By far the strangest part of this story is the fact that a company called Cactus
is based in Canada. Other than that, this is a
tidy
and interesting read about how one Microsoft partner is playing a big role
in the development of Commerce Server.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 09, 20070 comments
Everybody loves Action Packs, those free bundles of Microsoft applications
available to just about anybody and everybody in the Microsoft Partner Program. [Editor's note: they actually cost $300.] As of now, Action Packs are nice little perks for everybody whose company is
at least a Registered Member in the program. They're generally considered to
be a no-strings-attached (or at least, few-strings-attached)
bundle of appreciation from Redmond to partners.
Well, get ready for some strings. RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker noticed
in a recent MSPP newsletter -- by the way, does anybody read those things regularly?
-- that it's about to become more difficult for partners to get their beloved
Packs. Starting at the end of November, Action Packs will become a privilege,
not a right -- or something like that. Long story short, partners who want them
will have to take a test to get them.
We're guessing that some of you will be none too thrilled by this prospect,
and if that's the case -- or, if you think it's a great idea -- rant or rave
to [email protected]. In the meantime,
here's a transcript of Bekker's communication with a Microsoft spokesperson
about the whole deal (that'll be Scott asking the questions):
Why is the change being made to require some training to qualify for
the Action Pack?
In our ongoing efforts to maintain the value of this subscription
to partners, beginning Nov. 30, a new online training and assessment requirement
takes effect. This means partners either renewing or subscribing to the Action
Pack for the first time will be required to take an online course from the
Partner Learning Center and pass the associated course assessment (with a
score of 70 percent or higher).
Action Pack subscribers must pass an assessment every two years. There
are currently over 600 online courses and associated assessments to choose
from. Most courses are an hour in length. Please check https://partner.microsoft.com/actionpack
to access the most relevant training courses.
How many Action Pack subscribers are there now?
Currently, there are approximately 190,000 Microsoft Action Pack subscribers
worldwide.
How is this change expected to affect that number?
The Microsoft Action Pack is a benefit available to active Registered
Members in the Microsoft Partner Program. This change will be implemented
to ensure we preserve and enhance this benefit for our partners. We anticipate
a slight drop in the number of subscribers who are relatively inactive and
expect this will curtail ineligible subscribers from obtaining Action Pack.
We also expect continued growth in new markets and believe that the upcoming
releases of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 will fuel excitement within
our partner community to "use, learn and sell" these exciting technologies.
Scott's exchange included some additional comments from the spokesperson.
It's also important to remind our partners that end user customers are
not eligible for the Microsoft Action Pack and should be guided to purchase
subscriptions like TechNet Plus, which is designed to meet needs of IT professionals.
If partners have any questions about the Action Pack changes, the following
resources are available:
- Regional Service Center: The Regional Service Center can provide
you with partner-specific resources and support. Contact information can
be found at https://partner.microsoft.com/mapsrsc.
- Action Pack Managed Newsgroup: Ask questions or post feedback
about MAPS. To access the newsgroups, sign in to the Partner Portal (https://partner.microsoft.com)
and click on "Online Assisted Support" under the "Support
& Security" tab. From there, click on the link to the Managed Newsgroups.
So, there you go: Time to get cracking, Action Packers! Sharpen those pencils,
break out those study materials and, while you're at, drop me a line about this
new program to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 09, 20073 comments
Remember
those
patches for Vista that caused some confusion last week? Well, maybe they
weren't SP1 after all, because they're
well
and truly out there for anyone to download now.
And with Vista back in the news (as if it ever really left), let's go to the
vault for some reader e-mails.
David says that Vista's fine; it's other stuff that's screwing everything up:
"I wonder how much of the 'bad' Vista experience is actually Vista
versus the other programs that came out with it such as Office 2007 and Exchange
2007. I use Vista as my primary desktop at work (I am a member of my company's
group that is piloting the technology to better understand it before rolling
it out to the rest of the organization) and at home on a gaming computer.
Yes, there are some problems, but my overall impression is that the underlying
operating system is pretty solid and better Windows than XP.
"Some of the things I like are almost trivial, like hooking up to
an external projector, accessing a wireless network from my hotel room or
connecting to a printer. These things just work better. Things that aren't
working as well include authentication issues and redundant extra prompts.
