A week or so back, we told you how the European Union (EU) is
still pestering Microsoft over the bundling of Windows and Internet Explorer. I was never a fan of the tight bundling, but it's been a done deal for so long I've mostly forgotten about it.
The authorities, especially those in the States, have essentially conceded to Microsoft the right to continue this bundling and the tight integration (it takes mad IT skills to delete IE from a Windows machine). The EU, however, never forgot and may force Microsoft not to remove IE, but to fully disable the browser.
I'm siding with the EU on this one, and I'll tell you why. Many in IT have Firefox or other browsers as the standard because it's more secure. That's all well and good, but IE is still in place, even if it's not used, and still offers an attack vector. The EU could be forcing Microsoft to show the world precisely how to disable IE with techniques IT can then use to offer IE-less machines for sale.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 30, 20090 comments
Here are more of your thoughts on how Lotus Notes stacks up against Microsoft products:
We have been a Lotus Notes shop from the get-go and currently have no plans to switch. The primary reason for us is the support from IBM. IBM support cannot be matched by anyone! I used to spend hours on the phone with IBM until I got someone who knew what I needed. But in the past five to 10 years that has all changed. Now when I call I usually have an expert on the phone within minutes, and they guide me step by step to resolve the problem. I cannot think of a time in recent years that my problem was not resolved within 30 minutes or less.
Notes does have some issues which I hope are fixed in upcomming releases. The biggest problem is the time that it takes to open an e-mail with a large attachment. For some reason it takes a long time when you first click to open the e-mail, and then again about the same amount of time to open the attachment. It is as if the client is having to download the attachment twice!
-Harry
I work for a Fortune 100 in Salt Lake City. We use Lotus Notes, which many internally call "Bloated Goats." Every time I do ANYTHING in Notes, messages are displayed on the status bar indicating what's happening. These messages go something like: "Looking up address of server. Checking that the server is there. Checking for new e-mail." Have IBM programmers ever heard of local caching? Why not cache the address of the server, then look it up only if it isn't there? And why does Notes have to check for new e-mail when I attempt to look up a contact in the address book? This slows everything down and is a huge loss of productivity.
Before version 8 (the current release), Notes didn't even support standard Windows Ctrl+Click and Shift+Click to multi-select. And Windows has been around for...how long now? Version 8 had a major UI overhaul that ALMOST makes Notes usable. Outlook is just plain faster and easier to use. No question about it.
-Craig
Our company is not an IBM shop, but we do use Lotus Notes heavily as a collaboration tool and file store. We have several thousand databases connected with our Notes servers, and any one of those databases can connect to any other through Notes. This allows us to create an e-mail package that contains all the information for a project (even though that project info may come from many different regions around the world) and pass the e-mail from person to person. There's basically only formatted text in the e-mails, and instead of having attachments in the message, there are links to the files in the databases. When clicked, Notes will open up the associated file, no matter where it resides. This really stands out when projects are updated frequently since clicking the links will open the current revision of any given file. (Of course, if a message leaves our Notes environment, the e-mail functions like Exchange/Outlook where the files are attached inside the message, and no further updates are received unless manually sent to the recipient.)
The real downside to Notes is that it still feels like e-mail was an afterthought. I first used Notes in the mid-1990s, and I thought the same thing about Notes mail back then. I much prefer the Outlook interface, but for our business processes, Notes is the better product.
-Floyd
Way back in the early 1990s, Lotus products came with the computers we purchased and they were easy to use. We were able to learn how to use them in-house without going to a class (plus, they were Editor's Choice winners at the time). Lotus had better collaboration than Microsoft as well as better security. Lotus' downfall was that the transition from AmiPro to Word Pro happened when Microsoft's operating system was unstable and caused many crashes compared to older products. We had employees that liked the products, but got frustrated due to the crashes. But Lotus' direction and concepts were ahead of Microsoft's.
