When your editor was but a young lad, his family had a cat that was a particularly
adept mouser. The cat loved to roam the large field behind its house searching
for rodents of all sorts. When she caught one, she would keep it about half-alive
for a few hours and just toy with it, pretending at times to be indifferent
to its presence, then batting it around and chasing it when it tried meekly
to escape.
Well, right now, Larry Ellison's the cat...and BEA
is the mouse. Oh, sure, BEA's much more than half-alive, but the point is
that no matter how much it tries to run or how indifferent Ellison may seem,
he's going to get his prey...eventually. We'd be surprised if it worked out
otherwise.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/16/2007 at 1:21 PM1 comments
Mary Jo Foley tells us that Microsoft's little pay-as-you-go scheme for Office
-- sort of like SaaS without the service or convenience -- is
seeping
into new markets around the world.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/16/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Comcast wants to be so much more than "the cable company." It's pushing
itself to be an ambitious entertainment and business enterprise, complete with
TV networks of its own and "business-class" technology services.
We digress here, so just skip the next two paragraphs if you want to get to
the relevant stuff: Comcast reminds us here at RCPU a bit of a miniature version
of Vivendi (formerly Vivendi Universal -- nothing ambitious about that name),
the French company that started as a water utility in the 19th century and eventually
grew to own a considerable chunk of the entertainment industry. When your editor
moved to Paris in 2001, Vivendi Universal and its then-CEO, Jean-Marie Messier,
were the stuff of legends and a huge source of pride in France.
Then, Vivendi Universal lost tons of money because it had made a bunch of bad
acquisitions; Messier fell from his perch and the French went back to disdaining
big business and worshipping food and wine (not that there's anything wrong
with that -- and Vivendi is actually
still very big). Comcast is -- hopefully, for its sake -- making wiser decisions
about where and how to spend its money.
So this week, Comcast revealed that it has an agreement with Microsoft to provide
some basic, Internet-based applications to customers who subscribe to Comcast's
business-Internet service. We're talking e-mail and "calendaring" (since
when was the word "calendar" a verb?) along with some basic file-sharing
capabilities.
Analysts have already pegged the deal as a shot by Microsoft at Google Apps,
Google's Web-based productivity suite. But, unless we're misunderstanding things,
Microsoft's Comcast bundle will do a lot less than Google Apps -- we don't see
a spreadsheet or a Word processor -- and it'll only do it for Comcast customers.
It seems to have about as much functionality in comparison to Google Apps as
Google Apps has juxtaposed to Microsoft Office -- which is to say, not much.
Of course, the Microsoft bundle is free with a Comcast subscription.
But with all the free e-mail applications that have been on the Web for more
than a decade now, we're kind of wondering what the point of this deal is. Maybe
it's just to get people thinking of Microsoft in a "Web 2.0" context.
Or maybe it's to get people thinking of Comcast in a serious business context.
Or, most likely, both.
Does Microsoft need to worry about Google Apps? Why? Why not? Tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/15/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Whew! Finally, the wait is over! You were waiting with bated breath for
an
update to OneCare...weren't you?
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/15/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Bill Gates attended this week his last Microsoft shareholders' meeting as a
card-punching Microsoft employee.
BusinessWeek, always reliable, has
a solid take on
where
Microsoft is now with Gates riding into the digital sunset. And be sure
to check out the Gates slideshow for an awkward stroll down memory lane.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/15/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
So a group of pesky states (hello, California -- we know why you're here) wants
to keep the consent decree covering Microsoft's nasty little habit of being
a monopolist alive for five more years. Microsoft says, as you might imagine,
that it's time to put the whole consent decree business to bed.
Well, Redmond now has a pretty
powerful ally in trying to convince a U.S. District Court to do just that:
the U.S. Department of Justice itself, star of the Microsoft lawsuit that started
this whole thing.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Let's get right to the news because there's plenty of it this week. For starters,
Microsoft is planning on offering a lot of versions of Windows Server 2008 at
a lot of different price points. Think we're exaggerating when we say a lot?
Check out
Keith
Ward's story on the lineup -- and bring a scorecard, or maybe a spreadsheet.
Speaking of Windows Server 2008, its server virtualization component finally
has a name: Hyper-V, which sounds like the name of a character that would've
appeared in the noted 1984 break-dancing drama Breakin'.
We liked Longhorn as a name for Windows Server 2008, but we love the name Hyper-V.
We sincerely hope that Steve Ballmer or some other Microsoft executive eschews
the standard-issue, blue button-down shirt and trots out to Grandmaster Flash
dressed like
this at February's server launch event.
Oh, and there's more server news. From early-'80s hip-hop to alphabet soup,
we have next SQL
Server CTP coming out PDQ. That's "community technology preview,"
of course, and, in this case, "pretty darn quick" -- hey, it's a family
blog -- is some time in the next couple of weeks.
Seriously, though, we need more names like Hyper-V for Microsoft products.
What do you suggest? What should we call Windows Server or SQL Server to make
them sound a little more hip? Send me your suggestions at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
The System Center portfolio has
three
new products as of today: System Center Configuration Manager 2007, System
Center Data Protection Manager 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager
2007.
Aside from doing all kinds cool management stuff, these products come with
one simple license that will allow a customer to buy and run them all at once.
Eric Berg, director of product management for the Windows and Enterprise Management
Division at Microsoft, told RCPU last week that "if you're buying any two of
these products, you're better off purchasing the server management suite."
By suite, he means all three products, of course.
Partners, take note: This sounds like an attempt by Redmond to simplify licensing,
at least in one area -- and simplification of licensing is something you've
been wanting and needing for a long time.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/13/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
So, this is kind of weird: A French Linux vendor named Mandriva thinks it has this contract all wrapped up with the Nigerian government. Then, all of a sudden, the government announces that it’s going to pay Mandriva for the computers and software it’s shipping -- but the government’s not going to install the Linux distro; it’s going to
run Windows instead.
This leads to rather a catty letter by Mandriva’s CEO, which accuses Steve Ballmer and Microsoft of ... well, dirty deeds, we suppose (possibly even done dirt cheap -- and that might have been at the heart of the issue), but not much else that’s concrete.
We’re wondering a few things here. Why is the Nigerian government going to pay for software it doesn’t intend to use? Why did the CEO of Madriva immediately attack Ballmer rather than ask his own customer what on earth is going on? And if Microsoft really did something so bad, why not come out and name the crime?
It looks as though Mandriva’s little missive is a particularly sour example of French whine. But, hey, we’ve all heard of Mandriva now, right?
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/02/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
The consent decree Microsoft made with the U.S. government as part of its 2002
antitrust settlement was supposed to expire this month, but it'll
run
until the end of January, thanks to a federal judge's decision. Some states
want to monitor Microsoft for antitrust-like behavior for another five years.
The judge will be mulling that over in the next few months.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/01/2007 at 1:21 PM1 comments
Well, it only makes sense, right? Microsoft lights up the scoreboard with its
earnings report, and big channel partners fall in line. In case you missed it,
last week, great big distributor Ingram Micro
reported
its best third quarter ever.
Hopefully your own revenues are rising with this tide, as well.
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/01/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments