Last week, it was looking like Obama would not get to keep his BlackBerry for security reasons. Separately, incoming White House lawyer Cassandra Butts had told his staff that they would not be allowed to use IM, with each other or with reporters.

But Obama, who has long insisted he'd find a way to keep his beloved device, from which he was inseparable on the campaign trail, found a way; the souped-up BlackBerry will soon arrive in his hands, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reports. And good on him! This is yet another example of Obama's forceful push for change. Before entering office, George W. Bush sent out this note from his AOL account, G94B@aol.com :

Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace. This saddens me. I have enjoyed conversing with each of you.

(Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

Del Biaggio hasn't exactly copped to the charges. But he did agree not to make additional violations of securities laws — a usual step in reaching a settlement. The SEC will decide later how much he has to repay investors and cough up in fines. He also faces separate criminal charges.

What did he use the money for? The government's complaint says that Del Biaggio faked collateral documents to borrow $25 million in banks so he could buy a stake in the Nashville predators, a hockey team. He also raised a venture-capital fund, Sand Hill Capital Partners III, which the government says he used as a "checkbook" to pay off gambling debts and redecorate a palatial Bay Area home. Del Biaggio resigned form SHCP shortly before it filed for bankruptcy protection this summer.

What's curious about Del Biaggio's two crimes: He could have gotten away with them if he had just committed them simultaneously. If only he had told investors he needed to raise money to buy a sports team rather than invest in startups, he might be doing okay now. Jim Balsillie, a Canadian billionaire and founder of smartphone maker Research In Motion, wants to buy Del Biaggio's stake in the Predators. Unlike boom-and-bust startups, sports teams will always be worth something.

Like Apple, RIM offers not just the hardware but the software and services that run on top of it; RIM does Apple one better by also selling back-end servers that companies install to manage their workers' email. Microsoft is in that same business, but it's not as good as tying everything together as RIM is. The speculation is that RIM shares would have to drop to $40 or so, at which point Microsoft might bid $50 a share, or $28 billion for the company. This much is not speculation: RIM would be a better buy than Yahoo.

RIM will now offer customized access to the popular social-networking site, including instant, push-based messaging to BlackBerry and MySpace users, real-time status and mood updates, camera integration, and optimized photo management. Also as part of this collaboration between the two companies, RIM has created a BlackBerry community page on MySpace for users to access BlackBerry smartphone, content, videos, games, ringtones, skins and other features.

MySpace for BlackBerry is expected to be available globally in October.

Playing on an early meme about home computers, Alan Alda shows how an Atari will make your kid a better typist than you. Oh, and it plays games too.

Apple flaunts its Y2K-proof products with a sad monologue from 2001's HAL 9000.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion teaches you how to get the color you want from your I-can't-decide girlfriend. Sexist? Not as much as the talk about Sarah Palin at Whole Foods this morning.

A clever Web page ad for Apple that ties two ad spots on the page together. John Hodgman's PC guy undermines the ads a bit by making me feel sympathetic for him.

Seinfeld's pointless but funny Superman ad for American Express's product warranty feature was probably what convinced Microsoft he could do the same for Windows. If the writers of the Microsoft/Seinfeld ad had created a similarly out-of-character character for Bill Gates, it might've worked.

For comparison's sake, I measured the iPhone primarily against offerings from Palm, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion, and Nokia's full featured N-series mobile phones. With a single, high-priced design sold only for AT&T in the U.S., Apple has already surpassed Palm, which offers its Treo on all major U.S. networks. Sales reached one-third the level of industry stalwart Research In Motion after only four months. Apple has even achieved more than ten percent of the share Nokia enjoys across its entire N-series, the world leader in smartphones. And this simple comparison only looks at units sold. Even at the lowered $399 price, Apple's iPhone tests the upper limits of mobile pricing — and that's not counting the share of service fees Apple gets from AT&T.

Though it may be Mac-fanboy sacrilege to say so, the iPhone lacks some key features. Right now, Apple can brick an iPhone with a software update — but IT administrators can't, which makes them hesitant to buy them for corporations. The BlackBerry is entrenched in that market. And Nokia has unmatched global reach. Against those considerations, Apple has unquestionably performed well.

Data for third quarter:

• Palm - 638,000 Palm Treo smartphone units
  
• Apple - 1.12 million iPhones
  
• RIM - 3.1 million BlackBerry smartphones
  
• Nokia - "well over" 9 million N-series mobile phones

• Apple closed at $161.45 with a market cap of $140.4 billion. That's just short of Nokia's $143.77 billion .
• Google shares ended the day at $594.05.
• Research In Motion rocketed up almost 13 percent to $113.37 after solidly beating expectations.

RIM has a proprietary operating system for its BlackBerry smartphones; it also sells email server software for corporate sysadmins to install, and a "push" subscription service that links the phones and the servers together. Microsoft, meanwhile, makes a Windows Mobile operating system for phones manufactured by others, and has added BlackBerry-like "push" features to its own Exchange email software.

One can debate the technical merits of the products, but on a high level, what's important to note is that much of what Microsoft and RIM do is duplicative and incompatible. Shelling out for a takeover premium on top of RIM's already-lofty $47 billion market cap would get Microsoft what, exactly? A proprietary operating system for smartphones, and proprietary email software incompatible with its current product lines. On top of that, Microsoft would spend — no, waste — years rearchitecting either its current software or RIM's to make it even vaguely functional. Oh, and some easily commoditized hardware designs.

Hardly worth the price, and by the time Microsoft made it all work, RIM's supposedly devoted BlackBerry customers would have moved on to other phone models. Chalk this one up to late-August boredom on Wall Street's trading desks, and the facile imaginations of business analysts who aren't interested in the pesky details of how technology actually works.