HP seems to have something for everyone. Want a netbook? They've got whole bunch. Servers? The company has 'em from low-end to mainframe-class. They can fully equip your home or datacenter. And if you don't want racks of HP Itanium servers tied to HP SANs, the company can set up a cloud instead.
This week, HP announced cloud services for small and medium-size businesses, as well as for large telecom providers. It also now allows customers to use HP cloud tools but have those clouds reside with a third party such as Amazon.
Pure external clouds are interesting, but they involve an element of trust since your data is no longer really your data. That's why private, on-premise clouds are so exciting. You gain the efficiencies of utility computing, but still have total control of your data.
That's where HP Operations Orchestration comes in. This software lets IT stitch together, manage and automate datacenter resources such as virtual servers so they act as a cloud. Once your cloud is developed, you can run the hard darn thing, or parcel out chunks to service providers.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/18/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Azure is getting pretty good early reviews. The only problem is that the tools and platform require the application to be hosted in a service provider's datacenter, not your own. Meanwhile, competitors like VMware, HP and others are more than happy to let you build private clouds.
Early next year, Microsoft will begin beta testing Azure services that can blend private and service providers' clouds, letting your internal app -- say, a database -- access and update the larger cloud database. Unfortunately, the ability to build a purely private Azure may take a bit longer.
Meanwhile Redmond just bought Opalis, whose automation software can help control clouds.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/18/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Doug was willing to give Microsoft a pass regarding the Plurk code it admits to stealing. But other readers weren't so quick to let the company off the hook:
Or one could argue that once Microsoft was caught, the theft was so obvious that there was no hope of even trying to deny it.
-Anonymous
I don't give Microsoft a pass on anything and neither should you. No, Microsoft and that monkey boy Steve Ballmer need to get kicked in the balls a few times for some of the idiotic things they've done to their core cash providers -- like this ridiculous service pack they are calling a new OS.
Microsoft assessed the damage from Plurk and decided it was an easy gimme to lull the media into seeing it as a kinder, gentler Microsoft when nothing could be further from the truth. Don't fall for it. It's more smoke and mirrors from the guys who invented the ploy.
-Benjamin
You have got to be kidding! Let Microsoft off the hook? Come on! Microsoft is guilty AGAIN and it needs to be held accountable for its actions. At least once, it needs to know that what it did was wrong and it should have to pay for its transgressions. But once again, the giant will just keep getting away with it. Next time, it will be something a little worse and softies like you will just allow it to happen again and again.
I understand that you could say this was the act of just a few rogue employees that were acting without supervisory approval, but what they did got published and was presented as the work of Microsoft. Someone, somewhere up the food chain should have noticed and either didn't, or didn't care.
-Steve
When it comes to browsers, James is all about Firefox:
If the European Union is requiring Microsoft to preinstall other browsers than just IE, how will they receive their updates and/or patches? Now to answer your question: I use Firefox. Why? Because when I first switched I liked the fact that Firefox seemed to be a step a head of IE -- things like tabbed browsing and more relevant add ons. Though IE is catching up (and some may even say surpassing Firefox), I still use it because it is the norm for me and I am more comfortable using it. When Mozilla makes changes, it seems more incremental rather than wholesale changes like MS seems to do.
I remember when IE 7 first came out and people were having issues with it. Banks especially had problems. Than when IE 8 came out, people were having problems opening up certain Web pages...yet I could go to banking sites and open up all the Web sites I needed using Firefox. In the words of Allen Iverson, "Browser? Browser, man? We're just talkin' about a browser?" (OK, he didn't really say that, but he probably would if asked.) I don't have to have the latest, greatest browser. I just need a browser that gets me to the Internet when I need to, and Firefox does that for me.
-James
Dave has nothing but good words for Office 2010:
I've been using a 64-bit beta of Office 2010 on 64-bit Windows 7. Put simply, it is awesome. In the northeast, it would be called wicked fast. It is far above and beyond the best Office suite ever. I can describe it in one word that is, of late, seldom used with Microsoft software: Wow!
-Dave
And finally, readers share their thoughts on Google, the Internet and privacy:
I think that in the holiday spirit, we should assume that Eric Schmidt spoke without thinking, and then forgot to clarify or retract his careless words. Surely Schmidt, who has experienced having his private information disclosed inappropriately, does not believe those words himself.
In this context, privacy has nothing to do with keeping evidence of illegal activity from the government. Those who have no problem with the government being able to obtain logs from Google or their ISPs still don't want their personal and private activities made public. I live with the fact that the government can review my financial records at will, but that doesn't mean I want my friends, relatives or strangers to have access. All of us have hundreds of things we do every day that we choose not to share publicly. If Google chooses to monetize the personal information they collect, your insurance company might know you're researching alcohol treatment, or your employer might know you're searching for a new job. The issue isn't with the government's ability to conduct investigations, it's about respect for the privacy of your legal but private activities. The fact that Google has not yet taken an overt action to violate my privacy does not reassure me that they won't in the future.
