And the former Microsoft whipping boy’s new competitor is ... Google? Good luck to our
Canadian friends, eh.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 05, 20060 comments
There’s something about anticipation that becomes impossible to shake. It just builds, getting better and worse at the same time, the closer we get to an important or potentially exciting event. It becomes all-consuming, something that’s in the back of our minds all the time and in the front of our minds most of the time. Kids can’t wait for Christmas. Movie buffs can’t wait for the latest film starring their favorite actors. Book hounds can’t wait to pick up the most recent tomes from their favorite authors.
And I can’t wait for football season. All summer, it just sort of brews -- thoughts about my teams’ upcoming games, memories of great and not-so-great moments past, Google (or maybe even MSN) searches to see what former players are up to. Then, when the cool winds of September -- hey, I’m based in New England -- begin to blow, it arrives. Finally. The college season kicks off, and then the NFL retakes its place as America’s premiere sports spectacle. Victory is never guaranteed (especially as far as my Dallas Cowboys are concerned in recent years), but, at least, all seems right with the world when heavily padded men are tossing an oval ball around the gridiron.
And so it is with Windows Vista. After all the delays, all the beta reviews, all the discussion, all the criticism and all the jokes, it’s really coming. Not today, not by the time football season kicks off, but soon, and maybe even by Microsoft’s latest targeted release date. As is always the case with Redmond, nothing is guaranteed -- not dates, not initial quality. And partners know that most wise IT shops will wisely let Vista mature a bit before buying into it. But, last week’s limited release of a pre-Release Candidate 1 of Vista got some very solid reviews, which is good news given some of the rough treatment reviewers gave Beta 2 a few months back.
There are signs, too, that the dates for Vista’s release are starting to come together. For one thing, you can pre-order some editions of Vista -- slated for a Jan. 30 release date -- now. (Thanks to Derek for the link.) Also, thanks to our friends in the Great White North, we have an idea of how much Vista is going to cost (hint: a lot). (We even have our friends, those shy, timid Mac folks, reminding us that Apple’s OS generates more profit per user than Windows .)
All of this, while ripe for commentary on many fronts, is encouraging. These are the first snaps of training camp, the first cool breezes of September blowing away Adobe legal gripes, European Union fines, investor grousing and the long, hot days of summer in Redmond. Prices, release candidates, Amazon.com listings ... Vista is real, and it might actually be available more or less when Microsoft last said it would be. On top of that, it might also actually be pretty darn good right out of the box. It remains to be seen whether Vista will be a Super Bowl contender or an also-ran upon its debut, but at least the season finally appears close to getting under way.
Have any thoughts about Vista pricing? Or timing? Have any experience with the pre-RC1 build? I’m all eyes at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 29, 20062 comments
The long-time partners have expanded their partnership to
target branch offices of big companies -- which, incidentally, is also a big target of Microsoft’s Dynamics ERP suites.
Gartner has some advice as to how IT people should react. Notice, too, how the Gartner guys congratulate themselves for predicting a Microsoft-Cisco battle back in 1997. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not sure I’d be so excited about a prediction I made taking 10 years to come true. But, since nobody will remember this little newsletter entry 10 years from now, I’ll come out and say that Google will own at least 50 percent of the OS market by 2016. Take that with a grain of salt -- or maybe a shaker. I’ll be back to brag about it if it comes true, though!
Have any predictions for what the tech world will be like 10 years out? Post 'em or send them to me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 24, 20061 comments
Well, maybe not ASAP, but the almost-finished version of
IE7 is out there. And in other browser news, apparently Mozilla is going to take Microsoft up on its offer for help in
developing Firefox for Vista, thereby placing itself in the teeth of the beast.
Matt, though, our serial e-mailer, isn’t too worried that working with Microsoft will pose a threat to Firefox:
"I'm not sure what MS would gain as far as stealing secrets from Firefox developers, considering that it is an OSS project and therefore MS can download and view all the code anytime it wants. The most they might glean is hints as to future directions, etc., but that is pretty much open as well. It probably is mostly a PR ploy. It's like offering to do something for your wife that you know she will do herself anyway. You get all the credit with none of the work! The next time MS gets bashed for its proprietary ways, they can point to their offer and say, ‘See, we offered to help an OSS project that is the greatest threat to IE in our history, so we must be good guys, right?’"
Right. The key word in "open source" is indeed "open."
But Andrew, who writes all the way from Oman, isn’t so sure...: "As far as ‘up to no good,’ all being fair in love and war, I would not trust Microsoft if I were Firefox. Altruism from a monopoly? I somehow don't think so!"
Wise words, I suspect. It pays to be careful when Redmond’s involved.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 24, 20060 comments
Here in the molasses-slow days of August, this is what passes for news:
Microsoft
has invited developers of Mozilla's Firefox browser to work with the Redmond
giant so that Firefox will work properly with Vista.
Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, it probably is. But that didn't
prevent some open-source
fans from postulating that Microsoft is somehow trying to lure Firefox
developers to Redmond in order to weasel secrets out of them, or recruit
them, or... something.
There is a little tidbit from this story that adds a mild
level of intrigue to the discussion: "Firefox already runs successfully
on existing Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating systems. Testing by
silicon.com sister site ZDNet UK found it also runs well in Vista beta
2, so it's not clear why Mozilla would need help from Microsoft."
Have these people ever actually used Firefox in Windows? I have, and
while I've found it to be a fine browser, I have had some problems with
it in the Windows environment. Maybe I'm alone there… but I don't
think so. So, in that sense, there probably is some work to be done in
making non-IE browsers like Firefox more compatible with Windows. And,
in a broader sense, this serves as a veiled admission on Redmond's part
to the well-known fact that third-party software doesn't always work as
well in Windows as Microsoft's own home-cooked apps do.
But, why does Microsoft care about making an IE competitor more compatible
with the world's dominant OS? Is this just an elaborate ruse to steal
secrets (and devs) form Mozilla? Is it a case of Microsoft relenting that
proprietary technologies are giving way to open-source alternatives (as
one Ars Technica poster suggested, citing "the embrace of RSS, the
Open Source lab, XML and royalty-free access to OpenXML")? Is this,
ultimately, the beginning of the end for IE?
Any of those factors could be behind this move, but it's likely that
none of them is. In fact, this looks more than anything else like a feel-good
public relations move aimed at making Microsoft look a little less rigid
and proprietary and a little more willing to work with open-source technologies
and developers. And, if whatever collaboration does happen leads to improvements
in IE, Firefox and browsers in general, that's all the better for users.
Still, the Firefox folks would be wise-as would partners working with
Microsoft on development-not to reveal too much about their applications
or their strategies. Guarded collaboration, at most, should be the order
of the day. There's no need for Mozilla to help set a trap for Firefox
in Redmond, especially if Microsoft doesn't seem to be in the hunting
mood.
Have any Firefox experiences? Do you think Microsoft is up to no good
with Mozilla? Share your thoughts here or at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 22, 20067 comments
OK, so I’m not the only one who found this week’s little
proclamation from Google banning the use of the word "Google" as a verb completely ridiculous.
Mike wrote:
"Maybe Google had better start googling to find the mind they’ve apparently lost. 'Genericide?' It is the ultimate compliment to become a verb. They ought to be worried about new and innovative ways to improve their product or expand, not how someone uses their name as a verb. There is certainly no guarantee that just because they’re the search engine of choice today that it will stay that way. I seem to recall at one time Netscape was the de facto standard Web browser. I reach for a Kleenex, even though it’s a Scot tissue. I put on a Band-Aid, even though it’s a non-stick Curad. I just got back from Xeroxing something, although I have no idea what brand the copy machine is (and don’t care).
"It kind of reminds me of a story I heard back in the ‘80s or early ‘90s. Admittedly, I don’t know if this is true or folklore, but there was a software firm that used to code name their development projects using names of famous people. They named one after Carl Sagan, to which he apparently took offense and wrote them a letter asking them not to use his name in that way. They changed the name of the project from ‘Sagan’ to ‘[Ah, let’s just say ‘Jerk,’ but I’ll let you use your imagination here. -- LP] Astronomer’. Even if it is folklore, there’s a lesson to be learned there (and it’s still funny)."
It is still funny, Mike. Thanks for sharing.
And MrTwoPointFive, as he likes to be known, who was actually intrepid enough to make a comment on my RCPmag.com blog, rings in with:
"Thanks for alerting your readers to the unbelievable Google article! By the way, just as a final thought -- calling Duncan's Yo-Yo a ‘yo-yo’ or a Frisbee a ‘frisbee’ didn't seen to hurt Whamo too much, now did it? As far as I know, people do still jump up and down on all sorts of Trampolines and other ‘trampolines’ and use Kleenex. (Facial tissues? Basically what we here in the USA generally refer to simply as ‘Kleenex,’ which we use to blow our noses.) You know some of us even still have reports ‘Xeroxed,’ and please don't even get me started on ‘nylon’ or the term 'genericide'. Just a thought, but is ‘genericide’ even a real word? Do you think I can use it if I get the opportunity to do so the next time my friends and I get together for a relaxed game of Scrabble? I scrabble, you scrabble, she scrabbles... oh never mind."
2.5, if I were Scrabble poobah, I would fully allow the use of the word "genericide." But you’d better watch how you use the word "scrabble..."
Thanks again for writing in. Any other thoughts? On anything? Comment here or at [email protected], as usual.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 17, 20061 comments
Actually, the terrorists aren't winning today, thanks to some
crack
work by our friends in the UK. Given that serious backdrop, it's a
little incongruous for us to hear that downloading Windows patches is
a matter of national security, or at least a topic important enough to
merit
a decree from the Department of Homeland Security.
