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In a Wednesday e-mail memo to employees that also outlined changes brought on by the departure of platforms and services chief Kevin Johnson, Ballmer cited several areas that Microsoft would focus on during the next year. Among his comments were some cryptic remarks about Apple.

"In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1," Ballmer said in the e-mail, which was obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as well as other news outlets. "But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience."

Ballmer went on to promise that Microsoft would change how it deals with hardware vendors, such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, the world's No. 1 and No. 2 computer sellers, respectively. "Today, we're changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We'll do the same with phones -- providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences."

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Development began on the Intel EP80579 line to get ready for all of the internet-connected devices that are hitting the market and will be hitting market in the months and years to come. Intel’s Gadi Singer said, “We’re now able to deliver more highly integrated products ranging from industrial robotics and in-car infotainment systems to set-top boxes, MIDs and other devices. By designing more complex systems onto smaller chips, Intel will scale the performance, functionality and software compatibility of IA while controlling the overall power, cost and size requirements to better meet respective market need.”

The big benefits of the new Intel EP80579 SoC line are small size and low power needs. Intel says that the SoC will lead to platforms using up to 45% smaller board footprints and platforms that feature up to 34% lower power dissipation. One of the biggest benefits is that the new SoC’s run standard x86 architecture which will make software and applications easier to port to devices using the EP80579.

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But those rapid sales have come at a cost: Apple's supply of the device appears to be stretched thin. Anybody who has passed an Apple Store recently has probably seen the lines of anxious customers stretching out the front door (or signs informing customers that yes, there are no iPhones today).

"We're thrilled with what we see," said Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook during the company's third quarter financial results conference call last Monday. "There are a number of stock-outs," Cook said. "This is a factor of overwhelming demand."

Kevin O'Marah, chief strategist at AMR Research, which analyzes supply chains, agrees with Cook's assessment. "I don't know whether it's a specific component, but the root cause is tremendous demand." He adds, "[Apple] has done a really good job of building up the physical supply chain." AMR's 2008 report on the top twenty-five supply chains ranked Apple in the number one position, in large part because of its success in taking advantage of the digital supply chain--which ironically, O'Marah points out, was the part that broke down the most during the iPhone 3G's launch.

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Now it's the software industry telling eBay that it needs to do more to detect and delete listings for counterfeit goods--or else.

The Software and Information Industry Association, a Washington, D.C., trade association that counts companies such as Intuit, Sun Microsystems, and Red Hat as board members, said on Thursday that it's contemplating a lawsuit against eBay. Another option, the group said, would be lobbying Congress to rewrite the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and make online auctioneers liable for what's sold.

"Their refusal to work with us will only push us closer and closer to a lawsuit," Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA's senior vice president for intellectual property policy and enforcement, said in an interview.

Kupferschmid said the SIIA has offered at least 20 suggestions to eBay listing ways it can aid the software industry in curbing the sale of pirated software. Among the suggestions: not allowing the "Buy It Now" option on software; placing a notice in a user's feedback if they have been caught selling pirated software; adding a delay on software auctions so they can be reviewed; and permitting the SIIA to run a paid ad on the Web site telling eBay visitors about the risk of buying pirated software.

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By using the Atom core, the company is trying to increase performance and drop power consumption on the new chips, said Gadi Singer, vice president of Intel's mobility group, at a press event in San Francisco.

Information and entertainment centers in cars, for example, will be much richer and demand higher-bandwidth connections to the Internet, so chips need to deliver better performance-per-watt, Singer said. The new chips will include subsystems to accelerate applications for video decoding and security.

Intel has already said it is working on an Atom successor codenamed Moorestown, due for release in 2009-2010 timeframe. The platform includes an SOC code-named Lincroft, based on a 45-nanometer Atom core.

The company also has chips based on the Atom core under development for set-top boxes, including Canmore, which will be released later this year, and Sodaville, due for launch next year.

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