Microsoft has yet to make a bold proclamation about open source. Instead, we
have hints, various announcements and some bits of Microsoft software that are
actually open to all.
One of the latest tidbits (that fail to explain where Microsoft really stands)
is Silverlight, a new, lightweight Web development/mash-up tool that has now
been adapted (by new partner Novell) to work with open source.
This is an interesting test. How far will Microsoft allow these open source
fans to go? We'll keep you posted.
Posted by Doug Barney on July 02, 20070 comments
I'm always a little sad when an independent, third-party company gets swallowed
up by a larger outfit. In this case, ScriptLogic is in the process of being
acquired by Quest for $90 million.
There are two pieces of good news. First, Quest is a fine company -- great
folks, great products, all-around goodness as far as I can see (ScriptLogic
is the exact same kind of animal). The second bit of good news is that Quest
plans to have ScriptLogic operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. To me, that
means ScriptLogic will remain largely ScriptLogic. I hope so.
But these things have a way of changing sometimes. After Quest bought Aelita,
the Aelita identity disappeared (though Quest and Aelita had a lot of product
overlap, and I don't remember Quest promising to keep Aelita intact).
Anyway, congrats to the folks at ScriptLogic and Quest. I can see the two companies'
cultures meshing quite well!
By the way, here's
a Q&A Redmond Developer News did with ScriptLogic's top programmer,
Brian Bucklew.
And here's
the skinny on the acquisition.
Posted by Doug Barney on June 25, 20070 comments
Marc Andreessen (spell that last name three times fast!), one of the founders
of Netscape and considered the father of the browser, recently published a quick
tutorial to turning big companies around. I came across the item
on
ZDNet.
I was ready to skewer Mr. Andreessen (when I covered Netscape, I had Andreessen's
name on a hot key so I wouldn't screw it up) because his company got thoroughly
clobbered by Microsoft. Who is he to give turnaround advice?
But before I criticize a major industry figure (who can sue me without checking
his bank balance), I like to do a little research.
It turns out (cut/paste) Andreessen (end paste) is a winner. Netscape, even
in its weakened state, sold for $4.5 billion to AOL and Sun. After Netscape,
(cut/paste) Andreessen (end paste) started Loudcloud. He sold the Loudcloud
hosting business to EDS and used to rest to form what is now Opsware. Opsware
sales have nearly doubled every year for the past four years, though it's still
losing money.
What really deflated my plans to rip (cut/paste) Andreessen (end paste) apart
is the fact that this advice is rather excellent (damn you, [cut/paste] Andreessen
[end paste]!)
In his blog, (cut/paste) Andreessen (end paste) advises large company CEOs
to:
- Stop talking to the press and figure out the company's problems.
- Once you have them figured out, announce your new strategy and then stop
talking to the press again.
He also advises making layoffs fast and deep, and putting your best people
on the most important projects. Here's
the blog.
Posted by Doug Barney on June 25, 20070 comments
A few months after Vista shipped, Microsoft
released
a report showing that its new OS was more secure than virtually anything
else on the desktop, such as XP, Mac and Linux.
Redmond Report readers bought the XP part, but fell all over themselves laughing
about the Mac and Linux findings.
Three months later comes the six-month
report, and once again Vista comes through with flying colors.
My take is that the sheer number of flaws is important, but not the final word
in security. It is possible that Mac and Linux have more flaws, but what really
matters is what hackers care to attack -- and they just love attacking Windows!
Posted by Doug Barney on June 25, 20070 comments
Apple has been knocked for not doing enough to support its Safari browser and
letting Firefox do all the heavy lifting.
Now, in a stunning reversal, the company is building
a version of the browser for Windows! The new tool is now in beta, and has
already been tweaked to fix a few security problems (Apple Patch Tuesday, anyone?).
At first, I scratched my head over why Apple would want to enter the browser
wars. Then, I remembered how much it charges for iTunes songs and videos. Safari
on Windows, I'm sure, would offer every option known to man for buying Apple
content. I'm less excited already.
The company is also hoping that developers will build Safari Web apps, but
it'll need gobs of market share for that to happen.
Posted by Doug Barney on June 18, 20070 comments
For the sake of delaying the inevitable, I convinced my 13-year-old to wait
to the fall release of Leopard before making me buy him a new Mac. To make sure
I make good on my promise (and maybe pick up a Mac lapper for myself), he sent
me
these
screen shots.
What do you think? Vista or Leopord? Answers welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on June 18, 20070 comments
As the father of Notes and now Microsoft's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie
must have mixed feelings about tools like this.
Unify's new Microsoft
Edition of Composer for Lotus Notes helps shops turn custom Notes applications
into SOA services that work with various Microsoft tools such as SQL Server
and SharePoint.
This is a very different approach to Notes migration. Instead of just moving
the application logic to Exchange and Outlook (which ain't always easy), the
tool migrates Notes databases to SQL Server, and converts the applications themselves
to Web services written in C#. End users access the apps through ASP.NET apps
or SharePoint. Pretty slick.
Posted by Doug Barney on June 18, 20070 comments
If your shop builds on top of SaaS platforms such as Saleforce.com, then DreamFactory
has a tool for you. The
DreamFactory
Developer Portal is designed to help developers jumpstart Web apps that
tap into SaaS systems.
The free portal has training and tools. If the company can truly build a community,
then there will be plenty of peers to give you advice.
Posted by Doug Barney on June 18, 20070 comments
Last week, Doug asked readers
what
they thought of Microsoft's patching strategy. Rodney is less than satisfied:
Until now, I was wondering if I was the only person with updates (three)
riding my system tray for the past two weeks, hoping I shut my system down
so they can play at installing. I'm running Vista Home Premium and this is
the second time that this has happened. Updates arrive one evening and fail
at installing for weeks at a time. When one batch installs, another batch
appears to repeat the process.
With WinXP, updates installed in the background and were less obvious.
What's going on with Vista?
-Rodney
And speaking of Vista, Nick has a bone to pick:
I have Vista Ultimate pre-loaded on a Dell Inspiron 9400. Mostly, it
is very impressive. Getting my Dell bluetooth keyboard and mouse to work with
the internal bluetooth card instead of the dongle was challenging. Sonic DLA
didn't work for the first month or so until a driver patch came out. I am
still waiting for F-Prot to issue a Vista-compatible version. So far, it's
as least as good as XP was in its first six months. UAC is a non-issue. The
UI changes take some getting used to, but if you ran IE7 on XP they aren't
so jarring. There is one bad thing. One being minor, 10 being intolerable,
this is 1.76038875096-E99.
I am talking about VERY slow file cut/copy/paste between networked machines.
Do a Google search for "Vista slow file copy" and you will see what
I mean. In a non-domain environment, cut/copy/paste operations between untrusted
machines using pass-through authentication take FOREVER (i.e., 100MB of files
on gigabit backbone taking 20-plus minutes to complete). That we are four
months past release and this still isn't fixed doesn't bode well. We have
absolutely no intention of creating a mixed XP-SBS2003-Vista environment until
it does get fixed. The silence from MS on this problem has been deafening.
-Nick
Got something to add? Let us have it! Comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on June 18, 20070 comments
Last week, Microsoft paid a visit to the cool, spacious, well-lit offices of
Redmond magazine to argue that the company now has open standards religion
and
wants
to work more closely with open source.
In particular, Microsoft pledges to support the OpenDoc file format more fully,
and won't try to hold back any standards work around the format.
It also plans to keep working on cross-licensing deals with open source players.
Microsoft may never be as open to open source as Red Hat, IBM or Novell, but
the company is becoming a lot more pragmatic and accommodating. As Microsoft
moves higher and higher up the stack, it needs to play nice with the major enterprise
players.