I am now so frustrated at Microsoft Word, it isn't funny. Changing numbering and bullets has always been a breeze with Word Pro. Now, I find myself banging my keyboard because Word does something irrational because I changed something that works logically and easily in Word Pro. I like Excel better than 1-2-3, but still use Word Pro because it does everything that we have thrown at it.
-Tommy
It's probably better to compare Lotus to a combo Exchange/SharePoint. Comparing Lotus to just Exchange by itself is comparing an apple to an orange. Lotus is a development platform in addition to the usual e-mail, calendaring/scheduling, etc.
We develop our own Lotus apps. Sure, eventually we'll end up with Exchange/SharePoint. We just migrated from Novell and one migration per year is enough for me. However, unlike the Novell vs. MS war, Lotus is backed by IBM and we all know that IBM isn't going away any time soon. I think Lotus will be around for a bit, unless IBM dumps it to some other company.
-Dave
And another reader shares his opinion on the government's role during a bad economy:
As many have stated, in times of dire need, we need government. I don't believe in the "research and development" line, but rather in providing additional resources to assist companies in their development and revitalization.
What I believe needs to be said to the some 200 million sheep out there is that government, especially our officials, need to lead by example. Why should a senator earn $250,000 a year when the average American earns a mere $30,000 to $40,000 a year and can still manage to pay their mortgage, utilities, debt, etc.? Why doesn't our new president, if he really wants to back his promise of change, lower his salary from $400,000 a year to $100,000 a year instead of ceasing raises for employees and cabinet members? This is the biggest misspending in our government and yet no voter has the guts to stand up and scream about it.
-Anonymous
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].z
Posted by Doug Barney on January 28, 20090 comments
A few years ago, there was a lot of buzz about a $300 Linux PC from Wal-Mart. The excitement dimmed after users found the hardware wanting and the operating system less intuitive than a congressional bill.
Microsoft, though, apparently saw a two-pronged threat. If the machine actually worked, it could hurt Windows. And even if the OS was junk, customers might snap 'em up anyway and just load a Windows bootleg.
Now Microsoft critics (who also dislike Novell because it's too close to Redmond) are starting to dig up this old dirt after Microsoft formed a taskforce, then pressured Wal-Mart to warn customers that piracy is illegal and tried to get the hardware vendor to focus more on Windows.
The blog item about it starts out pretty cogent, then descends into an incomprehensible swirl of randomness and unstructured glop. Bloggers take note: You need more than words to be effective. They have to be put in some kind of order and ultimately try to accomplish something. Check it out for yourself here.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 28, 20090 comments
When Microsoft shipped Hyper-V, it was supposed to be the beginning of VMware's long, inexorable descent into computer oblivion. Hyper-V has been out a while and already has, according to some, about a quarter of the hypervisor market. That combined with a tough economy must spell disaster for the VMware balance sheet, right?
Wrong! VMware knocked it out of the park this past quarter with revenue up 25 percent. Like Microsoft, which reported increased revenues, VMware profits were also down.
Sounds like you IT whizzes are getting better at driving down prices!
Posted by Doug Barney on January 28, 20090 comments
IE 8 has moved from the beta stage to what used to be called a late beta, but Microsoft now says is a release candidate (RC). In this case,
IE 8 is on RC1, which I guess means that once it hits RC2, 3, 4 or 5 we may have a finished product.
Release candidate also means the software has all the final features and UI elements. I'm curious to see how this new IE test release works. Many of you have written me and had big problems with IE 8 stability; in some cases the beta interfered with the rest of the PC.
If you have IE 8 RC1, write me at [email protected]. I'm doing a feature story based on your reactions!
Posted by Doug Barney on January 28, 20090 comments
Last week, Microsoft announced that its profits fell and that the ax will therefore
fall on 5,000 workers.
So, were rivals hit by the economic tsunami, as well? Not all. IBM had a terrific quarter with profits up 12 percent to a tidy $4.4 billion. (While Redmond's profits were down, it still raked in an impressive $4.1 billion, and did so on far less revenue than Big Blue).
