A recent survey by Harris Interactive of corporate reputations has no less than four tech companies in the top 10. And three have been dodging some pretty dicey PR this last year.
Coming in at number one is Apple, though I doubt many votes came from Chinese factory workers.
Number two is Google, though I doubt many votes came from those that have actually read the company's privacy policy.
And at an impressive number nine is good old Microsoft. Year ago I would have said I doubt many votes came from vanquished competitors, Vista users, or those constantly plagued by viruses and other exploits.
But recently Microsoft has been playing nice with competitors, so long as you don't make an Android device.
While not perfect, I think the company deserves more than a little credit.
Who's your favorite tech company and do these scores make sense? Votes and random thoughts both welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/22/2012 at 1:19 PM0 comments
Microsoft makes no secret of the fact that it hates Android. It considers it an inferior OS for tablets and phones -- and is trying to build superior tablets and phones to prove it.
That's not Redmond's only approach. Microsoft also has patents that it claims Android violates, and is trying to get Android device makers such as Barnes & Noble to pony up.
In a market as competitive as tablets, margins are everything, and big licensing fees could kill a product faster than Josey Wales, who killed 55 men in a single movie (without the convenience of automatic weapons).
Microsoft won a judgment against the book chain, but the judge was clearly conflicted.
Judge Ted Essex ruled by the law -- a law that allows the patent holder to charge basically whatever it wants and use patents to swap pesky competitors.
This really starting to get out of hand. Companies are buying companies just for the patents.
I'm no expert in patent law, but it seems we may need a bit of reform here. Otherwise those with deep markets will keep out the upstarts.
What would you do to patent laws if only you had the power? Your best advice welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/22/2012 at 1:19 PM8 comments
Ooops, ouch or both? You decide.
Here's the story: Last week's Microsoft security update included a fix that discovered a new malicious Web site -- Google.com! The update claimed Google was infiltrated by the Blackhole Exploit Kit. Now I know there are things wrong with Google, but I don't think the Blackhole Exploit is one of them!
Fortunately the problem was shorted-lived. It just took an hour or three for Microsoft to respond to massive complaints (not sure how many came directly from Eric Schmidt) and solve the problem. The trick for IT is to download the revised update. Yup, that's right, updating an update!
The alarms didn't affect everyone, just Security Essentials and Forefront users.
While it is fun to poke fun, this really isn't a big deal. A false positive is much better than a real one!
Am I going too easy on Microsoft? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/22/2012 at 1:19 PM1 comments
Office is one big hunk of software, and by hunk I don't mean Fabio. After decades of features wars, this thing is bigger than Donald Trump's ego.
And anything that big is hard to protect. So Microsoft relentlessly patches its pride and joy. And hackers unceasingly look for new holes -- and sometime find them in old holes we thought were fixed.
That is the case with a patched hole in Word. This hole let hackers create malicious DLL files and sneak them into e-mails. Once you open the e-mail and then the infected Word doc, you're hosed.
The problem? Hackers know not everyone is up to date with patching. So they continue to attack it.
Well, that attack is back, says Symantec. "The exploit makes use of an ActiveX control embedded in a Word document file," wrote Takayoshi Nakayama, a researcher at Symantec, in a blog post. "When the Word document is opened, the ActiveX control calls fputlsat.dll which has the identical file name as the legitimate .dll file used for the Microsoft Office FrontPage Client Utility Library."
Of course once you are infected the real fun begins. Hackers then blast you malware.
The marker is a file attachment called ftutlsat.dll. Fortunately that file doesn't sound all that tempting.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/15/2012 at 1:19 PM0 comments
Efficient processing is great for two reasons: It saves power costs and on portables, extends battery life. Microsoft hopes to achieve both with the power-miser features of Win 8. On ARM, the power savings comes largely from the processor. But Microsoft thinks the software should also play a role.
And so it has a new architecture where background apps don't task the CPU but are instead suspended. The exceptions are apps you actually want to keep running -- such as listening to music while writing in a document and IMing.
And machines that use system on a chip can be essentially suspended while still receiving IM and mail.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/15/2012 at 1:19 PM0 comments
In an item Monday about the consumer preview of Windows 8 I mistakenly said Win 8 on ARM (WOA) would ship at the same time as Win 9 on Intel (WOI?). Since consecutive number keys are so close together, I typed 9 instead of 8. The truth is Microsoft hopes to ship Win 8 on ARM around the same time as Win 8 on WOI, which I think is pretty aggressive.
Thanks to readers Bryan and Thomas for setting me straight!
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/15/2012 at 1:19 PM0 comments
Readers share what they think it will take for Microsoft to find success in the mobile market:
What Microsoft needs to do to find success: Build a time machine to go back in time and remind it to not forget about the mobile market for so long.
-Chris
I own a WP7 and it does pretty much everything I want. There are a couple of things that would make it better such as VPN ability. But other than that it does most everything I need for my business and personal. There are a few key apps missing, but that will come in time and has nothing to do with the OS itself. I'd be interested to know what others feel the OS itself is lacking.
-Anonymous
What your article is telling is I would have to wait another year to get a smartphone by MS. Even if it's  the best phone in all world and I just signed a two-year contract I would never switch. MS and phones do not go together. Unless it gives away the phones to get market share.
-Roger
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/15/2012 at 1:19 PM2 comments
It seems like every month, I write about Patch Tuesday. Maybe that's because it happens every month and patch information is critical for IT Pros.
This month is a bit middle-of-the-road, with a slightly above-average nine patches. The four critical fixes all revolve around remote code execution (RCE), a category that accounts for a vast array of attacks. RCE fixes are for the .NET Framework, Silverlight and Windows. Get all the deets here.
And of course, you know Microsoft loves you. Why else would it protect your computers on Valentine's Day?
Are you feeling the patch love? Does Microsoft do a good job fixing its holes? Answers, good and bad, welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/13/2012 at 1:19 PM0 comments
Readers share picks for their favorite mobile OS:
You really should spend some time with a Windows phone before you get an iPhone. I know the choice is limited at Verizon, but I've had the HTC Trophy since it was released and I can't complain. It just works. Never any trouble syncing with my Exchange server or anything else it's supposed to do. I have an app for connecting to my home server, so all my data is always available. I don't have an Xbox or a Facebook account, but I hear the integration is great, if you need it. And, Office document support is built in.
-Jeff
Glad to see RIM still getting new stuff. I got a Windows Phone the day it was released on Sprint and have had access to Office 365 since it released. Welcome to the party!
-Kevin
Why not Windows Phone?
-Stuart
People still use Blackberry devices? Sorry, perhaps a bit too flippant. On a more serious note, you mention moving to an iPhone. Â Let me ask, have you considered an Android device?
-TJ
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/13/2012 at 1:19 PM0 comments
We have had a feature-light Windows 8 "developer preview" to try out since last September, and if my fingers are accurate, that is about six months. Later this month (or early next) Microsoft is expected to release a test version to the public.
This is good news all around. The broad public will get to pound on this thing, offering valuable feedback and having fun in the process.
It also marks a milestone. IT and developers can handle early code. The rest are willing to test unfinished software, but don't want to fight the program just to get simple stuff done.
That means this new test version should be what we all used to call a beta before Microsoft came up with a gaggle of confusing and self-indulgent names for test software (whatever happened to alpha, beta and released?).
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/13/2012 at 1:19 PM1 comments
The idea of Windows 8 and its Metro interface running on ARM-based machines is pretty sick -- in a good way. Windows 8 offers true enterprise functions while ARM brings long battery life. Think of upcoming Win 8/ARM tablets as an iPad where you don't have to work to make it work-worthy.
But Microsoft has provoked more questions than answers. Will ARM run existing apps? Can I run new apps that use the traditional GUI? How much after the Intel Win 8 release will ARM arrive? And does it lean more towards IT or consumers?
So Microsoft is starting to come clean. First, the acronym master has a new way to say Windows 8 on ARM. It's WOA. Reminds me of Yosemite Sam on a camel. "Whoa camel, whoa. When I says Whoa, I means Whooaaaaah!" (Write me at [email protected] if you remember that episode.)
The new info comes courtesy of a monster blog from Windows honcho Steve Sinofsky.
First, ARM will run classic apps. That is great. But it isn't the old apps. It is new classic apps, meaning developers will rewrite Windows GUI apps to ARM. It won't be a simple port.
ARM won't have virtualization (largely because all Microsoft's virt tools, which took a long time making, are designed for Intel).
Microsoft also now pledges that Office 15 will run on ARM. Sweet-ah!
Microsoft hopes to ship WOA (I can't believe I just used that acronym) at the same time as Windows 8 Intel (is this WOI?).
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/13/2012 at 1:19 PM5 comments
Two readers share their thoughts on Microsoft's aging OS:
Another aspect of its January growth might be that the 'Windows XP Mode' is available for Windows 7 -- you can have a complete Windows XP running within a virtual machine. A couple quick downloads and installs from Microsoft's site and you too can be running Windows XP within Windows 7.
-Tony
I've got to disagree with you here...
Microsoft created its own problems with XP but that was because it didn't have the good sense to treat XP SP2 as a NEW RELEASE, not a free upgrade. Windows XP was released in 2001 and by 2007 it was time to retire it.
Windows Vista suffered from all of the same problems that Windows 2000 did:
- A NEW untested kernel -- new APIs which most ISVs simply ignored
- Sluggish performance -- reliability was more important than performance
- Excessively slow adoption rates
- OEMs who were uninterested in updating their drivers
- As demonstrated by all modern Windows applications, properly written XP code worked fine under Vista -- but in 2006, many, many XP titles were not written to Microsoft APIs and Microsoft got blamed for this
- To make matters worse, Microsoft set unrealistic expectations for Window Vista (actually Windows 7 runs better with 512MB of RAM than Vista did. (In fact, it runs better than XP does with 512MB of RAM)
- Like Windows 7, Vista needs 2GB of RAM to run well. XP-SP3 needs 1GB to run well
There is no doubt that Microsoft screwed up the Vista launch in any ways but Microsoft has since extended XP support twice. By the spring of 2014, when support ends, Windows XP will be a 13-year-old operating system. Frankly, I don't believe there is a netbook maker still shipping their devices with XP (at least not outside the third world).
When Windows 7 shipped in 2009, responsible IT departments had already begun evaluating Windows VISTA and began in earnest to evaluate Windows 7 to migrate to it. They will have had SEVEN YEARS (from 2007, when Vista shipped -- Â introducing the NT 6.x kernel -- to evaluated the next generation Windows operating system. That is enough time for any RESPONSIBLE IT professional so NO, I DO NOT THINK formal support should be extended YET AGAIN!
You've quoted the study that says that XP usage is up (by a VERY SMALL margin). I would bet that most of that 'increased usage of Windows XP' is from users still running on hardware from 2000 or earlier who are moving from Windows 95/98/se/Me who simply have no other choice because XP is the only OS left which will run on such lame hardware.
Should Microsoft be expected to support XP as long as there is a living soul who still uses it? (After all, lack of OEM hardware support left Vista looking at lot worse than it really was.)
Every OEM must decide what it can and cannot afford to do to support legacy customers. For instance, it would be less expensive to buy a new computer than to repair a computer built in 2000. Why put a lame 2001 operating system on it? That's just foolishness.
-Marc
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 02/08/2012 at 1:19 PM2 comments