Two notes before we start: First, your editor is on deadline for a magazine
story, so today's RCPU will be shorter (and possibly even sweeter) than usual.
Second, we promised you last week that we'd hear this week from a small business-intelligence
vendor trying to survive in the shark tank of BI acquisitions by larger companies.
We will bring you that vendor's story -- but not this week after all, as today's
newsletter will be the last one until after Thanksgiving.
Oh, and Happy Thanks...giving...from R...C...P...U (and Les
Nessman)!
It's fall in New England -- autumn, if you want to get poetic about it -- and
a late run of warm weather into October has stretched leaf-peeping (seriously,
people call it that) season well into November. Even today -- the week of Thanksgiving
here in the U.S., fairly late for this sort of thing -- there are trees festooned
with blazing yellow and fiery orange leaves. Soon, they'll darken, tumble and
cover the ground, and the trees will be bare stick figures until spring comes
again.
We see this same cycle of life (and death) with the endless Microsoft-is-going-to-buy-Yahoo
rumor. Last we remember, it came up back in the late spring, budding again from
a winter of slumber. Now, in the fall, it has burst into spectacular color,
thanks to a blog
post from former Wall Street type Henry Blodget.
Magnificent! Just look how bright it is! Of course, as many other commentators
have already noted (here's
one), the rumor is likely to be bunk again -- meaning it'll soon meet the same
fate as a leaf that turns brown and tumbles to the ground. So, admire it while
you can. We could be in for a long winter ahead.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 20, 20070 comments
Really,
it's
brief. Somewhat interesting, but brief. We're not kidding.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 20, 20070 comments
Seriously. No kidding. One discounted model for at least one day, anyway,
on
Amazon.com, but still.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 20, 20071 comments
Mary Jo Foley tells us that Microsoft's little pay-as-you-go scheme for Office
-- sort of like SaaS without the service or convenience -- is
seeping
into new markets around the world.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 16, 20070 comments
When your editor was but a young lad, his family had a cat that was a particularly
adept mouser. The cat loved to roam the large field behind its house searching
for rodents of all sorts. When she caught one, she would keep it about half-alive
for a few hours and just toy with it, pretending at times to be indifferent
to its presence, then batting it around and chasing it when it tried meekly
to escape.
Well, right now, Larry Ellison's the cat...and BEA
is the mouse. Oh, sure, BEA's much more than half-alive, but the point is
that no matter how much it tries to run or how indifferent Ellison may seem,
he's going to get his prey...eventually. We'd be surprised if it worked out
otherwise.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 16, 20071 comments
Comcast wants to be so much more than "the cable company." It's pushing
itself to be an ambitious entertainment and business enterprise, complete with
TV networks of its own and "business-class" technology services.
We digress here, so just skip the next two paragraphs if you want to get to
the relevant stuff: Comcast reminds us here at RCPU a bit of a miniature version
of Vivendi (formerly Vivendi Universal -- nothing ambitious about that name),
the French company that started as a water utility in the 19th century and eventually
grew to own a considerable chunk of the entertainment industry. When your editor
moved to Paris in 2001, Vivendi Universal and its then-CEO, Jean-Marie Messier,
were the stuff of legends and a huge source of pride in France.
Then, Vivendi Universal lost tons of money because it had made a bunch of bad
acquisitions; Messier fell from his perch and the French went back to disdaining
big business and worshipping food and wine (not that there's anything wrong
with that -- and Vivendi is actually
still very big). Comcast is -- hopefully, for its sake -- making wiser decisions
about where and how to spend its money.
So this week, Comcast revealed that it has an agreement with Microsoft to provide
some basic, Internet-based applications to customers who subscribe to Comcast's
business-Internet service. We're talking e-mail and "calendaring" (since
when was the word "calendar" a verb?) along with some basic file-sharing
capabilities.
Analysts have already pegged the deal as a shot by Microsoft at Google Apps,
Google's Web-based productivity suite. But, unless we're misunderstanding things,
Microsoft's Comcast bundle will do a lot less than Google Apps -- we don't see
a spreadsheet or a Word processor -- and it'll only do it for Comcast customers.
It seems to have about as much functionality in comparison to Google Apps as
Google Apps has juxtaposed to Microsoft Office -- which is to say, not much.
Of course, the Microsoft bundle is free with a Comcast subscription.
But with all the free e-mail applications that have been on the Web for more
than a decade now, we're kind of wondering what the point of this deal is. Maybe
it's just to get people thinking of Microsoft in a "Web 2.0" context.
Or maybe it's to get people thinking of Comcast in a serious business context.
Or, most likely, both.
Does Microsoft need to worry about Google Apps? Why? Why not? Tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on November 15, 20070 comments
Whew! Finally, the wait is over! You were waiting with bated breath for
an
update to OneCare...weren't you?
Posted by Lee Pender on November 15, 20070 comments
Bill Gates attended this week his last Microsoft shareholders' meeting as a
card-punching Microsoft employee.
BusinessWeek, always reliable, has
a solid take on
where
Microsoft is now with Gates riding into the digital sunset. And be sure
to check out the Gates slideshow for an awkward stroll down memory lane.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 15, 20070 comments
The System Center portfolio has
three
new products as of today: System Center Configuration Manager 2007, System
Center Data Protection Manager 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager
2007.
Aside from doing all kinds cool management stuff, these products come with
one simple license that will allow a customer to buy and run them all at once.
Eric Berg, director of product management for the Windows and Enterprise Management
Division at Microsoft, told RCPU last week that "if you're buying any two of
these products, you're better off purchasing the server management suite."
By suite, he means all three products, of course.
Partners, take note: This sounds like an attempt by Redmond to simplify licensing,
at least in one area -- and simplification of licensing is something you've
been wanting and needing for a long time.
Posted by Lee Pender on November 13, 20070 comments
Let's get right to the news because there's plenty of it this week. For starters,
Microsoft is planning on offering a lot of versions of Windows Server 2008 at
a lot of different price points. Think we're exaggerating when we say a lot?
Check out
Keith
Ward's story on the lineup -- and bring a scorecard, or maybe a spreadsheet.
Speaking of Windows Server 2008, its server virtualization component finally
has a name: Hyper-V, which sounds like the name of a character that would've
appeared in the noted 1984 break-dancing drama Breakin'.
We liked Longhorn as a name for Windows Server 2008, but we love the name Hyper-V.
We sincerely hope that Steve Ballmer or some other Microsoft executive eschews
the standard-issue, blue button-down shirt and trots out to Grandmaster Flash
dressed like
this at February's server launch event.
Oh, and there's more server news. From early-'80s hip-hop to alphabet soup,
we have next SQL
Server CTP coming out PDQ. That's "community technology preview,"
of course, and, in this case, "pretty darn quick" -- hey, it's a family
blog -- is some time in the next couple of weeks.
Seriously, though, we need more names like Hyper-V for Microsoft products.
What do you suggest? What should we call Windows Server or SQL Server to make
them sound a little more hip? Send me your suggestions at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on November 13, 20070 comments