We start today with an e-mail from Peter, who writes to us from Melbourne,
Australia, mate, in response to our recent query on whether partners are making
money off Vista. His news is not good:
"Vista might be booming in Redmond, but in our town it seems to be
a lead balloon. We do not know any other partners running it internally, and
none of our customers have the slightest interest in it whatsoever.
"One of our BI [business intelligence, natch --LP] customers,
a large bank, is just now upgrading from NT4 to Windows XP and is very seriously
looking at Linux. Personally, I am quite happy on XP SP2 and have no plans
to move until high-function machines are common.
"The bottom line is we are making nothing off Vista and, frankly,
getting nothing much from the Partner Program either."
Right, that's a good reminder -- we're still looking for your feedback on the
Microsoft Partner Program. We've had some very good comments so far, but we'd
love some more. We'll run the best in Friday's newsletter.
Back to Vista for now, though. Microsoft, perhaps sensing that the new operating
system isn't catching on as well as it had hoped, or perhaps just wanting to
look cutting-edge, has developed a try-before-you-buy program that gives potential
users a 30-day
trial of Vista using virtualization. The trial, which lets users test applications
on the new OS, is part of a little
package of sweeteners aimed at boosting Vista adoption.
We're hearing through RCPU and other channels that partners aren't yet making
much money from Vista sales. Granted, it's still a bit early in the sales cycle
for a new OS. For instance, lots of businesses are talking about looking at
Vista next year (maybe). Now, we want to know what Microsoft needs to do to
help its partners profit from Vista now. Or, is Vista just a dud that's destined
to never add to your bottom line? Share your thoughts at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 07, 20073 comments
Break out the Skittles and Mountain Dew! Don your favorite ironic T-shirt!
Developers have some new toys from Microsoft, including an
Open
XML SDK and a
Visual
Studio Shell.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 06, 20070 comments
This story is starting to feel so much like a soap opera that we're going to
have to start with a little back story before we get to the news of the week.
So, here we go:
You remember the Microsoft-Novell
SuSE Linux deal, right? There's no need to explain that one, we hope. You
also remember how the Free Software Foundation, which controls the license that
governs the use of Linux, wanted to do
whatever it could to kill, or at least severely injure, the SuSE agreement.
And you remember, too, that Microsoft claims that open source software violates
more than 200 of its patents.
Great, so you're with us so far. Well, as
we told you last week, the FSF has decided not to "punish" Novell
for its Microsoft agreement. But it has written language into the latest --
and probably last -- draft of version three of its General Public License for
Linux (the famous GPLv3) that would, the FSF hopes, essentially rid Microsoft
of its power to hold patents over the open source world's head like some sort
of sword of Damocles by forcing Redmond to extend
patent protection to all Linux users, not just SuSE users.
That provision in GPL v3 would make Microsoft's Linux deals -- which are based
on shaking down distributors of the open source operating system by getting
them to pay for patent protection and thereby avoid potential lawsuits -- sort
of useless (or so the FSF hopes -- although not
everybody is so sure). And, yes, we said "deals," not deal, which
leads us to the news of the week: Microsoft has agreed to another Linux patent
pact.
This time, the
distributor is Xandros, the name of which immediately makes us think of
the late disco-era Olivia Newton John vehicle Xanadu.
(What, that didn't come springing immediately to mind for you? We would have
also accepted a reference to Xena:
Warrior Princess or possibly even Xavier
McDaniel.)
The Xandros deal could be far from being a paradise for either party, though,
if the FSF gets its way and erases Microsoft's patent claims. If that were to
happen, Xandros would have entered into a deal to protect itself from patent
claims that Microsoft wouldn't even be able to make. Could that happen? We have
absolutely no idea. That's for a gaggle of patent lawyers to decide.
In the meantime, though, we'll say what we've said all along: All of this legal
battling, all of this saber rattling by Microsoft and obstinate anti-Microsoft
behavior from the FSF (which, incidentally, seems to go way beyond patent fights),
all of this lawyer play serves mainly to hurt partners and customers who just
want to use Windows and Linux and have them work together. It also hurts the
continued adoption of Linux in the enterprise (yes, we still maintain that such
deals with Microsoft are helpful, even if they are basically
"protection rackets.") Basically, IT managers and financial decision
makers are going to think twice before adopting an operating system full of
legal land mines. We're still hoping for some compromise -- and common sense
-- from both sides of the argument. What we're expecting, though, is more FUD
from everybody and possibly a legal battle.
But, hey, the whole thing does make for great theater, if you like daytime
television soap operas. So, tune in next week (or, probably, later this week)
for more Days of Our Linux.
Do you have a take on the latest wrinkle in the Microsoft-Linux saga? I'm reading,
as always, at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 05, 20070 comments
Bostonians! New Englanders! Come have breakfast with your RCPU editor and other
members of the
Redmond Channel Partner staff. Our June 19
RCP
reader breakfast is still on. Check out the details
here.
There will be more info to come as we have it -- including where we're actually
going to hold the breakfast. Details, details.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 05, 20070 comments
There have been quite a few of items of note thus far at TechEd, including:
Bob Muglia's keynote also got a couple of contrasting
views in the trade
press. Muglia is Microsoft's senior vice president for Windows Server.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 05, 20070 comments
Almost two months ago,
while pondering when (or if) Google's nascent productivity suite might eventually
be able to seriously compete with Microsoft Office, RCPU offered this thought:
"No, Google Apps, Docs & Spreadsheets -- and most of the rest
of the tools in the Google productivity arsenal -- aren't quite ready to threaten
Office. But look out. Google's suite is SaaS (Software as a Service) in action.
However, when users aren't connected or the company network is down, it's
more like 'SaaS inaction.' There is no software installed on the client. This
basic fact no doubt has conservative IT folks and users thinking twice about
SaaS altogether."
Well, scratch that last bit off the list off drawbacks for Google Apps. Google
this week introduced
Google Gears, a browser plug-in that lets developers create ways to access
Google applications offline. So, with a little tinkering here and there in Gears,
it'll be possible for users to work in Google's spreadsheet or word processing
applications without being connected to anything. And that's important for any
set of productivity apps that wants to make serious inroads into the enterprise.
(By the way, Google is basically
employing an open source model here by throwing its apps open to developers
pretty much without restrictions.)
Of course, Google Apps still doesn't have anything close to the functionality
that Office offers, but it does have a lovely price tag -- namely free, or $50
per user per year for a supported version. Plus, the bloated (and very expensive,
by comparison) Office arguably does too much already. How many users really
use every feature of Microsoft Word, much less every feature in the entire suite?
Back in the mid-'90s, software-marketing types would have bragged about a suite
like Office being "feature-rich," meaning it was capable of doing
a ton of stuff. We're not sure how much of a bragging point that is now, especially
for software installed on the client.
On the other hand, Google, in theory, has the advantage of being able to add
features to Apps -- or perhaps let users (or partners...or independent developers?)
add them -- until users have the functionality they want and need. (We can't,
by contrast, imagine Microsoft taking functionality out of Office in chunks
to make it more lightweight and manageable. We can't imagine the price going
down, either. And, as of today, there's still no purely Web-based version of
Office.) With nothing installed on the client, Google Apps won't load down laptops
with unused bells and whistles -- or with anything at all, for that matter.
(And before we forget: Google's getting
into the security game, too.)
It's that kind of potential flexibility -- combined with an attractive price
tag -- that could make Google Apps a real threat to Microsoft Office. Eventually,
that is, but probably not right now. For one thing, the functionality gap is
still a problem for the newcomer. For another, Google Apps isn't
the only lightweight, low-cost Office alternative out there, and Office
still rules the productivity roost.
Beyond that, Microsoft has one massive advantage that only 90-plus percent
market share can bring: familiarity. Sure, Office 2007, with its ribbons and
such, is a departure from previous versions. But everybody knows Word, PowerPoint,
Excel and the gang. They've become the Kleenexes and the Xerox machines of our
time, brand names that define their product category better than the name of
the category itself. Most office (small "o," although it really doesn't
matter) workers don't think of a word processor as a word processor; they think
of it as Microsoft Word. You know -- kind of they way they think of a search
engine as Google.
And, if anything, name recognition is what might eventually let Google Apps
go where other Office alternatives have failed to go before -- into the realm
of double-digit market share. For now, though, Office is still intact as the
sweetest of the suites, at least in terms of market share. But Microsoft had
better get working on getting a low-cost, Web-based version of Office out the
door, lest Google come along one of these days and tip its cash cow.
Do you have any experience with Google Apps? How much of a threat to Office
do you see Google Apps as being? Are you running into it in your accounts? Let
me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 01, 20071 comments
If we're to believe a somewhat cryptic, anonymously sourced
story
that appeared this week, Novell "won't be punished" by the Free
Software Foundation for making its contentious (to say the very least) SuSE
Linux deal with Microsoft. We'd like to take that to mean that the FSF won't
use the forthcoming version GPLv3, the license that governs Linux use, to stop
Microsoft from distributing SuSE Linux -- something it
currently
has the power to do.
But before we take this as a sign that the open source folks are giving in,
consider that the latest draft of GPLv3 would
strip Microsoft of the patent rights that it
claims it has over open source software if Microsoft continues to distribute
SuSE Linux. (Hm, and all this time we thought that the FSF folks didn't believe
that Microsoft had legitimate patent claims at all. Why bother with eliminating
them, then, FSF?) So, evidently, the standoff will continue.
Almost lost in all this is the fact that Microsoft and Novell, after a very
successful run in the first fiscal quarter of their deal, saw the fruits of
their partnership decline
considerably in its second quarter. And Novell, while doing better than
Wall Street analysts expected, is still
losing money. Are potential problems with patents and licenses keeping people
away from SuSE Linux? If so, that's
a loss for Microsoft, Novell and the open source movement, as well as more
critically for partners and users. As we've said here before, in this kind of
battle, nobody wins.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 01, 20071 comments
Bill Gates, perhaps not a fan of the iconic late-'90s TV movie
Pirates
of Silicon Valley (a tried and true RCPU favorite), apparently missed
the opportunity to shout "I got the loot, Steve!" at Apple chief Steve
Jobs when the two of them
appeared
together on stage yesterday for the first time in quite a while.
There was some fun, though, at the Wall Street Journal's D conference (check
out some video here),
with Jobs both taking
swipes at Windows and also showing his softer, more compassionate side when
discussing
PC Guy from the now-famous Mac ads.
By most accounts, the two yucked it up quite a bit and got along famously.
And hey, why not? Sure, they're fierce competitors (well, Gates used to be,
at least -- he's about to head off into the sunset and his charity work), but
when you've got the cash that both of these guys have, how angry at anybody
could you really be?
Posted by Lee Pender on June 01, 20070 comments
We didn't get tons of responses to our query as to
whether
you're making much money off the much-maligned, but apparently not totally
disastrous, Vista operating system, but we did get a few interesting thoughts.
These probably won't go over too well in Redmond, but here they are.
Nat starts us off:
"I've been making a little money with Vista. I have removed and replaced
it with XP a few times and charged my customers for the labor, and I made
a little money on the sell of the XP replacement. I still personally don't
like it; the new Windows Explorer is awful and the Control Panel items are
all mixed up now."
So...not a very strong endorsement there. Let's see if AJ is having better
luck:
"The only IT change I'm starting to see at my large clients is a
new requirement to purchase Dells instead of the other approved brands when
desktops are to be rotated out. Dell has offered them XP instead of Vista."
Ouch. So, from what we're hearing (and we've talked to a few folks outside
of the newsletter world who have said the same thing), Vista isn't doing much
for partners' bottom lines. That's a shame -- but it's not exactly a surprise.
If you are making money with Vista -- or if you want to complain about how
useless it is for you -- I'd still love to hear from you on this topic at [email protected].
We have one more thought this week, this one from frequent contributor Rick,
who notes that security
problems for open source applications (as opposed to just for Windows and
Microsoft apps) appear to be a thing of the present and not just of the future:
"As a network admin I'm constantly watching the security alerts for
issues found in the software that my company uses. One of the most common
alerts that I'm sure many people watch is from US-CERT Security Bulletins.
"The new twist is that I haven't seen Microsoft listed the past three
or four times! They used to be always in the high-risk section. Whenever they
were listed only in the medium category, it was considered a win for Microsoft.
Now they don't even show up in the low-risk section.
"What I do see is a lot of software based on PHP and other open source
stuff. I guess this is the wave of the future."
Apparently so, Rick, as well as the wave of the present. As we've said here
before, welcome to the
big time, Linux.
Have any other thoughts to share? I'm always here at [email protected],
and I really do read every e-mail I get, even if I sadly don't have time to
respond to most of them anymore. Also, don't forget that the
blog site is always there for comments, fights and other rancor. And have
a great weekend.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 01, 20070 comments