-Dave
I'm sorta divided on this one. You're right, Google pries into our lives. And Schmidt is partly right: If we don't want everybody to know about it, we shouldn't be posting it on the Internet. But people are mostly dumb about privacy concerns, and Google isn't the only one taking advantage of that fact. Example: A teacher was entering grades on the computerized gradebook program, then left the room without logging off OR closing the program. Duh.
It's difficult to protect idiots from themselves, or teach responsibility to the clueless. I'm waiting for a Darwinian process to kick in that sorts out who will be using computers/the Internet.
-Anonymous
That's fine, Google, if you want to record everyone's actions and essentially threaten to use it against them. But you can watch as the tech savvy that were evangelists for you in the beginning start evangelizing other search (and everything else) providers like Bing or Yahoo. I personally have reset all of my default search engines to Bing and am going to begin transitioning my e-mail account usage over to Hotmail. I may simply, at this point, look at transitioning to a secure, privacy-centric e-mail provider and use proxies going forward.
I may not have skeletons in the closet to protect, but I do have a sense of privacy that Google was kind enough to remind me about.
-Kevin
I don't like to tell you this but the genie is out of the bottle. Google is no worse or better at raping our privacy than any other corporate entity. Technology never fixes problems, it just redefines them. You should not put anything on the Internet that you would not publish in the National Enquirer. In fact, my recommendation to all my friends is to actively engage in a program of disinformation so that no one can tell what is true and what is not. I actively make it difficult to make the connections that search loves to build. If you search on my name, you will get some information -- most of it is wrong. I even have two sets of medical records. Can't be too careful with the techno-spooks. How is that for paranoid?
Is there anything I really care about Doug Barney knowing? Probably not. But I like the idea of Google being wrong.
-Anonymous
Google's idea made it lots of money, but money cannot buy ethics, class or panache.
-Anonymous
I really don't like the idea of having my entire life indexed and accessible to the world. When I use Google, I don't log in with my Google account, and I've turned off the option to retain my search history -- although I'm sure they keep it. And I tend to use Bing more and more. Big Brother is a big worry.
-Andrew
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/18/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
I regularly get accused of two things: being a Microsoft shill and being a nattering nabob of Microsoft negatism. I'm either, depending on the day, though lately I've been kinder to Redmond than I ever have before.
I covered the investigations by the FTC and Justice Department; I saw some pretty cool companies put six feet under by Microsoft's ruthless and efficient shovels. But now I see a somewhat different Microsoft. Steve Ballmer is less ruthless than Bill Gates, and there are legitimate alternatives to Redmond's various and sundry monopolies such as Office, IE and Windows.
All of this is a prelude to me letting Microsoft off the hook for an egregious violation of ethics. Canadian Web site Plurk found that some Microsoft employees stole complete elements of the Plurk site. There are screenshots that show just how similar the two sites are.
In the past, I believe Microsoft has purposely co-opted design and even code. The Stacker lawsuit is a brilliant example where Microsoft used code from a hard drive compression it rather forcibly licensed from a third party.
But in this case, I think Microsoft employees pulled a Sarah Palin -- they went rogue. The copying was so idiotic and obvious that I can't see it being approved by anyone short of Vanilla Ice. And Microsoft copped to the mistake tout de suite.
I'm letting Microsoft off the hook on this one. Am I a bleeding heart, soft-on-crime judge? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/16/2009 at 1:17 PM6 comments
Microsoft gave in to the relentless demands of European Union (EU) authorities and will no longer strong-arm customers in using IE. Under a recent settlement, Microsoft will let users pick from a menu of nearly a dozen browsers that can be installed when setting up a new machine.
The decision formally does away with an approach as old as Windows 95, when Microsoft argued that the browser was an intrinsic part of the OS and just as critical as the file system. That's now history -- except for the fact that it doesn't take a rocket scientist but a highly skilled IT pro to de-install the bulk of IE from Windows.
What's your browser of choice and why? Votes welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/16/2009 at 1:17 PM5 comments
Gregory takes issue with Doug's stance on Google's news aggregation and how it affects the journalism industry:
The issue of declining newspaper sales and the struggle for a profitable model is a complicated one, and it deserves honest debate. Your take on it does not help. I understand you work for a pro-Microsoft outlet, and while I appreciate the informational tidbits you provide, your blind fealty to the company has become distracting.
Here and elsewhere, you imply that posting a link which relocates the end user to the Web site hosting an article is stealing. Either you believe this, and therefore obviously never post links in your own articles, or you are merely providing us with paragraphs of anti-Google bluster. Both options are a waste.
-Gregory
Doug was disappointed that Microsoft's last Patch Tuesday six-pack wasn't as nice as a six-pack of Hefeweizen, reminding one reader of his own favorite beer:
OK, this really has me thinking. I have to assume that you like Hefeweizen. What is your fave? I have a friend that turned me on to Paulaner which is straight out of Germany. Very hard to find, but oh man, is it good stuff. Treat yourself at an import store and you will write an article about it.
-Christian
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/15/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Office 2003 offers a nifty way to protect files with the so-called Directory Rights Management (DRM), not to confused with the similarly named Digital Rights Management (also DRM).
It seems that when you protect Office docs with DRM, they can get overprotected. Often, you can't even save or open your own files! Office 2007, which I'm now on and slowly getting used to (I never got used to Office 2003, either), isn't impacted.
If you have these issues, contact Microsoft and get ready to tell them about three Knowledge Base articles that contain all the fixes. You can get all the details here in Kurt Mackie's fine report.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/15/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments
I took a couple of days away from Redmond Report and immersed myself in the topic of datacenter efficiency. You can reap the fruits of my labor in the March issue of Redmond magazine. And if you have datacenter efficiency/green tips and experiences, please e-mail me at [email protected].
This distraction meant I couldn't take Google's Eric Schmidt to task for his inane, insane, imbecilic, illogical, insipid and idiotic comments (and no, I didn't look up those words on Google).
Even though the story is old, I've got something to say. Schmidt is a technical genius -- or at least nearly so, I'm not sure. But he is clearly socially inept. His take on Internet privacy is summarized by this inconceivably clueless recent quote: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Who is the guy, Jimmy Swaggart?
Let's face it: Google pries into our lives, takes pictures of our homes when the kids are playing in the yard, and indexes much of our personal information. Google is the Patriot Act on steroids. First, we're supposed to give up our privacy for national security. Now, we should give it up for the greater glory of Google. Dang, I might have to go back to a typewriter and hand-delivered letters.
Are you as steamed as I am? Let 'er rip at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/15/2009 at 1:17 PM13 comments
Doug's still out, so covering once again is Jeff Schwartz.
Last week, I moderated a webcast exploring the topic of business intelligence and the growing trend of enterprises rolling it out to the masses, referred to by some as self-service BI.
The majority of those surveyed in a quick spot poll during the webcast said they see it as a priority to extend BI throughout their organizations to give stakeholders the ability to query and share data. Still, that only represented 32 percent of those responding. Another 23 percent said they had no BI infrastructure to date and 17 percent aren't yet sure. About 21 percent will beef up their BI offerings for a more restricted user base.
Granted, this wasn't a scientific survey, but the results are consistent with what Forrester Research analyst and featured webcast presenter James Kobielus has observed. "That's the same results that we've seen in our Forrester polling of customers," Kobielus said.
Responding to a separate set of questions, 58 percent said they'd like to see BI tools made available to all internal rank-and-file staff, including sales, customer service and field workers. Sixteen percent plan to extend their BI infrastructures outside the enterprise to trading partners, customers and suppliers, while 14 percent say targeting management remains a key priority.
"That has been and remains the chief growth area for BI to become pervasive throughout the corporate world. You need to instrument more dashboards for more decisions made by more people from the ground up," Kobielus said.
Kobielus gave an interesting presentation on the webcast, called "BI Branches Out," which is available on-demand.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 12/14/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Doug's still out, so covering once again is Jeff Schwartz.
Amazon this morning said it's testing a new service called Spot Instances that will let customers and developers apply the auction model to acquire capacity.
In a nutshell, here's how it works: Amazon will let those with non-mission-critical tasks bid for available capacity residing on Amazon's EC2 service. Spot Instance prices can fluctuate depending on supply and the demand for capacity at the time a bid is placed. The customer must place a request specifying the region, instance type, number of instances and the maximum price he or she is willing to pay per instance in a given hour.
To help customers determine how much to bid, they can use the EC2 API and AWS Management Console to see prior Spot Instance prices.
Pund-IT analyst Charles King gives a good analogy, comparing the Amazon service to an eBay auction. "Choosing the 'Buy It Now' option usually costs more but it also ensures that you get the product you want," he said. "If certainty of price or timing isn't a big deal, participating in auctions can result in excellent deals."
Meanwhile, Ovum analyst Tony Baer questions whether this will be used strategically by enterprises. "The whole idea here is cloud computing is a commodity," he said. "You are getting what you pay for. This is raw cloud."
In more Amazon news, the company last week announced that its EC2 service now supports Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition. Previously, EC2 was limited to Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005.
Do you see yourself using the auction model for lower-cost cloud services? Would you like to see Microsoft offer auction-based capacity with its Azure cloud service, which is due out next month? Drop me a line at [email protected].
