Looks like Microsoft is "enabling" more and more telecom-based applications.  The latest one is the contact center, with the introduction of its Customer Care Framework, a software platform that can integrate existing OSS, BSS and CRM systems from service providers, consolidate different applications and automate workflow.  The product is based on .NET and the Web services architecture.  This development could potentially open the door for future expansion into the communications area (including call control, etc.), whenever Microsoft chooses to attack that space.

Dragos wrote about an interesting site in his blog (@rgumente): GoogSpy, a tool that allows a company to see which keywords its competitors buy from Google (hat tip: The Marketing Playbook).  This is really quite an interesting concept and a way to find out a bit about what the competition is doing. 

I decided to do some experimenting and searched tiger (for the example below).  The results show that 5Tigers.org (the Tiger Information Center) does not pay to be #1.  Then I ran IP PBX as a search word and discovered that vendors such as Siemens, Avaya, Nortel and 3Com pay for IP PBX as an adword from Google (at least according to GoogSpy).  Funny to see other vendors such as Cisco or Alcatel missing from the list.  But even more interestingly, from the above, only 3Com makes it to the Top 10 Search Result list. 

Jack Kapica wrote a story in yesterday's Globe and Mail about how Robert F. Young (the Red Hat founder) and now owner of the Hamilton T-Cats offered to help Apple CEO Steve Jobs. It turns out that TigerDirect, an online retailer of computer peripherals and related accessories, is claiming that Apple's use of the word "tiger" (the name of Apple's most recently introduced OS) is a copyright infringement of TigerDirect's trademark name.  TigerDirect lawyers are arguing  that as a result of the Tiger OS, the company is losing the top positions in search results of engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN.  (ed.note: Wow - this is a first one.  For kicks and giggles, I ran a search on my own PC and the first result was neither TigerDirect nor Apple: it was the Tiger Information Center ;-).  So Mr. Young offered to license the Hamilton Tiger Cats (or T-Cats for short) historical use of the word "Tiger" to Apple free of charge.  The T-Cats were called the Hamilton Tigers Football Club, established in 1869. 

I wonder if the Detroit Tigers baseball club might also have a say in the matter, but all jokes aside, this is the first instance of a lawsuit mentioning positioning of search results as an element to indicate confusion due to trademark infringement.  In the meantime, a brilliant move by Mr.Young to get some great publicity for his team, and to also call a spade a spade.  Maybe Apple will reciprocate and send a few PowerBooks to the Hamilton T-Cats' coaching staff or put a few ads in Ivor Wynne Stadium.