IBM BLENDS LINUX AND BLUETOOTH - IBM recently unveiled its new BlueDrekar middleware, which integrates Linux-based applications with Bluetooth wireless technology. Long expected, Bluetooth products permit radio wave-enabled communication and data sharing between handhelds, computers, and appliances. With the integration of two of industry's most promising technologies, IBM plans to bolster the adoption of wireless networking. BlueDrekar is intended to be standards-compliant and also promises to help simplify home networking's complex wiring and connections systems. (Cnet, 25 July 2000)

APPLE JUST THINKS DIFFERENT - Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs has turned the company around with the launch of the iMac, while at the same time slashing expenses. Revenues have risen 17 percent in the latest quarter, to $1.8 billion. This success is largely the result of Apple's excellent design and "Think Different" ad campaign for the iMac, as well as Jobs' idea of outsourcing product manufacture and hiring Compaq's Timothy Cook. Cook lowered the number of Apple's suppliers from 100 to 24 and established a build-to-order system for online purchases. Apple now ships 75 percent of orders on the day they're placed and has a very low parts inventory. Challenges ahead: maintain its innovation lead and develop peak performance. The most daunting tasks will be: upgrading Mac software to MacOS X, to reduce Mac crashes; feature the new Aqua user interface and carry out multiple operations. A January deadline has been set. (Business Week, 31 July 2000)

MOTOROLA U - Corporate gurus are notoriously fond of predicting the future of higher education, but Motorola U president Bill Wiggenhorn's opinions carry weight because, as a vice-president of Motorola, Inc., he is also a major customer. Wiggenhorn recently shared his views on management education with @AcademyOnline, and his points apply, perhaps even more so, to continuing higher education generally. "It'll be a forty-year or even fifty-year education process," he predicts, with a baseline degree at 28 years of age and recertification every four or five years thereafter. A major question for schools will be "how they're going to keep up with being the experts in content because they're not going to have years to design a course." He believes that the university will not be the brand: "More and more, the brand is going to be an individual faculty member. So the brand is not USC. It will be Professor Lawler at USC." And, he predicts, though medallion schools may survive as brick-and-mortar institutions because of the social advantages they provide, other sectors of higher education will experience consolidation as for-profit institutions such as the University of Phoenix and Jones International erode the marketplace. Read more on the @AcademyOnline website CLICK: http://www.academyonline.com/aacsb/index.htm . (E-NEWS from UCEA, 28 July 00)

ALLEN WOOING ELITE COLLEGES ONLINE - Media financier Herbert Allen will launch the Global Education Network (GEN), an attempt to offer Ivy-league caliber liberal-arts courses over the Internet. Allen and cofounder, Mark Taylor, (Williams College), say GEN will prevent liberal arts courses from falling too far behind online science and business courses and at the same time provide liberal- arts content to a broader audience. Allen believes GEN will appeal to a wide-range of distance learners, from "lifelong learners" to ambitious high-school students, and will be able to access courses to audit, as well as credit courses. Like other online "U's", GEN has received mixed reaction from academia. Many professors believe that the Internet cannot reproduce the classroom environment and many elite universities worry such services will dilute the special nature of their courses, as well as take away rights to intellectual property. GEN has struck a deal with Wellesley and is negotiating with a number of other schools. A beta version of some GEN courses should appear later this year. (Wall Street Journal, 28 July 00)

HIGH-TECH EXECUTIVES URGE ACTION ON WORLD'S DIGITAL DIVIDE - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori used Wednesday's meeting of the World Economic Forum to call attention to the "crucial matter" of the growing digital divide between the world's industrial and developing nations. Mori will address the issue further at another high-profile meeting later in the week. The Group of Eight industrialized countries will hold its annual summit meeting Friday in Okinawa, Japan. Mori will be on hand to announce the details of a $15 billion commitment by the Japanese government to technology initiatives in the developing world. A Japanese executive said Japan hopes other countries will follow its lead by launching similar initiatives. A World Economic Forum task force yesterday announced several technology proposals, including the creation of the Global Digital Opportunity Corps, an army of volunteers fashioned after the Peace Corps. The task force also recommended proposals regarding telecom and Internet deregulation and called for the formation of local tech community centers. (New York Times, 20 July 00 - Edupage 21 July 00) (See related article in Global below)

PRIVATE DIGITAL DIVIDE EFFORTS FALL SHORT - President Clinton announced last February that the fiscal 2001 budget would include $2 billion in tax incentives over 10 years to encourage private sector solutions for the digital divide. Hundreds of companies are now promoting programs that they say will address the problem. However, on close examination, many appear less altruistic than greedy. Insight Research is analyzing corporate efforts. Insight president Robert Rosenberg believes that private initiatives are not likely to solve the problem because the main issue is public access to a public network. Rosenberg states that the problem eventually will be settled on a municipal and state level instead of a private level. The most common corporate strategy is free Internet access, along with a significant amount of advertising. Other practices offer audio access over the phone, again along with advertising - or paying to skip the ads. Other companies donate money or develop programs to purchase equipment and services for people to get online. (Interactive Week, 3 July 00)