Posted by Doug Barney on January 26, 20090 comments
The Conficker worm, an RPC attack that's been in the wild since last October, is taking a squishing but it keeps on wriggling. And the fact that the worm is still very much alive has been the source of
much finger-pointing.
CERT, for instance, claims that it's Windows Autorun that makes it so easy for the worm to slink from machine to machine. CERT advises that Autorun be disabled and criticizes Microsoft for what it calls "ineffective" guidelines. Microsoft's answer? Poppycock!
Posted by Doug Barney on January 26, 20090 comments
Doug
asked readers last week what, if anything, makes Lotus products better than Microsoft Exchange or Outlook. Here are just some of your replies:
I have worked in Notes and Outlook shops. I currently work in a company with Notes applications and Outlook e-mail. Overall, I find that Outlook hangs at various times much more than Notes, such as editing contacts or launching attachments. But there are some Outlook features (such as dragging e-mail to calendar) that I find really helpful and like.
Overall, I find applications built with Lotus very helpful. The interface can be horrible, especially applications built five or more years ago, but those applications keep running with each new upgrade. My concern with cloud computing continues to be there are times when I don't have connectivity and I would like to be productive. Lotus lets me do that. Salesforce and others do not.
-David
After recently being involved, during user assessment, in a project to determine which of several messaging/collaboration products suited our needs best, I can categorically say that I found Notes to be awful. Before anyone thinks that is because I'm used to Exchange and SharePoint, I'd like to point out that my organisation is Unix and IMAP currently and there is a Notes deployment in another business unit. The decision was to go down the Exchange route after a very broad consultation in an organisation that has no history of adopting Microsoft technologies on any strategic scale.
-Stephen
You asked, "Why are Notes and related products better than Exchange and Outlook?" From a corporate perspective, it isn't. So that begs the question, "Why are we still using Notes, then?" I think that answer is not so simple but boils down to several factors. The first is resistance to change. Notes is good enough, so why change it and risk the ire of the end user whom we alienate so often already? Second is skill set. We already have several fully trained Notes admins. Why should we (as a company) pay to retrain the admins then go through the growing pains of learning new idiosyncracies; not to mention the costs of conversion?
Then there are other considerations such as cost benefits of upgrades vs. crossgrades; discounts on other product lines; OS support for OSes other than Windows; etc. Lastly, at our company, there seems to be a significant emphasis on not making employees more marketable to other companies. If this is the case, then teaching them Notes instead of Exchange is a good way to mitigate the chances of someone jumping to another job.
-Thomas
Christopher shares his take on Live Mesh:
Mesh has come in quite handy for me. I'm using it on two desktops, a laptop, my phone (AT&T Tilt) and my wife's phone (AT&T Blackjack, version 1). My biggest use for it has been to sync my music. No more sitting at the computer moving songs over and waiting for them to transfer over USB or Bluetooth. Now I can just copy the songs I want to a folder on the laptop or desktop and walk away, and they go to any other device I have told it to sync to. I've used it for a few other things also -- made a folder to keep track of CAB files for the phones, one for copying around installation files that I wanted to remember at work, etc. And the built-in remote desktop feature is just a little bonus.
So far, about the only complaint I have about it is the phone client is a little big in the memory area (just checked: 4.5MB while running ATM -- not much for a desktop app, but quite a bit on a phone), and it doesn't auto-start when the phone comes on (I'm sure I could rig that, but I'm not going to yet).
-Christopher
Readers share their misgivings about the next versions of Windows and Internet Explorer:
While Windows 7 seems to run under Microsoft Virtual PC on Vista, finding an anti-virus solution was not as easy. OneCare will not be offered and Symantec's Norton does not run in a virtual environment, leaving AVG and Kaspersky as possible candidates. I opted for AVG, and so far it appears to be functioning correctly on Windows 7 beta, under Microsoft Virtual PC, under Windows Vista Ultimate.
For some of us that prefer the "one neck to choke" approach and thus use mostly Microsoft configurations, the demise of OneCare is going to be problematic.
-Bruce
I haven't even looked at the IE 8 beta. I am a teacher and we are currently using Windows XP, IE 7 and Office 2007 -- they work so well that I am afraid to let the hounds loose. Until I know that all the "bugs"
are out, I will not change OSes or Internet Explorers. I have enough problems just trying to keep the classroom teacher's computers running, the lab going, the servers up and running, the e-mail working, etc., etc., etc. Why change things until you know they will work without a lot of hassle and grief?
-Sharyn
On the topic of how to save the economy, a couple of readers think shrinking the government is not the best idea, while one reader points the finger at foreign workers:
I've got the feeling that I'm not going to be liked too much by this, but the role of the government in an economic meltdown is to spend money, hire people and run on debt. That is the only way to keep from a complete meltdown, and the reason is simple: When there are a lot of unemployed people, problems grow and get worse. The only way around it is for the government to increase services and employment. The government is able to run on debt, whereas the people are not.
The other thing that the government must do is invest in research and development. This will allow for new products which companies can then sell. This is how our economy works. The worse thing to do right now would be to shrink the government and demand it to operate like the average person.
-Nick
I've worked for three government agencies. When I started in 1993, there were four of us in my department plus a secretary. Now it is me and an assistant. While some tasks have been moved to another department, many more have been added. I am now up to 14 years behind on work that needs attention. There is just not enough time to do it.
When I tell people what I do, they are amazed at the low salary. Government has been reduced to the point where it is barely functioning in some areas. So don't compare government to the private sector. Just get government to spend money wisely.
-Michelle
H-1B visas mean cheap slave labor. People who commit immigration fraud should be put in jail, and Microsoft is a great place to start.
-Dave
And Earl gives his answer to the timeless question of whether Apple is, in fact, cool:
One of my clients is a high-end interior designer. He displays pictures of his work on his laptop. He asked my advice about a new laptop computer and I recommended that he go to the Apple store. Image is everything in his business. If he can adjust to the Mac, it will impress his clients more than a PC. (But most of my clients who use both Macs and PCs find the PCs easier to use.)
So if we are talking about style, Apple is cool. If we are talking about social responsibility and openness, Apple is not cool.
-Earl
More letters coming your way on Wednesday! In the meantime, share your own thoughts by writing to [email protected] or fill out the form below.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 26, 20090 comments
Until recently, Andrew Cushman was the director of the Microsoft Security Response Center. We
visited the center once and came away impressed with how the group discovers flaws and hacks, and works around the clock to fix the flaws and attack the hacks.
Cushman has now been replaced by Mike Reavey, who has been closely involved with the Patch Tuesday plan, of which I'm also a fan. Cushman isn't being bounced out on his butt, but is instead getting broader responsibilities for overall security initiatives.
Posted by Doug Barney on January 26, 20090 comments
Microsoft bean counters are facing two problems, and the first is the economy itself. That albatross is dragging down everything and anything. But Redmond also faces weakness in the PC sector, where there's a fairly saturated market. (How many working PCs do you have? I have nearly a dozen!) Then there's the Vista problem. Many who would like a faster machine believe that Vista is slower than XP, no matter how many gigs of RAM you throw at it.
The result? PC sales are flatter than a squirrel on Highway 40 in Tennessee.
My guess is that PC sales will stay sluggish for the rest of year, then literally explode when Windows 7 ships. Why do I think this? Because you, the Redmond Report, reader told me so!
Posted by Doug Barney on January 23, 20090 comments
I've had the joy and honor of covering the software business since June 4, 1984. Back then, Lotus and Microsoft hated each other. I also followed both throughout the 1990s, and you know what? Lotus and Microsoft still hated each other. It's now 2009 and, as you've already surmised, Lotus and Microsoft still hate each other.
