Links of the day

Infoworld's Notes From the Field..."DOT’s all, folks: Cringely confidant Ross G. has unearthed an interesting memo from the U.S. Department of Transportation. It seems that the DOT has put the kibosh on all upgrades to Vista, Office 2007, or IE7 for at least another six months. The document’s money sentence: “There appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products.” No problems with Washingtonian double-speak there."...har har....

The New Economist discusses an academic paper analyzing the economics of the private equity sector(which is divided into two segments: venture capital and leveraged buyouts)...my interpretation of the paper's results is that the mechanics of buyouts can be fine-tuned so that a buyout firm generates increasing profits as it gains experience, while the same is not true of VC's. This makes sense to me as VC's generally are investing in technological advancements where forecasting which companies will become blockbusters isn't possible.

Questions Budget Chairman John Spratt should be asking....includes this thought-provoking chart: