Here's some of your thoughts on IE 9 in its first week:
The reason you should care about IE 9 is because it's posting benchmarks that outperform all of Micrsosoft's competition -- including Chrome!
It's a game-changer because, if users don't bother to download the competition because they no longer see an IE bottleneck on their systems, Microsoft can recover some market share.
-Marc
I recently installed IE9 RC and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. I thought I'd give it a go after seeing the blurb on the new slim-line interface and being able to drag tabs to the Windows 7 task bar.
It's OK, but I've come across quite a few Web sites, including Facebook, that cause IE 9 to keep reloading the page. Also, I really miss the 'favourites' toolbar. Not sure why the write ups so far have all been so positive...I'd rather go back to IE8, to be honest, but don't want to mess my PC up.
I'll stick with it, but hopefully it'll get more stable with time.
-Andy
'Microsoft is begging corporations to migrate IE 6-dependents apps to the far more standards-friendly and secure IE 9.'
Of course they are. At the risk of stating the obvious, IE 9 cannot be installed on user-friendly XP.
Also, in our case, we are staying with IE 7 because our legacy apps will not run on IE 8, let alone 9, and upgrading our legacy apps costs us a tiny bit more than MS is willing to provide.
-Dave
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/18/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
IE 9 shipped this week, and for consumers (with Windows 7 or Vista) the install is easy. In fact, nearly two and a half million folks have already done so.
Large IT shops are another matter.
Microsoft has advice to help you download the new browser or, if your shop ain't ready, block it. Blocking can be as simple as sending an e-mail blast telling users not to load IE 9. Or you can install the IE 9 Blocker toolkit if your end-users have a habit of not listening to you.
Some may be tempted to turn off Automatic Updates as a way of blocking. Bad idea, Redmond says, as updates also include security fixes.
If you are gung-ho on IE 9, the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit will tell if you are ready. The Assessment and Planning Toolkit 5.5. will see what software IE 9 will have to work with, and the Internet Explorer Administration Kit will help package IE 9 for wide-scale distribution.
How does your shop browse? Is there a non-Microsoft browsing standard, or do you let end-users decide? Say it, don't spray it at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/18/2011 at 1:18 PM3 comments
I almost jumped on the story about the demise of the Zune for Wednesday's Redmond Report, but had more pressing IT matters to cover.
The reports had Microsoft killing off the Zune, an iPod clone with a few Microsoft twists (like letting one Zune talk to another). Since I've bought a bunch of iPods that later died and proved to be unfixable, I welcomed the Zune to the digital music party.
Like Truman laughing at the Dewey headline, Microsoft begs to differ about the death of the Zune.
Microsoft did not deny that no new Zunes would be forthcoming, but focused more on the future of the software that drives the Zune. After all, little MP3 players are pretty much a commodity now, generating as much excitement as a Hanson reunion tour.
The Zune may actually live on through PCs and Windows phones, and may compete more with iTunes than with the iPod.
How do you store and listen to your music? I have LPs, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and two iPods. Lay your story on us at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/18/2011 at 1:18 PM5 comments
It's been a long time since I've seen a product stir up so much passion. But the iPad is for geeks just like Justin Beiber is for pre-adolescent girls (fortunately my two gals are too old and too young to fall for that ridiculous hair cut).
Apple doesn't really target the enterprise. Instead, users and third parties are training the iPad for enterprise duty. How are you using the iPad as an enterprise device? Help me write a story about this by e-mailing [email protected]. Thanks!
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/18/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
Boy what a difference a decade or two makes. When Bill Gates ran the show, Microsoft was known for using its market muscle to drive competitors (and even loyal third parties) out of the market. That got the attention of both the FTC and the Justice Department.
And for as much as Steve Ballmer is seen as a hard-driving CEO, under his leadership Microsoft has had a decidedly lighter touch -- at least as far as the competition is concerned.
The same cannot be said for some others who took a page from the old Microsoft playbook to play fast and loose with issues such as privacy.
In the computer software category, Microsoft was recently considered an ethical company alongside Adobe and a few others
Rivals Google and Facebook, each with its own fair share of privacy violations, were nowhere to be found.
Does Microsoft deserve this designation? Tell to me straight at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/18/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
It seems every month HP makes a huge announcement about how important the cloud is and how they are going to have soup-to-nuts answers to every cloud question. So it's no real surprise that the theme of HP's most recent analyst meeting was, you guessed it, the cloud.
In his first public showing as new CEO of HP, Leo Apotheker waxed on about how HP will be both the cloud platform and the way we'll all connect (Cisco may have something to say about this!).
Like many CEOs, Apotheker gave the 10,000-foot view (presumably above the clouds). His world is a hybrid place where IT handles many things on-premise, and others, such as storage and on-demand capacity, float in the cloud.
As much as it seems I'm poking fun, HP has a broad array of products and services. A few years ago I profiled its virtualization strategy and after taking days to absorb it all, realized it was pretty rich and deep (which is why it took so long to understand). Since so much of the cloud is based on virtualization (not to mention servers), HP is in a good position, indeed.
Am I giving HP too much credit? What are your feelings on this computing giant? Shoot your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/16/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
One of the problems with IE 6 is that some apps won't run on later versions of the browser, and IE 6 won't run on any versions of Windows later than XP.
The problem with IE 9 is that it won't run on XP. How's that for a conundrum!
So what is a reasonable IT person to do? Rewrite IE 6 apps for IE 9 and move everyone to Windows 7? Stick with IE 6 and XP, even though support is waning faster than Andrew Dice Clay's career?
A company called Browsium claims it has the answer -- UniBrows. (Who is your best example of a celeb with a UniBrow? I pick Jeff Gordon before he married a supermodel. Make your pick at [email protected]).
With UniBrows, you can run IE 8 on XP or Win 7, and it will accommodate IE 6 apps. It does this, in part, by supporting the old IE 6 rendering engine, but also handling old IE 6 JavaScript and ActiveX add-ons.
Microsoft has two solutions to the IE 6 problem: Its favorite is to have IT move to IE 9. Its second favorite is to run IE 6 on Windows 7 in a virtual machine.
Here's an interesting fact. Browsium, like Microsoft, is based in Redmond.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/16/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments
It didn't take loser hacker jerks long to attack a zero-day hole in Adobe Flash. The attacks have already let hackers into remote systems where they can cause crashes. So far, hacks are few and far between, and a Flash patch should be out this Monday.
Like many hacks, the bad code is sent through e-mail and activated when the bogus mail is opened.
Right now the malicious code is embedded in Excel files, but Adobe warns that PDFs may soon become a carrier as well. Adobe has already updated Reader and Acrobat to help thwart these attacks.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/16/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Here are some of your thoughts on Glen Beck and other political commentators:
Doug, the problem with people on the right unfolds like this:
-- Many policies these folks advocate are not in the best interests of most people in the U.S. They tend to be good for rich people and religious extremists, for example.
 -- In order to get elected, right-wing candidates have to be excellent politicians and excellent LIARS. And they are.
-- The 'Republican lie' is a falsehood with some vague relation to reality, repeated over and over. For example, legal-draft-dodger Bush probably scored more points with the electorate than war-hero Kerry on the issue of military service. The examples go on and on. (Not that Democrats don't lie, just that it is a way of life for many Republicans.)
So, when you mention some quotes from Glen Beck that you had never heard before, there's a good chance Beck made them up!
-Pete
I enjoy your column and read it each time that it posts.
Your recent story on Glenn Beck's criticism of Google has prompted me to respond to you.
As you note, Beck is "...late to the party..." about Goggle's privacy issues, but Beck is also late to the party on rational discourse.
Do yourself and your readers a favor: Please ignore any and all comments that Beck has about everything.
Please join the effort to marginalize him and the rest of the Republican/Tea Party sycophants on Fox News
His attacks on Google (whether factual or not) just add to his already widely paranoid, hateful worldview.
Just as an infinite number of monkeys might create the works of Shakespeare, Beck might eventually spew forth something that was true and sensible if he ranted for the rest of eternity.
I and many others are hoping that we don't have to deal with him for more than a few more years, let alone eternity.
-Allen
A note of opinion: Keith Olbermann was let go because the new owners of MSNBC, namely Comcast, is headed by 'right winger' Brian Roberts. It was interesting to note that it fired Olbermann less than 24 hours after the merger of MSNBC under Comcast. Moreover, Comcast did not even have the respect to give him any warning. Olbermann was practically the only pundit who tried to keep honesty on the table, with regard to the lies from the Bush Administration.
All political pundits are not all bad, but the 'right' does have far more insanity. And, finally, the so-called 'left wingers' are hollering about trying to look out for us common folks. The 'right wingers' holler about what the RICH are belly aching about...
-Roger
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/16/2011 at 1:18 PM7 comments
Microsoft doesn't make the kind of blockbuster acquisitions Oracle and HP are famous for. Instead, Redmond focuses on more tactical buys.
Writer and former analyst Matt Rosoff looked at 15 companies Microsoft bought since 1992 to see what happened afterwards.
Some, like WebTV, saw its technology simply overtaken for much cooler stuff. Others, like Groove, didn't turn into much besides the spending $100 million to get Microsoft a Bill Gates replacement for about five years.
Here are the three best buys in my mind: Hotmail is a worthy competitor to Gmail, and as far as I know, doesn't invade one's privacy like Google does (correct me if I'm wrong at [email protected]). Great Plains gave Microsoft its first foot in the ERP door, and Navision gave it a second. Both products are maturing and popular in the mid-market.
Microsoft is sitting on about $40 billion in cash, so it can do almost anything it wants. Who should Ballmer buy and why? Vote at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/14/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
People sure do love to bust Microsoft's chops over its consumer foibles. But these same folks are eating a little crow now that Microsoft has set a record for the fastest selling consumer device in history. Who says this? Steve Ballmer? Bill Gates? No, the Guinness Book of World Records, that's who. Redmond sold 8 million of these little beauties in two months.
For those of you who aren't gaming buffs (I'm not) or don't have kids (I've got four), Kinect is a voice and motion control add-on for the Xbox 360. The Wii has had motion control from the get (remember how people used to lose control of the controller during a rambunctious game and send it flying through their flat screen TV?) but got steamrolled by the Kinect.
The record, and the Xbox itself, prove Microsoft can do consumer stuff right. In fact, Flight Simulator is one the most popular games ever made.
So who invented motion control? It actually happened in the '80s with a product for the Amiga called Mandala. It was way cool at the time and was used to drive interactive video games for a Nickelodeon game show (I think it was Nick Arcade).
What do you think are the biggest breakthroughs in technology? Pick any decade and get back to me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/14/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
Here's some reader thoughts on Microsoft's desktop management tool Intune:
We're a small organization of 20 users and have been using Intune beta 2 for several months now…and we like the product.
Pros:
- Captures malware, resolves it and sends us a notification of both; also sends notification if it can't resolve the malware to let us know we need to manually fix the problem
- Can push Microsoft updates out to computers but allows us to review and approve them before pushing them out
- Client install is easy and doesn't use a lot of resources; can easily schedule regular scans, and definitions are updated automatically behind the scenes
- The service successfully inventories software and hardware
- It's great to not have to install and maintain the administration console in-house; there are a variety of features offered such as scheduling updates, setting notifications, creating policies to apply to individual computers or groups of computers
Cons:
- It took us a bit of time to really understand the organization of the Administration Console; it's not necessarily the most intuitive layout but once we got used to it, it's easy to use
We'll be signing up to use the service; we do have our own Software Assurance for Windows so we'll take advantage of the discount that will be offered for organizations with SA.
-Beth
I may not have heard correctly but in the presentation Webinar I attended as a partner it appears that your $132/year also includes a full upgrade license to Windows7 Enterprise edition with SA. If so, that pays for the $132/year all by itself, and the rest of the stuff is essentially free. We'll find out more of course, but I think this is an awesome deal.
-Anonymous
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 03/14/2011 at 1:18 PM0 comments