I have an interesting proposition. My high school-age son Dave just finished a writing course at Brown University and is itching to become a real published author (he mostly wants to show up the old man).
We thought an article on Bing, based on your experiences, would be fun to work on and fun for you to read. Do you want to be quoted and help a decent lad out at the same time? If so, report your interest to [email protected] and Dave will get back to you with some detailed questions!
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/17/2009 at 1:17 PM13 comments
Readers share their thoughts on netbooks, which Microsoft recently admitted are partly responsible for the company's PC revenue slide:
Microsoft is just plan stupid if it does not provide one or two versions of Windows 7 that PC manufacturers can put on their netbooks. The netbook market is growing and with the economy like it is, people want a cheap PC that they can do basic word processing, spreadsheets and presentations on (plus access the Internet). By making the the price too high, in the long run MS will lose money and lose the netbook market. People will not buy XP netbooks, simply because XP will not be supported in the near future. By pricing Windows 7 for netbooks low, MS would be opening up a whole new market for Office 2007, etc.
-Anonymous
My Asus Eee PC 900A runs just fine with full-blown Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty installed on a 16GB SSD from an external DVD-ROM, thank you very much.
As one aficionado observed, netbooks are for "when a cell phone is not enough and a laptop is too much." At 2.5 pounds or less, the netbook enables travelers to easily take their office with them through the airport with minimum fuss. No one suggests this as a daily substitute for heavy-duty office production, but it will conveniently do the job when necessary. And all for a very small price (hardware: $250, software: $0).
-ColdVet
Here's my prediction, for what it's worth. I'm guessing there's a sort of "flash in the pan" curve for netbooks generally. I think there's a "Wow that's neat" factor driving a lot of sales, but when the dust settles, folks are going to find that the machines are less useful than they expected.
I picked up a cheap lower-end netbook from Geeks.com some months ago. My thought was that I could have it in my toolkit as a "known good" machine for field troubleshooting calls. My donnybrook came when I tried to use it for online chat while working through a password reset issue for a client. I simply could not type accurately on the thing at any useful speed. In this case, I doubt that a higher-end unit would have helped all that much; the keyboard is going to be cramped and slow. I find myself drawn instead to some of the super-light conventional notebooks, like the ThinkPad X series or some of the Toshiba Proteges. They are nearly as light as a netbook, yet are totally usable.
-Anonymous
Jack responds to one reader's comparison of the search for good open source software to prospecting for gold:
I get a kick out of the people writing in, saying they "use very little open source software" and comparing it to the gold mines that promise much and deliver little, utilizing the open source/standards of SMTP, DNS and HTML across TCP/IP to communicate their disdain of open source.
The vendors making a profit off of software have the financial resources to blast the open source movement. Thankfully, the open source movement does not profit from their work and implementations!
-Jack
And for those of you keeping score in the Zune vs. iPod contest, here's one more vote for the iPod:
I have been a fairly loyal Apple/Macintosh fan for over 15 years (I assimilated to support Windows in a desire to continue to feed and clothe my family). I have had the same 20GB iPod for YEARS! I have yet to reinstall the OS or initialize it. It just keeps on working. Both my kids have iPods and I finally talked my lovely wife into carrying an iPod when she goes out running. Never had a problem! My daughter has never complained about the small screen on her 8GB Nano and likes being able to watch movies on it. Count me as a confirmed iPod fan.
I have seen too many Zunes and Zune-like devises tossed out in the trash because they did not work and the user did not want to put any more time into it to ever consider wasting my money on one. I hate to say it, but this time I am with Wall Street: Kill the Zune. Give up and admit that the iPod is just a better product. Then do what every other hardware manufacturer does -- come up with a better product!
-Steve
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/17/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Why do Microsoft executives talk endlessly about VMware? Sure, VMware currently is the leader and a pioneer in x86 virtualization technologies. Like any upstart, VMware got a jump on the market. So why harp on the matter? Isn't Microsoft the perpetual Avis of the software market ("We try harder")? Doesn't it always come from behind to attain near-monopoly control of the market that it challenges?
Maybe the softies are unnerved by VMware CEO -- and ex-Microsoftie -- Paul Maritz. His bio reads like a Microsoft nightmare tale of an insider defecting to the competition. Wikipedia even tells us that Maritz was "often said to be the third-ranking executive, behind Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer" when he worked at Microsoft.
The business of selling software can be a brutal affair. Market reach can be a final blow to smaller fish in the sea, no matter how nimble they are. Think Windows, which was declared by U.S. courts to be a monopoly. Windows was leveraged to bundle IE and kill Netscape Navigator. On the virtualization front, Microsoft is saying that it can undercut VMware's pricing. Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor is offered at "one-sixth" VMware's price, we're told. Moreover, Microsoft distributes Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008. It sounds like bundling, but maybe it's not. Will VMware get its virtualization market chipped away as Windows Server 2008 gets rolled out more broadly, or will things be different this time?
Brad Anderson, corporate VP for Microsoft's Management and Services Division, couldn't stop talking about a deal VMware recently proposed with SpringSource that will cost VMware about "$362 million in cash and equity." The proposed acquisition will bring maybe 2 million developers into the VMware orbit as part of its cloud computing push.
Developers? Cloud computing? Where have we heard those terms before? Isn't this a page from Microsoft's playbook taken up by a former Microsoft insider? Who'll win this virtualization slugfest? Tell Doug at [email protected].
Posted by Kurt Mackie on 08/14/2009 at 1:17 PM6 comments
Who will tell the investors? Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's GM of investor relations, has that task. And he recently explained that Microsoft's profitability as a company had a lot to do with PC sales, which were "down somewhere between 6 and 8 percent" in the last quarter. In particular, high-profit business PC sales were lower than consumer PC sales. A particular stumbling block for Microsoft was netbooks, representing "about 11 percent of industry PC sales." The low-tech, low-cost, smallish netbooks bring in less OS revenue for Microsoft than traditional PCs. Microsoft's revenues have been dogged by this "netbook effect" for the past nine months, according to Koefoed.
Microsoft currently provides the aging XP for netbooks, but any edition of Windows 7 can run on these devices, we're told. The missing piece of the puzzle is what Microsoft will charge for Windows 7 running on a netbook; most think the price will be higher, but the details haven't been announced.
Steve Ballmer recently hinted at a possible way out of this number-crunching mess. He suggested that a category of netbooks, called "ultrathins," will appear next year. Ultrathins will be higher-powered and higher-performance machines compared with netbooks, he explained. And there's even another mobile computing device category that Microsoft is calling "consumer Internet devices" or CIDs.
Is any of this helping? Would you buy an ultrathin running Windows 7 for a higher price than a netbook running XP, or is that too confusing? Let Doug know at [email protected].
Posted by Kurt Mackie on 08/14/2009 at 1:17 PM3 comments
Microsoft and Nokia have struck a deal in which Nokia will use Office Mobile applications on its Symbian open source mobile phone platform.
Microsoft will be developing its Office Mobile solution for a non-Windows platform, and that represents a new first for Microsoft, according to Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft's Business Division.
Is this deal another sign that Windows is becoming less of a profit center for Microsoft? Why did the Office application sell, but not Windows Mobile with it? Answers welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Kurt Mackie on 08/14/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Despite one analyst group's recent forecast of a major open source growth spurt this year, these readers believe open source isn't inherently better (or worse) than commercial software:
Seems to me open source software is a mixed bag. Some of it is at least as polished as commercial software, and much of it is not. It is like prospecting for gold -- you get the fever and start looking for that open source app that will solve whatever technical requirement you have. When you find something that looks good, you try it out. It always looks like a 4-inch-wide vein of gold that goes deep into the rock. But you find it is shallow and can only do the bare minimum you need, many times requiring such an effort to configure for your needs that you will need to contract with a company to get it rolled out.
Is it worth it? If you can find that 4-inch-wide vein that goes deep, it sure is. For this reason, we use very little open source software. In fact, I believe the only open source software in use in our organization has been provided by vendors in preconfigured systems. In other words, we let others do the prospecting, and only buy the jewelry that has been made with it.
-Dave
Personally, I don't think that the major open source applications are any less robust or polished than commercial ones. However, there is a lot of FUD around them that is keeping large businesses from implementing. A lot of directors and managers that I know would take the plunge into open source except for the fear of unknown costs for infringed IP. Many of us remember the hoops from the Lemelson Scare back in the '90s. Thankfully Symbol and a few others stepped up for their customers.
I believe that this is what many people see licensed software as: simply IP lawsuit insurance. One lawsuit judgement can dramatically skew the TCO.
-Joe
And Michael offers some advice to Doug, who has been the owner of three busted iPods:
eBay has replacement hard drives for the iPod that are bigger than what they came with originally, and ifixit.com has detailed instructions on how to tear the iPod apart.
