Hackers know that Patch Tuesday is a big day, a day when IT prods feverishly
download patches and plug holes. It's also a perfect way to trick users into
clicking on what they think is legitimate security information from Microsoft,
but is
instead
a Trojan horse.
Is this clever? Not really. Dangerous? You bet! You might want to warn your
end users about this one.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/20/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Are Apple laptops worth the price tag? Readers chime in with their thoughts:
In reality, I recognize hyperbole when I see it. Apple stuff is not all
that overpriced in the overall scheme of things. Rejoice and relax -- you
still have the lower parts of the market all to yourselves.
-Bill
You stated by saying that buying a Mac instead of a PC is like buying
a Cadillac instead of a Hyundai. I think a better comparison is buying a Mac
is like buying a Toyota instead of a Ford. We all know Ford could build a
better car if it wanted to, but it doesn't want to. So if reliability and
performance are issues, you buy a Toyota, not a Ford. Same for Mac vs. PC.
-Alan
Apple will never be able to afford to sell entry-level PCs. It simply
cannot generate the volumes necessary to absorb the narrow margins that Dell
and HP must maintain on entry-level products.
That's not really the question, though. OEMs like Dell and HP routinely
offer steep discounts on mid-range to high-end systems in order to attract
high-volume enterprise customers -- and they still make a profit. If Apple
DID care about IT (or perhaps if it simply understood the enterprise market),
it would understand that enterprise customers are not consumers and they will
not pay premium prices for PCs. But when they do buy, they buy in large enough
volumes to make it worth their while.
-Marc
Have you ever met anyone using a Mac that wasn't passionate about their
Apple product? They don't mind paying extra for the look and feel of the Apple
products and love the interface, so why would Apple ever cut its profit margin
in hopes of attracting newbies? It already has a dedicated fan base that's
bringing up children and influencing others with their preferences.
Not for me though -- I'm hooked on Windows and prefer it even with all
the security issues and OS flaws. It's what I use at work and prefer to use
at play. Even if Apple cut its prices down to the $500 level, I'd be no more
drawn to its product line as I'm sure many others would agree. Bet many others
are worked up over this posting!
-Jee
Apple obviously doesn't care about a presence in the enterprise. Most
line-of-business applications won't run on a Mac. There's little in the way
of management, no good story for remote access. Even ignoring the price difference,
there's too much functionality lost with Mac. They're fine for home users
or business users who only need an Office app, but other than that, I don't
see much of a role for them in business. For the foreseeable future, I'm a
PC.
-Dave
I support PCs and am sick of the instability. If Macs are stable, the
$500 premium is worth it. But are they? Based on what evidence?
As the lowly network admin, I'm not really that worried about money per
se; the boss has to pay for it. I'm more worried about my own frustration
regarding malware, users mucking where they shouldn't and general OS instability.
If I could make a defensible claim of higher uptime, higher user productivity
and lower support, I'd be interested in making the case. For now, we are moving
to a dumb terminal configuration using Wyse terminals and Citrix.
-Milton
Interesting to note that Apple once dominated computers in elementary
and high schools, but is now in second place to Dell in sales. Was Bill Gates
smart to settle his antitrust suit by giving away PCs to poorer schools? Not
only is he giving away PCs, Microsoft is providing millions of dollars in
training and technical support for teachers to learn how to effectively use
PCs. Smart move by Microsoft, but will Apple respond with affordable computers
for these low-income students?
-Dan
Since I've always thought (with few exceptions) that Apple customers represent
the best of the snobby, elitist, socially unconscious "arty" crowd,
why would Steve want to stoop so low for the rest of us? Thank goodness laptops
have gone down in price. Hey, maybe someday I can replace my old clunker.
-Anonymous
Apple taking its prices down to PC levels would destroy its business model,
since it wouldn't be the cool, limited club that it is. Its fanboys would
move on to something else if every Joe Six-Pack also owned an Apple; it wouldn't
be special anymore. The coolness is a critical part of Apple's business success...at
least for others. I'm too old to worry about coolness anymore.
-Bob
Check in tomorrow for more of your letters! In the meantime, leave your comment
below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/20/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Who would've guessed that a free hypervisor aimed directly against one costing
over five grand (for a high-end edition of ESX) would quickly gain market share?
