One of Microsoft's key business intelligence components is
due
very, very soon...much sooner, in fact, than the next version of SQL server
-- a fact that somehow becomes a point of faux-controversy in a news story written
at a slow time of year.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/23/2007 at 1:21 PM1 comments
OK, we'll admit that this isn't the most important story of all time from a
partner perspective, but we're throwing it in because 1) It's August, and news
is slow; 2) It's pretty interesting; and 3) We love the fact that the analysts
at Gartner actually use, presumably with a straight face, terms such as "trough
of disillusionment."
Anyway, Garter says, probably quite correctly this time, that home networking
stuff is just way
too hard for the average consumer to use.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/22/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Following yesterday's
mutual-appreciation
session between the CEOs of Microsoft and Cisco, Redmond revealed that it will make a slew of unified communications tools, including Office Communications
Server,
available
in October. Presumably all of these products will live in perfect harmony
with Cisco's competitive-slash-complementary offerings.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/22/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
It has, we'll freely admit, been a long, long, long time since we've watched
what's known as "professional wrestling." And by long time, we mean
at least a couple of decades, probably longer, reaching back to our much younger
days. (Seriously, we're talking King Kong Bundy, Gentleman Chris Adams, Iceman
King Parsons here --
the
old Dallas Sportatorium crowd.)
And even in those days, we didn't watch much wrestling. But we do remember
some of the theatrical tricks the wrestlers used to (and presumably still do)
use. One of our favorites was when one guy was getting roughed up pretty good,
and it looked as though his fate was sealed...when suddenly, out of nowhere,
his buddy would arrive accompanied by a signature tune blasted over the loudspeakers,
and the announcer, with an impassioned sense of faux-bewilderedness, would shout
(for example), "Is that Kerry Von Erich's music?" Of course, a total
melee would ensue, much to the delight of a crowd thirsty for scripted violence.
And so we have XenSource, of budding virtualization fame, which was gobbled
up just last week by Citrix. Presumably, then, the two companies will want
to get on with the task of corporate and technological integration, wrapping
up all the regulatory paperwork and meshing executive teams, hashing out corporate
branding and...wait! Hang on! Is that Microsoft's music?
Citrix might
not have XenSource pinned to the mat just yet. (And, yes, we're aware that
Citrix is a longtime Microsoft partner and not a rival, meaning that our little
metaphor kind of falls apart right here -- but hey, it was fun, wasn't it?)
Some analysts are starting to make noise about Microsoft slipping in to double
Citrix's already extremely generous offer and throw a billion dollars at XenSource...which
could, they say, bring
IBM into the mix in turn. We can see the chairs flying now!
Or not. Back in the real world, a Microsoft acquisition of old buddy Citrix
still seems like a more likely scenario than Microsoft snatching XenSource from
Citrix's hands -- although a Citrix purchase would require a much bigger financial
outlay from Redmond and very well might end up being the company's biggest single
buyout of all time if it were to happen. Still, a cool billion for XenSource
seems like a very high price for anybody to pay. It's worth keeping an ear out
for Microsoft's music, though. It wouldn't surprise us to hear it somewhere
in the virtualization market soon.
If Microsoft were a wrestler, what would its name and music be? Oh, and what's
your take on Citrix, XenSource and Microsoft's virtualization efforts? Let me
know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/22/2007 at 1:21 PM3 comments
In the glow of a late-summer morning, they seemed so happy together. Steve
Ballmer and Cisco CEO John Chambers spent yesterday morning verbally nuzzling
each other and chatting happily
with
the aptly named Charlie Rose. (Yes, he's the guy who hosts a show on PBS
that we don't watch but claim we do in order to sound more sophisticated than
we really are. Hey, don't the reruns of "King of the Hill" come on
at the same time? We have our priorities.)
