OK, so we wanted to link to the Beastie Boys doing their old hit on YouTube, but it turns out that there is a word or two in "Sabotage" that isn't entirely family-friendly. So, just sing it in your head if you want to, or look up the link for yourself.
Anyway, rumor has it this week that Microsoft's now-infamous Sidekick data-loss disaster could have been the result of sloppiness, some Microsoft head-in-the-sand syndrome, or maybe...sabotage! Apparently, there is considerable animosity between the former Danger folks and the Microsoft people who are putting together the fabled project "Pink." Some of that could have spilled over into malfeasance.
Or so one blogger says, anyway. And what would the Internet be without wild, random rumors coming from unnamed sources? Anyway, we hope that all this is true. Not because we want Microsoft's mobile strategy to fail; we don't. It's just that this story is so delicious that we didn't even have to eat lunch today. (OK, not really.) Stay tuned.
Posted by Lee Pender on October 15, 20092 comments
OK, so "Family Guy" can be a little controversial and a little edgy. It can also be ridiculously funny. And, despite Peter Griffin's appearance on a Subway commercial, FG is still pretty cool.
That's why we were so disappointed this week to read that Microsoft has bought a whole 30-minute episode of the show -- not commercials during the episode, but the episode itself -- to promote Windows 7.
Worlds are colliding here, to borrow a phrase from George Costanza. We cover Microsoft during the day, which is great. But in the evenings, we enjoy a "Family Guy" rerun or two on non-football and non-hockey nights (not that there are many of those). Now, the day job and the night entertainment are going to mesh into one 30-minutes cringe-fest. Is there anybody out there whose soul isn't for sale?
Posted by Lee Pender on October 15, 20092 comments
It's entirely possible that swine flu, H1N1, or whatever you want to call the next wave of sure death to hit the planet, is way overhyped. After all, this isn't the first time something called swine flu has hit the U.S.
As some dork on the Internet observed back in June, there was an outbreak of swine flu in the '70s, and quite an attention-grabbing one at that. And yet, those of us who were around back then and are still around now, which includes most of us, managed to survive. (And, yes, your editor just linked to his own personal blog. So, sue us. No, wait -- don't. That was just a joke. Seriously, please don't sue us.)
Anyway, regardless of whether the coming round of swine flu ends up being a living disaster movie or just a really big hassle, businesses are worried about it. And yet they're not prepared for it. This is where you, Microsoft partners, can step in. Noted author Joanna L. Krotz writes for RCPmag.com that companies expect swine flu to disrupt their operations, but they really don't know what to do about the coming disruption.
Classic disaster recovery tactics just don't work for something like a pandemic, which -- keep in mind -- could keep employees away from work and taking care of sick relatives even if the employees themselves don't get sick. There's not a lot of precedent for what companies and IT departments can do to prepare for a potentially devastating illness.
But there are things that partners can do to help them, primarily giving them good advice and implementing IT and other work policies that will help mitigate the potential effects of a potential pandemic. There's a way to put an effective flu defense in place. But if you want to know how to implement it, you'll just have to read Krotz's excellent story, which we'll link again here. Stay healthy, everybody.
How worried are you about the impact of Swine Flu on your business? Reach out at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on October 15, 20090 comments
Well, well, well. So it's not just Microsoft, or cloud computing, or mobile technology that's having problems with data loss.
Now, Apple is battling a bugaboo of its own, this one in its highly acclaimed Snow Leopard operating system. OK, so it's not striking that many users, and it's certainly not on the scale of the Sidekick fiasco -- but it's data loss nonetheless.
By the rationale of those who have attacked cloud computing this week based on Microsoft losing Sidekick users' information in its datacenters, we should just drop the OS altogether. After all, nobody makes a better OS than Apple, right? We're always hearing about how far ahead the Mac OS is in comparison to dowdy old Windows or plucky but insufficient Linux. So, with Snow Leopard suffering data-loss issues, the problem of data loss must be endemic to the very notion of an operating system. Right?
