Isn't everyone supposed to be on vacation? Based on the comments this past week on TechFlash, perhaps not. Or, maybe, everyone is just checking on the news from the beach, the boat or the mountains. Anyway, here are five comments that caught our eye this week.

John Bailo on New Google is the old Microsoft: "Competition is the only answer to hegemony. Microsoft is feeling it now from Linux. Google is already starting to feel it as they are unable to monetize any of their subsidiary businesses and next gen search engines will fragment the market. There's no lock in to browser search other than name loyalty. That can change in a second (although, a Bing has found, you actually have to be better, not worse, that what you are competing with)."

Dave on Verizon v. Clearwire in Seattle: "Does anyone seriously believe Clearwire can compete with Verizon? This is not even in the ballpark of a fair fight. If this was Vegas, the odds would be overwhelming against Clearwire. Verizon has massive access to capital, controls the spectrum it needs, experience with building out high quality nationwide networks, controls cell towers to the extent needed and has a well known brand."

Bryan Starbuck on Lavva's new search engine attempts to democratize search: "Building a search engine isn't easy. I entered "Scuba diving in Grand Cayman stingray city" to give it a try on a hard example. The results were wonderful. All of the photos were beautiful and correct for the search. Congrats to the Lavva guys."

Chaz on Analyst: Kindle sales to take off: On a recent visit to Seattle, I struck up a conversation with a Kindle user on a bus. Turns out he works for Amazon. duh!  I've only seen about 4 Kindles in the wild in about 1 year's time. But in contrast, I've seen hundreds if not thousands of iphones around.  The author indicates that Amazon has a head start in the online book business. That much is true. But for instance, Apple has a compelling business model in its iTunes store for media. Save for pesky publisher/distribution rights, it wouldn't take much to parley the iTunes store to sell e-books. One strike against the kindle for me is its proprietary format and the unfriendliness to other ebook formats. (that's 2 but I'll count it as one.)

Formerly Creative on Texas judge signs injunction to prevent sales of Microsoft Word: "And people wonder why there aren't more software choices -- this kind of patent litigation has all but ruined creativity. Reverse engineering is one thing, claiming intellectual rights to small obvious functions on the other hand is ridiculous."