Microsoft is hoping to be the new Teddy Roosevelt by taking on nefarious monopolies and busting them apart.
No, Microsoft is not going after the National Securities Company. That got torn to shreds decades ago. Redmond has its eyes on what might be an even bigger prize: Google.
According to Microsoft (which still hasn't been forgiven by the European Union), Google isn't playing fair in Europe and is using its market dominance to block out smaller competitors (like Microsoft, which only brings in about $80 billion a year).
Microsoft made its feelings known formally last week with a complaint to the European Commission (EC), which was already looking into antitrust allegations against the Googlelizers.
If I was Microsoft, I'm not sure I would have complained, as the filing admits that Google has some 95 percent share of the European search market. And Microsoft has had a search engine for how long?
There is some teeth to Redmond's concerns. Apparently in Europe, only Google will readily point to YouTube videos. Google also, allegedly, artificially lowers the rank of competing engines.
Wonder where Google learned how to leverage a monopoly? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 04/04/2011 at 1:18 PM4 comments
Most cloud players are in it to make money by pushing proprietary solutions. But three commercial cloud players think there is money to be made in them there open source hills. Rackspace, Dell and Equinix have joined forces to promote OpenStack, a cloud platform based on work done at NASA (with the help of RackSpace) to build NASA's Nebula cloud platform.
OpenStack can build public or private clouds and has the backing over some 50 different organizations.
The trio have set up a demo so prospective user can get a feel for how OpenStack stacks up.
Posted by Doug Barney on 04/01/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Bill Gates has a long line of critics. I was one until he started trying to save the world by giving away the vast bulk of his vast wealth.
Over the last few decades I've spent most of my working time covering software vendors. Gates was clearly a brute to software partners and competitors, most of whom are now out of business. That's what made me a critic.
But someone I never expected to rain on Gates' parade is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, out hawking a new book.
Books these days are based less on fine prose and insight, and more on controversy and criticism. Don't believe me? Look at all the garbage penned by washed-up politicians. So it is any wonder that Allen's new book takes shots (you can decide if they are cheap or not) at Gates? According to Allen, when Microsoft started, he expected that he and Gates would share ownership 50/50. Gates talked him down to 60/40 then 64/36, both in Bill's favor.
Later when Steve Ballmer joined, and Allen was suffering from tough health issues, Gates and Ballmer got together to dilute Allen's shares further. Some equity went to Ballmer, some went to other execs as incentives.
There are two sides to this coin: The book clearly shows Gates' spare no prisoners business approach. Then again, Microsoft grew, in part, because it could entice the best and the brightest with stock incentives.
Where do you stand? Are you upset that Paul Allen only has little more than $10 billion, or did he have to take one for the Microsoft team? Share your thoughts on this urgent matter at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 04/01/2011 at 1:18 PM10 comments
FireFox 4.0 just shipped, and already one key supporter claims it will crush IE 9. Mozilla Community Development Director Asa Dotzler argues that by year's end, IE 9 will be on fewer than one in five machines, while FireFox will hit nearly a third.
I haven't used IE 9, but I am on FireFox 4.0, and while faster than its predecessor, it is an awkward, ungainly, confusing hunk of software.
Browsers are supposed to be simple, with key functions like saving and organizing bookmarks as easy as pie. The latest FireFox fails in easily doing the basics, in my estimation.
Next week I'll give a full rundown on my complaints. For now, tell me what you think at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 04/01/2011 at 1:18 PM9 comments
I used to pride myself on knowing what was going on in virtual computing. After all, I helped start Virtualization Review magazine.
But Microsoft, mainly through acquisition, has so many dang tools that it's hard for me to keep track of them all.
One such tool is the new Windows Thin PC software, or WinTPC (if you want to turn a simple name into a complex one). There is now a public beta of the software that Microsoft calls a "Locked Down Version" of Windows 7 that uses VDI to serve up the thin-client experience.
Here how it works, as best as I can figure: Because the apps are actually server based, you can use legacy hardware or dedicated thin clients to offer up the Windows 7 experience. Beyond-legacy graphics, including the Aero interface, are offered up through Windows Server's RemoteFX.
If you want to buy this puppy when it ships, you best get yourself a Software Assurance license. Lesser licenses will apparently not be served.
Do you fully understand Microsoft's virtualization strategy? Tell me whether it is coherent or not at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/30/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
Earlier this week many of you agreed with me that Microsoft is as confusing as a Dennis Miller monologue (check out today's Doug's Mailbag for some of them). And I spent a few month studying this (licensing, not Miller).
Well, there is one concept that is not that hard to grasp: the Client Access License (CAL). Here for one price is a bunch of software licensed to one client device. There are two main CALs: The Core CAL is for software Microsoft hopes every user will use, while the Enterprise CAL has high-end software that some, but not all, would avail themselves of, such as System Center and SharePoint.
Now Microsoft is moving a couple of apps its wants everyone to enjoy from the Enterprise CAL to the Core CAL, specifically ForeFront Endpoint Protection and Lync.
While this sounds like a slam-dunk for IT, there are various price increases and licensing restrictions you should really check out. We have all the deets here.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/30/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Whenever I've mentioned technology analysts, you, the loyal and brilliant Redmond Report reader, cackle. There is a distinct lack of respect, especially for the more pretentious firms out there (you know who they are).
So you must forgive me if I am more than a bit skeptical about IDC's latest mobile phone predictions. I lay 'em on you, and you tell me if they make sense.
Android is in the lead now with a bit less than 40 percent of the market (moving up to 45.4 percent by 2015). Okay, no huge beef here.