Of course not. But that's what the cloud skeptics said about Sidekick. This cloud thing, they said, is just a leaky model that's prone for failures like the one Microsoft suffered. Hey, cloud computing isn't perfect, and it's still developing. But it makes a lot of sense for a lot of partners and companies, and it has a future. The hard, cold truth here is that computing is prone to error and always has been. Pretty much every endeavor in human life falls into that category, but somehow we expect computing models to be darn near perfect and grouse and moan when, inevitably, they never are. Not even close.
So, we're not here to bash Apple. We're only here to say that stuff happens (hey, it's a family blog), and it might be a good idea to have a solid backup strategy in place for yourself and your clients. You'd think people would have figured this out by now after -- what? -- half a century or more of modern computing. But with the shock and awe over data loss this week, that's apparently not the case.
How reliable do you think cloud computing is? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on October 14, 20094 comments
OK, so that's kind of a "gotcha" headline, but now that we've (hopefully) got you, The Washington Post really did publish an item this week saying that small-business owners should switch from Windows to Linux if they want to bank securely online. The author of the Post's blog entry, Brian Krebs, even gives a whole, long tutorial on how to use Linux on a Windows machine.
Take that for what it's worth. At RCPU, we stuff all our extra cash (and there's not much of it these days) under our mattress. Just kidding. But it might not be a bad idea...
Posted by Lee Pender on October 14, 20091 comments
So, Armani has designed a $1,000 phone that runs on Windows Mobile 6.5. No, seriously, this is real. A $1,000 phone. Microsoft. Armani. How on earth did those three elements ever come together in a single newsletter entry? How much Armani does Steve Ballmer actually wear? Oh, he can afford it, but does Armani make those electric-blue, standard-issue, button-down Microsoft shirts that are the scourge of Microsoft conferences year after year? We're guessing that the answer is no.
Isn't paring Armani with Microsoft like pairing Sophia Lauren from the '60s with Anthony Michael Hall from the '80s? Uh, yeah. (Sorry for our outdated pop culture references) And isn't running Windows Mobile 6.5 on a $1,000 Armani phone like putting cheap-grade gas (or petrol, for our friends in the U.K.) in a half-million dollar Ferrari? We'll let that question just hang there, actually.
Posted by Lee Pender on October 14, 20090 comments
By now, you've probably heard the news, but if you haven't, here it is: The Sidekick device, probably not named after Dallas' professional indoor soccer team from the 1980s, had a little hiccup recently. Sidekick users apparently lost all their personal data and aren't likely to get much of it back.
Sidekick is part of the Microsoft family now, with Redmond having acquired Danger, the appropriately named maker of the device, last year. So, Danger's (big) problem is now Microsoft's problem -- and T-Mobile's, as well. (By the way, doesn't T-Mobile sound at least a little bit like a name for a rapper?)
Anyway, there's talk that this data loss, which apparently occurred because of some sort of horrible combination of errors in a Microsoft datacenter somewhere, is a massive blow to Microsoft and its cloud aspirations, which are still in the building stage themselves.
Not so fast, says Redmond magazine columnist, Microsoft expert and friend of RCPU Mary Jo Foley. MJF says that Sidekick services don't run on Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform -- and, for that matter, most of Microsoft's current cloud services don't yet, either. The real problem, Mary Jo says, is with Microsoft's "Pink" project, its supposed entry into the mobile hardware market and part of some sort of top-secret strategy to take over the mobile market.
So (given that we trust Mary Jo Foley here), after all the headlines and blogs have floated into the dark recesses of Internet archives, what we're left with is a story about Microsoft screwing up something with one of its mobile products. Big surprise.
The good news here is that this doesn't actually appear to be a problem with Azure or the "Microsoft cloud." The bad news is that everybody thinks it is. It's time, then, for Redmond to get its spinners spinning (for good reason this time) and set the record straight. Oh, and maybe that "Danger" name should kind of fade into the distance, too. Whatever it was meant to mean when somebody came up with it, it means something else entirely now.
Did you lose Sidekick data? How do you feel about Microsoft's mobile and cloud strategies? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on October 13, 20095 comments
There's a scary batch of patches coming out on Oct. 13. If only today were Friday...but it's not. It's Patch Tuesday, and it's a heavy one this month.
Posted by Lee Pender on October 13, 20090 comments
Cisco's splashing the cash again, this time on a company that somehow aids in routing information to mobile devices (hopefully not the Sidekick, which will just lose it, anyway). Cisco's price tag for this venture? Nearly $3 billion.
Posted by Lee Pender on October 13, 20090 comments
Microsoft and SAP have long had a funny little history of coopetition in the ERP market, the Duet combo of Microsoft Office and a SAP back end being one example. Well, now Microsoft is sneaking up on its bigger rival (in the ERP market, anyway) by doing a little end-around with Capgemini, which will help Microsoft software integrate with SAP's ERP stuf.
Posted by Lee Pender on October 13, 20090 comments
We generally try to stay away from rumors here, but we just love this one. Apparently there's a fair amount of buzz that a hardware company -- which one, we don't know, just a hardware company of some sort -- might be looking to buy Tech Data in order to be a bit less reliant on the shrinking hardware market.
OK, here's the real reason why we love the rumor. It comes from Robert Trigaux of Tampabay.com, who is to be lauded for his excellent use of links in his blog entry on the topic. Yes, that's right! The venerable Mr. Trigaux linked to...RCPU! We're "industry observers" who recently noticed Tech Data's financial rebound! Yes!
And it's not a totally unfounded rumor, either. In fact, it has legs. According to Mr. Trigaux, TheStreet.com (there's a video here) has Tech Data on its acquisition watch for several reasons. Those reasons -- more like indicators, really -- include a recent bump in Tech Data's stock price (which this industry observer noted, sort of) and lots of recent sales of shares by company insiders.
Seriously, though, we're thinking that the channel needs an independent Tech Data. That's what we don't like about this rumor -- the thought that it might be true. Tech Data is a distribution monster and a company critical to the success of many, probably most, Microsoft partners. Shoe-horning it into some hardware company's portfolio would likely introduce, at the very least, some serious conflicts of interest and complications for Tech Data itself as well as for the channel players that rely on it.
Of course, all of this is just at rumor stage for now, so it shouldn't be more than a passing concern or a topic of a "what if?" conversation. But, as industry observers, we will, of course, keep tabs on the situation. So, Mr. Trigaux of Tampabay.com and everybody else out there who has a stake in this story, watch this space.
What would happen if a hardware vendor bought Tech Data? What would you think of that sort of deal? How would it affect you? Spill your thoughts at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on October 08, 20094 comments
The ongoing, nasty and extremely expensive regulatory battle between Microsoft and the European Union seems to have reached a sort of armistice -- and it involves Microsoft conceding to using the infamous browser ballot screen.
Quoth Bloomberg:
"Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft in July accepted a key EU demand that it give consumers a choice of browsers through a so-called ballot screen. Under the settlement, consumers who buy new personal computers will be given a choice of the 12 most widely used browsers to install in addition to, or instead of, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the commission said.
"The agreement, which would last five years, would allow PC makers to install competing Web browsers, set them as a default program and to disable Internet Explorer, the EU said."
Disable Internet Explorer? Wow, that's a long way from just offering the browser ballot screen. Of course, users would surely be able to enable it again (right?), but the browser war really is on now -- or it will be in Europe as soon as this settlement becomes official. Well, it will be for the 12 browsers (we're not sure we can name 12 browsers) that will make the final ballot screen cut.
We haven't been big fans here of the EU's treatment of Microsoft for the most part, but give those Eurocrats some credit; they don't give up. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist in this country, but it never really paid very heavily for committing that "crime" (which is fine by us). Not so in Europe -- the EU has been an absolute beast in going after Microsoft. Agree with the EU or not (and we mostly don't), we can respect that.
Posted by Lee Pender on October 08, 20091 comments