A few random items of interest:

• The Polish IT security magazine hakin9 has published an article of mine on the topic of BitCoins. I believe there’s a free download off their website. The magazine is published in English. I don’t speak Polish, sorry!
• I’m working on several mid-length posts for the blog, but have been very busy with work the past few weeks. Upcoming topics include an update to the “how to make money online” post from 2009, a few thoughts on SEO (yeah, I don’t usually like talking about that), a couple of interesting projects I’ve been working on, and some more business strategy stuff. Feel free to request topics as well.

I remember reading as a child about NASA’s amazing plans for a reusable space shuttle. My uncle sent me a book with cut-outs that could be used to build a detailed cardboard model of the shuttle. I watched the first test launches on TV at my grandparents, awestruck. And then there were the disasters, Challenger and Columbia, moments captured in time, never to be forgotten. If the weather cooperates, this week is the final launch. End of an era. Amazing how they made space seem – almost – routine. I just wish I had had the opportunity to see a launch.

The recently announced purchase of Skype by Microsoft wasn’t something I would have anticipated at all – but it actually does makes sense.

Aside from blocking some of its competitors from making the same purchase, this has some interesting strategic implications. In recent years, Microsoft’s profit has come from two places – games (i.e. XBox), which is what the consumer notices, and the enterprise market (which it dominates).

Look for Microsoft to do three things (aside from increasing advertising) to fully utilize this purchase:

1) Expand Skype’s enterprise functionality – Skype has some teleconferencing capabilities, but they could definitely be improved (I can think of several competing products that are superior in this area). In addition, better integrating this functionality into the Outlook / Exchange / Sharepoint stack could be very beneficial for corporate customers. This might imply that they eventually kill off some of their in-house software, i.e. Live.

2) Improve Skype’s APIs – allowing games to use embedded voice and video chat via APIs could be a powerful enhancement for the XBox platform.

3) Bring back Skype for Windows Mobile (which also makes sense vis-a-vis Microsoft’s alliance with Nokia).

Google’s share price has taken a beating lately, due to escalating costs (primarily R&D) and the CEO switch. About a year ago I wrote that Google, while a well run and highly profitable company, was too expensive. At current (8 April 2011) P/E under 20, and with both increasing revenue and forward thinking R&D, I think its now time to to reverse course, and call GOOG as a buy and hold.

Please note: the author does not currently hold a position in GOOG, and is not making a recommendation regarding other people’s investment activities!