In the '80s, the fight was over spreadsheets, word processors and databases. Lotus got its clock cleaned in all three areas. The '90s brought a battle over messaging and collaboration. Lotus took a quick lead, but ultimately its clock was again cleaned by the boys in Redmond.
Lotus, now owned by IBM, hasn't given up. It's still pushing Notes and Notes-like products, such as the recently announced LotusLive, a hosted messaging tool.
Microsoft has two reasons to be irritated by this announcement. First, LotusLive sounds an awful lot like WindowsLive. Second, Lotus has been telling the world that Notes has a majority share of the Fortune 100 messaging and collaboration market. Notes may be alive and well in many big IBM shops, but the market as a whole has clearly moved to Outlook and Exchange.
Are you an IBM shop? Why are Notes and related products better than Exchange and Outlook? Honest answers readily received at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on January 23, 20090 comments
Readers share their thoughts on what the government should and shouldn't do to solve the economic mess:
Cut spending by government (we all know that there is abundant waste). Cut the size of government agencies (they are bloated and inefficient). Cut taxes to entrepreneurs who are starting or expanding businesses. Light a fire under research for renewable energy sources.
-Bernie
I know it is very popular to demean government and public employees (Ronald Reagan made it a national sport), but I think your question misses some important points. As a 35-year worker for various government agencies, I can tell you it is a myth that our ranks are bloated. With economic downturn comes increased demands on unemployment offices, social service agencies and government services of all kinds. Even in normal times, population growth and demographic changes increase our workload. I cannot remember the last time we were allowed to add staff to meet these increasing workloads. In fact, we have repeatedly cut staffing levels over the years.
I am here, working on an official holiday, without pay, just to keep things running. And I'm one of several in my agency alone who do this routinely. We do this mostly because we believe the services we offer are vital. So, I am very resentful when we are so unfairly stereotyped.
-Anonymous
The government should be cutting spending and its work force just like everyone else is having to. Then it would not have to collect as much from the average American taxpayer and businessmen. The businessmen of America should be able to be competitive in the world market. With the high taxes that we Americans pay, it keeps our prices high and makes our products not attractive to the world. We were doing just fine until the government got involved in the economy and now look what it did and is doing. Maybe we Americans can pull out of this despite the government.
-Kent
Talk is cheap! It's easier for companies to downsize; they can make those choices. They exist only for profit and they have no responsibility to the citizens of the U.S., only to the company owners. But the government is not for profit and (when it isn't being corrupted) exists solely to serve the people of the U.S. The government is not a company, so it can't be run like a company. And when times are tough economically, internationally or socially, we generally ask more of the government, not less -- more people ask for unemployment, more people ask for jobs, more companies ask for bailouts, more people bring lawsuits, more people demand action from the military.
It would be nice if we could just send someone to Washington to solve all our problems with zero funding (zero taxes) and zero resources. But how many companies have been successful at putting out a new product or service by devoting no resources to it? You can't ask the government to solve your problems without paying for a solution.
How to solve the problems? Pay your taxes. Demand responsible and smart spending, a balanced budget, intelligent ideas, and qualified people. If you get somebody who says the solution is to lower taxes, show them the way out. And most important, get involved, not by complaining, but by helping to solve the problems.
-Dan
You asked, "If Microsoft and others can run fine with smaller budgets and workforces, why can't government...do the same thing?" Well, as someone who works for local (county) government, I can tell you that we are! We have to. Our county runs primarily on property tax revenues and those are down significantly and getting worse. We already lost 10 percent of our IT department and may lose more this year. As an example, we take care of 300 servers with only three techs, and our two DBAs take care of 600-plus databases. We now have to get five to six years out of our hardware.
We are very fortunate to have a great dedicated team. We are being worked harder then ever before with no raises in sight. So before lumping all of "government" together, be careful -- only the feds can print money.
