Apple has been knocked for not doing enough to support its Safari browser and
letting Firefox do all the heavy lifting.
Now, in a stunning reversal, the company is building
a version of the browser for Windows! The new tool is now in beta, and has
already been tweaked to fix a few security problems (Apple Patch Tuesday, anyone?).
At first, I scratched my head over why Apple would want to enter the browser
wars. Then, I remembered how much it charges for iTunes songs and videos. Safari
on Windows, I'm sure, would offer every option known to man for buying Apple
content. I'm less excited already.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 06/18/20070 comments
As the father of Notes and now Microsoft's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie
must have mixed feelings about tools like this.
Unify's new Microsoft
Edition of Composer for Lotus Notes helps shops turn custom Notes applications
into SOA services that work with various Microsoft tools such as SQL Server
and SharePoint.
This is a very different approach to Notes migration. Instead of just moving
the application logic to Exchange and Outlook (which ain't always easy), the
tool migrates Notes databases to SQL Server, and converts the applications themselves
to Web services written in C#. End users access the apps through ASP.NET apps
or SharePoint. Pretty slick.
Posted by Doug Barney on 06/18/20070 comments
If your shop builds on top of SaaS platforms such as Saleforce.com, then DreamFactory
has a tool for you. The
DreamFactory
Developer Portal
is designed to help developers jumpstart Web apps that
tap into SaaS systems.
The free portal has training and tools. If the company can truly build a community,
then there will be plenty of peers to give you advice.
Posted by Doug Barney on 06/18/20070 comments
Last week, Doug asked readers
what
they thought of Microsoft's patching strategy
. Rodney is less than satisfied:
Until now, I was wondering if I was the only person with updates (three)
riding my system tray for the past two weeks, hoping I shut my system down
so they can play at installing. I'm running Vista Home Premium and this is
the second time that this has happened. Updates arrive one evening and fail
at installing for weeks at a time. When one batch installs, another batch
appears to repeat the process.
With WinXP, updates installed in the background and were less obvious.
What's going on with Vista?
-Rodney
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Posted by Doug Barney on 06/18/20070 comments
Tomorrow, Microsoft will
release
a batch of patches
that target remote execution flaws in Visio, Internet
Explorer and Office. Is it just me, or do almost all flaws allow a hacker to
remotely do something?
In any case, it's good to see Microsoft tackling what could be some very dangerous
problems.
Are you happy with Microsoft's patching strategy? Is Microsoft security getting
better? Let us know at dbarney@redmondmag.com!
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Posted by Doug Barney on 06/11/20070 comments
This week, Orlando welcomes Microsoft customers, execs and assorted hangers-on
(like the motley
Redmond
crew), and as usual there are more press releases
than Orlando area theme parks.
Today's
keynoter was Bob Muglia, senior VP of the server and tools business. Muglia's
theme was "Dynamic IT for the People-Ready Business."
I read reports of his speech but I can't for the life of me understand what
Microsoft means by "dynamic." Don't get me started on "people-ready,"
a vacuous marketing term if there ever was one.
Digging deeper, "dynamic" really seems to mean "well-managed,"
and this management just happens to come from Microsoft. When systems are well-managed,
they're easier to change, upgrade, tweak and add services to, so I guess this
could kind of make them dynamic.
We'll be diving more deeply into individual new products in the next few newsletters,
but here's a quick rundown:
- There are new versions of Forefront security, including a unified system
for clients, servers and the edge of the network.
- There was a formal announcement of the name of the next version of Visual
Studio, due next year. Get this: It's gonna be called "Visual Studio
2008"!
- IIS 7.0 was announced and will be bundled
with Windows 2008 Server Core. This seems like the perfect Microsoft antidote
to the Linux/Apache duo.
Google Strengthens Software Development Hand
Google is dipping its well-heeled toes into the software development market
with a new set of tools that will allow the building of apps
that can actually run offline (gasp!).
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Posted by Doug Barney on 06/04/20070 comments
Microsoft has been wishy-washy about the Open Document format promoted by the
OpenOffice backers. It supports the file format through translators, but not
as a native format in Office 2007, which uses OpenXML instead.
Last week, Microsoft gave Open Doc another endorsement when it voted
to make the format an ANSI standard. I'd still like to see tighter integration
with Office, though.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 05/21/20070 comments
SanDisk is working with Microsoft on a
new
generation of flash drives
that make it easier to take your computing environment
with you.
Many smart IT folks long ago figured out how to bring their files and applications
anywhere they go. In the old days, some even toted around hard drives and slapped
them into PCs at remote offices or at home.
Flash drives make this much easier, and the U3 technology from SanDisk is supposed
to add core application functionality such as e-mail and browsing to the drives.
Maybe I can finally stop lugging my laptop wherever I go!
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Posted by Doug Barney on 05/14/20070 comments
A little more than a year from now, ICANN is expected to
release
a bevy of new 'Net names
. I'm not sure what new suffixes it'll approve,
but suffice to say Web squatters will be snapping up the most common names and
selling them to the highest bidder.
Posted by Doug Barney on 05/14/20070 comments
Here's a shocker: It seems that "Longhorn," cool as it sounds, will
not be the name of the next Windows Server.
Brace yourselves! Longhorn will be called "Windows Server 2008."
Microsoft won't comment on the name, mistakenly
posted on its Web site, but this is far from a surprise.
I think they are substituting a great name, Longhorn, for one as boring as
an Al Gore press conference. What do you think? Let us know at
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Posted by Doug Barney on 05/14/20070 comments
In an effort to keep its next generation of virtualization from slipping further,
Microsoft is
delaying
a raft of key features
.
Viridian (which, besides being a codename, is a real word for the color blue/green)
will lose the ability to move a virtual machine that's running to another box.
Hot swapping is also getting the cold shoulder. I bet VMware engineers are breathing
real sighs of relief.
Posted by Doug Barney on 05/14/20070 comments