But if Apple made no discernible improvements to an iPhone or iPod, it would still have its army of loyal fans singing their praises from the rooftops, such is the blind loyalty that they feel for the Apple brand.

To call them, as many do, ‘Apple fanboys’ might be something of a generalisation (and rather sexist) but there is no doubt that when it comes to Apple, buyers of its products are often more than mere customers. They are usually brand ambassadors too: talking passionately about their latest gadget or gizmo to anyone who will listen, or flooding the Internet with positive blogs and comments about Apple and its products. Such is the success of Apple’s marketing.

In the below podcast, I asked him about that deal, about the potential overlaps between the content management portfolios of Open Text and Vignette, and also why he believes Vignette was having a tough time finding consistent financial performance.

I also asked him whether Autonomy's acquisition of Interwoven earlier this year presents a greater threat to Open Text and its Vignette business.

Here's Part 1, and here's Part 2. They're both MP3s.

John Shackleton, Open Text CEO.

Please follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jasonstamper

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We also touch on the role of social networking -- Twitter, LinkedIn and so forth -- in the enteprise today, and whether it is right for some companies to be banning the use of such tools.

You can listen to it here. It's in Windows Media format.

IBM's UK and Ireland CEO Brendon Riley: head of one of IBM's largest business units.

Previously, based in Vienna, Riley served as Managing Director of IBM in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia/CIS, Middle East, Africa, Austria and Switzerland, where he was responsible for one of the corporation’s fastest-growing portfolios worldwide.

Prior to this position, Brendon was based in Sydney, in his native Australia, where he was the Managing Director & Chief Executive of IBM Global Services Australia (GSA), an IBM, Telstra and Lend Lease joint venture company.

Please follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jasonstamper

Thanks to Rodrigo Galindez on Flickr for the pic (CC licence).

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Rackable bought SGI for $25m in cash in April this year. A month later as it completed the acquisition, Rackable announced that it is changing its own name to Silicon Graphics International Corp, or SGI.

[click continue reading for more]

If you've flicked through the digital radio channels in the UK you may well have come across Birdsong Radio, a rather bizarre channel featuring birds singing in someone's back garden, and nothing else. No chat, no bands, no adverts: just some little feathered friends tweeting their hearts out.

The recording of birdsong, which was made 20 years ago by radio station chief exec Quentin Howard in his back garden in Wiltshire, was designed as a temporary filler after the DAB OneWord station closed. But in the 18 months it has been broadcasting it attracted millions of listeners.

The Birdsong channel will be replaced by a new radio station -- Amazing Radio -- which will play a mix of indie, urban, rock and jazz music by unsigned artists. To get airplay on the new channel bands need to upload their tracks to amazingtunes.co.uk.

All tweeted out: birds must seek new vocations as Birdsong Radio closes its doors.

Rackable Systems has bought Silicon Graphics (SGI) out of bankruptcy for $25m, and announced today it would change its own name to SGI, with Rackable becoming just a product line.

More on the reasons for SGI's troubles, and the Rackable buy, here.

Thanks to vaxomatic (Flickr, CC licence) for the pic.

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SGI's future has been in some doubt for several years now. I wrote a fairly critical piece back in the Summer of 2006, shortly after SGI had declared bankruptcy protection (not for the last time, it turned out) asking whether SGI would, as I put it, "Become the Next Data General?"

The piece was based on an extensive interview with the incoming CEO, Dennis McKenna, and I think it serves fairly well as a quick overview of why SGI found itself treading water, when once it had been a real powerhouse in the graphics-intensive server and workstation markets (click continue reading to see that piece if you can't already).

Thanks to peephole on Flickr for the pic (CC licence).

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In January this year, I reiterated my opinion that Vignette was not long for this world, in this blog: 'Interwoven bought, now surely Vignette will be next'.

Click continue reading if you'd like to read my Vignette profile of July last year, in which I outline the reasons that I didn't believe Vignette would make it as a standalone player.

Waterloo, ON and Austin, TX, – May 06, 2009 – Open Text™ Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSX: OTC), a global leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software, and Vignette Corporation (NASDAQ:VIGN), the company that the world's leading brands rely on for innovative and dynamic web experiences, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which Vignette will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Open Text.

Vignette shareholders will receive US $8.00 in cash plus 0.1447 of an Open Text common share for every Vignette common share which equates to approximately US $12.70 at close of market on May 5, 2009. This represents a premium of approximately 74% above the 30 trading day average closing price of Vignette’s shares and approximately 41% above the most recent closing price. This values the transaction at approximately US $310 million.

John Shackleton, President and Chief Executive Officer of Open Text, stated “The combination of Vignette with Open Text will extend the breadth of our offerings and further Open Text’s positioning as the leading independent ECM vendor in the marketplace.”

“Vignette’s customers represent some of the world's most powerful online brands and we are excited about the opportunity to expand the relationship with these customers and partners,” said Shackleton.

“After a thorough evaluation of strategic and financial alternatives, the Vignette Board of Directors believes that today’s announcement provides attractive value for our shareholders,” said Mike Aviles, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vignette. “Our shareholders, customers, partners and employees will all benefit as Vignette combines with Open Text.”

“Joining Open Text builds on our commitment to deliver the most innovative solutions for our customers and partners. Vignette has an enviable customer base, deep expertise in Web Content Management (WCM) and global distribution capabilities. Vignette customers will benefit from Open Text’s expanded ECM solutions portfolio as well as their Vignette products being supported by the world’s largest independent ECM solutions provider,” said Aviles.

Vignette is based in Austin, Texas, and has approximately 700 employees. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2009 and is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Vignette’s shareholders, Hart-Scott-Rodino anti-trust clearance, Securities and Exchange Commission clearance and stock exchange approvals.

The British firm is also buying Compuware's testing and automated software quality business for $80m. Micro Focus said that these products, along with those of Borland and Micro Focus’ existing product portfolio, will help to establish the company as a major player in the application testing and application software quality market, which it says is worth an estimated £2 billion globally.

[It was rumoured today that Apple might buy Twitter for up to $700m.]

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Valleywag is reporting the rumour that Apple is close to sealing a deal to buy social networking site Twitter, for up to $700m. It seems far-fetched, truth be told.

“We hear it's Apple that's closest to sealing a deal, possibly for as much as $700 million,” the site reported. “A source who's plugged into the Valley's deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position says Apple and Twitter are in serious negotiations, with the goal of unveiling a deal by June 8, when Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference launches in San Jose.”

Why far-fetched? Because everyone who has ever had a conversation in 140 chracters or less knows that Twitter is worth, like, 10 times that amount. Sure, it may not have any meaningful revenue just yet, but neither did WebVan or Boo.com, right?

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The report by McKinsey, published in mid-April, said that cloud services will not return cost savings to large enterprises. After comparing the use of a platform-as-a-service option such as Amazon’s EC2 against the cost of providing similar services out of a typical enterprise data centre, the consultants said: “Large enterprises can achieve server utilisation rates similar to those cloud providers are achieving from their platforms.”

McKinsey calculated that the total cost of assets for a typical enterprise data centre runs to around $45/month for a CPU equivalent, which it says is significantly cheaper than a comparable cloud service. “Most EC2 options are more costly than TCO for a typical data centre,” McKinsey said.

But speaking to CBR in London yesterday, Amazon’s Jassy, who is also in charge of Amazon Payments, said: “We were very surprised and disappointed by the McKinsey report – we don’t believe it is an accurate reflection of the truth. A lot of the analysis seemed only to be skin deep at best, and quite frankly there were a lot of facts that are just plain wrong.”