Anyway, the two corporate titans talked about unified communications and about
how their companies, increasingly competitors in the space, will continue to
make sure that their
products work together in order to keep customers happy. Oh, it'll be delicate,
they said...what with the software juggernaut and the networking monster finally
meeting on the same turf to do battle. But hey, it's all about customer satisfaction,
reasonable collaboration (although, nothing
too crazy, now) and coopetition, right?
Well, to some extent, it probably is. After all, partners tell us that customers
want Cisco's back-end networking infrastructure tied to a Microsoft front-end
(meaning, primarily, Office, but also Exchange and SharePoint) to form a perfect
hybrid union of unified communications. Lee Nicholls, global solutions director
for Microsoft technologies, says that his company, global IT services provider
and Microsoft Global Alliance Partner Getronics, has made a tidy sum doing that
type of work recently.
Customers are "taking their existing, trusted, proven Cisco back-end and
wiring it to new communications infrastructure from Microsoft," he says,
noting that collaboration between the two companies' wares is already pretty
good: "Office 2007 is able to deliver voice mail from Cisco platforms,"
he adds.
But as we well know, what customers (and sometimes partners) want and what
vendors want don't always end up being the same thing. Surely, you don't believe
that Steve Ballmer and John Chambers will be happy to nudge
gently into each other's installed bases and play to their relative companies'
strengths?
Oh, no. That's not how they got to be where they are. Don't let their cuddly
talk fool you: Each CEO wants the whole UC pie, and sharing a few slices of
it will not be an option. (Hey, give us a break -- we're writing this around
dinnertime.) Partners who work heavily with both vendors, we predict, can start
expecting some serious pressure to "choose a side" soon, if they haven't
experienced it already.
As for who will win the building Microsoft-Cisco war, the victors could be
partners if both companies leverage their competition with each other to improve
their wares and give UC -- already a pretty popular notion in a lot of places
-- further credibility in the corporate world while at the same time providing
plenty of incentives aimed at keeping partners in their good graces.
For his part, Nicholls isn't making any predictions, but he says that if Microsoft
enters the battle at a disadvantage, it's only because Cisco has more networking
street cred than its rival from Redmond. Microsoft's technology has "caught
up" with that of Cisco in unified communications, he says. It's just a
matter of changing perception for Redmond now: "It's not that Microsoft
isn't good," Nicholls says. "It's just not known."
That likely won't be the situation for long, and there's little doubt that
Steve Ballmer saw today's love-in with Chambers as an opportunity to boost Microsoft's
UC credibility. Don't expect the CEOs' summer romance to linger for too much
longer.
RCP is putting together a story on the changing relationship between
Microsoft and Cisco and its effects on partners. We'd love to hear your thoughts
on this for RCPU purposes but also possibly for the magazine. Don't worry --
we won't run anything in the magazine until we've spoken to you for a longer
interview, and, as always, we'll only run newsletter e-mails with first names.
If you want to drop a line about UC, send it to [email protected],
and please let me know if you'd be willing to chat further about this issue.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/21/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
From the "unintended consequences" file: Popular Internet telephony
provider Skype says that a
massive
number of restarts following Microsoft's Patch Tuesday caused last week's
colossal 48-hour lapse in Skype's service. Microsoft, on the other hand,
isn't
so sure.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/21/2007 at 1:21 PM2 comments
One of Microsoft's more high-profile but (thus far, anyway) less successful
attempts to be cool, the Xbox video-game console, still isn't turning a profit...and
probably won't for
a while, Redmond honcho Kevin Turner revealed this week.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/21/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Google apparently can't get enough of trying to compete with Microsoft on the
productivity-suite front. Not long after
launching
Google Apps, a pretender to Microsoft Office's throne, the Silicon Valley
powerhouse has
slid
Sun's StarOffice into its Google Pack mega-download. And Google's not alone
-- Adobe is
making
noise about office suites, too.
Of course, other competitors, such as OpenOffice, have been around for a while,
trying hopelessly to unseat Microsoft's entry in the race to provide word processors
and spreadsheet programs to corporate and consumer users. Everybody's got a
message (we almost wrote "gimmick" in that sentence). Competitor suites
are either cheaper than Office, or are browser-based thin-client options, or
are free...or something. What they all have in common, though, is single-digit
market share.
We're not saying it'll be that way forever. After all, Microsoft still hasn't
done much to move Office out of the desktop realm and into the software-as-a-service
"cloud," given that Office Live isn't really a "Live" version
of Office but instead is a suite of apps for small business. And, if anything,
Microsoft hurt Office more than anybody else by making
Office 2007 look completely unfamiliar to users.
But the reason Redmond's competitors aren't making more headway against the
Office juggernaut is because Office is the absolute baseline of technology for
the average information worker. Listen to what people at your office or your
clients' offices say: A document isn't just a document; it's a "Word document."
A spreadsheet is inevitably an "Excel spreadsheet." And a presentation?
Forget about it -- it's just a "PowerPoint" now, plain and simple.
Yeah, there are lots of issues with functionality and especially with interoperability
as far as competitors to Office are concerned, and they're real problems for
non-Microsoft offerings. But, more than anything else, until Google and Adobe
can find away to shift Word, Excel and PowerPoint out of the "Kleenex"
or "Xerox" (or even "Google," oddly enough) brand-recognition
mode, Microsoft will remain heavyweight champ in the productivity-suite ring.
Have a take on the power of the Office brand or a review of Office 2007? I'll
happily read your thoughts at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/15/2007 at 1:21 PM1 comments
Remember
those
patches for Vista that caused some confusion last week? Well, maybe they
weren't SP1 after all, because they're
well
and truly out there for anyone to download now.
And with Vista back in the news (as if it ever really left), let's go to the
vault for some reader e-mails.
David says that Vista's fine; it's other stuff that's screwing everything up:
"I wonder how much of the 'bad' Vista experience is actually Vista
versus the other programs that came out with it such as Office 2007 and Exchange
2007. I use Vista as my primary desktop at work (I am a member of my company's
group that is piloting the technology to better understand it before rolling
it out to the rest of the organization) and at home on a gaming computer.
Yes, there are some problems, but my overall impression is that the underlying
operating system is pretty solid and better Windows than XP.
"Some of the things I like are almost trivial, like hooking up to
an external projector, accessing a wireless network from my hotel room or
connecting to a printer. These things just work better. Things that aren't
working as well include authentication issues and redundant extra prompts.
Also, I still haven't figured out where everything has been relocated. Sometimes
it takes some hunting before I find a function I know is there.
"My biggest issues are with Office 2007. At first I thought it was
pretty good but the more I use it, the less I like it. It's more a usability
issue than anything else. I spend way too much time searching the ribbon bars
hunting for functions. I still haven't found the option in Word to make a
title page with vertically and horizontally centered text. Well, actually
I found it, but it won't enable me to select it. I'm sure that sounds pretty
stupid but the new ribbon interface isn't making the applications more useable
for me. On the other hand, I do like the new Outlook to-do bar.
"I think the whole Vista thing is much ado about nothing. Vista is
a whole new operating system. It's going to take a while to sort out the compatibility
issues. It is also going to require users and developers to do some things
differently than before. But on the whole, it is a significant improvement
over XP and a solid foundation to build upon."
We're with you on Office 2007, David. Trying to navigate it on a friend's laptop
the other night was like waking up to find that our familiar local newspaper
was suddenly being published in Farsi.
Greg's not so happy with Vista. In fact, he's flirting with the Penguin:
"I've used a lot of systems in my day. I'm not a self-proclaimed
guru, just a novice who knows how to 'Google' for the info or tips I need
with an OS. It is sad that Microsoft released Vista too early, especially
since Win XP was such a decent OS. Vista is great with a lot of eye candy
(what the limited computer users want). I know there are bugs and quirks from
all I've read online about Vista so I'll wait and bide my time while keeping
Vista on a test machine until all the bugs are worked out or until I'm confident
enough with the system to move to it fully -- which I probably will do anyway
in another month or so.
