IE 8 To Default to Standards

Posted by Lee Pender on March 05, 20080 comments

IBM Goes Microsoft-Free in Eastern Europe

Posted by Lee Pender on March 05, 20080 comments

Microsoft: Our Eurotroubles Are Over (Includes Reader Feedback)

Yeah, well, we'll see. A couple of readers agree with RCPU's take that the EU is out for more than just "justice"; it also wants a big American scalp. Andrew says:

"I think the whole issue of the EU fining Microsoft is ludicrous. This has nothing to do with a monopoly, IE or Windows Media Player. This is much, much deeper than that. This is just a witch hunt of an American company. That is it, plain and simple. I used to travel all over Europe and am happy to say I no longer need to do that. One thing is without a doubt: It is hard to find a European who actually has anything good to say about America.

"If I were Microsoft, I would simply stop selling software to any country or individual that lived inside the EU. It might hurt financially for about a year or two, but after that, where would the EU be? The answer is back in the Stone Age. Microsoft has it within its power to economically put the EU countries into a real hole. How much grief would it get then from the EU regulators? None! For that matter, it would be even better as we (Americans) could offer SaaS to all the European businesses and host the software in the U.S. if they wanted current technology with our laws and not theirs.

"Not to misunderstand me, Microsoft does a lot of things that are just unintelligent and wrong, but this has nothing to do with that. We deploy and support Microsoft solutions if and when it is the best solution for our customers."

Well, Andrew, your editor lived in Europe for a few years and had a mostly fantastic experience. But we're right there with you on the EU wanting to dent a powerful American company. We can smell that, too, from all the way across the ocean.

Ross says that we're all going to be paying the fines in the end, anyway:

"I don't think people understand what it means when Microsoft gets fined $1.3 billion. Some people are applauding the EU for 'teaching Microsoft a lesson,' but what they don't understand is that it hurts the consumer. Microsoft isn't going to say, 'Ah, shucks, our profits are going to be $1.3 billion less now.' Just the same as when gas prices rise, trucking companies don't say, 'Oh, well, looks like we aren't going to make as much because of our expenses in fuel.' They're going to pass that $1.3 billion right to the customer.

"I'm not saying that I know the answer, but I don't think that huge fines are going to solve it. Obviously, the last fine wasn't that effective if we're back in court again with another huge fine."

Excellent points, Ross, and we're right there with you. Once again, the customer actually loses as a result of excessive government intervention.

Want to chime in on Microsoft's Eurotroubles? Ring away at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on March 04, 20080 comments

Exchange, SharePoint Get SaaS-y for SMBs

Microsoft this week unveiled Microsoft Online Services for companies of all sizes. Previously, and somewhat incongruously, MOS (our name, not an official Redmond tag) had been available only to companies with 5,000 employees or more. Now, it's out there for the audience that seems most likely to crave it, SMBs.

MOS consists mostly of hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint servers along with some other features, such as Web conferencing, thrown in. It's an obvious parry to Google's thrust of Google Apps, the online suite of applications the search giant announced last year. But while Google is taking the odd approach of trying to build support for apps among grassroots users and bypassing stodgy IT types, Microsoft seems much more likely to leverage its massive partner network to sell MOS to business decision makers.

And we're guessing that there will be some interest. Love it or, uh, dislike it, people who purchase technology for businesses know Microsoft in a way that they don't (yet) know Google. They know SharePoint and certainly Exchange, and there will, no doubt, be a certain (possibly large) number of decision makers who had been waiting all along for Microsoft to provide them with a SaaS offering before they bought into the concept.

Then again, Microsoft's SaaS track record, at least on the consumer side, hasn't been entirely clean. Recent Hotmail and MSN Messenger (oh, we know, they're all called Windows Live something now) outages might lead to a little hesitation among those looking at Microsoft as a SaaS provider -- as opposed to, say, Google, which has more of a Web-first pedigree and maybe a little better track record with consumer services.

However, for the most part, what we're seeing is a Microsoft that finally seems committed to serving as landlord (along with its hosting partners) as well as builder in its massive software housing edition. What remains to be seen is whether companies buy into -- or maybe rent into -- Microsoft's new offerings.

How do you plan to profit from Microsoft's new SaaS gambit? Or will you have to struggle to adjust your business model to it? Sound off at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on March 04, 20081 comments

Vista Now Cheaper But Apparently Not Any More Popular

A lot of stuff, actually. And although we've said many times at RCPU that we'll all end up using Vista someday the way we use XP now, we're starting to think that we might have gotten that prediction wrong. Maybe this could be a springboard to that analyst gig, then. (Just kidding, bosses.)

Posted by Lee Pender on March 04, 20083 comments

Open Mailbag Leads to Redmond Blushes

Posted by Lee Pender on March 04, 20080 comments

Marathon Runs Successful Partner Program

Posted by Lee Pender on February 28, 20080 comments

Eurofines Ruin Microsoft's Big Day

Still, the unveiling of Windows Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio -- all vintage 2008 -- must have required a huge amount of work. There were the logistics of managing the event itself, the preparation of executive presenters, the handling of the press and other hangers-on -- not to mention the years of development that went into the products (sort of) making their debuts. Some positive headlines would have been nice, even for a press-eating behemoth like Microsoft. Everything was in place for a lovely event.

And then the European Union dropped this: "European Commission Slaps Microsoft With $1.3 Billion Fine."

