An advantage of not always being the first to do things is the learning opportunity afforded by watching how other people's decisions and investments work out. Recent examples include the trend for biofuels which has sent food prices soaring and has caused forests to be cleared to make space to grow biofuel crops. However, it appears that processing these crops into biofuels may generate more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels would have done anyway. Even “green” hybrid vehicles are being questioned because of the size of the carbon footprint associated with the production and transportation of the nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries they use.

There's a $1.9bn bun fight going on right now with EMC and Netapps at war over who will buy Data Domain. It's all got a bit messy with Netapp saying that EMC's latest hostile bid raises antitrust concerns. EMC came back with a good retort and the batting back and forth certainly makes interesting viewing from the sidelines... it's almost good enough to be on centre court at Wimbledon.

So what's the fuss about? De-duplication, that's what.