Also, I still haven't figured out where everything has been relocated. Sometimes
it takes some hunting before I find a function I know is there.
"My biggest issues are with Office 2007. At first I thought it was
pretty good but the more I use it, the less I like it. It's more a usability
issue than anything else. I spend way too much time searching the ribbon bars
hunting for functions. I still haven't found the option in Word to make a
title page with vertically and horizontally centered text. Well, actually
I found it, but it won't enable me to select it. I'm sure that sounds pretty
stupid but the new ribbon interface isn't making the applications more useable
for me. On the other hand, I do like the new Outlook to-do bar.
"I think the whole Vista thing is much ado about nothing. Vista is
a whole new operating system. It's going to take a while to sort out the compatibility
issues. It is also going to require users and developers to do some things
differently than before. But on the whole, it is a significant improvement
over XP and a solid foundation to build upon."
We're with you on Office 2007, David. Trying to navigate it on a friend's laptop
the other night was like waking up to find that our familiar local newspaper
was suddenly being published in Farsi.
Greg's not so happy with Vista. In fact, he's flirting with the Penguin:
"I've used a lot of systems in my day. I'm not a self-proclaimed
guru, just a novice who knows how to 'Google' for the info or tips I need
with an OS. It is sad that Microsoft released Vista too early, especially
since Win XP was such a decent OS. Vista is great with a lot of eye candy
(what the limited computer users want). I know there are bugs and quirks from
all I've read online about Vista so I'll wait and bide my time while keeping
Vista on a test machine until all the bugs are worked out or until I'm confident
enough with the system to move to it fully -- which I probably will do anyway
in another month or so.
"Linux is the best OS I've seen to date and for me, because you have
to literally earn the right with the system to use this application or that
one. Linux is strong and well-protected, as well. My favorite is Ubuntu, and
I've noticed how much Vista looks like a few Linux distros as well as the
fact that Firefox, with its multi-tab ability, was out long, long before IE
7. Anyway, reading your article, I thought I'd give my 2 cents. Vista is still
a baby, so it will be about a year or so until the baby is stable enough to
walk (in my opinion). Vista shows some good promise and XP makes a great fall-back
when Vista decides to quirk out on you. Do like I do and either multi-boot
the two or have XP on your main, Vista on your tester and good, old Linux
on your laptop to rescue you when you need it. Thank you for time and your
patience."
Thank you, Greg (and David) for your thoughts. Anything else to add? Add it
at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 09, 20070 comments
It's been way too long since we've made a
Pirates
of Silicon Valley reference here at RCPU. So, with this week marking
the 10th anniversary of Microsoft's big investment in Apple (which happens at
the end of the movie -- not to give it away or anything), we couldn't resist
typing once again fictional Bill Gates' famous words to fictional (but not Fake
--
that's
Dan Lyons) Steve Jobs in the film: "I got the loot, Steve!"
A decade later, though, as one good-if-not-groundbreaking
article points out, Steve's got some loot of his own. It's hard to believe
that it's been 10 years since Wired ran one
of the great covers of all time. And it's hard to believe how things have
changed since then. But we at RCPU sure do love our iPods...well, except for
one nameless editor (not the one writing this), who actually bought a Zune.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 08, 20070 comments
Given that most of the talk about patents in the last eight or nine months
has
revolved
around Microsoft and Linux, you might have forgotten about the patent case
that was going to completely reshape the world as we knew it: Alcatel-Lucent's
"successful"
MP3
patent case versus Microsoft.
Well, it was successful -- until this week, that is. A U.S. District Court
judge in San Diego this week laid a big "I don't think so" on a ruling
that would have required
Microsoft to fork $1.5 billion over to Alcatel-Lucent for patent infringement.
And just like that, the French company's dreams of suing everybody who ever
released an MP3 or made a portable-music player -- as well as of filling its
coffers with a billion-plus of Microsoft's dollars -- came to an end.
