Redmond magazine Editor Doug Barney mentioned this in his newsletter, and it caught our eye. Apparently, Microsoft has patented a technology that will let manufacturers control operating system upgrades and which software applications can be installed on an OS.
No, seriously! Check it out. Here's our favorite paragraph from the story:
"'Virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system,' the patent complains. Consequently, apps or devices may not operate due to compatibility issues and many end users will associate those malfunctions with the manufacturer."
In other words, we got so sick of hearing about stuff not working with Vista, we just decided that we'd control what you could and couldn't install in Windows. Take that, you whiny users!
OK, that's probably not fair. Microsoft hasn't said what it plans to do -- if anything -- with this technology, so we don't know what form it will take or when or whether it'll appear. And, as Doug points out, it could be useful in an enterprise setting to have an OS that doesn't allow users to just install whatever strikes their fancy.
But, partners, who would you rather have controlling your customers' OS: you, your customers themselves or Microsoft? Actually, we'd love to have an answer to that question at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on May 28, 20091 comments
Actually, we're just including this story because we love the phrase "boatloads of money," and apparently the Yahoo CEO does, too.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 28, 20090 comments
Since Ford (admirably) declined federal bailout money, and since your editor's parents have a Ford wagon they love, we're going to skip the "Fix or Repair Daily" joke that would have gone so well with this entry.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 28, 20090 comments
Apparently Microsoft is considering naming its new search engine Bing. No, seriously. Of course, the first thing that came to mind when we read this was the Bada Bing club on "The Sopranos," but since there aren't many images related to the Bada Bing that are appropriate for a family newsletter (and, in case our HR folks were wondering, yes, that was research for work), we'll just give you a picture of Tony.
But if you think that's all you're getting, you haven't been reading RCPU for long. No way could we let this opportunity go by without posting a Bing Crosby clip. In this case, it's an absolute drop-dead classic from the old "Tonight Show" in 1975 (thank you, YouTube), when Bob Hope, Der Bingel himself and John freaking Wayne(!) showed up to rib guest host Don Rickles just a little bit. (Seriously, John Wayne. Is there any current star that can come close to living up to his stature as an icon? We're going to say no.) Ol' Bing gets off a pretty good one-liner, too. This was TV that was actually worth watching.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 27, 20091 comments
Yes, Vista SP2 is out, and in the interest of not kicking an OS when it's down, we're not going to make any snide remarks, such as, "As if anybody cares about this" or "If you're actually using Vista..." Nope, nothing like that. Not at all.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 27, 20090 comments
For today, we are -- actually, I am -- dropping the RCPU tradition of using the first-person plural and switching to good ol' first-person singular because I'm going to share a few personal experiences with you. And, yes, we're going to talk about netbooks. Again. But hang on -- there's a reason why.
It's true that I'm somewhat enamored with my netbook (which, for the record, runs XP). It's great for everyday use -- my old laptop serves mostly as a storage device now -- and was fantastic on a recent trip home to Dallas. Instead of lugging a laptop bag with a seven-pound monster inside it, I zipped my three-pound machine (a touch on the heavy side for a netbook, actually) in the neoprene case that came with it and tossed it in my carry-on, a trusty LL Bean backpack that has seen action from Rotterdam to Rhode Island.
I breezed through airport security, surfed with ease at airport pubs (and almost missed my flight) and generally felt light as a feather, which is not a feeling that comes easily to me. Netbooks are great -- to me, anyway -- because they fill a gap between relatively expensive portable devices that don't have keyboards and aren't great for typing (and I type a lot, as you know by now), and full-fledged laptops that are heavy, cumbersome and, well, also relatively expensive.
I'm not a gamer, and I don't run massive publishing or design programs, so a browser, e-mail client and productivity suite are just about all I ever need -- and all three run just fine simultaneously on my little machine. Of course, a lot of you know this stuff already, as netbooks are becoming one of the hotter commodities of the PC market.
