It was interesting enough that Microsoft announced this week a
deal with Red Hat
for virtualization interoperability.
We're fans of interoperability here, as are most partners and users, so we're receiving the announcement as good news -- as is the new incarnation of ZDNet's terrifying three-headed blog. And who would want to argue with that beast?
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Posted by Lee Pender on February 17, 20090 comments
Yes, Microsoft is going to open its version of Apple stores -- a
retail store
full of Microsoft stuff. This is the sort of thing that might have really upset resellers maybe a decade ago, but now that most channel players are more consultants and integrators than pure resellers, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. In any case, we find it a bit funny that both Microsoft and Apple -- two companies that have always tried to be on the edge of innovation -- have gone running back to the old-school brick-and-mortar model in order to compete with each other.
Posted by Lee Pender on February 17, 20090 comments
In case you missed it (and, um, we almost did), IBM this week
bolstered its cloud computing efforts
by creating a new division for the technology and appointing Erich Clementi, who was already doing a bunch of other stuff in Armonk, as its head. See an awkwardly extreme close-up of Clementi, along with a pretty good explanation of what's going on,
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Posted by Lee Pender on February 12, 20090 comments
We're guessing that partners will like the distributor's new 60-day financing and leasing programs. Check out the details in a fairly well-written Tech Data press release
here
.
Posted by Lee Pender on February 12, 20090 comments
We took a rare foray into
Windows Mobile
this week -- a bit of a detour from the enterprise-software-heavy content partners are used to here. And what do you know? Somebody cared enough about Windows Mobile to write to us. That somebody was Mark, and here's what he had to say:
"I realize that you need to be a good little Microsoft cheerleader to keep the Microsoft advertising revenue coming, but let's face reality please!"
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Posted by Lee Pender on February 12, 20093 comments
Oooh, it was such a tease after the drudgery of Vista. But if you missed the Windows 7 beta, you're too late.
It's gone
. You'll just have to wait for the next release...and keep using XP for now.
Posted by Lee Pender on February 11, 20090 comments
The maker of Firefox would be more than happy to help the EU
take down IE
. Imagine that.
Posted by Lee Pender on February 11, 20091 comments
We heard a story some time ago from someone -- we can't remember who -- about chatting with a friend who worked for Microsoft. The storyteller suggested that the Microsoft employee Google something, at which time the Redmond wage earner shot back, "Don't you mean Live Search it?"
Um, no. We don't. Because despite Microsoft's best efforts, Google is still synonymous with search, at least for consumers. But that other category of search -- enterprise search, or finding data that's tucked away in various corners of a company's IT infrastructure -- doesn't quite belong to Google yet.
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Posted by Lee Pender on February 11, 20090 comments
It's not often that we write much about Windows Mobile here, but the teetering OS -- which doesn't enjoy anywhere near the market share of its desktop counterpart and has been struggling recently -- topped the news early this week, so here we are.
There's much to say, actually, so here's a little wrap. First off, Microsoft is announcing a new service that lets users synchronize their devices with the Web. Called MyPhone, it sounds a lot like -- maybe even exactly like -- Google's Google Sync product, which the search giant created in part by licensing Microsoft's ActiveSync technology.
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Posted by Lee Pender on February 10, 20090 comments
Green IT, generally speaking, remains more hype than reality, and Microsoft -- unlike, say, IBM -- hasn't exactly been taking the lead in selling green technology to customers. But
this week's release
of the Environmental Sustainability Dashboard for the Dynamics AX enterprise resource planning suite is a big step in the green direction in Redmond. (And if you're scoring along at home, letter fans, that's the ESD for the Dynamics AX ERP suite.)
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Posted by Lee Pender on February 10, 20090 comments
Sometimes the collision of news and comedy is so spectacular, so earth-shattering, that mere jokes don't suffice in the face of raw hilarity.
We believe that we've experienced such a collision this week, with the infamous Conficker virus having struck the French military and effectively grounding the French Air Force. (For ceux qui parlent français, you can read about the whole thing here in French, in a blog posting in which the word "Conficker" is spelled no fewer than three different ways.)
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Posted by Lee Pender on February 10, 20090 comments
The Gospels, the Beatles, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse...and now
Microsoft patches
. It's a nice, even number this week: 4.
Posted by Lee Pender on February 10, 20090 comments