-Michael
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/14/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Doug asked, and readers answered. Here are your (overwhelmingly positive) thoughts on the recently released Windows 7 RTM:
I have been running the Windows 7 RTM for a few days and am quite pleased with the overall result. It is easy to use and quite stable thus far. Will be interesting to see if businesses pick it up. Hopefully they do so faster than they didn't with Windows Vista.
-Derek
I have been running the RC since it came out on a couple of machines and now have the RTM (Enterprise/x64) on my primary laptop and desktop. I had been running Vista with varying levels of annoyance and was quite happy with the RC in comparison. Vista was barely functional for us and we were avoiding it completely. We have not felt that way at all with Windows 7. In fact, we have the RC running on several netbooks without problems. I must say we are pretty pleased so far.
-Caleb
Install time, boot time, and overall initial speed and stability seem to be on mark so far. I have a few gaming issues, but they only occurred after I installed ATI's Windows 7 drivers instead of the baked-in Microsoft drivers. It picked up every bit of hardware in my home-built machine -- didn't even flinch. I expect that if I'm stable over the next few weeks, and after other benching/testing, we'll use this as our upgrade path from XP Pro. We avoided Vista wherever possible, but on modern hardware I think Windows 7 does the trick nicely.
-Rick
A really solid release, easy to use, loads on to a bare drive in under 45 minutes. But patches still take time. I like it -- gave it about an 85 out of 100.
-Anonymous
I had Vista -- didn't hate it but didn't love it, either. I didn't jump on the Windows 7 beta train, but when the RC came out I took the plunge. Now with the RTM, I have to say there is something to love about Windows again. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. I'd recommend everyone take it for a test drive. The OS is responsive and the new taskbar is wonderful.
-Brian
I installed Windows 7 RTM Ultimate x64 on my work laptop as soon as it was available. It works so smoothly that I was really impressed by how it was easy to switch from Vista x86 to Windows 7 x64. I have a poor machine right now, but it's awesome how all things run. All my productive software is running as expected (the only small issue spotted so far is the Skype add-in for IE). My vote is 10 out of 10.
-Simone
I went from Vista x64 to Windows 7 x64. I did a clean install from DVD, which went well. I have reinstalled all my programs and everything has worked well. The only problem I ran into was with Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 (Windows 7 complains about a driver related to SEP and blocks it from loading), but Symantec still seems to work OK, though.
I have tested out BitLocker To Go and it works quite well. The new taskbar, Libraries and all features I have tried have been easy to use and just work. Windows 7 seems more responsive than Vista. Overall, in my few days of testing Windows 7, I'm very happy.
-Craig
The upgrade from my Dell Latitude E4300 running Vista Business x64 took a few hours, but went flawlessly. It pulled all my settings and most of my software worked except my Cisco Anyconnect VPN (it worked after I reinstalled). The performance of the laptop is very good, but I was a little disappointed with the boot time, and it seemed to take longer (but still less time than Vista) to give me control of the desktop. This is probably due more to upgrading versus doing a clean install. Also, Windows 7 installed all its own generic drivers. I will probably perform a clean install in a few days.
I am a little disappointed that Dell still has no Windows 7 drivers on its site. I installed the Vista drivers, which generally went well, but some of them reported that this was an unsupported OS (I was able to get around this by using compatibility mode). Also, Symantec Endpoint Protection still does not have a version for Windows 7, and after installing it, Windows 7 reports some errors regarding this installation -- mostly annoying messages. Also, I noticed that after installing SEP, it adds about 20 seconds to Windows 7 boot time, and about 10 or 15 seconds more to release full control of the desktop. Hopefully, this will change when Symantec releases a version compatible with Windows 7.
All in all, it is much faster than Vista and runs really well. It comes out of sleep mode and hibernation really fast. I think by the time all drivers for Windows 7 are released, it should be a solid OS.
-Asif
Doug mentioned an incompatibility problem with his LaserJet 1000 printer and Windows 7, but he wasn't sure whether it warrants loading XP Mode. Chad thinks he should just go for it...for the greater good, of course:
I have been meaning to test out that printer in XP Mode and see if it will let me print from inside Windows 7 as long as that's running. Haven't had a chance yet, so if you want to test it that would be great. I look forward to having you do the dirty work and report it to me via your column.