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 12/14/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments
Doug's still out, so covering once again is Jeff Schwartz.
Reports that Google may release its own phone generated a lot of buzz over the weekend. Though Google isn't confirming that it will, in fact, release a phone, the company did acknowledge its employees are testing one.
According to a TechCrunch report on Saturday, a Google-branded phone called "Nexus One" could appear as soon as next month. It would be unlocked, meaning a customer could use it with any carrier that supports GSM (in the United States, that's AT&T and T-Mobile).
If Google does release a phone next year, it could put pressure on Apple, whose iPhone and iTunes App Store have a clear lead over everyone. But what about Microsoft? If Google offers a phone directly to customers or through retail channels, does that put more pressure on Redmond to offer a device based on its Zune platform or Windows Mobile, or some combination thereof?
If Google launches its own phone, it will hit two nerves with Redmond: first, its declining share in the mobile market, and second, the potentially lucrative mobile advertising market. Could Google be poised to put a stake in the ground in mobile advertising just as it did with Web advertising when it established itself in the search market?
"I think they are trying to get the market to a place where mobile advertising is as big as the market can be, and they are trying to move the market faster than it would otherwise move," said Yankee Group analyst Joshua Holbrook in an interview. And if Google gets out there first, "everyone else will follow suit, and at that point Google has won."
CIMI analyst Tom Nolle noted that responding by following in Google's footsteps isn't so simple. "I think it doubles down on Microsoft's risk," Nolle said. "They have a lot more to lose by getting directly into the cellular business than Google does. Microsoft expected to make money on Windows Mobile and they'd certainly kill off all their handset partners if they decided to sell phones of their own. Imagine what would happen to Windows if Microsoft sold computers. Google Android is open source and free, so Google might very well be able to sustain partner interest even with its own handsets."
Andrew Brust, chief of new technology at twentysix New York and author of the Redmond Diary blog, is skeptical. "Unlocked phones have failed to resonate in this country," he said in an e-mail.
Brust does see a motivation for Google's move. In his own review of the Droid, he pointed out several issues with the phone and most of them were attributed to Motorola's physical hardware design, rather than the Android operating system itself.
"If I were Google (or Microsoft, for that matter), I would commission one or two phones running my OS on exemplary hardware, but make these showcase devices rather than attempts at gaining serious market share," he noted.
"What Google needs to do is encourage its OEM partners to put their OS on great devices that show off the OS nicely," he added. "Apple does so by controlling the hardware and subjugating the carrier. Google doesn't want to do either, but they still want Android to be utilized to its full potential.
Presuming Google follows suit and releases a Google-branded unlocked phone, what impact will that have on Microsoft's mobile ambitions? Drop me a line at [email protected].
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 12/14/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments
After Intel debuted its 48-core processor recently, Doug wondered what that kind of computing power could do for everyday users. Here's what some of you had to say:
Well, on many people's desks, nothing much at all. But for researchers, quite a bit. Individual researchers now need to share supercomputers with other people. With this sort of thing, the individual researcher could run drug simulations or weather models. The creative animator could render in real-time a movie from a 3-D model and try out different blocking/scene changes/lighting/etc.
This isn't to say that games couldn't be extended into realistic 3-D animations with artificial intelligence, but there are other applications than just more gaming.
-Anonymous
Most people don't do enough with their computers to drive more than two or three processors at any one time, let alone 48. And with vendors trying to move the processing into the cloud on the Internet with subscription-based software, would there be any point to having a supercomputer on every desk?
Hoardware vendors seem to want ot put more power on the desktop, while software vendors seem detemrined to get everything off the desktop. With people pulling in oppostie directions, we'll probably remain in the same general state for a long tme to come.
-Bob
I am a power user, and am fortunate enough to own the i7 Extreme Edition processor. I use it for a multitude of things -- I run Second Life, Photoshop, Outlook 2007, IE 8 and Sound Forge all at once, with no apparent slowdown!
For power/business users, multicores are the way to go. One day soon, apps will take advantage of the multicores and computing will be unlike what we are used to now. Soon, we will be saying, "Remember back in the day of the single-core Pentium processor..."
-T.R.
And there's no shortage of opinions about Office 2010. In fact, here are two more:
I'm currently running Office 2010 full-time at work and am quite pleased. I live in Outlook most of my day; I use Word and Excel quite a bit but not as extensively as some users. I'm still getting used to a few things, but overall I'm very impressed with the File menu and with the way it keeps track of people you e-mail. Conversations are also a favorite of mine.
-Chad
Two problems I've experienced so far: Google calendar and iPhone calendar sync don't work and they refuse to comment about when fixes may be available.
-Tom
More reader letters coming tomorrow. Meanwhile, submit your own comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/14/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments