Contrary to the advice in our recent post, Steve Ballmer says now is not the time for Microsoft (MSFT - Annual Report) to scale back.

“Throughout our history, Microsoft has won by making big, bold bets,”
Ballmer said in the memo, which was seen by CNET News.com. “I believe
that now is not the time to scale back the scope of our ambition or the
scale of our investment. While our opportunities are greater than ever,
we also face new competitors, faster-moving markets and new customer
demands.”

Touche. We can take it as well as we can dish it out, and we would be no better at running Microsoft than Citgroup’s analyst would be at running DELL. Still, $2 billion per year is more than most software firms take in revenue, and at the very least Ithey should be able to do a good job for less. Time will tell, but we’d still rather see them slim down their expenses and make gradual improvements rather than ramp up for a huge release that gets delayed and is finally released before it is fully developed anyway.

T-Mobile has announced plans in the UK to offer wireless broadband services at 1.8Mbps this year, accelerating to 20Mbps by 2010. Better still, their price point is planned at the equivalent of $15 per month. This is comparable to the 2.5 Mbps most cable modem subscribers get, at a far lower price. Plus, it is mobile. The bad news is it would cost a fortune to build out a wide network with that type of speed in the US. But that could soon change.

NORTEL and Qualcomm say they have set a new mobile download speed record, achieving downloads of 7.2Mbps on the UMTS-HSDPA standard.

Meanwhile, Network World notes that Qualcomm has inked its first patent licensing agreement for the WiMax technology it acquired through the recent acquisition of Flarion Technologies.

Or at least the OECD does. Om Malik highlights their recent report in his piece, summarizing the limitations of the technology. Although some have billed it as the next-gen mobile technology and a threat to existing mobile carriers, the truth is WiMax offers a great supplement to existing networks or an inexpensive way to provide access to communications in poor nations but is a long way from killing off the Verizons of the world.