You know
all
those predictions about how Linux was going to dominate the server market
on the way to crushing Windows altogether? Forget about them.
Windows
is still the king, and it's actually taking territory from Linux in the
open source operating system's backyard: the server market.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 29, 20070 comments
For those of you who are into this sort of thing, apparently Microsoft's Office
Open XML standard, which seems to fluctuate somewhere between "American
Idol"-level popularity and Michael Vick-level unpopularity, is moving back
toward the "American Idol" side of the metaphor
with
the ISO standards organization. (By the way, your editor has never actually
watched "American Idol," but he understands that it has quite a following.)
Posted by Lee Pender on August 28, 20070 comments
One of Microsoft's key business intelligence components is
due
very, very soon...much sooner, in fact, than the next version of SQL server
-- a fact that somehow becomes a point of faux-controversy in a news story written
at a slow time of year.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 23, 20071 comments
Hey, it's August, and as we've said recently in this space, there's not a heck
of a lot going on. Since many of you are probably on vacation anyway, and not
even reading this, we're going to let the good folks who've taken the time to
write in do our work for us.
We'll commence with a couple of comments about Office 2007, which is now under
slightly (very slightly) more
competitive pressure from Google. Office lovers, turn away -- you might
not like what you're about to read, but we're just running what we've received.
If you like Office 2007 (and we're quite sure that many of you do), let us know.
Gordon starts us off with a mini-rant not unlike what we've heard from other
readers:
"Office 2007 needs a button to MAKE IT THE SAME as 2003. I have voice
control macros that work with Office 2xxx and, for no apparent benefit, Microsoft
moved everything and broke all my macros."
Well, Gordon, we know how you feel. Office 2007 has fairly well baffled us
too, in the opportunities we've had to use it thus far. Maybe we're all just
too resistant to change...or maybe Microsoft outsmarted itself -- and its users
-- this time with its "ribbon" interface.
Still, despite its unfamiliar look, Office 2007 is capable of some seriously
cool stuff for business users, especially tie-ins to back-end systems that Office
2003 couldn't really handle as well. It's kind of like getting a great new electronic
device and finding that the only instructions on how to use it are in Japanese,
though.
For his part, Kevin sends a friendly e-mail to say that Office isn't so dominant
where he is:
"All of our workstations are running OpenOffice.org. No major issues
at all -- we are very pleased. We have a handful of MS Office workstations
for the rare macro-filled document that OO.org can't handle, but with each
point release it becomes much more rare that we need any MS Office workstations
at all. (Novell seems to be helping most on this -- especially with Calc [Excel]
macros. The Novell OO.org edition is being tested here now -- interface and
functionality are even better, and it falls under our existing support contract.
It really is good!)
"Besides standard desktop users, though, even our Microsoft ERP database
developers have come to love it. What was hidden in Office and required an
API kit ($$$) and/or multiple calls to Microsoft for integration solutions
(ERP to Office) in the past is now completely free and open. Our programmers
can SEE everything they need to get the job done. What took two months in
the past now takes two days (not kidding)! For our hardcore, MS-loving developers
to love the solution, OpenOffice.org/StarOffice must be doing something right.
"Successful run here for years now without MS Office -- we aren't
going back. With what we've saved in license and subscription fees alone,
management wouldn't let us go back even if we wanted to!"
OK, so maybe those back-end tie-in capabilities in Office 2007 aren't such
a big deal after all, if Kevin is right (and we have no reason to think that
he isn't) about the ease of integrating ERP with OpenOffice.org. Still, we suspect
that Office 2007 will eventually reign as king of the productivity suites despite
its somewhat wonky interface. We tend to be creatures of habit, after all --
and if Microsoft has its way (and it usually does), Office 2007 will eventually
become a habit. Not that we're disparaging OpenOffice.org, mind you -- it sounds
like an intriguing alternative.
Moving on to Citrix's purchase of XenSource and Microsoft's
possible role as spoiler, John is ready to sit back and be entertained:
"That would be a great contest if MS put in a bid and then IBM got
in on the action. I can see it now: MS vs. IBM II: The Virtual Showdown.
"In the end, I would also see Citrix being more of a Microsoft target
than an open source virtualizer. But remember: Citrix was started by a group
of ex-Redmondites who worked on NT 4.0 terminal services, so I don't think
they would like being under the Redmond umbrella again."
Good point, John. But that is one big, wealthy umbrella.
Thanks to all who took the time to write, and, as for the rest of you, please
keep sending your thoughts about whatever to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 23, 20070 comments
In a line that sounds as though somebody spoke it during a Congressional testimony
after a two-minute whispering session with a lawyer, Skype now contends that
Microsoft patches were a
"catalyst"
for and not a "root cause of" its
recent
outage. Oh, that's much clearer now, thanks. What's next, a non-denial denial?