-JB
The issue is not whether the government can do with less. (And by the way, all of the my non-profit clients are having to do just that. Government contracts for the current year are being shaved by 20 percent and N.Y. state is cutting state budgets right and left.) The real issue is whether the economy can do with less. If you remember the Great Depression, you will remember that two things happened: First, the credit markets seized up, which was exacerbated by the Federal Reserve's tightening of credit. Second, prices plummeted, incomes went down, companies that couldn't market their products cut back on employment and the economic spiral went down from there.
Now, I think the banks are getting away with murder and acting outrageously, but doing nothing could trip us back into the 1930s. That's why most reputable economists, whatever their differences on particulars, realize the need for the government to do something to prevent a catastrophic collapse. Will it be enough? Well, FDR's New Deal only got unemployment down to 12 percent from 25. If the new administration's policies can keep it below that level, we will have missed a very bad bullet.
-Gary
Why can't governments run more lean and mean? It depends. Microsoft is out to make money, but governments have a different goal. Let's say you are a quasi-governmental agency who is providing bus and subway service. Can you cut costs and "make" more money? Well, of course you could -- just cut the least profitable runs, like the ones with very few people on them. Except that making money isn't what a public transportation agency does. The job of a public transportation agency is to get the public to where they need to go. The largest proportion of the costs of such an agency are those directly tied to providing bus and train service. So cutting the least "profitable" runs is out of the question.
Can government do things more efficiently? Absolutely. But consider this: Do folks in government get rewarded for doing more with less? Do governments go out of business because they aren't as efficient as they can be and their 'competition' survives while they don't?
-Anonymous
Is massive debt/stimulation the answer? NO. We need FACTORIES with JOBS inside them. Roads to empty factories and welfare offices aren't going to get us out of this race to the bottom.
The Answer: No more H1B workers. No more illegal foreign workers. WE need those jobs. I used to make $90K per year in the computer industry (after 25 years of steady employment). Now I work for $9 an hour, temp, part-time. That's all I can get with two bachelors degrees and 25 years of experience. With all the H1B workers coming over and working for cheaper labor rates, my career is over. Now it's all about downsizing labor rates and supersizing CEO and BOD bonuses and salaries. Unfortunately, this is the evil outcome of ultimate capitalism: One guy owns everything and everybody else has nothing.
-Win
A lot of right-leaning people will say that government doesn't create anything except bureaucracy. That is not entirely true. Government pools resources and creates things like roads, bridges and interstates that have a payback over the years. However, I do not know of any useful product that it aggregates to create that employs people in the "new" economy (i.e., white-collar employees).
Bureaucracy for the sake of creating jobs is a waste as it will consume resources without ever providing a payback. Stimulus to businesses that are already failing seems to be a double-waste of resources. If the government is going to fix the economic mess through stimulus, it has to be by creating jobs that provide value. In the past, this has been achieved through research and development that brought about a new level of commercialization of that research. Unfortunately, I don't know what the next step of advancement is going to be or I would be a really wealthy person.
-Joe
It is the nature of government to grow and expand and usurp more power and resources; it is what government does. When people held the cherished ideal that government should not do for people what they could do for themselves and their fellow man, we had true charity and government was held in check. Now that we look to government to solve our problems and use the force of law to do so, the beast has been released from the cage. Rather than charity, we have coercion through taxation and redistribution of wealth through social programs, ideals that sound good on paper but in practice leads to economic and social turmoil and a further excuses for government to take on more and more. As revenues fall and the economy contracts, self-seeking politicians and bureaucrats have ample opportunity to save us with more government programs and bailouts. This in turn feeds the cycle of dependency on and growth of government, despite the fact that we are bankrupting our nation and its future.
The only thing that will change this is for the American public to demand real change and a return to the practice of limited government and adherence to the Constitution,rather than change for the sake of change, patriotic rhetoric and lip service. If history is any indication, I do not think this change will come from either side of the aisle as both Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for maintaining and expanding the status quo.
-Kurt
More reader letters coming your way on Monday. In the meantime, share your own thoughts with us by leaving a comment below or sending an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on January 23, 20090 comments