-Chad
Check back on Friday for some of your thoughts on open source. Meanwhile, share your thoughts by commenting below or sending an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Windows 7 is pretty much done, as the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version has been, er, released. That's good news for IT and great news for the economy. But it's not so hot for those beta testing either Visual Studio 2010 or .NET Framework 4. The three just don't get along.
The good news? Betas don't last forever and no one says a VS or .NET beta tester has to upgrade straight away.
I also learned that release candidate users such as myself have to do a clean install of the Windows 7 RTM, and not just upgrade in place. No biggie. The RC works a lot better than XP, so I'm in no hurry.
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/2009 at 1:17 PM3 comments
Wow, a busy couple of weeks for Google. Besides leaking news about its new search engine, Google also announced a new beta of the Chrome browser (seems like this has been a pretty long beta for what seems like a clean and solid product). The already fast Chrome is now supposed to be a third faster and now supports HTML 5.
The bigger news, perhaps, is Google's attempt to corner the market on Web video. It already owns YouTube so it has content pretty well in hand. Now it wants to own the back end, as well. To do so, Google is buying On2 Technologies. On2 offers compression software that drives Flash videos, the way most of us view videos. (In fact, I had to bail on Firefox because it doesn't support Flash on Windows 7.) Analysts see On2 as boosting YouTube, as well as improving how the Chrome browser and Chrome OS handle video.
Finally, a note to Google marketers: It makes no sense to use the same name for a browser and an OS. Who came up with this idea, George Foreman?
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/2009 at 1:17 PM5 comments
It may be just a coincidence, but shortly after Microsoft released Bing to good reviews, Google leaked news of its new search engine back end: Caffeine. Now being tested by Web developers, the new engine is supposed to be way faster and offer more real-time results as well as more Twitter and FaceBook findings.
The front end? The same, old, ultra-simple Google search box. What I didn't hear was any high-faluting technologies or radical new approaches to search. But according to tester comments, Caffeine gathers more results and is, in fact, far faster.
What would your dream search engine consist of? Shut down your browser and e-mail your wish list to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments
Doug recently questioned Hyper-V's market share numbers compared to VMware's. William thinks market share numbers, in general, should be taken with a grain of salt:
It would be interesting to see how many of the hypervisors Microsoft has sold are actually in use, and how many were purchased as part of a package, but never intended to be used. Stats can be manipulated, as we all know, to show anything one wants. Without studying how the data was collected, there is no way to validate the resultant stats.
-William
In the battle of iPod vs. Zune, Lynn casts her vote in favor of Microsoft's media player:
I have a 30GB fifth-generation iPod video that I've had for about four years. I'm not real fond of the iTunes software; from Day One, I have never been able to get the iPod to display the album art correctly. Then about two months ago, a small, black, jagged line showed up on the display, which has now turned into three jagged lines that go all the way across the screen. It hasn't been dropped or abused in any way. I have a protective case on it and carry it in a protective carrying case. The original battery started to hold less of a charge so I replaced the battery, but that didn't help much. Even with a new battery, it doesn't stay charged as long as it used to.
Since it was acting up, my husband wanted to buy me a new player and wanted to know if I wanted another iPod or a Zune. He has a 160GB Zune that I bought him for his birthday and he loves it. It has a bigger display and movies look 100 times better on it than on my iPod's small, square screen. Games are easier to play on the larger display. It has FM radio built-in. The album art has always worked right. The software is easy to use and updates are easy to install. I have a horrible time updating iTunes; it always comes up with some kind of error. As for a new player for me, I wanted to get a Zune, but when I realized I would have to redo all my music and video because you can't use anything in iTunes on anything but an iPod, I told him to get me the 120GB iPod classic. I hope that Microsoft doesn't discontinue the Zune -- it is really nicer than the iPod.
-Lynn
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/10/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
If you're jonesin' for a real, pretty much final copy of Windows 7, you're in luck -- provided you're an MSDN or TechNet member.
Now, bear with me if you're not a Ph.D. in Microsoft naming conventions. Recently, we had a beta of Windows 7 that turned into a release candidate (RC), which means it's almost ready for release (not sure if it has to win a majority of votes). Before we get to the real, true, actual, final, final commercial product, we have one more little beauty -- the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version, which means OEMs now get the software.
IT insiders can nab this item, as well, so long as they have a special relationship with Microsoft, such as a TechNet or MSDN sub. Many Redmond readers fit into this category and I'm dying to know how you like the RTM. Your impressions readily received at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/10/2009 at 1:17 PM7 comments