Agree, disagree? Tell me where I'm right or wrong at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on June 18, 20070 comments
Tomorrow, Microsoft will
release
a batch of patches that target remote execution flaws in Visio, Internet
Explorer and Office. Is it just me, or do almost all flaws allow a hacker to
remotely do something?
In any case, it's good to see Microsoft tackling what could be some very dangerous
problems.
Are you happy with Microsoft's patching strategy? Is Microsoft security getting
better? Let us know at [email protected]!
Patch Tuesday = Upgrade Tuesday
Also tomorrow, Microsoft will push Windows
Server 2003 SP2 through automatic updates. While the upgrade has been available
since March, Microsoft is really putting the pressure on IT to make the
SP2 move.
You can go out of your way, download a toolkit and block the upgrade -- and
SBS customers might want to do so. There are some known connectivity glitches
that mostly affect SBS, including problems with Outlook, SecureNet and VPNs.
Despite some problems (this is software, after all) this upgrade seems well
worth the disk space. It includes a new rev of the management console and some
interesting scaling technology to help handle big processing loads.
Google's Got the Goods on You
Kids demand privacy. If you peek inside their diary, listen in on a phone call
or don't knock before opening their door, you'll get a shoulder colder than
a frozen beef shank. But these same kids don't seem to mind when Google does
the invading.
Privacy International calls Google an "endemic
threat to privacy," in part because it hangs on to your search history
for years.
Yes, Eric Schmidt knows exactly how many times you searched for Pam Anderson
JPEGs.
Dell and Sam
Dell recently switched from its direct-only strategy and will now sell through
the channel. And not just any old reseller; Dell will sell through discounters
such as Sam's
Club and Wal-Mart (have you ever noticed that people always add an "s"
to the end of Wal-Mart?).
In keeping with the low-end nature of these stores, Dell will only sell low-end
models.
Are You Ready for Vista? Take Two
A tool to test your old PC's ability
to run the new Vista OS is now its second release. The new rev is designed
to check out as many as 10,000 PCs for Vista readiness, and includes deeper
Active Directory hooks.
I still maintain that Vista is best run on new PCs. Tell me where I'm wrong
at [email protected].
Mailbag: Low-Cost Laptops, IBM and the SEC, More
In the footsteps of the One
Laptop Per Child initiative, Intel and Asustek are teaming up to produce
their
own line of low-cost laptops for developing countries. Here's what one reader
thinks about the project:
I think this is a very good initiative. To make it succesful, though,
I think it needs to be embedded/integrated in a broader project/program on
a long-lasting basis. The following subjects need to be in this program:
- Hardware support (spare parts, help desk)
- Power supply availability
- Training and education will be necessary (Microsoft OS, OpenOffice,
use of Internet/e-mail)
- Internet connections will have to be made available and maintained
- People will have to feel that this is a project of their own, not
something invented "for" them behind a desk in another country.
In Tchad, I have seen a good-will project, supported with tons of money
form the world bank, stranded because the project didn't "match"
with their way of life
- Young people must be tought how they can make a bussiness with Internet
applications (e.g., e-shop for local products)
If not, there is a risk that thousands of laptops will be used only as
a nice toy by children.
-Oskar
Last week, IBM
settled with the SEC on its stock option probe: IBM promised not to do it
again and, in exchange, the SEC didn't issue any fines. Bob isn't impressed:
I just love it when all the big boys play nice and stick to everyone
else. From one side, there's 'I won't fine you this time,' and from the other
side, "We won't do this anymore."
My kids would love that kind of settlement for a premeditated, well-thought-out,
intentional screw-up. Next time you feel froggy, try that one on for size
and see what it gets you. Be sure to let me know what day or days are open
for vistors (and between what hours). Do I hear slammer in your future?
-Bob
After the announcement last week of a Google-Salesforce.com
partnership, Lafe asked readers what they think of the spread of online
ads:
Don't like it one bit. The more ads, the greater the security risk.
-Karen
Got something to add? Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on June 11, 20070 comments