Parallels, formerly SWsoft, just
enhanced
its hypervisor for Macs that lets these Cupertino beauties run Windows and
Linux.
Parallels Desktop 4.0 supports a staggering 45 different guest OSes, works
with DirectX 9.0, and has backup built right in.
Parallels is a feisty and interesting company, with two lines of server virtualization
tools and some cool desktop action, as well. I profiled it a while back here.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 17, 20080 comments
Once Microsoft pre-announces a product with massive competitive implications,
it simply won't stop talking about it 'til the darn thing ships -- no matter
how long it takes. The idea is to convince customers that Microsoft is the most
important game in town, even if it doesn't have a product.
That's what's happening now with Azure, Microsoft's upcoming cloud services
platform. Latest case in point: a speech
by David Treadwell that treads over some old Azure ground and then added
some news in the form of a real, live (or is that Live?) demo.
I'm not how much was real and how much was Memorex, but Treadwell showed how
he could launch a document and then make it available to others over the Web.
Sort of like Google Docs, I guess.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 13, 20080 comments
Microsoft may be busy talking up Azure, but Kevin thinks it's not all that revolutionary:
Isn't Azure nothing more than the remaking of the mainframe? Think about
this: Why do we even need virtualization? Shouldn't you be able to run multiple
apps on the same box under one OS? The OS doesn't protect apps from each other,
or them from wrecking it. Remember, IBM's Z/OS allowed hundreds, if not thousands,
of apps.
And I'm not even pointing strictly at Windows, as Unix and Linux also
seem to need virtualization. Virtualization has its place, but not for 80
percent of the servers in a site!
-Kevin
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 13, 20080 comments
Research firm Computer Economics released a study arguing that IT budgets will
be tight next year, but there's
no
real horror show. The better news? IT shops are keen to keep staff.
On the chopping block? Equipment upgrades, travel and entertainment, and temps.
Let's hope they're right!
Posted by Doug Barney on November 13, 20080 comments
I made short shrift of the last Patch Tuesday, not taking it too seriously
since there were
only
two fixes, and only one of those critical.
Turns out one of the patches was for more interesting and important than I
thought. It seems that Microsoft has had a hole in its Server Message Block
-- a hole that took
seven solid years to fix! The vulnerability can let hackers control an entire
network. Security pros have no idea what took so long, and believe that many
may have been hacked this way without even knowing it.
I'm pretty happy with how Microsoft patches, and see this as an anomaly. You
agree? Thoughts welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 13, 20080 comments
Live Mesh is a Microsoft technology that lets you synchronize data across the
Internet and keep it all current on different devices. This way your cell phone,
home PC and work laptop can all have your girlfriend's phone number, photo and
schedule. Oh, and Live Mesh apparently can also be used for business!
I've been worried that Live Mesh is too complex, will take too long to materialize,
that applications then have to be written against it and may, in the end, not
work nearly as well as promised.
I may get some answers soon. Microsoft
has four apps that show how the Mesh is supposed to work. The news that
apps exist is more exciting than the apps themselves, which include a bulletin
board (weren't these old hat in the '80s?), a polling program and a multi-user
crossword puzzle. Can't wait!
Posted by Doug Barney on November 12, 20080 comments
Microsoft made its billions selling packaged software with basic, though sometimes
tremendously complex, licenses. You pay for the right to use the software on
one or more computers. Moving to the cloud, as the new Azure platform entails,
brings a whole new technology, a whole new business model and a whole new set
of challenges.
The self-professed brainiacs from Gartner now argue that Azure is the biggest
Microsoft event since 1996 when Bill Gates realized the importance of the
Internet.
Azure was a big an event, but this isn't the first time Redmond has talked
about the cloud. Ray Ozzie has been pontificating about the cloud pretty much
non-stop since joining Microsoft in 2005. A little Gartner hyperbole? You be
the judge. Send your conclusions to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 12, 20080 comments
Web site Politico, which gained huge traction through the course of the election,
has
an article light on details and heavy on fear about Google CEO Eric Schmidt
and President-elect Barack Obama.
The theory is that Schmidt is Obama's de facto technical adviser, and
that an Obama administration would craft policies more to Google's liking than
to Microsoft's. It even quoted an unnamed source (and just one, mind you) who
said that Microsoft is "terrified."
