Here's some stuff that kept me awake a few weeks ago. Old news ... but still a good read.
- The New Middle East Oil Bonanza -- the oil rich Middle East states have about US$1 trillion locked away in foreign investments -- most of it difficult to trace, because they have highly diversified their portfolios via a complex network of investments. It's estimated that Middle East dollars are funding up to 45% of the current US account deficit. The investments aren't just foreign however -- there's huge spending at home as well. More progressive states, such as Qatar, are realizing that if they want to maintain their authoritarian rule, they have give their population something, and not let them be lured into fanaticism. They've got the money, but can they make it work?
- Yahoo's Boulevard Of Broken Dreams -- Yahoo! really wanted to become a media company, very much in the traditional sense, and went about trying to create content for its site. Unfortunately, most failed in one form or another. The biggest problem? The media companies are increasingly seeing the online players as competition.
- Open Season On Open Source? -- With Oracle's latest play at acquiring open source software vendors, questions are being raised about whether open source is about to sell out. And, would that really be a bad thing? Can for profit and open source coexist? Sure. As BusinessWeek points out, open source software companies may be on the block, the open source community isn't.
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