Talk about a dubious distinction. Microsoft last year gained top honors as the
most-hacked
instant messaging client of 2007. According to some quick and dirty Internet
research (read: this information could be wildly inaccurate!), AOL has by far
the most IM market share, with Microsoft coming in second with roughly half
the number of users.
If MSN is the most hacked, there are only two reasonable theories. First, it's
easier to hack MSN than other clients, or second, it's just more fun to hack
a Microsoft product. I'd go with the latter!
Posted by Doug Barney on January 14, 20080 comments
In the early days of programming, you had a language and typed in instructions.
One of the biggest transformations came in the form of integrated development
environments (IDEs). In both cases, the software is still written largely by
scratch (with a few libraries tucked in) and assume the platform is either a
PC OS or a Web browser.
The newest approach is far different. The newest approach assumes that there's
a back-end platform, not just in the form of an operating system, browser or
software like e-commerce, but actual stuff -- servers, storage and even customers!
This is the pitch Google, eBay and Amazon are making
to corporate developers. They want corporate developers to build apps that
tap into the Google/Amazon/eBay cloud, services and infrastructure. Sounds like
a pretty cool head start.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 14, 20080 comments
Tomorrow may be the most relaxing Patch Tuesday ever, as it's a
nearly
patch-free Patch Tuesday. Only two fixes are currently on tap. One is for
a flaw that can let a hacker gain super-user status on Windows 2000, XP or Vista.
The other is for another remote execution exploit.
Don't ignore these two patches, but at least it shouldn't ruin your whole day!
Posted by Doug Barney on January 07, 20080 comments
This story I'm about to tell makes me sweat, brings chills to my spine and has
me madder than a flea on a freshly shaven poodle. You see, I spent well over
a decade breaking news, which meant I told things well before IBM, Microsoft
or Lotus wanted me to. I never heard one complaint -- and this is after my stories
moved market caps by hundreds of millions and, in one case, over a billion dollars.
If I'd been covering Apple, I may have had a less pleasant experience. Apple,
for all its touchy-feely, hippy-dippy, Volvo-driving, fancy-wine-drinking image,
has a view of freedom of speech and personal privacy that would make Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad proud.
Here are three examples. I recently spent time -- way too much time -- at an
Apple retailer. They call the sales reps Apple Geniuses, but after one guy told
me it would cost $500 to replace a DC-inboard that I know costs $50, I changed
the name to Apple Imbeciles. Then it took five phone calls to actually get them
to a ship a replacement for a battery that could possibly catch on fire. And
I soon learned that none of these Apple Imbeciles gave out their phone numbers,
so reaching someone required all of my social-engineering skills.
While at the Apple store, I casually asked what kind of machines were expected
at the Macworld show this January. The imbecile told me that Apple would fire
anyone that discussed future products.
I must be mad; I've wasted 244 words complaining without getting to the real
point.
Point No. 2 is that Apple sued and recently settled with a college kid who
owned a Web site that had the audacity to talk about unannounced products. Under
the settlement, thinksecret.com
will "retire." As a journalist, I'm appalled -- and now more appreciative
of Microsoft's more mature attitude.
Next I found out (thanks to Tom's Hardware) that Apple has shut
down a thread discussing problems with its 20- and 24-inch iMacs. If you
post a complaint, all forum visitors see is an error message.
But Apple backers counter that the thread is still open (an old version is),
and that only true flames were deleted. In fact, I found a thread focusing on
iMac display problems, so perhaps Tom's is being a bit rough on Apple.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 07, 20080 comments
At this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Bill Gates gave what he said
was his final keynote, as he's retiring from full-time Microsoft work this summer.
In the speech, Gates gave his vision for the future
of personal computing, one where mice and keyboards are replaced by natural
language and touch (maybe he's been inspired by the iPhone).
But the best part was a video
showing Gates' last day, starring George Clooney and Bono.
The writers must read Barney's Rubble, as the video showed Gates vying for
a role on this year's presidential ticket. As my column did over a year ago,
observers noted the fact that Bill's retirement coincides with the next presidential
term. Of course, you heard it here
first, long before "Dilbert" writer Scott Adams took all the credit.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 07, 20080 comments
There's a huge debate raging about just how well XP and Vista exploit our new
generation of dual and multicore systems.
Critics argue that Vista does little to take advantage of additional cores.
And because most multicore systems run at slower clock-speeds, apps can actually
run more slowly. (Do you run dual or multicore desktops? If so, are they faster
than old-style single-cores? Let me know by writing me at [email protected].)
While Microsoft says little about Vista's multicore support (after a week of
solid research, I still haven't gotten any clear answers and have found some
contradictory information on Microsoft.com), Apple is touting how Leopard was
designed for multicore. Leopard apparently has a multicore-optimized network
stack and a scheduler to distribute work across cores.
But perhaps the best way to exploit multicore is to write apps with multiprocessing
in mind. And here, perhaps, RapidMind can help. The company has a development
system where programmers define which parts of the software is to be multithreaded,
and then RapidMind automatically makes these components run against whatever
cores are available. Originally for Linux and Windows, RapidMind today is announcing
support
for the Mac.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 07, 20080 comments
Google is vying for a
chunk
of the wireless spectrum that supports Internet access and mobile phone
use, and is offering over $4.5 billion for it (chump change for the Google-izers!).
This is just one more indication that Google wants to do for wireless what
it's done for the Internet: Stake out a colossal market position and make everyone
else try to catch up (hmm, sounds like Google's copying Microsoft here!). The
neat thing about this is that Google wouldn't likely take a traditional approach,
but -- like Apple did with the iPhone -- surprise us all.
But this all might fizzle out. Anyone remember Google's bold plan to offer
wireless to all of San Francisco?
Posted by Doug Barney on December 03, 20070 comments
Microsoft is beginning to make some real moves in the area of Unified Communications
(UC) with real products, real partnerships and a real chance to finally get
this UC train rolling.
Many might argue that other vendors, particularly those in the networking space,
invented UC and Microsoft merely jumped on the bandwagon. And they'd be right
-- except that these vendors never really lit a match under the concept the
way Microsoft has. So, tough beans!
Now Microsoft is rolling out its secret weapon: developers. Late last week,
Microsoft introduced a raft
of UC development tools for the enterprise. That's the icing on the cake,
as UC only becomes interesting when it's been tweaked for a particular use.
What do you think about Microsoft's UC strategy? Send me your thoughts at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 03, 20070 comments
Every time I miss a deadline, I blame a system crash -- and as a Windows user,
they usually buy it. When I was a teen, whenever my friends crashed their cars,
they always pointed to faulty brakes or a messed up steering system (it was
always messed up steering, but it was the idiot steering, not the steering mechanism!).
Well, in the great tradition of "My dog ate my homework," a South
Korean man blamed
an exploding cell phone for the death of a co-worker. Turns out the co-worker
was hit with a drilling truck. Maybe Phil Spector can use this one if he has
a second trial.
Fess up -- have you ever blamed technology for something that had a completely
unrelated explanation (like an out-of-control drilling truck)? Send me your
stories at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 03, 20070 comments
Now's a great time to be a Microsoft Certified Professional. Salaries are climbing
steadily, and there are always plenty of things to either fix or configure.
And Microsoft is taking pains to treat MCPs right, announcing last week a raft
of
new
benefits for the certified crowd.
MCPs can now find peers through a new directory, set up their own Web pages
(sort of like MySpace for geeks), get Knowledge Base articles and download certification
logos to spruce up resumes, business cards and marketing materials. Good stuff.
Are you an MCP? Are you satisfied with the certification's new benefits, or
should Microsoft do more to keep MCPs happy? Tell me what you think at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 03, 20070 comments
IBM and Microsoft haven't truly gotten along since they split up over OS/2 versus
Windows. Now,
the
battle continues as IBM pitches Linux and Power6-based servers against Dell
and HP servers running Windows.
On the development side, IBM runs with Rational (which supports Eclipse) and
WebSphere (which competes with Microsoft IIS).
But unlike in decades past, IBM is all about openness and standards. That may
be one reason why IBM hooked up with Mainsoft to make sure that .NET and SharePoint
work with the IBM WebSphere portal.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 26, 20070 comments
Microsoft's new hypervisor, (formerly called Viridian, and now Hyper-V) is nearly
a year away, but Redmond is already prepping support services, including a new
program to certify that
third-party
tools work with Hyper-V.
The virtualization market is in its infancy (even though you old mainframers
will tell me IBM big iron has had virtual machines for decades), so it's crucial
to prove what works with what.
In fact, the real battle will be for ISVs. Major virtualization companies are
building platforms, entire stacks of virtual technologies. Whoever can get the
most third-party support may ultimately become the platform. While Microsoft
is a genius at building third-party markets (and then tearing down the most
profitable pieces), VMware has a clear headstart.
Send your virtualization war stories to me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 26, 20070 comments