5 Vendors Who Dropped The Ball This Week

1. Oracle Lets 'Father Of Java' Get Away

James Gosling, the longtime vice president and Fellow at Sun Microsystems who is often called 'The Father Of Java," announced his resignation from Oracle this week. In a blog post, Gosling insinuated that working at Oracle was less fulfilling than working at Sun. In explaining why he left, Gosling wrote, "Just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good."



Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer for Sun, left the company in March without explanation, although he posted a photo of a setting sun on his blog the day he left. Chairman Scott McNealy and President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz stepped down in January.



Anyone else seeing a pattern here? Um, hey Oracle, employees like James Gosling don't come around very often, you probably should have pulled out the stops to keep him on in some capacity.

2. Google CEO Spills Beans On 'gPad'

Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly told friends at a party that Google is developing an Android-based tablet device. But what truth can we glean from such an apocryphal tale? Schmidt may have offered this information late in the evening, when the music was blasting and the drinks were flowing. Perhaps someone spiked the punch with absinthe.



The point is, Google has already pre-announced a bunch of products far in advance of their scheduled launch, and Chrome OS, Google Wave are two examples. Do we really need another shadowy product information leak?



OK, Google, we understand that you need to counteract the buzz about the iPad, and we're aware of your obsession with Microsoft. But you can't just rip pages from the Microsoft playbook and not expect people to notice. Besides, not even Microsoft does the F.U.D.-infused mystery product stuff anymore.

3. Microsoft's Puzzling Teen Phone Play

Microsoft, you had a busy week of impressive product launches, but your unveiling of Kin, a pair of social networking-oriented mobile phones for teens and twentysomethings whose lives would be devoid of meaning if they weren't able to track their friends' Facebook and Twitter updates, just doesn't make sense to us.



First of all, if you're targeting a demographic that, you know, probably doesn't have much money, why wouldn't you at least reveal what Kin devices cost? It's the first question people will ask. We know you said you and Verizon will reveal Kin pricing next month, but for all we know these things will cost $300.



Microsoft, we understand that you need to show you're still relevant in mobile in advance of Windows Phone 7's arrival this fall. We get that. And you also deserve credit for training your marketing sights on a new audience. It's a big audience, but it's also notoriously hard to reach. Kin devices had better be good, if not, they're going to be fodder for ridicule.

4. Apple Pats Self On Back For iPad Shortage

Is there any other company that could successfully spin an erroneous business calculation as a sign of hot demand for a product? That's a rhetorical question of course, as Apple is obviously the only company that does this on a regular basis without people laughing in its corporate face.



This week, Apple delayed international iPad availability until the end of May and offered the following explanation: "Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad."



Any other company would be getting raked over the coals for not correctly anticipating demand. Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly called the iPad "the most important thing I've ever done," so it's puzzling that the company somehow didn't account for the fact that people would see their friends' iPads and immediately start coveting one for themselves.

5. McAfee Gets Sued Over Pop-Ups

No stranger to litigation, McAfee is facing a new lawsuit this week for luring customers to sign up for a third party service with deceptive pop-up advertisements, as well as for providing the third party with customers' credit card details without their consent.



According to the lawsuit, filed by McAfee customers in California, customers that buy McAfee software online are tricked into paying $4.95 per month fee to an online advertising company called Arpu. "The pop-up, mimicking the look of the other pages on the McAfee site, thanks the customer for purchasing McAfee software, and prompts McAfee's customers to click a red button to 'Try it Now,'" according to the lawsuit documents.

McAfee says the Web pages its customers viewed to buy products offered by other companies, such as Arpu, were designed consistent with federal guidelines.

"The billing method was prominently disclosed on the same page where people selected the product, and Arpu does provide an email notification detailing the transaction and providing a cancellation method that they send directly to the customer," McAfee spokesperson said in an email.

McAfee, along with Symantec, is already facing a lawsuit from a customer in New York for automatically renewing antivirus subscriptions. Of course, McAfee is innocent until proven guilty, but given the longstanding angst that exists in the channel over these types of practices, this could be one of those "where there's smoke, there's fire" situations.