"Linux is the best OS I've seen to date and for me, because you have
to literally earn the right with the system to use this application or that
one. Linux is strong and well-protected, as well. My favorite is Ubuntu, and
I've noticed how much Vista looks like a few Linux distros as well as the
fact that Firefox, with its multi-tab ability, was out long, long before IE
7. Anyway, reading your article, I thought I'd give my 2 cents. Vista is still
a baby, so it will be about a year or so until the baby is stable enough to
walk (in my opinion). Vista shows some good promise and XP makes a great fall-back
when Vista decides to quirk out on you. Do like I do and either multi-boot
the two or have XP on your main, Vista on your tester and good, old Linux
on your laptop to rescue you when you need it. Thank you for time and your
patience."
Thank you, Greg (and David) for your thoughts. Anything else to add? Add it
at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/09/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments
Everybody loves Action Packs, those free bundles of Microsoft applications
available to just about anybody and everybody in the Microsoft Partner Program. [Editor's note: they actually cost $300.] As of now, Action Packs are nice little perks for everybody whose company is
at least a Registered Member in the program. They're generally considered to
be a no-strings-attached (or at least, few-strings-attached)
bundle of appreciation from Redmond to partners.
Well, get ready for some strings. RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker noticed
in a recent MSPP newsletter -- by the way, does anybody read those things regularly?
-- that it's about to become more difficult for partners to get their beloved
Packs. Starting at the end of November, Action Packs will become a privilege,
not a right -- or something like that. Long story short, partners who want them
will have to take a test to get them.
We're guessing that some of you will be none too thrilled by this prospect,
and if that's the case -- or, if you think it's a great idea -- rant or rave
to [email protected]. In the meantime,
here's a transcript of Bekker's communication with a Microsoft spokesperson
about the whole deal (that'll be Scott asking the questions):
Why is the change being made to require some training to qualify for
the Action Pack?
In our ongoing efforts to maintain the value of this subscription
to partners, beginning Nov. 30, a new online training and assessment requirement
takes effect. This means partners either renewing or subscribing to the Action
Pack for the first time will be required to take an online course from the
Partner Learning Center and pass the associated course assessment (with a
score of 70 percent or higher).
Action Pack subscribers must pass an assessment every two years. There
are currently over 600 online courses and associated assessments to choose
from. Most courses are an hour in length. Please check https://partner.microsoft.com/actionpack
to access the most relevant training courses.
How many Action Pack subscribers are there now?
Currently, there are approximately 190,000 Microsoft Action Pack subscribers
worldwide.
How is this change expected to affect that number?
The Microsoft Action Pack is a benefit available to active Registered
Members in the Microsoft Partner Program. This change will be implemented
to ensure we preserve and enhance this benefit for our partners. We anticipate
a slight drop in the number of subscribers who are relatively inactive and
expect this will curtail ineligible subscribers from obtaining Action Pack.
We also expect continued growth in new markets and believe that the upcoming
releases of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 will fuel excitement within
our partner community to "use, learn and sell" these exciting technologies.
Scott's exchange included some additional comments from the spokesperson.
It's also important to remind our partners that end user customers are
not eligible for the Microsoft Action Pack and should be guided to purchase
subscriptions like TechNet Plus, which is designed to meet needs of IT professionals.
If partners have any questions about the Action Pack changes, the following
resources are available:
- Regional Service Center: The Regional Service Center can provide
you with partner-specific resources and support. Contact information can
be found at https://partner.microsoft.com/mapsrsc.
- Action Pack Managed Newsgroup: Ask questions or post feedback
about MAPS. To access the newsgroups, sign in to the Partner Portal (https://partner.microsoft.com)
and click on "Online Assisted Support" under the "Support
& Security" tab. From there, click on the link to the Managed Newsgroups.
So, there you go: Time to get cracking, Action Packers! Sharpen those pencils,
break out those study materials and, while you're at, drop me a line about this
new program to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/09/2007 at 1:21 PM3 comments