The judge's ruling -- never mind the jury's ruling, we suppose, which he seems
to pretty much have overturned -- is partly based on technicalities and partly
based on his opinion that Microsoft, in fact, did not infringe on one of the
patents in question. But we wonder (on rather a hazy and lazy summer afternoon
when we should probably be thinking about something else) whether Microsoft
has in any way shown the open source folks the path to quashing patent-infringement
claims.
Or maybe, if nothing else, Redmond has shown how hard it actually is to win
a patent case as the plaintiff, despite some relatively recent and, in the famous
BlackBerry case, high-profile decisions. Maybe the Alcatel-Lucent case has
nothing to do with anything at all, but we'd be at least amused by the coincidence
if Microsoft took some of the bite out of its Linux patent racketeering by winning
a high-profile patent case as a defendant.
Tomorrow we'll run some reader feedback, so if you want to comment on this
or any other recent entry, shoot me an e-mail at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 08, 20070 comments
Fun little story here about Nicolas Sarkozy, the still-new president of France
and noted firebrand,
going
off on a couple of American photographers during Sarko's vacation in New
Hampshire.
We throw this in because: 1) Your editor lived in France for almost five years
and is a bit of a Francophile; 2) Your editor has also been to the lake where
Sarko is vacationing (as have, we're guessing, most New Englanders); and 3)
Sarko is crashing at Michael Appe's pad, and Appe is a former Microsoft executive,
making this entry entirely relevant for RCPU. Or at least as relevant as the
thing about Fake Steve Jobs.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 07, 20070 comments
Let's not even pretend that we'll have a bigger story than this one this week.
This one is right up there with "Microsoft Makes Major Investment in Apple"
(which happened, by the way, 10 years ago this week) and "Bill Gates To
Transition Away from Microsoft" (well,
sort
of).
After 14 months of stealth
parody of Apple's iconic leader, we
now know who the Fake Steve Jobs has been all along. The decidedly old-media
New York Times unmasked the legendary blogger and new-media meme as...Forbes
Senior Editor Dan Lyons, who just happens to be one of your editor's former
colleagues! (OK, so your editor worked at the same publication as Lyons about
10 years ago and met him once -- it still counts! And we at RCPU can confirm
that Mr. Lyons is a very funny guy.)
With Lyons out as Fake Steve, the comparisons
of Real Dan to Fake Steve have begun, and even the Fake Bill Gates (on a
site full of fake-somebody bloggers that frankly should be funnier) has
chimed in.
Oh, sure, this probably seems a little silly -- and, well, it is. It's not
even Microsoft-related, and it has even less to do with Microsoft partners.
But, hey, it's August, and we don't exactly have news through a fire hose this
week. In fact, it's been more like news dripping from a leaky faucet lately.
So, to our ol' buddy Dan -- who, apparently, will continue to write his blog
as Fake Steve and has a Fake
Steve book coming out, we say, "Bravo!" And thanks for the virtual
good times.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 07, 20070 comments
Almost as soon as the
first
entry in yesterday's RCPU about mysteriously disappearing Vista fixes went
out, we had an e-mail from Stuart (although not the Stuart whose e-mail appeared
yesterday):
"Get your facts straight, Lee. The fixes you describe are certainly
NOT the bulk of what will be available in SP1 and as of today, 8/1, they're
still available to Connect subscribers."
First off, fair cop on the "bulk of SP1" statement. You've got us
bang-to-rights there, guv'nah. Whoa...sorry, we've been watching too much British
comedy lately. Let's try that again: Fair enough with the "bulk" statement.
You've caught us a bit red-faced there. We don't know exactly what will be in
SP1 -- whether these fixes will be a part of it or whether they might constitute
the "bulk" or just a little part (if any at all) of the service pack.
We suspect, as many
others do, that the fixes were an SP1 preview -- or maybe just most of SP1
-- but we don't know for sure. (Another rumor is that these fixes will come
out on Aug. 14, Patch Tuesday, which would presumably mean that they're
not part of SP1 at all.) So, we were wrong -- or at least possibly wrong --
to say that "Microsoft at some point posted the bulk of SP1 online."
We will be more careful next time.
Beyond that, Stuart, our e-mailer, who is a member of the Vista/Windows Server
2008 Technology Adoption Program (TAP) and who was invited by Microsoft to test
the fixes, tells us that he downloaded them again on Aug. 1 (yesterday, by the
time you read this), after they supposedly
disappeared. Well, apparently, they didn't disappear, exactly -- they just
left the public domain. Evidently, Microsoft has simply repaired the leaks of
these fixes that appeared on several message boards and once again made them
accessible only to the invited members of the TAP who were supposed to have
them in the first place. That's why, for instance, we -- and by "we,"
we actually mean more than one person -- can't get to them when we log into
Connect. The rest of us will just have to wait or see if we can ferret them
out on some rogue message board -- if we're so inclined, which we here at RCPU
are not.
All of this is probably much ado about nothing, then, as old Bill (Shakespeare,
not Gates) might have said. That's especially true since these fixes are for
Vista, the OS that hasn't exactly set the world on fire in terms of adoption,
anyway. Still, we maintain that Microsoft, rather than spending its time chasing
down leaks and trying to hush Vista SP1 rumors, could be a little more forthcoming
about its release schedules and maybe even a little better organized.
For their part, Microsoft officials responded to us by saying that there's
no fire to accompany the smoke in the press: "There were two Windows Vista
updates released last week, and Microsoft has confirmed that they are on the
site, so I'm not sure why folks thought they were removed," a spokesperson
e-mailed us.
Well, then! Apparently they weren't removed from the Connect site, just from
some message boards -- as we figured. On top of that, we got a further, if a
bit canned, statement about SP1:
"There will be a Windows Vista service pack and our current expectation
is that a beta will be made available some time this year. Service packs are
part of the traditional software lifecycle -- they're something we do for
all Microsoft products as part of our commitment to continuous improvement,
and providing early test builds is a standard practice that helps us incorporate
customer feedback and improve the overall quality of the product.
"Service packs are just one example of the work we do to constantly
improve the Windows experience. We also deliver improvements to Windows via
Windows Update, which is an excellent channel for providing our customers
with the most significant updates as they happen. And, since Windows Vista
launched, we have continued working with partners to improve overall device
coverage and application compatibility. There are now more than 2.1 million
supported devices and more than 2,000 logoed applications for Windows Vista.
We think customers will have a great experience using Windows Vista today."
Folks in Redmond might not want to be so confident about that last line. As
promised, let's have some more complaints about Vista:
Von is regretting his migration:
"I was in the market for a new computer right about the time Vista
was coming out. I decided to wait and get a Vista system instead of buying
one with XP. You know -- new technology vs. old technology; go with the latest
instead of being 'behind the times.'
"I'm regretting that decision now. Vista is just too quirky, and I don't
see any huge benefit to it over XP to warrant overlooking the 'quirkiness.'
I wish now I had gone with XP and waited for Windows 7 or at least until I
'had' to give up XP and go with a Vista OS that was several years old (several
years tested and patched)."
Christine is also suffering:
"As a software developer, I was forced to get a machine with Vista
on it. I keep it turned off as much as possible. Invariably, Windows Sidebar
crashes. Windows Firewall is constantly changing my settings because of some
unknown infraction. All sorts of other annoying messages keep popping up,
telling me to enable this or disable that. This operating system is intent
on badgering me! I can't get anything done because of all of these pop-ups.
"In its ever-eager attempt to out-think me, Microsoft has at last
successfully stopped me from working the way I want. I now understand how
all the non-computer geeks feel. This Windows stuff IS a nightmare. Microsoft
tries to do too much in too many odd ways at too many odd times. I still despise
Apple more, but I'm sticking with XP until MS slams that door, too."
And Paul says that Vista has led to some conflict at his firm (and others):
"Let me just say that Vista and Outlook 2007 have both been a very,
very large disappointments for our company and our clients. Very bad blood
has been spilled over both. We went (b)leading-edge and implemented Exchange
2007 at one of our clients' locations, and to say it was a nightmare would
be putting it lightly! This latest set of releases from Microsoft in general
has been lacking."
Apparently so. We have lots of other (negative) Vista e-mails that we haven't
had room to run. They're very good, and we'll try to get to them in time. Thanks
to Stuart for keeping us honest and to everybody who has taken the time to write.
Keep the e-mails coming to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 02, 20071 comments