We hate predictions here at RCPU. Most of the ones we read tend to sound kind of pompous and obvious -- pundits love to predict that the earth will continue to rotate on its axis and then cover themselves in glory when, hey!, they turn out to be right. Either that, or analysts and other pundits go off and make a bunch of predictions in December that nobody remembers (nor checks for accuracy) a year later.
Still, it's the week after Christmas, and we're just not sure what else to do. So, to go along with the 2007 reviews (last chance for Vista bashing!) and the 2008 crystal balls, we offer our simple, humble, completely obvious and probably useless predictions for 2008:
Enterprises will get serious about adopting Vista. This is the only bit of punditry we'll delve into that has even a hint of risk of inaccuracy, but all signs point to Vista actually gaining a foothold in the enterprise in 2008. Look for more in the January issue of RCP (what a tease!), but heed our words and those of the analysts when we say that Service Pack 1, corporate hardware refreshes and the looming end-of-life for XP will finally drive widespread adoption of Microsoft's downtrodden operating system. We're not saying that Vista will overtake XP in 2008, just that it won't be shut out of the enterprise the way it was in 2007.
The wild card here? A massive recession that halts IT spending in its tracks.
Pundits will continue to predict the demise of Microsoft. Well, it happens every year, doesn't it? Steve Ballmer wasn't going to make it through 2006 at CEO. The departure of Bill Gates was going to leave Microsoft without a strategic vision. Competition from Google and open source was going to sink Redmond. Well, guess what? Although it does face more challenges than perhaps every before, Microsoft is still the monster of the software industry, which leads us to our next prediction....
Microsoft (and its partners!) will continue to rake in the cash. Remember, there are only three things in life that are inevitable: death, taxes and Microsoft making massive, jaw-dropping amounts of money. Microsoft's last fiscal quarter was a blockbuster (the best in almost a decade, essentially), and we're guessing -- sorry, predicting -- that the fire hose of cash pointed at Redmond will continue to spray money. So, don't listen to the haters -- Microsoft will still be our staggeringly wealthy software overlord in 2008. Just embrace it.
Oh, and we're pretty confident that the earth will continue to rotate on its axis, too. But, you know, we don't like to make predictions.
Have a prediction for 2008? Send it to [email protected]. Oh, and happy New Year!
Posted by Lee Pender on December 27, 20070 comments
Tired of having systems provided by other vendors (hmmm, short list there) hacked, the U.S. Army is
looking to integrate more Macs into its infrastructure.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 27, 20071 comments
According to a new book (and to Google, so take that for what it's worth), there's a
not-so-small security problem with Adobe's Flash software. By the way, we love the use of the word "vulns" as an abbreviation for vulnerabilities.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 26, 20070 comments
Or maybe not, but we did find this amusing. We opened an
entry
on Blink Logic on Nov. 28 thusly:
"Robert Lendvai was as confused as anybody when he read RCPU's declaration
that IBM's planned buyout of Cognos meant the end of business intelligence
as we know it. The chief marketing office of Blink Logic, an Ottawa-based
BI firm, even had a bit of a career crisis: 'I wondered whether maybe I should
resign,' Lendvai said."
That was at the end of November. This week -- and we couldn't make this up
-- we got an e-mail from former colleague Chris Kanaracus letting us know that
Lendvai actually did resign on Dec. 5. We called to check it out...and it's
true! A company spokesperson cited "personal reasons" for the resignation,
and we certainly wish Lendvai well in any case.
But, seriously, we don't even need to make a joke here, do we? The whole thing
is just too bizarre...and too funny.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 21, 20070 comments
It's our last Reader Feedback Friday of the year! We'd love to take an opportunity
to go back over all the events of 2007 in RCPU, but your editor is on vacation
right now and is more than willing to just let a few more readers do the talking.
So, here goes:
On the Netherlands going
open source, we got an e-mail from Fred that was especially impressive for
his use of the word "utopianistically":
"I think that it's getting a bit old to keep hearing that open source
can be expensive, etc., because of all the problems folks are having working
with the Microsoft products elsewhere. That's a bit like saying we can't change
because everyone else won't change at the same time. Someone has to go first,
and everyone has to realize that there is more than one way to accomplish
a task.
"Of course, most of those costs and problems would not exist if Microsoft
didn't habitually find ways to ignore, corrupt or bypass standards that have
been created specifically to facilitate interoperability and compatibility.
Ideally, Microsoft would return to the days of providing software that was
relatively clean, simple and functional. Utopianistically, Microsoft would
stop trying to leverage its de facto monopoly (albeit a well-planned and strategically
earned one) to prevent the up-and-comers from gaining a foothold just as Microsoft
once did. Compete based on quality and value instead of barriers. What a concept..."
Eddy had a different take (and one we've heard before); he's not happy with
Microsoft's customer support. That might just be enough to drive him away from
Redmond's wares:
"With Microsoft's insistence to switch -- or should I say, destroy
-- their support options by transferring support to folks who cannot speak
or understand English and who are not able to solve any computer issue, we
too may soon be switching to open source. Microsoft isn't competing with open
source products; they are competing against themselves."
