Nathan’s Daily Grind

An (almost) happy ending to my Apple story:

Based on some excellent advice from Jan in a comment to my post last night about the horrific experience I had trying to buy an iPod for one of my customers in Norway, I contacted Apple Customer Relations and spoke with a representative named Dan. I explained the situation to him and he immediately opened my order which is being processed by the Apple Norway store. He was prepared to correct the quantity (I ordered one, they made the order for two) and resolve the situation for me. Bad news: The order has already shipped. [continues...]

Now it’s great that Apple was ablel to, in the end, solve the issue. But wouldn’t have been even better if they’d handled thie issue right in the first place? Wouldn’t have been better if they’d never drawn the ire of their community?

Microsoft to offer checkout software for retailers:

Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, said on Wednesday it would launch new software for small retail stores that allows owners to replace cash registers and automate sales and inventory management. Microsoft Point of Sale, which will be offered from June, is part of Microsoft’s push to sell more software to small- and mid-sized businesses. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has long offered a version of its Windows operating system for retail store computers.

An MS product actually called PoS … can they at least TRY not to make easy fodder for the pundants? Scoble, which marketing genious decieded to call this thing “PoS”? I mean how about something like “Retail Suite” or “Register.” Nope, they chose PoS. That’s CRAP!

Coming Soon to a Phone Near You: XM Radio:

That’s right folks!

QUOTE

NEW YORK (Reuters) - XM Satellite Radio is holding active discussions with wireless carriers about offering some form of its radio service on mobile phones, XM chief executive Hugh Panero said on Monday.

What does this mean for the cellphone industry? Imagine this: a cellular phone that is also a complete PIM (Personal Information Manager), Web client for email, IM, browsing, etc, MP3/WMA/Other format player AND XM radio. How cool will that be? Read more… From Mobile Tracker

That would be cool … except for the fact that battery life would run about 15 minutes. Wonder what the SAR rating of that device would be?