The first Community Technology Preview is out there for TechNet and MSDN subscribers.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 12, 20090 comments
It turns out that Windows 7 Starter Edition, the version of the new operating system aimed at netbooks, will be pretty lame after all. And that it will be for OEMs only. And that it will be more expensive than XP, meaning Microsoft will be damaging one of the main value points of buying a netbook (the price). And that Steve Ballmer just doesn't like netbooks that much in general. Dig his quote from the story linked above:
"Our license tells you what a netbook is. Our license says it's got to have a super-small screen, which means it probably has a super-small keyboard, and it has to have a certain processor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
You know what, Steve? XP runs just fine on the netbook your editor is using to type this post right now -- and it probably will for a while. And if at some point it doesn't, that free Linux thing might be kind of tempting after all. Don't mess with the netbook crowd.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 12, 20090 comments
Forgive us a bit of a departure from partner-related stuff, but this is RCPU's favorite story of the year so far. Twitter, the annoying social networking site that RCPU recently joined because, well, we apparently had to, has been struggling with denial-of-service attacks recently. That much, you knew. But if you decided to take the weekend (and, we suppose, Friday -- as we did) off, you might not know that the attacks seem to have been the work of a bunch of Russians trying to knock a Georgian (Euro-style, not the college-football-fan kind) off the Web.
Well, naturally, the poor guy who has been the victim of the attacks is an Internet star now and will probably end up with some sort of endorsement deal or massively hit-producing YouTube channel soon. But for the rest of us, the attacks have meant that we don't have to mess with posting updates on that ridiculous site -- um, uh, we mean, the attacks have meant that users have started to raise more questions about the safety of social networking sites and maybe even about the security of the whole Web 2.0 model.
But for many companies (including partner companies, we're sure), the Twitter outage hasn't been bad news. In fact, it has had the silver lining of preventing employees who don't necessarily need to be on Twitter from playing around on it all day. And it has also eliminated -- for hours at a time, anyway -- the chance that some employee will download malware or do some other accidentally nefarious thing by clicking on a link in a Tweet.
Social networking is supposed to be the sales tool of Web 2.0, the way we're all going to communicate and make deals and contacts now that e-mail is about as modern and useful as the floppy disk. But, as with any other technology, is has its drawbacks and its risks. Your editor's main opposition to Twitter is that as a (let's say) thorough writer, it's hard to keep Tweets down to 140 characters or fewer. Beyond that, Twitter seems even more self-serving and (harsh word coming) pompous than most social networking applications.
Beyond that, we can understand how difficult it must be for IT folks and managers in general to get a handle on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites in their companies. Block the sites completely, and IT people risk alienating employees and denying access to those workers who "need" to use social networking. Leave them wide open, and social networking sites can become breeding grounds for time-wasting (as if we needed another place to do that) and malware -- not to mention vicious attacks on Georgians.
We don't really have a solution to this dilemma. To be perfectly honest, we at RCPU were kind of hoping that Twitter would just sort of go away -- but that seems unlikely, despite some Russians' attempt to hassle a Georgian guy. (So, you might as well follow RCPU at http://twitter.com/leepender, right? Honestly, we mainly just re-post what you read here, but we might throw in a surprise here and there. All in 140 characters or fewer, of course.)
And we're sure that there are some companies that use Twitter and other similar sites for practical purposes. All these attacks have really demonstrated is that nobody is impervious to hackers (but we knew that) and that Web 2.0, for all its hype and all the excitement around it, probably presents as many problems as it does benefits. Still, we're enjoying the total randomness of the fact that some spat in Eastern Europe seems to have brought down the darling of the social networking scene. We really do feel for the guy who is being targeted here -- but would it be wrong to hope that the hackers win and to ask our Georgian tragic hero to take a fall here in the spirit of the greater good? Yeah, probably. But if we did cheer for that to happen, we have a feeling that we wouldn't be alone.
How do you handle social networking at work? Do you use it for actual business purposes? Do you have trouble controlling it among your employees? Are you addicted to it? Spill it all at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 11, 20090 comments
Microsoft's been busy patching lately, and there are
nine more fixes on their way today. But, hey, Redmond's faring better than Twitter has been lately, right?
Posted by Lee Pender on August 11, 20090 comments
In a move we like to see, Microsoft is selling Razorfish, one-time star of the Web world and a company that Microsoft bought when it acquired online ad agency aQuantive,
to a French advertising giant, Publicis.
We like this because it's one less distraction for Redmond, hopefully meaning that maybe Steve Ballmer is toning down his dream of becoming a media magnate and is starting to focus on Microsoft's (struggling) core technologies again. (To be fair, the company does have a huge launch wave coming, with Windows 7's arrival in October being the obvious marquee event.)
But we're also curious to see what the chefs at the Publicis Drugstore (which is really more of a café-slash-swanky shop) can do with Razorfish. After all, if the French can make pig guts taste good (and they can), they can surely find a way to spice up Razorfish, right?
Posted by Lee Pender on August 11, 20090 comments
As if Google jumping into this game along with OpenOffice.org wasn't enough, a Chinese company called Evermore (quoth the raven, although we think he actually said "nevermore") is launching a Web-based productivity suite. Good luck with that, Evermore. Nobody has knocked Office off of its throne yet. Then again, with a market like China in its back yard, it might not matter how well Evermore's suite takes off anywhere else.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 11, 20090 comments
Good news for at least 400 Yahoo employees: Microsoft is going to hire you as part of its deal with the search also-ran. Bad news for the 5,000 or so Microsoft employees the company has laid off recently or will lay off soon: While you're out of work (hopefully not for long), 400 Yahoo employees will be moving (at least virtually) to Redmond.
Microsoft is also forking over $150 million over three years to Yahoo to get things rolling on the almost assuredly futile chase to catch Google in search.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 06, 20090 comments
With regard to Microsoft's plan to offer a ballot of browsers in European versions of Windows 7, we'd like to thank John from Kentucky for pretty much writing today's newsletter for us:
"I just don't understand why the EU keeps pushing this issue. Browsers don't inherently deliver ads or make money (at least not off me). They're a free 'product.' This whole debate seems so 1997!"
Let us just stop you right there, John, to say bra-vo! (Yes, we liked that so much that we accentuated the syllables in "bravo" for emphasis.) We at RCPU have never understood the modern, post-Netscape browser wars. Is it not the applications and the advertising that matter, rather than the browser itself? Can we not Bing in Chrome or Google in Internet Explorer? Do Google and Microsoft not serve ads and run apps in browsers other than their own?
We just don't get why browser market share, browser competition and the like are so important. Browsers are a commodity -- a free one, at that -- and almost interchangeable as far as we can tell. If somebody would like to explain to us why browser market share is so important and why vendors, regulators and analysts are so concerned with browsers, please feel free to do so at [email protected]. We just don't understand the hype and the controversy.
But we digress. Now, back to John:
"I'm not ashamed to admit I prefer Paint to Photoshop (or Gimp or Paint.net) on most projects I undertake for its sheer simplicity of just moving something around. There are times when you need to bring out the big guns, but my point is, why is IE a 'product' prone to antitrust lawsuits but Paint is not? I know plenty of Firefox and Safari users who consider IE to be the 'Paint' of browser choices. What sets a browser apart from any other essential part of an operating system? If they added layers or a selection wand to Paint, would it become another monopoly issue?
"I remember when I first signed up for the Internet in 1995. I had a Windows 3.1 machine and a little too late realized I had to wait a week for my ISP to ship me a Netscape Navigator CD before I could use the Internet. Talk about torture! I couldn't imagine going through that in 2009! Microsoft should release a browser-less 7 and replace the IE icon with a text file that says, 'Please contact the EU for a browser to get on the Internet. Have a nice day!' Why doesn't the EU give it a rest already?"
Applause, John, applause. That's really all we have to say. And thanks for articulating better than your editor ever could how RCPU feels about the whole browser debate.
On the same topic, we received an e-mail from an actual European, who also wasn't too impressed with Microsoft's browser democracy. Notes Remco:
"The point is that we, as the people of Europe, are made able to choose a browser we want to use, including my and your preferred browser mentioned in the article [that's Firefox -L.P.]. All browsers should have an equal chance in the market.
"The proposal Microsoft is making to the European Union is exactly the opposite of that! I think it's hilarious. They should split the OS and browsers, just like they do with all the other software they are making. And that is a big list of software; they know how to do it."
Remco, we know what you mean. Microsoft's vision of browser democracy isn't exactly all-inclusive; the slots on the ballot are based on weird market-share calculations and other odd metrics. As for separating the browser from the OS, though, we like John's suggestion: Let the EU pass out browsers in Europe if the regulators there are so worried about Microsoft having an unfair advantage. (By the way, we noted this week that Firefox passed the 1 billion download mark -- and ate up some more of IE's market share. Just sayin'.)
Can you explain why browsers are such a big deal? Please do at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 06, 20094 comments
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft has admitted that Linux (and, to an extent, Apple) is a competitive threat to Windows. Well, that might very well be true, but we all know what the biggest competitive threat to any new version of Windows is: the old version, Windows XP. Whether Microsoft mentioned that, we don't know; to be honest, we didn't read the whole filing. If you really want to, check out Annual Form 10-K here.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 06, 20091 comments
It's August. It's hot -- sort of, finally, at least here in Greater Boston. And it's the time of year when people go on vacation and industry news shrinks from a rushing river to a trickle in a dry stream bed.
At this point, most of the Microsoft world is waiting for Windows 7, and most of the news that's most relevant to Microsoft partners involves Windows 7. Post-Tech-Ed, post-Worldwidw Partner Conference, post-Microsoft-Yahoo deal, we're living out the dog days waiting for the fall, when Microsoft's knight in shining shrink wrap (if you're old-school and still buy stuff that way) will come and save us from the tyranny of Vista and the terror of Microsoft's shrinking profits.
While we're waiting, though, there's a little bit of Windows 7 news leaking out here and there. Microsoft revealed upgrade options and pricing late last week, although most of the trade press (RCPU included, apparently) seems to have missed the announcement. Well, now you know what's happening.
And there's also word about XP mode for Windows 7, the desktop virtualization component that will allow users to run XP and XP-based apps in the new operating system, just for old times' sake (and because Windows 7 obviously won't run everybody's legacy apps right out of the box). XP mode code is at the release-testing phase, and the final product should launch with Windows 7 in October.
But that's a couple of months away. In the meantime, enjoy a beverage in the back yard, go for a swim, catch a baseball game and take what might be one of your last spins with good ol' XP (or, uh, Vista, we suppose). Windows 7 is coming...but not quite yet.
Have anything to say about Windows 7 you haven't read here before? How about those upgrade options and that XP mode? Send your thoughts on this stuff to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on August 05, 20091 comments
It might still be second to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but Firefox, your editor's personal browser of choice,
passed the 1 billion download mark this week. So much for IE killing off the browser market...
Posted by Lee Pender on August 05, 20090 comments
It's for all those retail dollars that consumers are going to spend in order to stimulate the economy...just as soon as they get their jobs back.
Posted by Lee Pender on August 05, 20090 comments