Here are some responses to what role the cloud plays in your IT strategy:
Really, the cloud concept is nothing new, it's just a mainframe/thin client concept. The problem is that it requires a lot of different components to work together and it's still in its infancy.
To host a server (file, exchange, etc.) locally is not a big deal. It is well understood, you have complete control over the environment and you receive alerts if the application, server or environment has any problems. All equipment is a just a few feet away in a secure location, connected via LAN. If we lose our Internet connection, we can all still work at the site.
To use the cloud, I have lost a lot of control and I'm dependent on several major factors outside of my control. Any one loss prevents me from working. You need a solid Internet connection (or really redundant connections). You need the cloud provider to do everything else in a timely manner. If a business is down, they lose money, so the 'sorry and here's a credit for another day' doesn't really cut it.
Someday as the technology, security, quality, monitoring, management services improve (or get close to what is already provided onsite today) then we can look into cloud services.
-Craig
I won't have anything to do with it. The cloud is just 'puff' and will pass as a failed attempt to increase revenue for the greedy.
-John
Cloud services are a compromise solution at best. If you are OK with the compromises, go for it; if you aren't aware of the compromises, you haven't done your homework.
-Ken
I am one of those server huggers I have heard about. I don't want the cloud to take my job and expertise from individual companies. Shoo. Go away!!
-Mark
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/22/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
Nothing lasts forever, least of all software. Most organisms don't know the date of their death. For XP, a hunk of software, we know the precise date: April 8, 2014 -- which is when official support ends.
I have mixed feelings but I do know that many of you like XP, understand how to quickly fix common problems and prefer to use it until it makes sense for you to move to Win 7, Win 8 or something else (like the Mac or a pure Web/cloud play).
And here's another issue: Until recently, about half of the netbooks carried by Best Buy were XP. That makes it a pretty current OS.
What are your thoughts on XP support? Come clean at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/20/2011 at 1:18 PM7 comments
Most of the time an update to software is a good thing because it SOLVES problems. Sometimes an update to software is a bad thing because it CAUSES problems.
That is apparently the case with Update Rollup 4 for Exchange 2010 SP1 (that name is simple to follow, eh?).
Here's what happens. The rollup actually fails to copy folders to new locations. Oops. The mail isn't lost for good (unlike the letters on Newman's postal route). They are recoverable by going to the "recoverable items" folder. Still, it has to freak an admin out to see all this stuff just plain disappear!
For those that haven't installed the rollup, hold off until further notice. If you have installed it, there is a fix from Microsoft customer support. Whoever said software isn't complicated was definitely lying.
What is your take on Exchange 2010? Message me and I'll message the readers with your answers -- so long as you write to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/20/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
In the past Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer made all the crazy, arrogant and totally entertaining comments about competitors. With Gates mostly out of the picture, it has fallen on Ballmer to riff on rivals. But his time is limited, so this critical load is now seemingly shared with Kevin Turner, Microsoft's COO.
At the recent partner conference, Turner teed off on, in alphabetical order, Apple, Cisco, Google, Oracle, Saleforce.com and VMware.
Here are a few highlights, with a touch of commentary:
- On Apple, Turner pointed to a reseller in Latin America who sells Apple gear running Windows 7. For Turner this shows the "importance of having a great OS." I agree, but who really has that great OS? You tell me at [email protected].
- Cisco got bashed for overpriced unified communications tools. I may give this one to Turner as Redmond readers really seem to like Microsoft UC, though you also want close cooperation between Cisco and Redmond.
- On Google, Turner bragged about rescuing Google Apps customers from a substandard set of apps and gave a poke at Google's hypocritical "Do No Evil" motto. I really only trust you, the loyal and non-evil Redmond Report reader, so you tell me how Google Apps stack up at [email protected].
- Oracle was poked with Turner implying that top execs were somehow sleazy, and how Oracle takes poor care of customers of its acquired companies such as Siebel. Your take on Oracle readily accepted at [email protected].
- Salesforce.com is apparently full of hidden costs and isn't that great. It wasn't there to respond.
- Finally, VMware charges too much for large virtualized data centers.
This is fun for a journalist/commentator like me, but is it really healthy? Should Microsoft treat all these companies as competitors or do its best to make them partners? I mean, where has all this Democratic vs. Republican Party bashing gotten us? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/20/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
There are many ways to approach the cloud. You can be all in, go partway, or ignore the whole thing. And whether you go all in or partway you still need to decide on an architecture.