I've covered Redmond on and off since 1985 and I've never seen Microsoft terrified,
or even really nervous; it's like the John Wayne of software. I don't think
Microsoft has any reason to worry, either. One of the key issues is whether
the Democrats will get tougher on antitrust, but these days there are just as
many Google antitrust issues as Microsoft.
Terrified? I bet Bill and Steve are sleeping just fine!
Posted by Doug Barney on November 12, 20080 comments
Yesterday morning, I got an e-mail from VMware talking about
virtualization
for mobile phones. I double-checked the date and sure enough, it was Nov.
10, not April 1!
Under the VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform, the phone itself is virtualized
so that the hardware is separate from the embedded apps (could be a cool way
to have an iPhone and Google phone running at the same time, eh what?).
This way, your phone can have different personalities depending on whether
you're at work, home or vacationing in Acapulco. It also makes it easier for
phone makers to update their software since it's not tied directly to the hardware.
No fooling.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 11, 20080 comments
Microsoft recently revealed that the next rev of Windows Server 2008 would be
able to use
up
to 256 processors, but Seth isn't really buying the multi-core excitement:
You're missing the point with the core support: There's virtually no
application software out there that will leverage the multi-core systems at
the scale they exist at today, and there isn't really need to grow it in the
future. The only thing that will need that many cores is a virtualization
platform, and even then you're going to have RAM limitations well before you
get to the processor bottleneck.
Show me an application platform that will benefit from the processor
scaling and do so cost-effectively in a single chassis, and I'll get excited.
Until then, it is just a marketing number that is rather irrelevant. Talking
with an MS program manager a couple months back, he let on that 256 processors
was probably going to happen, but also that there really is about zero demand
for it in the market and that demand isn't expected to grow. It isn't that
surprising really.
-Seth
Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. Readers share their thoughts on the holiday,
and how they plan to pay their respects:
As a Vietnam vet, I take this holiday very seriously. Having seen war
first-hand, I can appreciate the contributions of those that served before,
during and after my time. God bless them all.
-George
My husband and I are both taking the day off as we are both veterans.
He's a veteran of Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I'm a veteran of
the Air Force. We both have some very dear fellow veterans to salute and remember.
-Anonymous
Having lived in the U.S. for nearly two decades, we're astonished at the
ease with which many disrespect the military and deride those who chose to
extinguish modern-day tyranny. It seems we in the U.S. are incapable of putting
ourselves in the shoes of others who are being systematically eradicated just
because they don't agree with the ruler. Imagine if the Constitution were
set aside by a government with sufficient authority that wanted to silence
its opponents; wouldn't 'the targets to be silenced' want someone to come
in and decisively put an end to that? I would suspect that even the President-elect
would welcome that.
We know several veterans of Iraq -- one, at least, multi-tour -- who
have yet to reach 25 years of age, and the parents of other such sons who
died in Iraq setting people free. All these are worthy of respect and honor
-- doubly so, in my opinion, as multitudes of them are so young.
-Stephen
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 11, 20080 comments
During the heat of the antitrust prosecutions of Microsoft, the Redmond giant
made friends with lots of its enemies. Two former foes remain tight: Novell
and Microsoft are doing great work on interoperability, and the Sun deal --
though less dramatic -- is working out, as well.
This week, in fact, Sun announced that the MSN Toolbar can
be downloaded as part of the Java Runtime. That means the Google Toolbar
is getting kicked off, at least in the U.S.
I'd say Microsoft did some pretty fancy negotiating.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 11, 20080 comments
Both Google and Microsoft agree on one thing -- that the airwaves that will
be abandoned when we move to digital television should be used for wireless
Internet access. The FCC agrees, and is making these airwaves
available
for 'Net services.
That's the great part. Here's my fear, though: I worry that these spectrums,
even though they're unlicensed, will be sold or given to service providers who
will charge whatever the market will bear.
That's capitalism and isn't an entirely bad thing. But we also have an opportunity
to serve some poor rural communities and poor urban communities here (hey, we
might even find some suburbs that could use cheap or free access). I'd especially
like to see this access spread to school kids so they have the same opportunity
as Bunny and Biff in Greenwich, Conn.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 11, 20080 comments