Catching Up - 17-12-2007

• Obama learns a party trick from Blair (Financial Times). "Mr Blair often used the hard left’s barely veiled hostility as a means to entrench his power [...] The Obama campaign may be weighing the same strategy, for use if not now then after his hoped-for victory in the primaries. Angry progressives are as repellent to the centre that Mr Obama aims to recruit as the Republican fundamentalists at the other extreme. If the centre counts – and there lies the gamble – then the squirmings of the Democratic base are an asset to be exploited."

• Google gets ready to rumble with Microsoft (New York Times). "COUNTLESS decisions by corporate technology managers, office workers, university students and rank-and-file computer users of all kinds will ultimately determine Google’s success. How easy and inexpensive will it be to do e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets and team projects on Web software? Will high-speed network connections soon become as ubiquitous and reliable as Google seems to assume? Will companies, universities and individuals trust Google to hold corporate and personal information safely?" On the same subject, Henry Blodget from Silicon Valley Insider has an article entitled Microsoft in denial : Google threats its classic disruption.

• Mbeki heckled at ANC leader conference (Financial Times).

• South Africa grows up (New York Times). "But whatever happens, the fissure in the A.N.C. brings a long-overdue logic to South African politics. Since the early 1990s, the left and center have been held together by the skein of a joint struggle for freedom — and, of course, the allure of power. One of the best possible legacies of the current political turmoil would be the collapse of the de facto one-party state — and its replacement by a real choice for South African voters. Already the split in the A.N.C. has opened up space for robust criticism of hitherto untouchable South African leaders. And it has forced a healthy challenge to the deathtrap of African democracy: the ruler-for-life syndrome."

• Google launches Knol (shortcut for knowledge) to compete with Wikipedia. According to Udi Manber, Google VP Engineering it's a way to encourage people to contribute knowledge.