If you said IDC,
you'd
be correct. This veteran research house says that Hyper-V, "when combined
with Virtual Server 2005, helped Microsoft to capture 23 percent of new license
shipments in 2Q 2008." That's great news for Microsoft execs.
So what's the good news for VMware? "Worldwide new server shipments virtualized
increased 52 percent year over year in the second quarter," IDC says. Looks
like there's plenty of business for everyone.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/20/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
One stock maven believes that the Wall Street collapse may
reignite
Microsoft's interest in Yahoo. The theory is that Yahoo is now far cheaper
and the value of Microsoft cash is relatively undiminished.
This could well be true, though I still think buying Yahoo is a terrible me-too
idea. And Microsoft has recently
spent $80 billion buying back its own stock (a better investment than AIG,
I dare say). Does Redmond still have the cash to snag Yahoo? And if not, can
it borrow that amount in today's market? You tell me at [email protected].
By the way, we can no longer call Wall Street types gurus, experts or pundits
after losing so much money. I lost the equivalent of a fully equipped BMW 640
last week -- what about you? Stories of possessions lost welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/13/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have a mini-mutual-admiration society. They support
the same causes (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and neither are as
flashy as their wealth would indicate (compare either to Donald Trump and you'll
see what I mean).
But for at least a decade, Bill has outpaced Warren for good, old-fashioned
greenbacks. This year, Buffet finally turned the tables, and is now
the richest man in the world.
We'll check back after Wall Street recovers and see who's on top then. It'll
probably be some short seller we've never heard of.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/13/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Tomorrow will be a particularly busy
Patch Tuesday, and once again remote code execution attacks are taking center
stage, with no less than four fixes. Active Directory will get plugged, as will
Windows Server 2000, Internet Explorer and Office.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/13/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
IBM is bucking the recession, and is
expecting
its revenues and earnings to rise more sharply than the price of a New York
Giants ticket. Revenue should be right around $25 billion -- which, if you multiply
by four, gives a $100 billion run rate, enough to bail out one mid-size investment
firm. Profits are also expected to be solidly in "kick-butt" territory.
What's IBM doing right? Insight welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/13/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Last week, I
wrote
about scareware, those pesky pop-ups that claim your PC is infected. Click
the pop-up and you're either buying security or performance software you don't
need and doesn't even work, or your machine is now infected and ready to cash
it in.
I've been getting plenty of horror stories -- you can check out a few of them
in yesterday's
Mailbag section -- but the topic also prompted me to write a feature story...and
that's where you can help. Drop me a note at [email protected]
and tell me how you or one of your company's machines was compromised by scareware.
I'm also very interested in how to prevent the pop-ups and repair the damage
they do. You could well be quoted in a future issue of Redmond magazine.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/09/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
It might not be a reversal of XP's death sentence, but if reports are to be
believed, XP did at least get a
six-month
reprieve and won't be yanked from OEM hands until July 2009.
Some say this is a bunch of hooey, but whether or not Microsoft has formally
made the decision, I have to believe the company will offer XP as long as humanly
possible. After all, people want it, Microsoft gets paid for it and the monopoly
remains intact. Where's the downside? There isn't one.
Tell me where I'm wrong (yeah, I stole that line from Bill-O) at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/09/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
It's been a bit of secret how much Microsoft has been pushing SQL Server 2005
and 2008 as a business intelligence (BI) platform. But Microsoft doesn't want
it to be such a secret anymore, and has a range of
new
features to increase the IQ of BI in the next rev of SQL Server. Topping
the list? New reporting and analysis services aimed not just at BI gurus, but
rank-and-file managers and information workers.
Like any important initiative in Redmond, it may take a while, but eventually
Microsoft usually gains a leadership position. Who knows? It may even happen
some day for the Zune!
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/09/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Here's one more scareware story to cap off the week. At least in this one, the
user learns his lesson:
I have a boss, the company vice president yet, who has a bad habit of
going places on the Internet that he shouldn't and clicking on things better
left unclicked. In the past, I have been able to clean some of the scareware
off his system, but the last couple of times I couldn't. The scareware folks
had gotten smarter. The first thing they did was disable anything I could
use to get rid of their work, such as Task Manager, the Run box, any malware
or anti-virus products it could find, and even access to the c: drive (they
hid it).