Not everybody is so down on Microsoft, though. Christopher says that it's not
Vista that has problems after all:
"Technology moves forward; IT people need to get their heads out
of the '80s and get a life. This is really making me angry that those stoopid
IT people can't make their own stuff work on Vista with included drivers...they're
doing something wrong, and I bet I can prove it... I like my pretty operating
system. It runs everything I need at speeds that I think are acceptable and
troubleshooting any problem is 500 percent better than doing it in XP! That
is for sure. That alone makes it worth it for me to install it on client locations
that can run it and that don't use some dumb vendor who refuses to program
for Active Directory and claims workgroup security is just fine, but wants
to run dBase and code everything to run under administrator."
The message from Christopher, then: Don't blame your tools, Vista haters.
Thanks to everybody who took the time to write. Keep the letters coming to
[email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on December 21, 20070 comments
For some reason, there's a fair amount of buzz today about a
Pew
Research Center study that revealed that Americans like to look themselves
and others up online. Why that's a surprise to anybody, we don't know...but
there you go.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 21, 20070 comments
Barb Darrow has an
interesting
look at the latest Dynamics CRM release and what it means for Microsoft's
SaaS strategy.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 20, 20070 comments
The former Redmond honcho will square off against Google for the license for
a spectrum that could be used to establish a wireless network.
More
from the
Times of London, old bean.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 20, 20070 comments
All you really need to read every week is
The Economist,
BusinessWeek
and, of course,
Redmond Channel Partner the week it comes out. Throw
in the
Journal or the
Financial Times if you want to, but it's
hard to beat
BW for stuff like
this.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 19, 20070 comments
With reader e-mails this good, why should we spend time coming up with a clever
introduction to Reader Feedback Friday? Let's just jump right in.
On Dell sidling up
to partners and trying to make things right again after all these years,
we got a subtle, nuanced response from John, which we quote here directly and
without editing:
"Dell can go to h!!!"
By the way, John sent that in about 20-point type, so it's pretty clear that
he'll be resisting Dell's advances. Thomas, who writes from the U.K., old chap,
is right there with John on this issue:
"In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was a Dell reseller -- until
Dell took information and went behind my back. I was getting around a 4 percent
discount as a vendor off their low prices. Their direct sales folks took my
contact list and offered them 4.5 percent (meaning to compete, I'd have had
to lose money).
"Then they just closed their reseller program -- I only found out
when I went to order more hardware and was told I was not a reseller any longer.
We never got kissed. Since then, I simply do not trust Dell as a channel player.
Mileage probably varies."
Mileage doesn't vary too much, Thomas, based on the responses we've had so far. The channel doesn't forget -- and Dell's going to have a heck of a time
trying to ingratiate itself to partners, from what we can tell.
On Vista still sitting
on corporate shelves (an entry that ran just yesterday, but Vista is always
good for quick comments), Bill offered an impassioned defense of...fruitcake:
"Knock it off; I like fruitcake. Buy it in early November and soak
it in Myers' dark rum until Christmas...wonderful stuff. But I liked Windows
Me, too. I was on the beta and installed it on a lot of computers, and not
a one of them ever went down. So you need to be careful with the Vista and
Me comparisons, as well."
Bill, we soak everything we consume in some form of alcohol, so thanks for
the suggestion. If somebody goes old-school and drops a fruitcake on RCPU for
Christmas this year (rather than the new fruitcake -- the gift card), we'll
go the rum route and give it a try.
Less happy with Vista (no word on fruitcake) is Nat, who writes:
"I finally broke down and loaded Vista on one of my office computers
a couple of days ago. Am I using it? No! I connected to my networked printer,
an HP cp1160tn. I tried to print a few pages from a Web site and, to my surprise,
there is no option to print on both sides of the paper, nor was there a way
to print from the lower tray. I checked out HP's site, and they said to use
the included Vista driver. I've now turned off the Vista computer and probably
will not turn it back on until I decide to load Fedora Core 8."
So the compatibility issue remains a big one for Vista, as it probably will
for a while yet. On the shelf Vista will continue to sit until Microsoft and
third parties work that stuff out -- which, we think and hope, is in the process
of happening.
Finally, Wil (with one "l" at the end) does what every good reader
should do: correct RCPU on a grievous error from a previous entry. In this case,
he correctly identifies the "Cheers" character RCPU
shamefully misidentified in last week's Reader Feedback segment. (We're
seriously embarrassed about having gotten this wrong, and we're now doubting
our own expertise in '80s sitcoms):
"I really enjoy the reader feedback, and this is the first time I'm
submitting one of my own. But it's only in response to Jon's funny Microsoft
robot e-mail. You indicated that his e-mail had you shaking -- all four cheeks
and a chin -- and attributed the pun to Cliff Claven on 'Cheers.' But if memory
serves me, I believe that line was delivered by Norm Peterson when Norm enters
the bar to the cries of 'NORM!' Coach asks Norm, 'What's shakin'?' Norm's
response: 'All four cheeks and a chin.' That was funny stuff! Thanks for the
laugh!"
And thanks for setting us straight, Wil. Thanks also to everybody who took
the time to write this week.
Want to add to the pile of letters? Throw one on top at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on December 14, 20070 comments
Seriously, it's time to start ramping up for SaaS if you haven't already. In
one of those studies that basically reports that the earth might just continue
spinning on its axis, IDC tells us that SaaS will -- brace yourselves --
dramatically
alter the landscape for partners.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 12, 20070 comments