Here's where it gets sketchy:. The iPhone will lose share by 2015, going from a current 15.7 percent to 15.3 percent. When what the last time Steve Jobs lost market share? The BlackBerry will also decline from 14.9 percent to 13.7 percent.
And Windows phones will go from 5.5 percent to 20.95 percent, putting it in second place. Microsoft must be serving IDC analysts a particularly strong form of Kool-Aid to get these kinds of predictions.
Windows phone users more than welcome to disagree at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/30/2011 at 1:18 PM6 comments
Readers share their horror stories trying to figure out the madness that is Microsoft licensing:
Microsoft licensing is so darn confusing, even the VARs that sell the licenses have a challenge figuring it out. You would think, for example, that a 'volume license' would be a less expensive way to license product. After all there is just one set of media (or in some cases, just a download of media) and then keys to distribute. But a recent request for 10 licenses of a particular MS software had my VAR shipping me 10 retail boxes (media, cases, retail boxes, etc) because the pricing that way was significantly less expensive than 'volume pricing.' Now I have to manage those disks and licenses.
Three months ago, I needed to renew a volume license with Microsoft Software Assurance, and ended up with a new license and software assurance. I now hold twice as many licenses as I did, but have software assurance on only half of them. Ever looked at the volume licensing center and tried to figure out what you have licenses for and what you don't? Even THAT is confusing <sigh>.
-Shirley
Microsoft licensing is way too complicated. In our great age of technology, where we have this undeniable urge to make everything we touch so much more complex than it needs to be, Microsoft Licensing is leading the way. Licensing concepts are so simple for the single user (for the moment) that if you need a software package, you purchase it, install it on a single computer and use it. If multiple people use the same computer, so what?
However, now we move into the multiuse arena. If you have two servers and 25 networked computers, not to mention a few that do not reside on the internal network, you're, in essence, screwed. Now you have to purchase a license for each computer OS, one for each user that connects to the server, the licensing fee for the server, the fee to make it virtual, the fee for each user that uses it, a fee to click your mouse more than 17 times in a session and a fee for each cup of coffee you drink while waiting on the software to give you the results you asked for 19 mouse clicks ago.
-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 03/30/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
A Microsoft study shows that nearly half of all small businesses have an interest in cloud applications.
The survey seems a bit short on details, but did indicate that close to 40 percent of small shops will have at least one cloud app in the next year. This could be as minor as Gmail or as big as Office 365.
It does kind of make sense for small firms to go the cloud. This way they can avoid costly IT paychecks -- as long as the cloud apps actually do what they are supposed to do, and are easy to manage and secure.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/28/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Here are one reader's experiences with Hotmail:
I got a friend set up with Hotmail after having helped a few other friends with Gmail setup. The one thing that puzzled me about Hotmail was the lack (at least I did not find it) of links to nice exhaustive explanations about how to configure a hotmail account to interoperate with Outlook or Outlook Express. The person I helped with Hotmail does not use either version of Outlook, so that it did not matter. But it does puzzle me. Is a Hotmail account not able to be configured to serve as a POP3 server for Outlook?
-Lou
A developer gives his insight on Microsoft's newest Internet Explorer version:
As an independent developer, I'm always investigating the latest releases, but am wary of messing up my critical-development PC. But in this case, IE 9 is definitely a winner! With IE 8 I had to sometimes use Chrome or Firefox for certain Web sites, since things didn't always work with IE 8 (for example, I'd get 'the connection with the server was reset' when trying to download a file in IE 8, but it worked fine in Chrome). I sometimes spent hours trying to figure out what settings in IE 8 were causing the problem, often without success. These problems are gone with IE 9. I like the clean UI, and so far the performance is great too.
-Selden
A reader writes in to give some insight why his Android-based smartphone is coming up short on the job:
My Droid 2 works like a champ... Almost. I have an app that lets me RDP to all the servers via our TS Gateway. I have an app that lets me SSH to our Unix servers. I can do everything I want, except use the built-in VPN capability.
I can't do a PPTP VPN to Win2k or Win2k3 servers. I even tried a Linksys router that supports PPTP, and it won't connect there either. As I understand it from Internet chat rooms, L2TP VPNs don't work either. It all worked in Droid 2.0 and they broke them all in 2.1. I guess Google is too busy making sure it works great with Facebook to worry about those of us with connectivity needs.
Grumble.
-Bryan
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 03/28/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments
The cloud these days is hyped more than a Charlie Sheen binge. In these early days it was tough to tell whether the cloud would be a winner or loser. That's because the ultimate costs still have yet to be set.
Microsoft's next cloud move is Office 365, an upgrade to the rather poorly named BPOS. (I think B stands for big, but I'm not sure what POS represents.)
Office 365 is pretty much akin to Office itself -- but with more of a server apps feel. And it just happens to run on the Internet. So, of course, you all want to know how much this beast is going to cost.
Directions on Microsoft licensing guru Michael Horowitz recently walked through the basics, and with anything concerning Microsoft licensing, it was as confusing as an REM video.
The bottom line is Office 365 will cost you a certain amount of unknown bucks per month and will only be offered through a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. Lesser licenses just won't cut it.
Is Microsoft licensing way more complicated that need be, or am I just a dope? Both responses are equally welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/28/2011 at 1:18 PM7 comments
Steve Ballmer is certainly not afraid to make fun of himself. His speeches are wildly over the top. Now he is letting his own phone, Window Phone 7, poke fun at the sometimes wild and crazy CEO.
Microsoft is allowing employees, on the their own time, to write Windows Phone 7 apps for pay. One such app has a treasure trove of jokes made at Mr. Ballmer's expense. I'm not sure it is worth buying a Windows phone for, but it sure gives me more respect for the Microsoft boss.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/28/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments