MS Bones Up on Business Intelligence

Microsoft is as serious about business intelligence (BI) as Einstein was about relativity. Not only does SQL Server 2005 have a heap of BI features, but the company is also building an array of separate tools such as the Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, now in beta test (oh, I mean in CTP, which is a fancy term for a specific type of beta, though I can't quite remember the difference). The new tool does business score-carding, and can work with an array of structured and unstructured data types. More

Posted by Doug Barney on December 11, 20060 comments


Whole Lot of Shipping Goin' On

Microsoft has been on a product shipping tear. Going after the Web development market (where Redmond essentially failed with FrontPage and Macromedia cleaned up with Dreamweaver), Microsoft just starting shipping pieces of its Expression Studio line of products.

First up is a tool that lets developers build sites that work with key standards (or at least Microsoft's take on what key standards are). Later, tools will let developers fancy up these sites and protect proprietary content.

Posted by Doug Barney on December 11, 20060 comments


Fixes for Visual Studio, Windows Due Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday , so it's no surprise that Windows is getting its share of fixes. But Visual Studio is also up for a plug for a "critical flaw." There are also updates to Malicious Software Removal Tool.

However, reports are starting to bubble More

Posted by Doug Barney on December 11, 20060 comments


Exchange 2007 (and its Add-On Security) Ships

Exchange 2007 didn't exactly live up to its name -- the darn thing just shipped and last time I checked, it's still 2006. To be fair, it was just released to manufacturing, which means it has to work its way through this process before you can actually start installing the finished goods.

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Posted by Doug Barney on December 11, 20060 comments


Track in the Name of the Law

E-mail used to be an ephemeral thing. Then archival storage came along and we couldn't get rid of it. Now, new rules from the Supreme Court mandate that companies store, and prove they can retrieve, e-mail so they can be used as evidence in a lawsuit.

Storing is the easy part. Disks are cheap and getting cheaper all the time. But knowing what message is where and how to get it back -- now, there's the rub. Fortunately, the rules apply to messages and data that could be relevant to the lawsuit, so nonrelated archives can still be purged.

Posted by Doug Barney on December 06, 20060 comments


Ma Bill

In the old days, AT&T (Ma Bell) dominated the U.S. telco market. After the Telecommunications Act of 1996 there was real competition, and AT&T almost entirely collapsed under its own monopolistic weight. The act, though far from perfect, ushered in new companies and new services. With VoIP (once we can get it to work) and the upcoming iPhone, we are on the verge of another revolution -- and Microsoft wants its fair share. The company this week wrangled together eight telcos and developers to support the More

Posted by Doug Barney on December 06, 20060 comments


Novell Makes OpenOffice MS Office-Friendly

Remember the brouhaha over Microsoft Office and whether it would or would not support the OpenDocument format, which would allow files to be easily interchanged with the open source OpenOffice and StarOffice?

Microsoft didn't take the OpenDoc bait and instead promoted a new file format, OpenXML. Like stubborn kids fighting, someone eventually had to give in and, in this case, More

Posted by Doug Barney on December 06, 20060 comments


SCO Stumbles in IBM Suit

The SCO Group (now based in Utah, not Santa Cruz) just had the bulk of its lawsuit against IBM tossed out . SCO claims that IBM took SCO's proprietary Linux code and simply gave it to the open source community.

Here's where it gets weird: SCO wants IBM to show what code it supposedly stole (I guess that's "innocent until you prove yourself guilty"). Also, there's a question as to whether SCO gained any copyrights when it bought the rights to Unix from Novell.

Posted by Doug Barney on December 06, 20060 comments


Who's a Rat?

A year ago, I ran across whosarat.com, a site where snitches and informants are exposed. I didn't quite know what to think.

Some of the profiles indicated that the informants were bigger dirt bags than the folks they finked on. But it seemed a rather dangerous undertaking. Bikers, the mob and gang members aren't always shy when it comes to revenge, and having your name, photo and address plastered on a Web site about rats isn't the healthiest thing in the world.

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Posted by Doug Barney on December 05, 20062 comments


Google: Get 'Em While They're Young

Apple had an Ivan Putski-class lock on the education market in the 1980s -- that is, until Microsoft started giving away and steeply discounting software for schools. The Apple II and Mac may have been cute, but free is free, and cheap is cheap.

Google is now trying to do the same thing to Microsoft. The company is not just giving away spreadsheets and word processors (these Google apps are, after all, already free), but is More

Posted by Doug Barney on December 05, 20060 comments


Novell To Keep Tabs on Redmond Deal

Novell exec Susan Heystee has been picked to oversee the patent and interoperability deal with Microsoft . Sometimes, these deals are window dressing and PR, in which case Heystee's job will be as easy as that of a security guard at a convent. But with Microsoft and Novell already quibbling over patents, Heystee could be burning the midnight oil.

Posted by Doug Barney on December 05, 20060 comments


Web Access Spreads, Thanks to Bill!

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focuses far more on tough issues, like malaria, than high-tech ones, but that didn't stop it from giving $17.5 million to fund Internet access in libraries in Botswana, Latvia and Lithuania.

This is an attempt to let these countries catch up, at least a little bit, to the U.S., where nearly all libraries are connected. Wonder how many users will be Googling versus. using MSN or Live Search?

Posted by Doug Barney on December 05, 20060 comments