Posted by Lee Pender on August 23, 20070 comments
It has, we'll freely admit, been a long, long, long time since we've watched
what's known as "professional wrestling." And by long time, we mean
at least a couple of decades, probably longer, reaching back to our much younger
days. (Seriously, we're talking King Kong Bundy, Gentleman Chris Adams, Iceman
King Parsons here --
the
old Dallas Sportatorium crowd.)
And even in those days, we didn't watch much wrestling. But we do remember
some of the theatrical tricks the wrestlers used to (and presumably still do)
use. One of our favorites was when one guy was getting roughed up pretty good,
and it looked as though his fate was sealed...when suddenly, out of nowhere,
his buddy would arrive accompanied by a signature tune blasted over the loudspeakers,
and the announcer, with an impassioned sense of faux-bewilderedness, would shout
(for example), "Is that Kerry Von Erich's music?" Of course, a total
melee would ensue, much to the delight of a crowd thirsty for scripted violence.
And so we have XenSource, of budding virtualization fame, which was gobbled
up just last week by Citrix. Presumably, then, the two companies will want
to get on with the task of corporate and technological integration, wrapping
up all the regulatory paperwork and meshing executive teams, hashing out corporate
branding and...wait! Hang on! Is that Microsoft's music?
Citrix might
not have XenSource pinned to the mat just yet. (And, yes, we're aware that
Citrix is a longtime Microsoft partner and not a rival, meaning that our little
metaphor kind of falls apart right here -- but hey, it was fun, wasn't it?)
Some analysts are starting to make noise about Microsoft slipping in to double
Citrix's already extremely generous offer and throw a billion dollars at XenSource...which
could, they say, bring
IBM into the mix in turn. We can see the chairs flying now!
Or not. Back in the real world, a Microsoft acquisition of old buddy Citrix
still seems like a more likely scenario than Microsoft snatching XenSource from
Citrix's hands -- although a Citrix purchase would require a much bigger financial
outlay from Redmond and very well might end up being the company's biggest single
buyout of all time if it were to happen. Still, a cool billion for XenSource
seems like a very high price for anybody to pay. It's worth keeping an ear out
for Microsoft's music, though. It wouldn't surprise us to hear it somewhere
in the virtualization market soon.
If Microsoft were a wrestler, what would its name and music be? Oh, and what's
your take on Citrix, XenSource and Microsoft's virtualization efforts? Let me
know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 22, 20073 comments
OK, we'll admit that this isn't the most important story of all time from a
partner perspective, but we're throwing it in because 1) It's August, and news
is slow; 2) It's pretty interesting; and 3) We love the fact that the analysts
at Gartner actually use, presumably with a straight face, terms such as "trough
of disillusionment."
Anyway, Garter says, probably quite correctly this time, that home networking
stuff is just way
too hard for the average consumer to use.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 22, 20070 comments
Following yesterday's
mutual-appreciation
session between the CEOs of Microsoft and Cisco, Redmond revealed that it will make a slew of unified communications tools, including Office Communications
Server,
available
in October. Presumably all of these products will live in perfect harmony
with Cisco's competitive-slash-complementary offerings.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 22, 20070 comments
One of Microsoft's more high-profile but (thus far, anyway) less successful
attempts to be cool, the Xbox video-game console, still isn't turning a profit...and
probably won't for
a while, Redmond honcho Kevin Turner revealed this week.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 21, 20070 comments
From the "unintended consequences" file: Popular Internet telephony
provider Skype says that a
massive
number of restarts following Microsoft's Patch Tuesday caused last week's
colossal 48-hour lapse in Skype's service. Microsoft, on the other hand,
isn't
so sure.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 21, 20072 comments
In the glow of a late-summer morning, they seemed so happy together. Steve
Ballmer and Cisco CEO John Chambers spent yesterday morning verbally nuzzling
each other and chatting happily
with
the aptly named Charlie Rose. (Yes, he's the guy who hosts a show on PBS
that we don't watch but claim we do in order to sound more sophisticated than
we really are. Hey, don't the reruns of "King of the Hill" come on
at the same time? We have our priorities.)
Anyway, the two corporate titans talked about unified communications and about
how their companies, increasingly competitors in the space, will continue to
make sure that their
products work together in order to keep customers happy. Oh, it'll be delicate,
they said...what with the software juggernaut and the networking monster finally
meeting on the same turf to do battle. But hey, it's all about customer satisfaction,
reasonable collaboration (although, nothing
too crazy, now) and coopetition, right?