That last bit, of course, has mostly been bad news for Microsoft, which charges relatively little for the copies of XP it sells to netbook makers and therefore doesn't make much of a profit margin on those copies. So when news leaked this week -- and, as I write this, it's all still unconfirmed by Microsoft -- that Microsoft is trying to define exactly what a netbook is for Windows 7 purposes, nobody was particularly surprised. Redmond magazine columnist Mary Jo Foley explains it all, as usual.
Without getting too bogged down in details, a "leaked" Microsoft document -- again, this is unconfirmed stuff, but it comes from Tech ARP, usually a reliable source -- suggests that Microsoft will not classify anything with a screen larger than 10.2 inches as a netbook. There are some other not insignificant metrics included (in particular, the part about 1MB of RAM) in the clandestine document, but the point is that some of the new 11.6- and 12.1-inch-screen machines that are coming out will be notebooks in Microsoft's view (and Intel's, if you believe a fair number of reports) and not netbooks.
That means that Microsoft allegedly won't let those larger machines go out with cheap copies of Windows 7 on them. OEMs will have to pay the full Windows 7 price, apparently, in order to load the OS on those machines, and they won't get access to some of the lower-level Windows 7 editions that'll be targeted at netbooks. Of course, OEMs having to pony up more for Windows 7 will potentially wipe out one of the most significant advantages netbooks have over standard laptops: they're cheap.
In many cases, this won't be a big deal. Most netbooks that fit solidly into the category -- including mine -- have 10.2-inch screens (or even smaller), anyway. But the line between netbook and notebook is blurring, and some manufacturers are releasing somewhat larger machines and calling them netbooks -- and pricing them that way. Mostly, that means sticking a price tag of $400 or less on them. That's actually a lot cheaper than the standard entry-level notebook, which I personally found in my comparison shopping to run at least $500 and usually closer to $650 or so.
Now, those notebooks have more memory, faster processors and more capabilities than netbooks, but the whole point of a netbook is to be simple and cheap, and to serve the needs of folks who browse, e-mail and type a document now and then, and don't do a whole lot else. Netbooks are what technology is supposed to be -- a cheaper, simpler, lighter version of a familiar device.
So, by (allegedly) making OEMs pay a notebook price for Windows 7 on a netbook, Microsoft and Intel would actually be taking a technology that's getting simpler and cheaper and make it artificially more expensive so that they can try to get some of their margins back. That sub-$400 price tag that makes netbooks so attractive might be awfully hard to maintain if an OEM has to pay exponentially more for Windows 7 on a 12.1-inch netbook than for the OS on a 10.2-inch model. All of that seems to run counter to some extent to Moore's Law, and to a great extent to the broader notion that technology should progressively become simpler, cheaper and more accessible (which, I'm pretty sure, is a by-product of Moore's Law).
Now, for enterprise partners -- especially those that are trying to make a living selling hardware -- the potential Microsoft pricing gambit might not be the worst thing in the world if it keeps prices high and margins relatively fat. Or it might. I've asked the question before about whether netbooks (and Linux) might eventually invade the enterprise, and thus far, nobody has called me crazy. In fact, one reader actually thought I was on to something.
At some point, if Windows doesn't bring enough value for the money it costs, consumers and companies are going to stop paying for it just because they always have and don't know what else to do. There is competition for Windows on netbooks -- from Linux, potentially from portable devices and, apparently, from (get this) Intel! If you haven't heard of Moblin, read all about it here and then do some head-scratching as to why Intel might be so keen to see Microsoft bully OEMs on Windows 7 pricing for netbooks. Hmm...
RCPU has long defended many of Microsoft's business practices, and nothing Redmond might allegedly be doing here seems to be at all illegal. The question is whether it's good for the industry long term, and the answer to that question seems to be no. Surely there's a better way to figure out how to make money on netbooks than by simply making them cost more and taking away much of their appeal.
It's all enough to make me want to run Linux, and I never really thought I'd say that.
