Qwerty vs touch, WFH, iPhone 2.0, Segway madness

This month the BlackBerry vs iPhone war reached near boiling point as RIM's co-CEO dismissed suggestions its Bold new smart phone (see photos here) is a response to competition from Apple.

Speaking to silicon.com in an exclusive interview, RIM's Mike Lazaridis also poured cold water on iPhone-style touchscreen tech ("this is not new… this has been tried before") - and claimed the future of mobile lies with Qwerty keyboards.

Stories of the month - May 2008

Click on the links below to read the stories everyone is talking about...

iPhone vs BlackBerry: What the users love...

Photos: Beijing Olympics 2008 - tech keeping the games on track

The Naked CIO: Is open source dead?

Google lays out mobile future

National Work from Home Day: A blessing or a curse?

Calls to lift UK Segway ban

Minority Report: What's in store for the iPhone?

Job interviews: So you think you've got them sussed?

Femtocell market hotting up

RIM co-CEO: Qwerty is the next big thing

On the flip-side, considering whether the iPhone will ever get keys, silicon.com's resident Mac columnist, Seb Janacek, decided Apple is probably too stubborn to soften its touchscreen stance - even if a sliding version with a Qwerty would widen the device's appeal.

And just to complicate things, a survey of US smart phone owners out this month found many BlackBerry owners moan about the keypad because its fiddly small keys apparently cause typos, and a substantial chunk of iPhone owners confess to being in love with the touchscreen…

So whatever Apple and RIM say or do, it seems the jury's still out on touch vs Qwerty. (Except silicon.com's CIO Jury of course, which mostly favours keys.)

But the big stories of the month were not all about smart phone input systems - also getting lots of clicks was silicon.com's Naked CIO columnist, giving a frank assessment of open source's role in business: for niche use only.

"From an organisational perspective, in its level of customisation and lack of true industry standards, this is cowboy technology," the Naked CIO writes. Ouch.

Plenty of readers disagree - and you can read what they have to say here.

And National Work from Home Day came around again so the silicon.com editorial team seized the opportunity to work remotely. You can read each team member's take on the day - including a fair few tech troubles - here.

Also going large this month were behind-the-scenes photos of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games venues and IT infrastructure. And a story that suggests the silly season has arrived early, after peers in the House of Lords called for a ban on Segways being used on roads and pavements to be lifted - and demonstrated how safe the mode of transport is by attempting to run each other over. Roll on summer...