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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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?).
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on June 11, 20070 comments