Storage Virtualization Hits New Low -- Price, That Is

DataCore is making it cheaper to give storage virtualization a whirl. For a cool grand , you can see what it's like to treat your hard drives with the same flexibility that some of you now treat your virtual servers and PCs. And unlike storage virtualization of the past, this one doesn't require Fibre Channel, which almost no one in IT understands.

Posted by Doug Barney on October 11, 20060 comments


SOA: These Three Letters Now Officially Endorsed in Redmond

I've been pretty interested in Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) for a while, but the deeper I looked, the less I saw Microsoft using the term. Instead of "SOA," everything was "Web Services" or "Windows Live." Don't believe me? A search of Microsoft.com reveals 6,019 instances of the term "SOA." Sounds impressive, until you realize there are 351,162 results for "Web Services." You do the math. More

Posted by Doug Barney on October 11, 20060 comments


Writely Only Slightly Wrongly

Google's Web-based word processor is out and the news is good, great, not so good -- and a big dose of unsure. The price (free) sure is right, and the interface and file saving conventions are slick. But it is still utterly dependent upon the Web.

I gave it a whirl and found it simple to use and, with my cable modem, fairly snappy (I'm sure my old DSL connection would have given it fits). You can store your files remotely, though I'm not sure what the quotas are or how much I'd trust my critical files to a server I've never seen before. You can also save them locally, like as a Word file in My Documents.

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Posted by Doug Barney on October 10, 20061 comments


Google Buys YouTube: Now, Can It Fix It

Every time I see a YouTube link, say on a motorcycle site, I find something cool. So why is it that when I go directly to the site, I am overwhelmed with lameness? Add to that poor organization and search, and it's no wonder I reckoned YouTube was worth about $1.65, as opposed to the $1.65 billion Google just agreed to pay for the video site More

Posted by Doug Barney on October 10, 20060 comments


Low-End Laptops with High-End Security

Windows XP still makes Swiss cheese look like the Great Wall of China, and Vista's security is very much untested. So it seems that the $100 Linux laptop (I think there have been more articles written about this puppy than units shipped) could upstage Microsoft desktop OSes by offering a deeper level of security than anything Redmond offers More

Posted by Doug Barney on October 10, 20061 comments


Patch Tuesday Already?

While the MIT $100 laptop has yet to ship enough units to have its own Patch Tuesday, the monthly Microsoft tradition is going strong. Today, the company released 10 fixes for Windows, Office and the .NET Framework.

Still, you have to hand it to Microsoft for being so honest and willing to take its lumps each and every month.

Posted by Doug Barney on October 10, 20061 comments


Cool Code Search

Here is a very cool idea: Google has a new service that searches for bits of public domain code . Need a little widget and don't have the time or skill to build it? Just download and go! I have a couple of questions: Is this code tested for bugs, security holes or malware? And can malware itself find its way into the system?

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Posted by Doug Barney on October 10, 20060 comments


Ray of Sunshine

OK, here's a minor revelation. When we put Ray Ozzie on our cover last year , I wrote this for a headline: "The Next Bill Gates." I had a feeling that Bill bought Ray's company so Ray could decide the future of Microsoft software. I failed to believe in my own instincts and toned down the headline. I was wrong. Less than a year later, Bill gave Ray the keys to his kingdom. More

Posted by Doug Barney on August 01, 20060 comments


Reminder: Ballmer's In Charge

Steve Ballmer has never been a shy sort. In high school he would have run the Glee Club, done all the morning announcements and told the assistant principal exactly how to run things. So any perception that Ballmer hasn't been running the show at Microsoft are as false as a Tour de France doping denial More

Posted by Doug Barney on August 01, 20060 comments


You Win Some and You Lose Some

Pen computer concern Go Corp., which folded its tent years ago after Microsoft entered the market, lost an anti-trust suit claiming that Microsoft used its market control to steer developers away from doing business with Go.
http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=7583

Years after it went under, Go's founder bought back the rights to his company just so he could squeeze some cash out of Redmond. This is nearly the same tactic that former Novell chief Ray Noorda used to sue Microsoft for squashing DR-DOS -- except that Noorda won!

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Posted by Doug Barney on July 06, 20060 comments


Microsoft Says Yes/Maybe to Open Source

Microsoft has a new site, CodePlex , where developers can interact, work together on projects, and even (gasp) post open source software! The site includes tools to help teams build actual products, such as issue tracking and source control, all thanks to Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server. Microsoft itself uses the site to work on projects and even allows outsiders to make suggestions! More

Posted by Doug Barney on July 06, 20060 comments