Convergence: The Scene in Orlando

If Disneyworld is the Magic Kingdom, then Orlando is Faketown. Nothing here is real. It's all plastic...with a theme.

That's not to say that Orlando can't be a pleasant place to hang out. The sun has just broken through the clouds this afternoon after a day or two of cloudy gloom, but the highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s have made for a nice break from chilly Boston. And, after an excursion last night with an unidentified fellow employee of 1105 Media and another gentleman who's an Orlando local, your editor discovered that there are establishments in this town that don't have anything to do with Disney characters, water slides or movie studio theme parks.

More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 12, 20080 comments


Whose Standard Is It, Anyway?

We told you last week that Microsoft is talking a lot about document format interoperability these days and that part of what it's trying to do in order to be -- or at least seem -- more open is have its document format, Office Open XML, accepted as a standard by the ISO (and, perhaps not surprisingly, the U.S. delegation to the ISO More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 11, 20082 comments


Microsoft Fights Back in Vista Suit

Well, maybe flails back is more like it. Redmond last week begged the judge in the "Vista capable" class action lawsuit to suspend proceedings and staunch the flow, at least for a little while, of hilarious internal Microsoft e-mails

Posted by Lee Pender on March 11, 20080 comments


Tuesday Brings Critical Office Patches

It's Patch Tuesday again, and this month's edition brings critical Office fixes .

Posted by Lee Pender on March 11, 20080 comments


Microsoft Money: Where's It Going?

Microsoft still has more than $40 billion burning a hole in its pocket for the proposed Yahoo acquisition -- although Ray Ozzie told the Financial Times (why doesn't anybody every come to RCPU with news like this? Never mind -- we know why) that even if Microsoft does swallow Yahoo, Redmond will take its time More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 11, 20080 comments


Editor's Note: Convergence Coverage this Week

RCPU will be in Orlando, America's capital of culture and sophistication, this week for Microsoft's Convergence conference. So, instead of breaking up our newsletter coverage the way we've been doing it since January -- industry news on Tuesday, product news on Wednesday and channel news on Thursday, with a general rant leading off each day's edition -- we'll be bringing you all Convergence, all the time on Wednesday and Thursday. More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 11, 20080 comments


Tech Data Raking in the Bucks

The big distributor's results for its fourth fiscal quarter were strong, and its stock price jumped accordingly this week.

Posted by Lee Pender on March 06, 20080 comments


Microsoft to Vendors: Let's Interoperate

If the European Union's constant brow-beating of Microsoft has had a positive effect, it's that Redmond has opened itself up to letting its products work at least a little bit better with those from other vendors.

Now, on the one hand, that's not all good news for Microsoft and its channel. After all, the "better together" pitch that Microsoft has used for years is a little bit weaker than it used to be. Prior to Microsoft's new era of semi-openness, a decent pitch when selling one thing from Microsoft was that a customer might as well buy everything else from Microsoft, too, because nothing works with a Microsoft product quite as well another Microsoft product.

More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 06, 20080 comments


IT Leaders Not Totally Bummed About Economy

A new CDW survey gives us the chance to use one of the great hackneyed phrases in journalism: cautiously optimistic. Anyway, that's pretty much how IT decision makers feel about 2008, the survey indicates .

Posted by Lee Pender on March 06, 20080 comments


Ingram Micro Rolls Out Virtualization Services

While you're thinking about virtualization, why not browse on over to VirtualizationReview.com ? Oh, and here's the Ingram thing.

Posted by Lee Pender on March 06, 20080 comments


More on Microsoft and SaaS

So, now, it's Office Live Workspace that's open for worldwide public beta -- with the possibility of winning $100,000 hanging tantalizingly in the air.

It's just another day and another SaaS-related announcement for Microsoft (remember this one from earlier this week), which has rapidly gone from lost on SaaS to gung-ho on the hosted model -- although we'd still like to see Redmond clean up the mess that is "Live" branding. With Microsoft now challenging Google's supposed domination of all things Web, observers are starting to wonder whether Redmond can really keep up with its Silicon Valley rival. One even posits that Microsoft is chasing online dollars (in vain) out of jealousy toward Google.

More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 05, 20081 comments


Dell Launches Rugged Laptop

You can go ahead and throw it against a wall if you get a blue screen, we suppose.

Posted by Lee Pender on March 05, 20080 comments