Being the security giant that it is, Symantec has been providing endpoint security -- making sure, for instance, that nobody sneaks stuff into or out of an enterprise network improperly on a laptop or memory stick or whatever -- for a while now. This week, the mega-vendor took the notion a step further and launched new endpoint-protection capabilities into the cloud. (Oh, OK, so "launched into the cloud" isn't the cleverest turn of phrase you've ever read in RCPU. It's been raining here in Greater Boston for days on end, and our phrase-turning abilities rely on some amount of sunshine. Speaking of clouds...)
Symantec Managed Endpoint Protection Services takes endpoint protection to new heights (better?), adding hosted monitoring and management capabilities: "In the same way we're able to monitor network-based security incidents, the service will allow us to monitor what's occurring at endpoints," explained Grant Geyer, vice president of managed services for Symantec, in a chat with RCPU this week.
In other words, if something is amiss with an endpoint device security-wise, Symantec can find the problem and alert the customer. And on top of the monitoring component Geyer mentions, Symantec can also manage the endpoint-security system in the cloud so that a company doesn't have to pay IT pros to do that work. Geyer says that the management capability will be especially helpful for companies that are losing headcount (or need to lose headcount) due to budget cuts and don't want to dedicate IT folks to keeping endpoint security up to date.
Architecturally speaking, Symantec deploys a software package (including the Symantec Endpoint Protection software product) at a customer's site. The package includes a management console and a small agent. The agent reports back to Symantec's datacenter via the Internet, allowing the vendor to remotely handle threat monitoring. The product's management capabilities are hosted, too -- Symantec can, via the cloud, log into a customer's system at any hour should a problem arise and can also provide services such as lifecycle management and configuration management.
Thanks to Endpoint Protection Services' hosted management capabilities, "the customer may not need to take a trip into the office at 3 a.m. on a Saturday," Geyer said. Also, since it's just the management and monitoring services that are hosted, companies that decide to ditch the hosted services can keep the security software (such as Endpoint Protection) that they've implemented on-site and not lose any of their up-front investment.
It sounds like a pretty nifty offering altogether, a more comprehensible and perhaps more useful version of what Microsoft might call Software Plus Services. But how do partners fit in? Symantec has a popular partner program, but the opportunities for the channel around this new service seem a bit slim at first blush.
Geyer said that partners can provide deployment services...if they have enough expertise in deploying Symantec applications. (Symantec will also provide deployment and consulting services.) However, the hosting will be Symantec's domain, he said, and that doesn't seem to leave partners in line for the kind of recurring revenue stream that can make the cloud model attractive to the channel.
Symantec will offer its hosted management and monitoring services on a subscription basis, of course, and while Geyer said that the company would charge by blocs of 2,500 users -- this stuff is for big enterprises, not for SMBs -- he didn't put a dollar figure on how much companies would pay per month for the services. Geyer assured us that, given that we're talking cloud computing here and that cloud computing is all about saving money and resources, Managed Endpoint Protection Services will be a good deal for customers.
For partners, it's harder to say how good a deal it will end up being. Uncertainty has been a major part of the cloud-computing picture for the channel thus far, and this new service seems to offer more of the same. Nevertheless, Symantec has not generally been the type of company to leave its partners out in the rain (see, another "cloud" reference...not bad, huh?). We'll have to see whether that changes or not with this new cloud offering.
What's your take on Symantec moving endpoint security into the cloud? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 23, 20090 comments
All of this looks pretty cheesy at first glance, but then again, we are talking about Microsoft here...
Posted by Lee Pender on June 18, 20090 comments
Remember that Google Apps Sync thing (the one we call GAS, very unofficially) that we told you about last week, which was supposed to spell the death of Exchange or something along equally extreme lines? Well, it turns out that it's already giving Microsoft problems...by messing up Outlook. It looks as though GAS stinks so far (oh, come on, we couldn't not do it).
Posted by Lee Pender on June 18, 20091 comments
Apparently, Microsoft is considering charging netbook makers way more for Windows 7 than it charges now for XP, which could eat into netbook manufacturers' profit margins. After all, as the linked article notes, low price is a major benefit of buying a netbook, so OEMs can't just tack an extra $50 onto the price of something that only costs maybe $300 to begin with.
Well, they could, but then they'd have to work hard to differentiate between the netbook and the low-end standard laptop -- something Microsoft surely knows, as the company seems to have little love for netbooks and lots of love for higher-end laptops that offer bigger profit margins on Windows. Microsoft might want to watch out here, though. It's not just old foe Linux (or expensive foe Apple) that's competing for netbook operating-system market share. Intel and Google are also jumping into the mix, and while they obviously don't have the gravitas of Windows behind them, they usually don't do things halfway.