Two main choices are building your own cloud -- either by creating a private cloud or buying a public cloud service. The problem with this nomenclature is a public cloud should not be public. How can data be secured if it is truly public?
Access to the public (remote) cloud should only be granted to trusted users. Done right, a public cloud is just as private as a private cloud. How about we change our terms to in-house cloud and remote cloud.
Anyhoo, noted IT guru Greg Shields believes that some kind of move to the cloud is inevitable, and that shops will have a mix of private (in-house) and public (remote) clouds.
The key difference, according to Shields, is you build a private (in-house) cloud, but you buy a public (remote) cloud.
On the private (err, in-house) side you are halfway there if you've already virtualized your servers. Once you take that step, you then just need to set it up so these VMs are flexible, taking advantage of extra resources as they're needed and creating a view where all these apps look like a unified manageable service. Jeepers. Sound easy and cool. Wish it were so.
That brings me back to the whole notion of a private (in-house) cloud. A private cloud is only a cloud if it acts like a utility. I wonder how many private (in-house) clouds actually fit the true description of a cloud. To me, private clouds are more hype than truth.
Tell me where I'm right or wrong at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/18/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
Recently I told you about the temporary death of my Windows 7 machine. My crack IT guru David Song is taking care of it, and I should have the machine back late today.
In the meantime I'm using my daughter's nearly decades-old XP-based HP Pavilion, fighting it every step of the way -- you know how flaky old XP installs can be. The thing is, a few years ago I quadrupled the RAM and did a fresh install of XP. It is still slower than a Kevin Federline thought pattern.
Word 2003 exhibited some bizarre behavior -- highlighting whenever I moved the cursor, not letting me change magnification and creating gibberish as I tried to enter coherent strings of characters. And when it goes flaky, it wouldn't reboot without a forced manual shut down. And this was only in the first hour!
Oh, and my Web mail client gets mail, but as of this writing can't sent it.
Did I mention my broadband went south? Good thing that was a two-minute fix.
Oh, and Yahoo IM doesn't always accept input.
These kinds of experiences made me hope for Windows 7, which is indeed much better but is still too flaky for a 25-plus year-old OS.
With Windows 8 I hope to bloody H E double hockey sticks that Microsoft fixes OS glitches before focusing on the fancy stuff.
Are XP and Win 7 better than I give them credit for? Yes and no's equally welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/18/2011 at 1:18 PM12 comments
Five years ago I started going through Microsoft Research projects. Most of them I couldn't make heads or tails of. Some of the ones I did understand had a common theme: helping the world. It turns out that Redmond connects with top researchers and academics on everything from fighting to disease to mapping the universe, agriculture and global warming.
The United Way gets this and recently gave Microsoft two awards for its good deeds in support of education.
While Microsoft Research does hands-on work, Microsoft corporate gave out over $600 million last year to various charities. The United Way cashed in on over $14 million of Microsoft's offering, which was used to build tools to reduce school drop-out rates and increase math scores.
It wasn't all just cash. Microsoft employees spent over 360,000 hours volunteering. It that makes a few products a bit late, then so be it.
Is Microsoft as good a corporate citizen as I make it out to be or is it just making up for past misdeeds? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/18/2011 at 1:18 PM3 comments
There are many things that bug me. In the coming weeks I'll expose the worst offenders, starting with Office.
Word Formatting: I got to tell you, I've been using Word for nigh onto 20 years, and I still feel too stupid to use it properly. My beef? Unless you had a past life as a desktop publisher, the formatting in incomprehensible. Sure, I can do plenty of fonts, indents and what not. It's the simple stuff that kills me. It's the basics. Formatting should be the easiest thing in the world. But when building a document from multiple sources, Word is inscrutable. I cut and paste and import a lot. Writers and editors send me files, and I add reader e-mail to blogs and columns. As much as you try to reformat, Word hangs onto the old styles like grim death, which Word sometimes makes me desire.
Often after several iterations, the old fonts and spacing will suddenly reappear, sometimes in the word doc, sometimes when you paste it into Outlook. I'm on Office 2007, and many is the time that Word refused to let me turn a double or 1.5 space doc into single space. Word 2003 had an undo formatting feature. Word 2007 either doesn't have it or it is hidden better than Jimmy Hoffa. I searched Word Help and it was no help.