Oh, now that's just mean. Rain on the parade, something dark floating in the punch bowl, some sort of liquid in the corn flakes -- whatever metaphor seems to work best, there's no doubt that the EU's antitrust commission dumped all over Microsoft's big to-do. And all of this after Microsoft so nobly (here, we're being really sarcastic -- like Juno sarcastic) committed itself to openness last week by publishing tens of thousands of pages of technical specs and promising to license patented protocols for dirt-cheap prices.

Obviously, Microsoft's belated response to the EU's 2004 antitrust rulings -- and let's not pretend that the EU wasn't the driving force behind Microsoft's openness epiphany, no matter how magnanimous Redmond tries to appear -- didn't appease the Euroregulators. Or maybe it was a case of too little, too late -- or just plain too late. Before last week's overtures, Microsoft fought and scrapped and battled in the court of public opinion and in actual courts in contesting the EU's findings and, in the end, Microsoft lost. Big time.

Well, not that big time, actually. Keep in mind that Microsoft made more than $50 billion in its last full fiscal year, so the EU's traffic ticket amounts to about 2 percent of Microsoft's annual earnings -- or less, if we consider the fact that Microsoft will surely make more money this fiscal year than it did last, maybe a lot more. (Overall, the EU has hit Microsoft with $2.5 billion in fines, a huge number to you and to us but a relative drop in the bucket to a company the size of Microsoft.) What's more, Redmond had prepared investors for a fine as large as $2.2 billion, so there wasn't much shock value to the figure. So, Microsoft could keep fighting the EU, but it clearly has chosen not to -- or at least not in the way it was trying to before last week's partial capitulation.

We'll spare you the rant on how the EU is meddling where it shouldn't (although, if you really need to read one, here's a classic from last year). We're just wondering how far Microsoft will have to go to appease the Eurocrats and stem the tide of huge fines. What more does the EU want? (To bring down a big American company, we whisper snidely under our breath.) And how far will Brussels go to get it?

We're not really sure, but we'll give the Euros one thing: They're much tougher and more persistent than their American counterparts. They mean business, and they've got Microsoft on the ropes. Plus, their timing is impeccable.

What's your take on the EU slamming Microsoft with fines again? Sound off at [email protected]. Oh, and don't be discouraged by the relative lack of reader feedback these last couple of weeks. We're going to catch up on running your thoughts next week, so keep them coming.

Posted by Lee Pender on February 28, 20081 comments

Nominations Underway for Partner Awards

Posted by Lee Pender on February 28, 20080 comments

Online Services Outage Raises SaaS Questions

When we hear about this kind of incident here at RCPU, we can't help but question the current viability of Software as a Service for business-critical applications. OK, sure, we know that Hotmail and MSN Messenger (or whatever they're called now -- Windows Live something or other) aren't exactly business-critical for most companies. (In fact, the IM outage might have increased productivity in a lot of offices.) And we know that Microsoft doesn't make uptime guarantees for these consumer services the way it would for mission-critical stuff, a point made by the always wise Scott Bekker, RCP's editor in chief. Furthermore, we know that when it comes to CRM and ERP, for example, partners, not Microsoft, are taking on most of the hosting duties -- all of them in the case of hosted Dynamics ERP.

Still (oh, you were expecting a "But" or a "However," but we dropped a "Still" on you), even if hosted Web-based e-mail and hosted enterprise applications don't make for a good apples-to-apples comparison, huge problems with Hotmail don't exactly instill confidence in partners or IT folks mulling over the idea of outsourcing important enterprise functions to a hosted model. Just by coincidence -- and, we admit, the Hotmail outage couldn't have come at a better time -- we discuss this very issue (specifically, whether the SaaS model can handle ERP) in the RCP March cover story.

Now, Salesfoce.com and NetSuite would tell us, quite accurately, that they've not had anything near the relatively severe problems with uptime that Microsoft has experienced with Hotmail and IM. And Microsoft itself, we believe (although this is, admittedly, a bit of an assumption), has a better track record with hosting business-critical applications than it has with hosting Web-based e-mail. But SaaS outages of any kind are a bit like distant earthquakes for people who live near fault lines -- even if they don't happen in your part of the world, they remind you that you're vulnerable. That's a hurdle, largely psychological, which SaaS still has to clear when it comes to business-critical applications, and this week's Hotmail incident might have pushed that hurdle a couple of inches higher.

Do outages such as the one Microsoft experienced this week make you think twice about a SaaS model? Expound on your answer at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on February 28, 20082 comments

Windows Server 2008: The Next Big Moneymaker

Forget the mostly false hype that surrounded Vista. There's genuine buzz about this new product. Partners are excited about it. Customers want it. Microsoft has even seen fit -- for some bizarre reason -- to throw a service pack into it. And now, it's in your hands, partners.

RCPmag.com has coverage of today's event, including a Scott Bekker article about what system builders are planning to do with Windows Server 2008.

There's not much else for us to say, really, but stay tuned to http://rcpmag.com throughout the day for updates. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what Windows Server 2008 can do for your business. Send them to [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on February 27, 20081 comments

VMware Releases Automation Suite

By the way, if you haven't checked out Virtualization Review, a new 1105 Media (um, that's the company that owns RCP) effort, dig it here.

Posted by Lee Pender on February 27, 20080 comments