And if you think Microsoft has already releases a huge number of patches
this year, you're right -- a record
number, in fact.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 10, 20061 comments
Because
it's so
popular, Microsoft is expanding the Windows Genuine Advantage program
to
PC makers and (get ready) system builders!
Got any thoughts about WGA heading your way (again)? Tell me here or
at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 10, 20060 comments
Crank up that Google OS rumor mill again. More than a year after
luring
a key Windows architect, Google has snapped up Andrew Morton, a Linux
guru sometimes referred to as Linus
Torvalds'
right-hand man.
Also, in the land of bored teens and bad rock bands, Google has plunked
a chunk of money down on being the search and ad engine for MySpace, causing
much consternation, no doubt, among Microsoft
search types.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 08, 20060 comments
From the files of "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" (for fans of really old Saturday Night Live episodes),
here’s an article telling us that Microsoft will continue to buy security companies in its quest to build a well-rounded offering.
Goodness! Next thing you know, we’ll find out that Redmond has business interests outside of Windows and Office...
This does present a good opportunity, though, to pass on some revealing reader feedback about Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft’s competitor to Symantec’s Norton Antivirus. Apparently the two aren’t playing together well. Robbi writes:
"I have been an advocate of Symantec’s products for years and have never had it fail me. Recently I had to purchase a new computer and I, of course, put on my Norton SystemWorks software, including the Internet Security & Firewall package. I then went to install the new MSN Messenger off the Web page and with it was a free trial of Microsoft Live OneCare, so I thought I’d try it out. It worked fine for a couple of days until I put on another program and had to restart the computer; that is when things started going sour. Every time the computer restarted, I would get a blue screen with error messages about the Norton GoBack program failing. It would take me literally an hour to get it to boot fully, usually with several restores (GoBack) until I could get to a point that would work. It is a nightmare. So now I am extremely careful about how I put on new programs and restart my system. I would unload the Live OneCare, but I like the back-up program that came with it and Windows Defender for the anti-spyware.
"The back-up program in OneCare is much easier to work with than Norton’s. Both of them run great as long as you don’t do a manual live update on Norton SystemWorks because now I come up with errors on the system redirector files. When my subscription is up on Norton, it is going to be very difficult to decide whether I buy both or ditz one or the other of them."
Posted by Lee Pender on August 03, 20060 comments
It’s a list that would have made
Carnac the Magnificent proud, but it doesn’t have much of a punch line. In fact, Gates was selected, along with a strange myriad of historical figures, by a state-run newspaper as
one of 50 foreigners shaping China’s modern development.
There’s no word yet on how Gates feels about being on the list, but maybe a Norwegian reporter can make one up for us, since he’s already done a fake interview with Microsoft’s main man.
Or maybe we could get the word from the guy who’s creating all the buzz in Silicon Valley, the fake Steve Jobs, whose "secret diary" has everybody wondering who’s pinning the Apple honcho’s inner thoughts. (Warning, there are a few dirty words in there....)
Speaking of China, I got a few responses to my blog entry about U.S. companies’ "principles" in doing business over there.
.
Frank wrote, unambiguously: "They are in the wrong side and sooner or later they will pay for their betrayal."
As long as they make money now, though, Frank, they’ll be happy.
Bruce, on the other hand, points out that customers have always been able to do whatever they like with technology, so technology providers aren’t necessarily to blame:
"I think Amnesty International needs to rethink this statement. The sophisticated technology was designed for its biggest customer -- BUSINESS. Sure, countries buy the equipment but my guess is businesses buy and use the majority of equipment and deploy those features in self defense. Those companies sell equipment with certain capabilities; it's up to the end user to configure those features as they see fit."
A very valid point, actually.
And speaking of Gates, Mike took exception to my recent description of his charity work:
"I know you spend a lot of time trying to be insightful or cute, and much of it is a bit of both, but the following comment from the 7/27/06 edition is neither: '...as Bill Gates transitions into full-time savior of the world.' There is significant responsibility for those with wealth, and even more so for those with piles of it like Gates and Warren Buffett (about time he came around). Flippant comments like that serve no purpose and actually detract from a somewhat useful newsletter. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for someone who is willing to quit his day job, which has made him rich beyond his wildest imagination, and run a philanthropic foundation that brings so much good to so many. We need more compassion, not less, and mocking it says more about you than you’d probably care to know. A couple of different words would have been neutral and not hinted at anything: '...as Bill Gates transitions into running his foundation full-time.' Maybe it was your desire to use four fewer letters. Yea, that must be it."
Mike, you make a good point. I’m certainly an admirer of Gates’ charity work myself and wasn’t trying to belittle it (or him) in any way. It really was just a cute little throwaway comment that I made, not anything intended to be a statement -- and especially not a negative statement. But I do appreciate you pointing out the fact that it could easily have been misinterpreted.
Just one thing, though, Mike -- when have you ever known me to try to use fewer letters?
Got anything else on your mind? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 03, 20061 comments