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/15/2011 at 1:18 PM16 comments
A few months ago I asked readers to talk about their cloud plans and how cloud adoption will change the nature of IT work. I talked to over a dozen of you, and the results were mixed. Many old schoolers -- and old school isn't always bad -- believe the cloud will kill off a good many IT jobs, particularly admins who run our servers.
Cloud believers believe new jobs will be created. And as applications move to the cloud and admin jobs retreat, IT can and should become more strategic and less tactical. About a third of the IT pros I interviewed are waiting on the sidelines until pricing, security and uptime are all proven solid.
Where are you with your cloud plans? Spill the beans at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/15/2011 at 1:18 PM3 comments
I've been hearing about unified communications (UC) for about two decades. Back in the day it was all about merging e-mail and voice mail to ride on top of traditional PBX systems. Back then the technology was immature, and IT and telephony teams were as different as Anthony Weiner and Newt Gingrich (the only thing they have in common is infidelity).
Microsoft is a bit late to the UC party, but it is making up for lost time with a darn good set of products, or so you, the loyal and expressive Redmond Report readers think. I interviewed about a dozen of you fine folks and almost every person told me how UC had changed your business.
Microsoft hasn't made that much noise about UC, which is why I underestimated how good it is. I'm no MS shill, just telling you what you told me.
What is your UC experience? Share your thoughts at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/15/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
Here are a couple of e-mails concerning the Ribbon, and the death of Office XP and Vista SP1:
Office XP is awfully long in the tooth now. After all, it was followed by Office 2003 and Office 2007 well before Office 2010 became available. Users should never allow themselves to fall more than two versions behind any version of software upon which they are dependent. That just guarantees you trouble down the road. I agree that the Ribbon takes some getting used to but those older versions of Office had so many features before the Ribbon that I had terrible time finding. With the Ribbon perhaps these little know features will be easier to find in the future. In an ideal world, Microsoft would let users of the newest version of an application opt for the last versions interface. Of course, this is just putting off the inevitable.
As for Vista SP1, I say tough beans. Service Pack 2 for Vista has been available as a free download for a long time now, and users who do not install the latest Service Packs shortly after they become available are just asking for trouble. One doesn't need to be an 'early adopter' but being a 'late adopter' carries with it its own unique pitfalls. Like it or not, things change.
-Marc
I really like the new Ribbon interface of Office 2007/2010. Some of the main tabs may be poorly labeled and there is probably more wasted space, but I DO NOT miss the Menu / Toolbar system of Word 2003! Things were buried in menu systems 3 and 4 levels deep. None of the labels made any sense, and if you missed moving the mouse ever so slightly your menu collapses and you have to start navigating all over again! The tool bars might have had a much higher icon density but they had quarks just as bad (if not worse).
Word is a very feature-full and a very mature product. I strongly believe that the problem is not Ribbon vs. no Ribbon -- it's just when you pack that many features into one product you're likely going to be doing a lot more hunting than you would like. Well, the hunt was reset for those who internalized Word 2003 but it doesn't mean that the new user interface is poorly designed. Kids and people new to word processing seem to pick up the concept of the Ribbon better than they did in Word 2003 -- there is more information available at a glance in the form of tab headers, group heaters, etc.
- Nate
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/13/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Over a decade ago when Bill Gates bet Microsoft on the Internet, it was a sure thing. When Steve Ballmer decided to bet at least a part of his company on the cloud, it was a bit of a risk.
Let's face it, WAN and Internet speeds don't always support snappy cloud computing, and IT is reluctant to give up control to an untrusted outside party. Perhaps, more importantly, IT is reluctant to give up JOBS to an untrusted outside party!
So it's no wonder Steve Ballmer was nervous about Redmond's cloud move -- feelings he confessed to at this week's Worldwide Partner Conference. Since it was a partner conference, Steve mostly admitted to worries that partners might not stay with Redmond for the long cloud haul.
As Ballmer explained, the move to the cloud has really been a five-year affair, with each year bringing Microsoft closer to Cloud Nirvana.
In fact, Microsoft only "mentioned" cloud computing five years ago. By 2010, Microsoft was "all in."
Fortunately Microsoft still has a massive arsenal of on-premise software, so if the cloud collapses, Redmond revenues won't.
What year will cloud revenues surpass Microsoft on-premise software revenues? Guesses and total conjecture equally welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/13/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments