You, I'm sure, have heard that Sir Arthur C. Clarke
left
us last week
at the age of 90. Clarke was a true renaissance man. Many forget
that he was a real scientist and technical visionary. He invented the idea of
orbiting satellites and later proposed them as a way to bring the Internet to
the Third World.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 24, 20080 comments
Call it Redmond Report Take 2. Last week, we launched a new Web site that's
so simple in concept, even I could've thought it up (but I didn't; my boss Henry
Allain did).
Redmond Report (yup, it shares its name with this here newsletter) is simply
a bunch of links from a bunch of sites to a bunch of stories about Microsoft.
Like I said, pretty dang simple. Already, the site has stories about Vista
Service Pack 1, a new Word exploit and advice about what company Microsoft should
buy (instead of Yahoo).
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 24, 20080 comments
VMware made news last month when Dell, HP and IBM
all
agreed
to bundle a small, tight version of VMware with its servers. This
made it seem almost like VMware is the only game in town, the Microsoft of virtualization.
The reality is the field is far more complex and competitive.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 24, 20080 comments
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last year famously remarked that in 10 years, all
media will be digital -- meaning print will be deader than a run-over Texas
armadillo. Maybe Steve really believes such an absurd idea (despite iPods and
CDs, the LP is the hot ticket for young music-philes). Or perhaps he's trying
to will it into happening so Microsoft can take over the publishing business.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 17, 20080 comments
Over the last few years, almost no one launched new computer magazines. Of course,
the exception is 1105 Media, which started
Redmond
magazine in 2004,
Redmond Channel Partner
in 2005, and broke out
Redmond Developer News
in 2006.
Later this month, 1105 lets loose with Virtualization Review, and I'm
lucky to be a part of it. The premiere issue includes profiles of VMware, Microsoft
and Citrix/Xen; a roundup of top PC virtualization tools; a treatise on the
state of storage virtualization; a peek at Hyper-V; and loads of industry news.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 17, 20080 comments
The ordinarily press-shy Ray Ozzie
recently
opened up
to blogger Om Malik on cloud computing and the role of the desktop
OS.
After making the obvious statement that today's desktop has a '70s and '80s
feel (something other Microsoft execs likely agree with but cringe at hearing),
Ozzie pointed out that young developers, students and startups build for the
Web first, and this is the audience Microsoft must now address (Silverlight,
anyone?).
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 17, 20080 comments
Last week, Steve Ballmer jetted down to sunny Las Vegas for the MIX08 show,
where some 2,500 people went to learn what Microsoft is doing in Web development
tools.
At first, I was going to write this entire item based on what Redmond
Developer News writer Jeff Schwartz put in his terrific 1,252-word
article. Then I ran into Kate Richards, another Redmond Developer News
writer who just got back from MIX08, at the coffee machine.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 10, 20080 comments
TechCrunch, a blog which everyone says is cool but isn't actually read by anyone
I know, is reporting that Google and Microsoft may be
fighting
over Digg.com
. Apparently, Google is willing to pay up to $225 million,
while Microsoft, saving its big bucks for Yahoo, is coming in a bit lower.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 10, 20080 comments
Let me keep this short and simple. Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday, and this one has
a fairly
normal
number of fixes
, tweaks and repairs. And, like most patch cycles, these
fixes largely focus on remote execution exploits (is there any other kind of
exploit these days?).
Unlike most months where Windows and IE get corrected, these patches are mostly
for Office and Outlook.
Posted by Doug Barney on March 10, 20080 comments
Like any community of vendors, the storage industry pumps out more hype than
a Hollywood premiere. Jon William Toigo has seen it all, but as a true storage
expert he easily separates fact from fiction, wheat from chaff, truth from marketing
hooey.
This
article he wrote is a fairly long read, but well worth it. Here are a few
highlights for those with tight schedules:
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20080 comments
Microsoft last week disclosed plans to
cut
the price
of boxed versions of Vista by up to nearly 50 percent.
Conspiracy theorists see a connection between this and the class-action suit
claiming that machines labeled as Vista Ready are less prepared than a narcoleptic
Boy Scout. I fail to see that connection, and instead believe that Microsoft
simply wants to build a little Vista momentum. To me this move has very little
meaning. I've argued from the start that users shouldn't upgrade existing systems
to Vista, but should wait 'til they need to buy a new PC.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20080 comments
Rumors started
this weekend that Microsoft is set to make a major Software as a Service (SaaS)
announcement soon, perhaps detailing how nearly its entire portfolio of apps
-- from ERP to Office -- will adapt to the Web.
The company may also detail plans to build a bunch of huge new datacenters,
an announcement that seems geared toward Wall Street as much as IT.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 03, 20080 comments