Windows 2000 fans, beware. Microsoft won't be supporting your favorite OS much longer.
More to the point, though, Redmond reminded users this week that extended support for XP Service Pack 2 (and Windows 2000) will end in July. So, it's Windows 7 within the next seven months or so, or you're on your own.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 09, 20093 comments
We at RCPU still haven't found all the buttons on the Office 2007 ribbon, but for those of you who are just itching to get to 2010, knock yourselves out.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 09, 20090 comments
Oh, fantastic. Now there'll be no escaping Twitter (where you can follow RCPU here). Google has gone real-time in search, which means Tweets will start popping up on standard Google search pages.
Hooray! No longer do we have to actually go to Twitter to see some shut-in's political rant or know how hot some 14-year-old girl thinks Tom Brady is. Those tweets might very well pop up if we search for, say, "senate primary" or "New England Patriots." (Right now, nobody knows quite where the Patriots are...but we digress.)
OK, seriously, we know that real-time search is a breakthrough and a massive coup for Google. But if it really does start throwing inane Tweets and Facebook posts into our searches, we might end up moving over to Bing after all.
Oh yeah, also on the search front, Microsoft and Yahoo have finalized their search contract.
How excited are you about real-time search? If you care, send your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on December 07, 20091 comments
Just in time for the holidays. It's a six pack from Microsoft, but not the fun kind. In fact, Redmond is sending six patches, three critical and three important, for December.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 07, 20090 comments
Worried that Google or some retailer has too much of your personal information? So is your hard(ly) working federal government, which is looking into consumer data privacy.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 07, 20090 comments
Microsoft has been trying to spiff up its David to Google's Goliath, and the latest wrinkle (among others) is an ever-popular application: maps.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 04, 20090 comments
Microsoft's long, international nightmare could soon be more or less over, as the company is reportedly finishing up plans for its "browser ballot screen" that will appear in versions of Windows sold in Europe. Apparently, Opera wanted some fairly subtle changes to the plan...and got them.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 04, 20090 comments
We at RCPU have been extremely remiss about running reader e-mail, which we've let back up to the point at which a bunch of really good e-mails are now too old to run. We're sorry about that, but we're going to get back to putting your thoughts in this space soon. So, if you have anything you'd like to send our way, shoot it to the usual address: [email protected].
To be perfectly honest, we're getting into a slow time of year for news, and your editor is still busy with tasks outside of RCPU. So, for today, we're going to go with a pure channel play (which we really should do more often) and tell you that mega-distributor Tech Data is buying back $100 million worth of stock.
The company seems to be in pretty good financial shape overall, which has to be a good sign for the channel in general. Its stock, as of Thursday close, is trading pretty close to a 52-week high, and its third-quarter numbers, despite a dip in revenue year-over-year (which is pretty common these days), looked pretty solid to us. Take that for what it's worth, but any news that's even somewhat good for partners right now is certainly welcome.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 04, 20091 comments
Netbooks, the beloved (by your editor) little machines that haven't quite penetrated the enterprise but still sell in big numbers, have fallen under the market share spell of Windows for the most part. But a couple of companies are nudging them in a different direction.
Intel's new SDK for its Atom processer points developers pretty strongly in the direction of Moblin, Intel's own Linux-based operating system. And netbook maker Acer is going to start (gasp!) putting Google's Chrome OS on netbooks. Just a couple of little things to look out for with these little devices, Microsoft partners.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 03, 20091 comments
The year 2009 has been one of the more forgettable we've experienced in...well, quite a while, anyway. And while it's hard to tell whether the economy is recovering (ask a stockbroker and somebody who's out of work, and you'll likely get two very different answers), glimmers of hope for 2010 are starting to show through the thick financial clouds that have been over us for close to two years now.
Microsoft hopes it's seeing one of those glimmers with the release of Windows 7. A Microsoft VP said in London this week that the company hopes the new operating system will spark a "PC refresh" in corporate IT departments in 2010. Spake Neil Holloway of Microsoft International:
"'Most people do expect that there will be a PC refresh. And I think one of the things that will hopefully drive that will be Windows 7,' he said."
Well, of course you do, Neil. We all do. But while Windows 7 is still getting mostly rave reviews, we're not so sure that it'll be the catalyst for a wave of corporate PC purchases. Operating systems just don't have that kind of impact anymore; as long as XP is still useful, cash-strapped and recovering companies will get all the use out of the old OS that they can.
Your editor is currently writing a story for Redmond magazine on Windows 7 migrations (and thanks, by the way, to those who contributed to it). We've received quite a few e-mails in the Redmond Media Group about Windows 7 migration experiences -- but most involved folks upgrading their own computers at home. If we had to make a conclusion about our entirely unscientific little e-mail data pile, it would be that XP is still going to be the OS market leader by some distance at the end of 2010. Most folks told us that their organizations have no plans to upgrade in the near future.
We're still skeptics about the economy here at RCPU, although we're hardly experts on it. But what we do know is that a new release of Windows doesn't have the same effect on companies that it once did. Windows 7 is, from all we hear, much better than Vista and a huge leap forward from XP. But despite enthusiasm about it, it's not an absolutely necessary upgrade (yet).
Besides, it's the economy that dictates PC refresh cycles, which in turn give us OS market share sea changes. It doesn't work the other way around anymore, if it ever did. And while we're seeing the same slivers of economic sunlight that everybody else is seeing, we're not sure they'll last. And we're pretty sure that they don't justify Microsoft (or any other software company) putting on metaphorical sunglasses.
What are your plans to migrate to Windows 7? Do you expect a PC refresh bump in 2010? Send your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on December 03, 20091 comments
OK, so Google Chrome has 3.9 percent market share, according to Net Applications. No big deal, right? Well, it kind of is, considering the fairly new browser apparently had only 0.4 percent market share at the beginning of November. As for IE, its current share is its lowest ever -- although it's still at almost 64 percent.
Oh, by the way, Bing is still struggling to make a dent in Google's search share, although it's not a total dud numbers-wise.
Posted by Lee Pender on December 03, 20090 comments