I basically told him that I couldn't get rid of the crap and that it
would take me two days to reformat and reload his machine...two days during
which he would have no access to his e-mail or anything else. Since the second
two-day outage, he has been behaving himself much better.
-Phil
Readers share their thoughts on the "Vista
Capable" logo lawsuit and the fuss over hardware requirements:
This is much ado about nothing. I've been in the industry for over 25
years and every edition of Windows which has ever shipped has needed twice
the minimum RAM requirements to "get by" and four times that number
to perform well. Vista is no different.
For instance: XP requirements were a 300MHz Pentium II with 128MB of
RAM but it had to have an 800MHz Pentium 3 and 256MB of RAM to work OK and
512MB to run well. Vista requires an 800MHz Pentium 3 and 512MB to run but
has to have a 1GHz Pentium 4 HT and 1GB of RAM to work OK and 2GB of RAM to
run well. Nothing new here. That doesn't change the fact that Microsoft oversold
Vista's new features and failed to get its ISVs and OEMs on board before going
RTM. Missing the 2006 holiday season didn't help, either. That said, with
any system sold today, Vista will run very well with 2GB of RAM.
-Marc
Specs on today's hardware are most impressive, particularly when you consider
the low prices. The only thing more impressive is current Microsoft software's
ability to drag it down. At first, I was thinking the hardware makers were
inflating their claims, but if you run old benchmark programs on the new machines,
the numbers are off the charts! Same thing if you load Win2K Pro or Win98
on a modern machine. They boot so fast, you'll miss it if you yawn. And Win98
shuts down so fast that you can't even get your finger away from the button!
So what exactly is Vista doing when (after a fresh install) it takes
many minutes to boot on a triple-core 2.3Ghz machine with 2GB of memory?
-Robert
Doug suggested yesterday that when it comes to prices, PCs have greater appeal
to the Joe Six-Packs of the world than Apple. One reader agrees:
I believe you might be showing your conservative values with that Joe
Six-Pack statement. Good for you.
I agree with you. I went to get an MP3 player/radio for working out. iPod:
$120. Radio tuner: another $50. Phillips player with radio that has the same
memory and half the size: $60. I may get an iPod for my kids if my arm is
twisted, but for me, no thank you.
-Joe "Six-Pack"
And finally, Mailbag gets political! Here are a few of your thoughts on the
presidential candidates and the current economy:
In response to your query regarding the economic savvy of either of the
anointed presidential candidates, all I can do is laugh. Both are completely
freaking clueless about most things, in my opinion, but especially about the
economy. As were all other candidates from both parties except one: Congressman
Ron Paul. He's the only one who could get former Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan to sweat during committee testimony and the only one who can
not only explain the issues, he predicted the current fiasco and took steps
to avoid it.
Google "Ron Paul" and read his writings. Easier yet, do a search
on YouTube and listen to him explain his philosophy. The man is short on sound
bites but long on substance. Here's
a place to start your education.
-J.C.
It has become painfully obvious to me that our country has been hijacked
by some of the most vile, evil people imaginable who care not one iota about
the middle class, lower class or even upper class. They are the 'elites' and
they have done a really good job of creating a system that rewards criminals
and punishes people who are good. They have ruined the U.S. economy and I
personally don't want to play a rigged game. It is laughable that there are
so many willing slaves.
-M.J.A.
Let us know what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/09/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments
This isn't the first time this newsletter has warned about the need for better
virtualization security. The whole issue is that virtualization is a relatively
new form of computing (and yes, I do know IBM mainframes were virtualized in
1968), and many security tools haven't kept up. Add to that the fact that a
single virtualized server can act as dozens of machines. Compromise that server
and you can compromise the whole shooting match.
A new survey by security vendor nCircle Inc. shows just
how nervous IT is. About half of those polled don't trust security in virtual
environments. Meanwhile, Shavlik surveyed VMworld attendees, and while 80 percent
of these folks are very concerned about the issue, only about a third have taken
concrete steps to secure virtual servers.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/09/2008 at 1:16 PM0 comments