Not only is Windows 7 not a sure-thing seller on netbooks, we're willing to say that Windows itself won't be, either, if Microsoft makes the OS too expensive for OEMs and messes with the basic pricing structure of netbooks. Netbooks are like laptops, but they're not laptops -- they're a different category of device, and Windows doesn't necessarily conquer every new device that comes out. Need an example of that? Think Windows Mobile.
Have you considered selling netbooks to your customers or using them in your business? We love this topic at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 17, 20098 comments
How '90s is this? The EU is still bugging Microsoft about Internet Explorer, proposing that Windows 7 should come with a raft of different browsers from which users could choose. Microsoft's answer? Well, we might politely call it a raised digit here in the U.S.: No browser for you, Europe.
Seriously, Microsoft is saying that Windows 7 in Europe won't have a browser included at all, although the company says that there will be a way for users to get a browser should they, you know, want one. Of course, the vast majority of Windows 7 machines sold will have some sort of browser on them -- possibly more than one -- likely bundled by an OEM.
And maybe that's not a bad way to handle things. Take the browser decision out of the hands of both Microsoft and other browser makers, and let OEMs decide what they load on their machines. As for which browser(s) OEMs choose, well, there will no doubt be a back-room deal or two cut for that. We can't imagine who might have an advantage there...
In any case, the predominant take here is that a browser-less Windows 7 will make upgrading a huge pain. But, if we're honest, the reason we linked to that last article is because we find the image in it hilarious.
This is another entry altogether (and it probably will be one of these days), but we've never really figured out why industry types obsess so much about browsers and browser market share. How are these things even monetize-able (if that's even a word)? They're free, after all. We understand very well how companies make money through advertising, Web-based services, cloud services and the like, but the browser...well, it just seems like a shop window rather than something you'd buy in the shop itself: Important, maybe, but in the end really not that big of a deal revenue-wise. But we digress. Again.
What's your take on the browser market? Do you care about it at all? Send your feelings to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 17, 20093 comments
Another week, another big vendor touting a "cloud" strategy that's about as clear as...well, as a cloud itself. This week, it's IBM, which still gets keyboard keys clicking madly whenever it does anything (and, given IBM's size and reach, we understand why).
The New York Times -- not surprisingly, given that both organizations are kind of old-school -- got IBM's gift of a "scoop" on the cloud story and dutifully ran an article on Monday morning trying to explain the whole thing. Here it is for the intrepid among us.
From what we can tell, IBM is touting a lot of virtualization and some server stacks that are pre-built to handle certain business tasks or processes. There's some stuff, we gather, that'll run in an IBM datacenter, our at least outside a company's walls. However, a lot of what IBM seems to be offering with CloudBurst (yet another technology moniker with words that are SquishedTogether) is on-premises hardware that companies can use to build an internal cloud. (Here's the clearest take we've seen yet on CloudBurst.)
Hardware Plus Services, anybody? We're getting the strong feeling that IBM has taken a Microsoft approach to cloud computing: offer up some true cloud stuff, but make sure not to cannibalize those precious software (or, in IBM's case, hardware) revenues that keep the bottom line black. Oh, and throw in plenty of services, too.
The take in many, maybe most, quarters is that IBM is legitimizing cloud computing with CloudBurst the way it legitimized the PC and Linux. (Forgive us for an eye roll here. Yes, IBM's influence is important, but it's hardly the sole driver of which technologies get picked up by the enterprise masses and which don't.)
But is CloudBurst even cloud computing? Does it do what cloud computing is meant to do? And, more importantly, does it cost as little as cloud computing is supposed to cost (that is to say, very little, billed as a monthly or yearly subscription fee)? Consider this (from the article linked):
"IBM CloudBurst V1.1 costs $207,387 without discounts and ships in four days time. CloudBurst, it claims, is a complete cloud computing package that can deliver a virtual machine in support of different types of workloads."
Wait...it costs what, now? (We love the "without discounts" part, by the way. It's just funny for some reason when the price tag tops $200K. It's sort of like talking about a discount on a Ferrari or something.) That sounds like a lot of money compared to cloud services that cost more like $99 per user per month, if that...often much less.
We have no doubt that CloudBurst will be a powerful and useful offering for companies interested in being their own cloud providers, but what about smaller firms that just want to dump everything on somebody else, write a check every month (figuratively speaking) and not really have any kind of IT staff? We're not seeing much for them in CloudBurst, and we kind of thought they were the primary target for cloud computing. But then maybe our vision is (hands up, all of you who recognize this as an old Pink Floyd album)...obscured by clouds.
Do you have a take on IBM's cloud announcement? Send it to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 16, 20090 comments
Dell has been trying to ingratiate itself to a skeptical channel for a couple of years now, but this might not be the best way to do it: the PC manufacturer has started selling Microsoft products for download online.
Sure, the deal makes sense for Microsoft, which is trying to get its basic stuff -- at this point, we're talking Office primarily -- into as many people's hands as possible as efficiently as possible. Dell has a huge Web-sales presence, after all (not that partners need to be reminded of that). And it makes sense that Dell, which is undercutting the prices at Microsoft's own online store by a pretty big chunk, would want to get its hands on some of the revenue that Microsoft's software staples can generate.
Of course, most partners aren't making their living off of selling Office, anyway, and those who are had better find a way to diversify their revenue streams immediately. Furthermore, there might very well be opportunities for some channel players -- big distributors, for instance -- to also sell Office online at some point. So, Dell selling Office online really isn't a big deal for Microsoft partners.
Still, it's a gesture on both companies' parts that isn't exactly warm toward the channel, which is still, after all, Microsoft's sales force. With both companies wanting to keep partners happy, they might have some explaining -- or, at least, some hand-holding -- to do in the near future. Dell, in particular, is going to have to do some creative spinning if it wants to continue to cuddle up to partners, many of whom still feel betrayed by the one-time direct-sales champion. But that's why those marketing and PR people make the big bucks, we suppose.
What's your take on Dell selling Office online? Send it to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 16, 20090 comments
Remember OneCare? (We'll wait for the laughter to die down and for the cringing to stop.) Yeah, well, Microsoft is just about ready to give anti-virus software another go. But this time, it'll be free.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 11, 20090 comments
Office 2007 might not have set the enterprise world on fire, but Office 2010 still could...and it looks as though neither Google nor anybody else is going to steal any significant portion of the forthcoming suite's momentum (or market share).
Posted by Lee Pender on June 11, 20090 comments
Now we're seeing how Google could be a serious threat to Microsoft in the enterprise. For a long time, Google seemed more bogeyman than real monster, an obvious power in search but not such a big deal when it came to actually selling to businesses and threatening the Microsoft channel. Google Apps has hardly made a dent in Microsoft Office's market share, and much of what Google has offered for the enterprise thus far has really come off to a lot of IT folks as cheap and simple but not quite useful enough.
However, products that are starting to change all that are trickling out. While we're still resisting being soaked by the hype surrounding Google Wave (in large part because the product doesn't yet exist), the don't-be-evil company's latest threat to Redmond, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, is available and is, well, a real threat.
Basically, GAS for Outlook (OK, Google doesn't call it that, but we think the name is at least memorable), now a part of the $50-per-user-per-year Google Apps business suite, lets users get their e-mail in Outlook but cuts Exchange out of the process altogether. That is to say that the Outlook interface will be there for the sake of familiarity, but instead of running an e-mail back end on Exchange, companies will be able to run it in Google's hosted environment.
This model cuts to the heart of one of Microsoft's most powerful competitive arguments, the notion that most people are familiar with Microsoft stuff and don't want to learn to use something else. Well, for the end user, nothing changes with GAS for Outlook. But for the administrator, a lot of things change: Exchange in-house is (potentially) history, while Google takes over running e-mail in what is likely to be a cheaper, albeit probably less controllable, hosted environment.
Of course, the likely real victim here from Microsoft's (and partners') perspective is Exchange Online, the fledgling hosted-Exchange service that Microsoft and some of its channel members offer. Microsoft will either have to demonstrate that Exchange Online just works better than Google's hosted service (and all the other Microsoft stuff in the infrastructure), or it'll come down to a price war...and that latter scenario is not a good one for partners.
And then there's old-school in-house Exchange, which is still a major revenue driver in Redmond and in the channel. It has the advantage of being the incumbent in a lot of organizations, but it also has the disadvantage of being relatively expensive to operate and maintain. The questions that always come with a hosted model are, of course, still going to be present with GAS, with issues surrounding downtime, compliance and controllability (yes, it's a word -- spell check recognizes it) likely at the top of the list.
But if GAS turns out to be a workable and much less expensive alternative to in-house Exchange, it could make a serious dent in Microsoft's share in that market -- and in partners' revenues. And it could set up, should business actually commit en masse to moving to hosted e-mail, a battle royale between GAS and Exchange Online, in an arena in which Microsoft would be the underdog, not the overwhelming favorite.
Is Google evil? That's hard to say. Is it a threat to Microsoft? It is now...and we get the feeling that this is just the start.
How big of a threat do you consider Google's new sync application to be? How big of a deal is Exchange for you right now? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on June 11, 20092 comments
Microsoft got a little bump in market share from the launch of its obviously crooner-inspired search engine. (Seriously, would it be too much to ask to have one of those background pictures on the search page be of Mr. Crosby?)
Posted by Lee Pender on June 10, 20092 comments
Surely somebody must have seen the little red line under the name of Microsoft's new Dublin-based start-up spin-off, InishTech. Somebody go change that "n" to an "r" before the logos get sewn on the corporate dress shirts.
Posted by Lee Pender on June 10, 20092 comments