Well, to some extent, it probably is. After all, partners tell us that customers
want Cisco's back-end networking infrastructure tied to a Microsoft front-end
(meaning, primarily, Office, but also Exchange and SharePoint) to form a perfect
hybrid union of unified communications. Lee Nicholls, global solutions director
for Microsoft technologies, says that his company, global IT services provider
and Microsoft Global Alliance Partner Getronics, has made a tidy sum doing that
type of work recently.
Customers are "taking their existing, trusted, proven Cisco back-end and
wiring it to new communications infrastructure from Microsoft," he says,
noting that collaboration between the two companies' wares is already pretty
good: "Office 2007 is able to deliver voice mail from Cisco platforms,"
he adds.
But as we well know, what customers (and sometimes partners) want and what
vendors want don't always end up being the same thing. Surely, you don't believe
that Steve Ballmer and John Chambers will be happy to nudge
gently into each other's installed bases and play to their relative companies'
strengths?
Oh, no. That's not how they got to be where they are. Don't let their cuddly
talk fool you: Each CEO wants the whole UC pie, and sharing a few slices of
it will not be an option. (Hey, give us a break -- we're writing this around
dinnertime.) Partners who work heavily with both vendors, we predict, can start
expecting some serious pressure to "choose a side" soon, if they haven't
experienced it already.
As for who will win the building Microsoft-Cisco war, the victors could be
partners if both companies leverage their competition with each other to improve
their wares and give UC -- already a pretty popular notion in a lot of places
-- further credibility in the corporate world while at the same time providing
plenty of incentives aimed at keeping partners in their good graces.
For his part, Nicholls isn't making any predictions, but he says that if Microsoft
enters the battle at a disadvantage, it's only because Cisco has more networking
street cred than its rival from Redmond. Microsoft's technology has "caught
up" with that of Cisco in unified communications, he says. It's just a
matter of changing perception for Redmond now: "It's not that Microsoft
isn't good," Nicholls says. "It's just not known."
That likely won't be the situation for long, and there's little doubt that
Steve Ballmer saw today's love-in with Chambers as an opportunity to boost Microsoft's
UC credibility. Don't expect the CEOs' summer romance to linger for too much
longer.
RCP is putting together a story on the changing relationship between
Microsoft and Cisco and its effects on partners. We'd love to hear your thoughts
on this for RCPU purposes but also possibly for the magazine. Don't worry --
we won't run anything in the magazine until we've spoken to you for a longer
interview, and, as always, we'll only run newsletter e-mails with first names.
If you want to drop a line about UC, send it to [email protected],
and please let me know if you'd be willing to chat further about this issue.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 21, 20070 comments
Google apparently can't get enough of trying to compete with Microsoft on the
productivity-suite front. Not long after
launching
Google Apps, a pretender to Microsoft Office's throne, the Silicon Valley
powerhouse has
slid
Sun's StarOffice into its Google Pack mega-download. And Google's not alone
-- Adobe is
making
noise about office suites, too.
Of course, other competitors, such as OpenOffice, have been around for a while,
trying hopelessly to unseat Microsoft's entry in the race to provide word processors
and spreadsheet programs to corporate and consumer users. Everybody's got a
message (we almost wrote "gimmick" in that sentence). Competitor suites
are either cheaper than Office, or are browser-based thin-client options, or
are free...or something. What they all have in common, though, is single-digit
market share.
We're not saying it'll be that way forever. After all, Microsoft still hasn't
done much to move Office out of the desktop realm and into the software-as-a-service
"cloud," given that Office Live isn't really a "Live" version
of Office but instead is a suite of apps for small business. And, if anything,
Microsoft hurt Office more than anybody else by making
Office 2007 look completely unfamiliar to users.
But the reason Redmond's competitors aren't making more headway against the
Office juggernaut is because Office is the absolute baseline of technology for
the average information worker. Listen to what people at your office or your
clients' offices say: A document isn't just a document; it's a "Word document."
A spreadsheet is inevitably an "Excel spreadsheet." And a presentation?
Forget about it -- it's just a "PowerPoint" now, plain and simple.
Yeah, there are lots of issues with functionality and especially with interoperability
as far as competitors to Office are concerned, and they're real problems for
non-Microsoft offerings. But, more than anything else, until Google and Adobe
can find away to shift Word, Excel and PowerPoint out of the "Kleenex"
or "Xerox" (or even "Google," oddly enough) brand-recognition
mode, Microsoft will remain heavyweight champ in the productivity-suite ring.
Have a take on the power of the Office brand or a review of Office 2007? I'll
happily read your thoughts at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 15, 20071 comments