What's your take on netbooks? Do you think Microsoft is out of line with its potential pricing strategy for Windows 7? Do you have a positive or negative netbook experience you want to share? Share it at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on May 27, 20094 comments
The long-time partners will spend $180 million on marketing, services and development for the category formerly known as Unified Communications, which apparently has picked up another "C" and is now being tabbed Unified Communications and Collaboration. We're still not sure exactly how to define UC, or UCC, but we're more comfortable with it knowing that the abbreviation for it has picked up that critical third letter.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 20, 20090 comments
If you could go behind the scenes at RCPU, you would find that we're big fans of Google News (sorry, Microsoft), particularly the "Sci/Tech" news feed. It's easy to tell how much news is flowing around the technology industry by looking at Google's Sci/Tech aggregation. It's the newsletter writer's not-so-secret weapon.
Some days, there are headlines bursting in Sci/Tech about Microsoft and other big vendors. Other days -- like this week thus far -- the headlines run more Sci than Tech, with offerings along the lines of "Don't Mess with Mockingbirds" and "Komodo Dragons Have Venomous Bite." Those were two actual headlines that popped up as we prepared today's newsletter, and while we did open the "venomous bite" story just to make sure it wasn't about European Union regulators, we figured that stories about birds and lizards in Google News's Sci/Tech section signaled a slow news week for the industry. (Oh, and by the way, mockingbirds really are mean. Seriously, don't mess with them.)
And then we ran across a little item about mega-distributor Tech Data. Apparently Tech Data is going to do what the government itself hasn't done such a great job of doing: It's going to keep track of where funds from the federal stimulus package are going.
Some of the hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money that are going into the economy have to be spent on IT, right? And if there's IT money just floating around out there, partners surely should be able to pocket some of it for their services, right? Tech Data figures as much and aims to let the channel know in which directions the money is flowing -- in other words, how, where and on what the government and the organizations that receive stimulus money are spending it. The idea is to track the money by geography, vertical markets and even methods of purchase.
Public-sector partners will be the channel players most interested in this resource; in fact, it's aimed at them, which comes as no surprise. But we think the whole idea is pretty handy, and we'll be impressed if Tech Data can manage to blaze a money trail and show which funds are going where and how partners can grab some of them.
Check out the Web Resource Center here. The mildly long-winded press release about the operation is here. We at RCPU give this idea an enthusiastic thumbs-up and wish Tech Data and the partners who will benefit from it good luck with the whole project. What better place to jump-start the economy than right here in the IT channel?
How will the stimulus package affect your business? Are you expecting to be able to profit from it? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on May 20, 20090 comments
There's an old expression about the cobbler's children never having shoes, and it seems relevant to technology newsletter editors -- or, at least, to this one. Given that RCPU doesn't really do reviews, we don't get a lot of new technology thrown our way for free (which is OK; we're not asking for any). But that means that any new software we get is stuff we buy ourselves, so we tend to hang onto the old stuff for as long as possible.
That's why, prior to purchasing his now-cherished netbook, your editor had spent only a limited amount of time with Office 2007, despite the fact that the latest version of the money-spinning suite obviously isn't new anymore. However, in the netbook era, the ribbon interface has now wrapped itself around the little laptop's 10-inch screen. To be perfectly honest, Office 2007 is taking some getting used to, as many of you who aren't metaphorical cobbler's children have known for a while now.
So it was with some trepidation that we read today about Office 2010 leaking onto the Web. (Redmond contributor and friend of RCPU Mary Jo Foley has lots of details here.) We at RCPU are just now getting used to the old new interface, and now another new one -- albeit not as radical a change as from Office 2003 to Office 2007 -- is already on the way. All of this is happening just when we had figured out where the "Undo" command is in Office 2007. OK, we still don't know where it is, but fortunately we remember the keyboard combination (Ctrl-Z).
Anyway, if you're curious to know what Office 2010 is going to be all about, there are loads of screenshots floating about online. It looks mostly like what we expected. In fact, Dennis Green might say that it is what we thought it was, except using somewhat saltier language. (By the way, we're not saying that we used this entry as an excuse to watch coach rants on YouTube...but we're also not saying we didn't.)
What we want to know from you is what you want and need from Office 2010. How important is it to your business? Which features would you like to see kept or dumped from Office 2007 or Office 2003? What would you like to see added to 2010 that hasn't been part of Office yet? Send your rant to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on May 19, 20092 comments
The Avis of the security market has teamed with the storage titan to take on Symantec's lucrative online backup business.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 19, 20090 comments