HP was perhaps the first and the biggest supporter of Windows Home Server. It built and sold appliances with the OS embedded -- appliances that let families back up files, share music video and photos or let road warriors store critical data at their house and get it over the Web.
I never bought one, but you, the trustworthy Redmond Report reader, told me how much you liked it. It was simply great for file synchronization and backup -- at a decent price.
Somehow it never caught on (free and cheap Web backup and dirt-priced external hard drives saw to that!).
HP is now throwing in the Windows Home Server towel and won't build any devices based on the next rev -- code-named Vail.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/06/2010 at 1:18 PM6 comments
IDC recently released a report claiming that server shipments increased, on a dollar basis, over 13 percent for the third quarter. This is the most impressive showing in the last decade, IDC says.
Microsoft owns nearly half of the server OS market, while Linux weighed in with 17 percent. IBM mainframes came in at 8.6 percent -- not too shabby for big iron. Unix continues to disappear, with revenues down almost 10 percent.
Meanwhile, Gartner released a report of its own, claiming that PC shipments, while slowing, remain healthy.
Originally Gartner thought the PC market would grow close to 18 percent this year, but downgraded it to 14.3 percent.
Tablets such as the iPad are crimping PC sales. In fact, I'm trying to decide between a Windows 7 netbook or an iPad to use when I travel.
Which do you suggest and why? Cast your votes at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/03/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
In a recent letter, a loyal Redmond Report reader wrote that Google's StreetView took such a great picture of his house you could see right inside.
That's pretty bad. But what may be worse is when Google drives onto private property to take shots of houses set a ways back from the road.
That's what happened to Christine and Aaron Boring. A Google van drove down their private road and took photos -- not just of the front, but the backyard and pool. The couple sued and won a judgment. So are the Borings living high on the hog with all that Google cash? Not exactly. The judge only gave them a measly buck.
Can you say moral victory? I thought you could.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/03/2010 at 1:18 PM5 comments
Recently I penned a column about VMware. In it I asked if VWmare, which I hugely respect, was making a couple of strategic errors that could doom its future. One problem is the lack of support of competing hypervisors, leading to vendor lock-in. And now VMware wants to virtualize your servers, desktops and private public clouds -- that could be a near-total lock-in.
The other problem concerns third parties. VMware just isn't third-party friendly enough. Folks I talk to say Microsoft is far easier to work with.
These aren't fatal, if VMware corrects itself.
My real point is that you, the Redmond Report reader, weighed in on both sides, alternately calling me an idiot or insightful.
One reader saw first-hand how VMware deals with ISVs and believes that gives Hyper-V a huge advantage. Others see VMware as pushing the envelope, staying well ahead of rivals. And one reader sees startups as the ones really moving the market.
Virtualization Review magazine, which falls under my group, just completed its Readers' Choice Awards, and VMware cleaned up. It is VMware's game to lose, but one could have said the same thing for Netscape, Banyan and WordPerfect.
Where do you see VMware going? Send your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/03/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
We've received a ton of e-mails on the end of the Novell area. Look for another batch of your Novell thoughts next week:
Back in the days when Microsoft licensed QDOS from Tim Patterson at Seattle Computer so it could supply an OS for IBM's PC, Novell Data Systems in Utah was hard at work making computers and operating systems. Microsoft succeeded beyond its wildest dreams when the IBM PC took off like a rocket ship. Novell took note of the impressive sales of the IBM PC and went to work on how to network them together. In 1983 Novell Data Systems changed its name to Novell when Ray Noorda arrived at the company to "salvage" what was worth doing. ShareNet became NetWare, the first true file sharing operating system for Intel 808x and Motorola 68000.
Their microprocessors was created by the talented Drew Major and his colleagues at SuperSet who were under contract to Novell. Novell almost single-handedly created the market for local area networks with their NetWare software, which supported almost every PC networking hardware technology that existed. I met Ray Noorda at the first NetWorld trade show and conference held at the Dallas InfoMart in 1986. And for the next 12 years, NetWare ruled the LAN. Those were exciting times to be involved with PC networks. It is impossible to recount the history of Local Area Networks and directory services without mentioning the pioneering work of Novell.
The past 27 years of Novell's history have had their ups and downs to be sure and I hope Novell will continue to be around after the Attachmate acquisition of Novell is completed early next year.
-Tim
I'm glad I learned just enough Novell and cc:Mail to migrate off them to NT and Exchange back in the day.
I do miss Banyan Vines -- StreetTalk provided a great inspiration to Active Directory.
I just wiki'ed the demise of Banyan -- so sad. But I'm glad I stayed ahead of the curve and switched to NT back in 1996.
- Anonymous
I just wanted to say how nice it was to see an article from a Microsoft-centric publication that isn't trashing Novell. As a Veteran Novell reseller (some 14 years), it's a sad day, I had hoped VMWARE would grab them instead, but I hope the future for products like Groupwise is strong and we will see resources badly needed to bring those products into the newer technology band as soon as possible.
Novell was a player in networking for Windows 3.1, and many shops ran Novell networks, which, of course, didn't play well with Windows networks. To be fair, because Novell had a tight set of rules of nodes on their network, they all recognized each other and worked well.
Microsoft networks were spotty, and connecting with coax led to dead zones. So you might be able to see a computer two cubicles down but not the one next to you.
Ah the memories, two reboots a day and daily network outages -- the golden years!
-Mark
I cut my networking teeth on Novell NetWare 3.x and worked with NetWare up to 6.0. Novell always seemed to have good technical products. There are some features in NetWare and eDirectory that I wish Microsoft would have implemented in Active Directory. The biggest problem with Novell as a company was that they did not know what they wanted to be when they grew up. As you mentioned, it bought and sold parts but didn't really go anywhere with it. Maybe because of this, it didn't know how to market itself. All the technical people loved NetWare, and I will never forget what they did for the industry.
-Craig
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 12/03/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
An elevation-of-privilege flaw exists, and Microsoft is keeping the info close to its vest. Apparently the flaw is a true flaw in that a proof-of-concept exercise exploited the hole.
I'm all for transparency but not a big fan of detailing a hole to hackers before it's plugged.
In another cool move, the code that attacks the hole has been removed from the Web. Classy move.
When should vulnerabilities become public? Put on your white, gray or black hat and share your views at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/01/2010 at 1:18 PM1 comments
I know I tend to find fault with Google. Some of it is because of their sheer power, sheer arrogance and the fact that it, who creates no content, makes more money from content than those of us that do.
Nonetheless, I use Google search (even though Bing is probably just as good) and like what they are doing with free cloud apps.
The latest move is integrating Google Docs/Apps with Office. While still in beta, Google Cloud Connect for Office will let us store Office files in a Google cloud, and let others share and collaborate through Google Apps.
Google, you get a pass this week. You done good.
Am I too rough on the Google? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/01/2010 at 1:18 PM1 comments
Novell's story has been a soap opera so long it rivals Days of Our Lives, but without the sex (so far as I know). The company has been through more twists and turns than Mario Andretti.
Here's what I recollect from my years following the company: In the early days it was a simple company focused on LAN operating systems. Then it went into full Carl Icahn-mode, spending more time buying and selling companies than building product. It bought then sold WordPerfect and Borland's Quattro Pro, and later spun off a company that was actually two companies. Caldera, a Ray Noorda pet project, had one part that sold Linux, and another separate concern that held patents, such as DR-DOS, which was acquired from Digital Research. Noorda used DR-DOS rights to sue Microsoft (successfully) for antitrust.
Let's see what else... Oh, Novell bought Unix System V from AT&T, which was a bit of a bust. It was eventually turned over to SCO and fueled lawsuits against pretty much everyone who even touched Linux.
And even though sister company Caldera has its own Linux distribution, Novell bought SUSE and pinned its hopes on open source. And it worked pretty dang well, far as I can tell.
After two-plus decades fixated on fighting Microsoft, four years ago Novell made amends and reached an agreement whereby Novell and Microsoft would support each other's products, increase interoperability and not sue over patents.
Follow all that? Great, because the next episode has Attachmate buying Novell for $2.2 billion. Attachmate plans to operate two separate groups, one focused on SUSE, and the other on Novell's other wares such as groupware and networking.
What is your best Novell memory and what companies do you miss? Send your missive, tear-stained or otherwise, to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/01/2010 at 1:18 PM8 comments
I've looked into Microsoft and the world of supercomputing and it's a mixed bag. On the client side, I've found that Windows does a poor job exploiting multicore processors and, to some degree, graphical processing units (GPU). That means Windows clients aren't true workstations -- at least in the engineering sense. If you really want to, an ISV can exploit this hardware (with a lot of work) and Windows won't stand in your way too much, but the client does far too little to exploit these capabilities on its own.
The server, at least Windows Server HPC, is different. This really is built for high-performance platforms. And at the recent Supercomputing show in N'awlins, Microsoft unleashed even more power with its main weapon: the Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 -- an OS that exploits multicore, multiprocessing and clustering.
At the show, Microsoft announced Service Pack 1 for HPC, which lets the OS also distribute processing across the cloud, so long as that cloud is based on Azure.
What is the most hypo machine in your shop and what is used for? Brag by writing [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 11/29/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
It's no secret that Larry Ellison hates SAP. He used to hate Microsoft, and probably still does, but after Oracle bought its way into the ERP space, SAP became the bigger target. Both companies are massive and healthy so one could call this a draw.
One place where Oracle clearly won is in the courtroom. It recently nabbed a sweet $1.3 billion after proving that an SAP subsidiary stole confidential information.
One could argue that the SAP top dogs didn't know what was going on. That's because a small company SAP bought five years ago is the one that tried to steal customers by downloading confidential Oracle files.
SAP copped to the wrongdoing, but thought the bad was only worth $40 million or so. Sounds like the judge tossed in the extra $1,260,000 as corporate punishment. SAP, last I checked, planned to appeal, but it appears the best they can do is to get the award reduced.
Which do you like better, Oracle, SAP or Microsoft? Answers always welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 11/29/2010 at 1:18 PM2 comments
Most of us in our right minds aren't big fans of Google StreetView -- the service where Google vans photograph the outside of our domiciles (they would surely go inside if they could) and post it for the whole world to see, whether we are sunbathing in the nude or not.
In Germany you can opt-out. Your house is still there, but is blurred out. Apparently not all Teutons are against StreetView like I am. It seems some have been going around egging homes whose owners opted out. This all happened Saturday, Nov 20. The dumb slobs missed Halloween by three weeks!
What is your view of StreetView? Send thoughts and even links to your home if you're particularly proud to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 11/29/2010 at 1:18 PM2 comments
Best get your troops ready this Tuesday (hopefully they had Columbus Day off and are rested,) 'cuz there will be no less than 16 patches waiting for them.
I wouldn't exactly freak as I believe Microsoft is more proactive than most (or arguably all) vendors in admitting its own flaws. And let's be honest, between Windows and Office, Microsoft has an attack surface the Taliban would drool over (fortunately, their computer skills are as backwards at their philosophy).
Some experts believe the large release has more to do with the time of year than actual vulnerabilities. The idea is that IT slows down as the holidays approach -- so load 'em now while they have your full attention.
In any event, you or your subordinates will be busy this Tuesday. Sixteen sounds like a lot, but only four are critical; the rest are expected to make it through surgery.
Overall, nearly 50 'vulnerabilities' are handled -- which represents a record (Lindsay Lohan's doctors may beg to differ).The biggest IT hassle is remote code execution, which accounts for a perfect 10 in this patch batch.
Posted by Doug Barney on 11/29/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments