Report Says Vista SP2 To Be Delayed

If accurate, this news will come as a terrible shock to the 35 people who are anxiously awaiting Vista SP2. Just kidding; it's probably more like 50. No, no -- kidding again. Hey, with Windows 7 on the horizon, we've got to get our Vista jokes in while we can.

Posted by Lee Pender on January 22, 20092 comments


IBM Scores with Earnings

A ray of sunshine in this stormy economy, IBM is apparently rolling in it these days.

Posted by Lee Pender on January 22, 20090 comments


Inaugural Reader Feedback

Last week, in the spirit of the peaceful transition of leadership in this country (no small thing, actually), we drew some parallels between Windows 7 and Barack Obama...and between Vista and George W. Bush.

We were only making those comparisons in terms of the relative popularity of the operating systems and presidents. We certainly weren't trying to make a political statement or any value judgments. (In other words, we weren't Bush-bashing...seriously.) We generally stay away from national and international politics here unless we're ripping on the EU. The EU is always fair game.

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Posted by Lee Pender on January 22, 20090 comments


Microsoft's Financial Troubles: The Wrath of Vista?

It was kind of like finding out that a person who's been in the hospital for an extended period of time has finally expired. It wasn't unexpected -- it was inevitable, actually, and anticipated -- but when the news landed it still hit with the sudden jolt of a rock on a windshield. All that's left to do now is assess the damage. 

Microsoft just spat the bad news out today, eschewing its usual post-market-close earnings announcement timing and instead deciding to drop a dead fly in the industry's morning coffee. The company announced layoffs and disappointing earnings, the pertinent details of which are recounted superbly by Redmond Developer News' Jeff Schwartz here. The bottom line? Layoffs, 5,000 of them in the next 18 months, with 1,400 of those coming today. Oh, and earnings that missed expectations.

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Posted by Lee Pender on January 22, 20093 comments


Citrix To Rock 'Bare Metal' Hypervisor

We'd like to thank Citrix and Intel for revealing this week that they've been working on what they're calling a "bare metal" hypervisor that'll be optimized for Intel technology.

Oh, we're sure it'll be a fine product, but the tag "bare metal," aside from sounding like name of a nudist hard rock band, gave us a great excuse to troll YouTube for old heavy metal videos and call it work. So, before we go on, let's set some background music.

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Posted by Lee Pender on January 21, 20091 comments


Microsoft To Miss Earnings Numbers?

Some analysts are predicting that this week's earnings report won't be a positive one for Microsoft. We'll have more about Microsoft's earnings on RCPmag.com after Thursday's announcement and (probably) even more in next week's RCPU.

Posted by Lee Pender on January 21, 20090 comments


Redmond Consolidates Online Teams

Live Mesh is going to, uh, mesh with Live Services.

Posted by Lee Pender on January 21, 20092 comments


Microsoft Cutting Back Expansion Plans

No pink slips yet, but Microsoft won't be expanding at the rate it had planned. Lousy economy...

Posted by Lee Pender on January 21, 20091 comments


Microsoft Rolls Out Desktop Virtualization Beta

From the in-case-you-missed-it file, it's MED-V ! But not everybody's so impressed thus far. Virtualization Review 's Keith Ward weighs in . (Chapeau to Doug Barney, who also More

Posted by Lee Pender on January 20, 20091 comments


Nortel Bankrupt But Not Dead

We received an e-mail from Alejandro at Nortel last week:

"Nortel is not bankrupt, but we had to go through several internal sessions yesterday to understand Chapter 11. The goal is to protect you from creditors to restructure debt and the company structure.

"I understand your article. Most of the media captured bankruptcy. Only a few added bankruptcy 'protection' to the headline. We clarified this to several partners and customers and received their support to do business as usual."

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Posted by Lee Pender on January 20, 20092 comments


IBM's Lotus Goes Live for SaaS Apps

Microsoft owns the desktop (for now). Google owns the Web (also for now). But this Software-as-a-Service stuff is wide open, and a huge player kicked up its pace in the SaaS race this week.

IBM unveiled LotusLive this week in Orlando at -- where else? -- Lotusphere. LotusLive is a hosted collaboration suite that includes pretty much everything you would think it would include -- e-mail, file sharing and various online collaboration bits. It slots in competitively, more or less, with Windows Live and maybe a bit with Google Apps as well.

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Posted by Lee Pender on January 20, 20092 comments


EU Goes Old-School with Microsoft IE Allegations

Haven't we been through this before? Like, a long time ago? And didn't Microsoft lose...but not really lose? Well, that was all in the U.S., and the EU doesn't care about that. And now the EU competition folks, who have dogged Microsoft for years, are back on Redmond's case, claiming that Internet Explorer might just infringe on antitrust laws More

Posted by Lee Pender on January 20, 20092 comments