The Browser Business Model

Let's just jump ahead a few years -- maybe more than a few, maybe not -- into a world in which Software as a Service (SaaS) has made the operating system a commodity, if not totally obsolete.

This doesn't really take that much imagination, does it? What with Google Chrome lining up against IE and Firefox (and Safari, we suppose), it's clear -- and has been for a while, really -- that the forthcoming battle in the software industry won't be over software at all but over online applications, SaaS, cloud computing ... whatever you want to call it. So we're not going too far afield here. We all know that this is happening.

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Posted by Lee Pender on September 04, 20081 comments


Exchange Has New Competition

One quick piece of news in these dog days of late summer: The Cisco-Microsoft relationship just got a bit more tangled, as Cisco has bought Exchange competitor PostPath

Posted by Lee Pender on August 28, 20080 comments


Stories of Vista Bliss

Despite what we've been telling you here for months -- and, to be fair, the vast majority of e-mails we get still bash it -- not everybody is unhappy with the forlorn Vista operating system. We've run tons of negative e-mails on Vista, and we've received some more very good ones recently. More

Posted by Lee Pender on August 28, 20081 comments


And Your Microsoft Spokesperson Is...

With the news that '90s icon and TV syndication legend Jerry Seinfeld is going to help Microsoft try to rescue Vista , we asked you this week to name your ideal Microsoft spokesperson. Here's what we got:

Brad gets us off to a potentially controversial start:

"I suggest one word, or really one letter: W. After all, he'll be looking for work, anyway. Maybe the copy could read something like this: Hi, do you know me? Or maybe I should ask, 'Do you loathe me?' As the leader of the free world, I had to make some tough, unpopular decisions. So that's why Microsoft asked me to be their spokesman..."

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Posted by Lee Pender on August 28, 20080 comments


Microsoft Making Database Gains

Redmond is making further inroads into the database market.

Posted by Lee Pender on August 27, 20080 comments


IT Spending on the Rise

Apparently the shaky economy might be affecting IT hiring, but it's not causing a downturn in IT spending. Go figure...

Posted by Lee Pender on August 27, 20080 comments


Vista Picking Up Steam?

So, Forrester Research is out there now saying that Vista might just conquer the enterprise after all, and maybe fairly soon.

Well, maybe so. But we've heard this sort of thing before, haven't we? Vista's always just around the corner from breaking out and becoming the next XP (just as XP eventually became the next Windows 2000). If it's true that one-third of Vista licenses end up being downgraded to XP, we won't hold our breath on Vista taking over the world.

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Posted by Lee Pender on August 27, 20080 comments


Just Call It Red Hack

OK, it's sort of funny, isn't it? Linux superstar Red Hat got hacked . Yeah, it's funny.

Posted by Lee Pender on August 26, 20080 comments


'Cool' Still a Four-Letter Word in Redmond

We don't want to pile on here, but the last week in August might be the slowest news week of the year outside of the last two weeks of December, so here goes: We love "Seinfeld" reruns here at RCPU, just as we love TV Land, classic tunes on our iPod -- uh, we mean Zune...ah, to heck with it, we do mean iPod -- and movies that remind us of years gone by.

But we're weird that way here. Your editor DVRs old episodes of "WKRP in Cincinnati" (although he already owns all 90 episodes on DVD with the original music -- just with poor video quality) and watches them with the same gusto with which he downs a full Southern (or English) breakfast. On a brief road trip this past weekend, more than a few Creedence Clearwater Revival songs figured among the tunes of choice -- and we still have no idea who the Jonas Brothers are, although we keep seeing their images on T-shirts. Just today, we read that someone named Daddy Yankee had endorsed John McCain for president and wondered why George Steinbrenner would be so interested in the race for the White House.

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Posted by Lee Pender on August 26, 20081 comments


SBS Takes Next Step Toward Launch

The gears are turning -- literally, we suppose -- as hardware manufacturers are cranking out Windows Small Business Server 2008 , which is on track for a November launch.

Posted by Lee Pender on August 26, 20080 comments


More Tales of Vista Woe

It's kind of been (bash) Vista week again here at RCPU, so we might as well carry the theme to its undeniable conclusion: reader e-mails! Hey, we wouldn't run these if we didn't get them. And we'll run pro-Vista e-mails...as soon as we get some more of them. In the meantime, Ronald is up first: More

Posted by Lee Pender on August 21, 20086 comments