment is short-sighted. My response here could easily have been titled: "The iPad problem, nicely summarized by one developer's blog post."

The "Chicken-and-Egg" Problem

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Another Father's Day  is upon us, and you must be wondering what to give dear old dad. Mom seems to get all the love, while dad suffers with socks, ties and aftershave for Christmas that he doesn't need; he gets not much better on his special day. Why not make this year really memorable for dad and plunk down some serious dough on a last-minute present that will keep his arms (and wallet) open to you for years?

I've selected a short-list of presents that dad will die for -- and hopefully not for real because you bought him something so nice (keep the receipt just in case).

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But don't crash your phone along the way.

Microsoft is preparing the developer channel for release of Internet Explorer 9 Mobile, which is coming with Windows Phone "Mango" sometime in the Fall. Today, the company announced the IE9 Mobile Test Drive, which showcases some of the browser's capabilities. Among the most highly-touted by Microsoft: hardware-accleration support for HTML5.

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LulzSec is having quite the week of hacktivist actvity. After launching DDoS attacks against gaming sites' log-in pages, setting up a hotline for requesting hacks and hacking both the CIA and US Senate, the group released a long list of passwords and email addresses it had obtained. Is yours among them? Whew, mine isn't. You should check, too, if using public services like AOL, Gmail or Yahoo.

I'm amazed at the ridiculous passwords people use. A quick search of the 62,000 released by LulzSec finds hundreds of instances of  "123456" and "password" as password. There are 28 "11111", more than twice as many "0000" and 20 variations of the "f" word. Then there are the repeaters, like "alex186" for five different email addresses.

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Sometimes the most brilliant moments in marketing are the simplest ideas. In the video above, a youngster dance, dance, dances before Xbox 360. Microsoft smartly uses Kinect to connect with customers. The action takes place at Microsoft Store Bellevue, Wash.

I've seen the same kind of youngster dancing here in San Diego at Microsoft Store Fashion Valley. The tikes, middle schoolers or tweens will sometimes draw sizable crowds of gawkers. The store here opened one year ago this month, and it was the first where the public could play with Kinect, nearly five months before its official release. Microsoft placed the Xbox 360-Kinect setup right in the front window, where anyone walking by can see the action.

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It seems inconceivable that Pandora's public offering could get any worse. But it has. The newly minted stock, which closed down 24 percent, fell another 4.3 percent in after-hours trading this evening. The IPO was only yesterday!

Pandora shares traded for $12.69 after hours, following a close of $13.26 late this afternoon. Pandora's IPO price was $16, but the stock initially surged to $26 in early trading yesterday, closing $1.26, or 8.9 percent, above the start price. In early trading today, Pandora shares buoyed up and down around the IPO price, only to collapse by market's close.

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Research in Motion seemingly took forever to ship its first BlackBerry tablet. None too soon. PlayBook was one of the few bright spots during a quarter that foreshadows a grim year ahead.

After the bell today, RIM announced fiscal first quarter 2012 results -- $4.9 billion revenue, up 16 percent year over year but down 12 percent sequentially. Seventy-eight percent came from hardware, 20 percent services and 2 percent software.

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Today, Pew Internet released an 85-page report that is best described as a love letter to Facebook. The study smooches up to the social networking service in just about every conceivable way. Bottom line: Facebook has fundamentally changed where people spend time online and with whom they interact.

Pew surveyed 2,255 Americans 18 or older between Oct. 20 and Nov. 28, 2010. Among them: 1,787 were Internet users and 975 used social networking services.

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What else could Microsoft be up to today? The company is holding a big Kinect press event, starting at 12:30 p.m. EDT that will go on for -- get this -- four-and-a-half hours!

According to a blog post by Microsoft's Nic Fillingham the Kinect event will be broadcast live from Channel 9. "The broadcast will be in IIS smooth streaming 720P so please ensure you have Silverlight installed and for the full high definition experience select 'Fullscreen' from within the player," he writes. So no Adobe Flash is required, but you'll still need Microsoft's alternative.

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This morning, I awoke to find email from Apple about its 2011 school promo -- "$100 Back to School Card to use on the Mac App Store" when buying a new computer. In past years, Apple gave away iPods, which had higher resale value. For example, last year, students got an 8G iPod touch, worth $199, for free (well, they paid up front and received a rebate).

The promotion may be as much about future marketing as selling more computers to students now. The Mac App Store is an add-on to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and it's built-in to Lion, which goes on sale next month. Apple is slowly, but deliberately, shifting software distribution to the digital web store. For example, Lion will be available download-only for about $30. It's in Apple's best interest and that of its development partners to get students used to buying from the Mac App Store, which also can deter piracy. Better for Apple and its developers that students spend $100 on something rather than grabbing it from some torrent site.

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There has been a dramatic change in the Betanews poll asking readers if they would buy a Chrome OS laptop. The number for respondents answering "No" dropped significantly, while the yeses and maybes are way up. That's all just today. What does it mean?

The first Chromebooks went on sale today, from Acer and Samsung, ranging in price from $379.99 to $499.99. About seven hours ago, I posted the obligatory launch day story and included the buying-intention poll first posted six days ago. During the first days the poll was up, more than 85 percent of respondents said "No" to Chromebook. When I posted the earlier-day's story, the number was 69.4 percent, from 562 respondents. The number answering "Yes" was 11.57 percent, while 19.04 percent answered "Maybe."

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There was some buzz earlier today -- wild speculation, really -- about when Microsoft would release its next major operating system. Let's skip over the rumors and get right to the important stuff: what matters to you. So I'm asking: When do you want Windows 8?

The immediate answer many people might expect is now. Sure there are enthusiasts who can't wait to get their grubby hands on the software's pristine packaging. But there are many other Windows users who would wait longer. For many reasons.

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