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So how did Blackberry become a bit player in the smartphone market it invented? Canada's Globe and Mail offers an extensive look in their article Inside the Fall of Blackberry.

According to one insider quoted in the article, the problem wasn't that the staff stopped listening to customers. It was that they never listened to them. The company simply believed that they knew better what their customers needed.

Apple has wildly succeeded by being "out front" of expressed customer needs. But few tech companies hit paydirt when following this hubristic concept. Just look at the "innovative" user interfaces customers haven't asked for and have resisted over the past few years.

PC Magazine reports that bookies at the Ladbrokes betting service give 1:4 odds that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will be the next Microsoft CEO. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg comes in second place with 7:1 odds against, while Steven Sinofsky, previously head of the Windows division, comes in third at 12:1 odds against.

Without intending any disrespect, I can't imagine a worse choice for the next CEO than Mr. Elop. His blind fealty to Windows at Nokia cost the stock an 85% drop on his watch. Microsoft needs new directions and new ideas, not another Windows loyalist.

Microsoft recently wrote off a $900 million loss on its ARM-based Surface tablets. But according to Computerworld, the company intends to double down on its bet in hardware devices. CEO Steve Ballmer says that "Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services... We will design, create and deliver through us and through third parties a complete family of Windows-powered devices." Look to Microsoft to produce more new hardware as it fights for market share in the handheld space. Ultimately Microsoft intends to develop a common code base across all devices -- from servers to desktops to handhelds -- that supports "write once, run anywhere."

Analyst Frank Gillett of Forrester Research says that Microsoft is fully committed to shifting away from its traditional emphasis on packaged software and into handheld devices and services (such as subscription software). He sees this as a fundamental reorientation, and says that "No matter what, it's a messy process."

The Linuxed - Exploring Linux Distros website has over 170 reviews of distros and common Linux programs by Arindam Sen. What makes it special is that Mr. Sen puts his experiences together in useful charts, such as this one that compares RAM usage for twenty different GUI versions, or this one that compares CPU and RAM usage for 20 KDE distros (page down to see the chart). While the site says it's merely "A non-techie's view of the Linux world," many techies will find it useful as well.

Oh no! Automatic updates for Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop stop in April (updates for 10.04 Server continue for two more years). Desktop users need to consider whether they'll upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which will receive updates for both Desktop and Server through 2017. This handy chart diagrams the situation. You can directly upgrade 10.04 (and 11.10) to 12.04, as explained here. Canonical's policy is that you get at least 18 months of updates for both Desktop and Server, and -- starting with 12.04 LTS -- 5 years of support for both desktop and server for LTS (Long Term Support) editions.

In the past, OS News has discussed how U.S. broadband access lags many other countries in terms of cost, speed, and availability. Now, this detailed report from the New America Foundation tells why. It all comes down to a lack of competition among the carriers, which can be traced back to the days when cable companies were granted local monopolies. The report argues that "...data caps... are hardly a necessity. Rather, they are motivated by a desire to further increase revenues from existing subscribers and protect legacy services such as cable television from competing Internet services." The report's conclusion: don't expect improvements without legislative action.

With computers now shipping with UEFI Secure Boot enabled, users of any OS other than Windows 8 will want to know how to circumvent it. Jesse Smith of DistroWatch tells how he did it here. The Linux Foundation describes its approach here. If you want to boot an OS other than Windows 8, you'll want to figure this out before you buy that new computer.

The clock is ticking for XP users, with Microsoft ending support with its final security update after 11 years on April 8, 2014. Netmarketshare's desktop browser statistics show 40% of users are still using XP, totalling about 500 million users (versus Windows 7 at 45% and Vista at 6%). Gartner and Forrester analysts predict that 10% to 20% of enterprise PCs will be running XP after April 2014. Options for companies include: speed up XP conversions, sign up for Microsoft's Custom Support Program for after-retirement support, and add a supported browser to XP to replace unsupported IE8.

Software for the Raspberry Pi is quickly moving forward. Beyond the several core Linux distros, another couple dozen systems are available, with NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Chromium imminently stepping into the mix. (Ubuntu will not join them as it requires ARMv7 and the Pi is ARMv6). Two dozen programming languages are available, including Python, Perl, Java, Ruby 1.9.2, BASIC, and more. Since the Pi is a full fledged ARM computer, it should run nearly any ARM app within its system requirements. See the RPi Wiki or Foundation website for more info.

Hard to believe, but articles are popping up at business websites claiming that venerable Hewlett-Packard may fail. In their most recent fiasco, HP wrote off a loss of $8.8 of their $11.1 US billion acquisition of Autonomy and have alleged fraud in the deal. Revenue is down 7% from a year ago and the stock has hit a 10-year low. The company is laying off 27K employees but that may not be enough. Some speculate HP might be broken up into parts with buy-outs involved. This article from last May offers a good in-depth analysis of how all these problems came to pass.

Levi Asher offers his free memoir of his rise and fall in the dot-com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The autobiography covers Asher's twenty-five years in programming: his founding of the oldest ongoing literature website Literary Kicks in 1994, his success with the dot-com website iVillage in 1999 (and its subsequent collapse), and how all this insanity affected his personal life. It's a quick, entertaining read.

A California man is suing Microsoft, alledging that his Surface tablet did not provide the advertised amount of disk space. The 32G device has 16G of space for users, as the operating system uses the other 16G. The 64G Surface leaves 45G free for users. The case will turn on whether Microsoft has clearly explained to customers how much free space the Surface leaves for their use outside of the OS. How much disk space does your OS consume?

If you want to ensure you have adequate passwords but don't have the time or interest to study the topic, there's a useful basic article on how to devise strong passwords over at the NY Times. It summarizes key points in 9 simple rules of thumb. Also see the follow-up article for useful reader feedback. Stay safe!

Microsoft is discontinuing Windows Live Messenger in 1st quarter 2013, forcing users to switch to Skype. Most would want to switch to Skype anyway with its more advanced capabilities, and the switch makes sense to Microsoft, since they purchased Skype for $8.5 billion last year. However, the move may be seen as typical Redmondian high-handedness by those using Messenger with dial-up. Technically Skype works with dial-up but in practice most agree you really need broadband for decent use. Will everyone view Messenger as replaceable by Skype?