There's more talk from the Free Software Foundation this week about how it
plans to do everything it can to
undermine
the Microsoft-Novell SuSE Linux agreement. The FSF is worried that letting
the deal slip by will represent tacit acknowledgment that Microsoft actually
owns some Linux intellectual property and patents (something Steve Ballmer has,
uh,
mentioned in the
past). The Novell deal, after all, included a pretty well-known patent-protection
clause.
There's a big problem with what the FSF is doing here. Linux-Windows interoperability
is a good thing for partners and users. It strikes us as odd that the very people
who constantly clamor for Microsoft to be more open to other vendors and systems
and less proprietary are now trying to squash one of Redmond's biggest interoperability
initiatives ever. If they're so confident that Linux doesn't infringe on Microsoft's
patents, why don't they just let this deal go ahead? Is Red Hat just angry that
it missed an opportunity that Novell took (to
Red Hat's peril thus far)?
Hey, we realize that Microsoft is probably in this Linux business for a lot
of reasons, not many of them related to the pure-hearted goal of helping users.
Antitrust issues are likely part of Redmond's agenda (as
they always seem to be), and Ballmer might really be thinking that he can
best crush Linux from the inside by partnering with a Linux distributor, which
is why Novell had better be
careful in how it handles this relationship. So, we understand why the FSF
folks might approach this deal with some caution.
On the other hand, interoperability with Windows gives Linux -- still kind
of a mess of an operating system with its lack of standards -- credibility,
and it's good for customers and partners. Isn't that supposed to be the bottom
line, after all? Plus, it's not as though Novell is the only Linux distributor
out there. The OS will live on even if Novell doesn't -- and we're not anywhere
near that stage. The FSF seems to be operating primarily out of fear and dogma
here, and those are rarely good foundations for business decisions. It seems
as though the open source folks are open to everybody but Microsoft. It sort
of lends a bit of irony to the term "open source."
What do you think of the Free Software Foundation's attempts to submarine the
Microsoft-Novell deal? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/28/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Government agencies have
put
the kibosh on it, and even Steve Ballmer tried to get investors to
calm
down about it. Just today, a product manager from one of Microsoft's bigger
ISV security partners (OK, it was Symantec) told us that most companies won't
even seriously start looking at switching to it until the third or fourth quarter
of this year (and that actually sounded a little optimistic compared with other
projections we've heard).
But Microsoft wants you to know that everything is fine, just fine, with Vista.
It's great, actually. In fact, it's selling at double
the pace at which XP sold when it first came out! Of course, the
PC market is a lot bigger than it was when XP came out, and all of those
free Vista upgrades that folks got when they bought XP over the holidays last
year figure
into Microsoft's numbers. Still, why dwell on such tiny details? Hooray
for Vista!
OK, enough of the snarky comments. The fact is that most of us will run Vista
eventually.
It's debatable whether Vista will be the last great operating system from Microsoft
before everything moves to some sort of Google-ish Web-based service (or to
Microsoft's combined software-service model). However, the strong likelihood
remains that Vista will be the default OS for many, probably most, of the world's
computer users by the time the next version of Windows comes out. Mac OS is
as great as ever (although maybe not as great as advertised -- see the next
entry), but it's not a serious threat to Windows' market share, especially in
the enterprise. And Linux, while gaining momentum, is still a splintered OS
that won't benefit from the continued lack of organization (and now, thanks
to the Microsoft-Novell deal, infighting) inside the open source community.
So, Vista it is -- or will be.
For now, though, Vista has to be a disappointment. Given how long it took to
release and how much of a financial boost Microsoft needs from it right now,
Vista just isn't building the momentum or gaining the kind of market traction
that Redmond would like to see. Maybe the main problem with Vista is that XP
is actually too good -- or at least too mature and familiar. Those stringent
Vista hardware requirements don't help, either. And despite the half-a-billion
dollars Microsoft is spending to promote Vista, the new OS hasn't exactly captured
the public's imagination.
A Gateway official in the Cnet story linked above talks about how he's seen
a "pretty good reaction" to the release of Vista. That seems to be
a common response to the new OS. In terms of functionality, sales and interest
from consumers and companies, it's -- you know -- pretty good. Not great, not
bad, just OK. You can almost hear shoulders shrugging with apathy as people
make these statements. Vista isn't a disaster, but it's not exactly generating
the "wow" Microsoft hoped to see.
Have you upgraded to Vista? What's your attitude toward the new OS now that
it's been out for a little while? Tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/27/2007 at 1:20 PM3 comments
In
Pirates of Silicon Valley,
a movie to which we just love to refer, there's a scene at the end in which
Anthony Michael Hall's Bill Gates peers from a video screen over Noah Wyle's
Steve Jobs at a press conference as Gates announces the investment by Microsoft
that basically saves Apple.
In the background, onlookers and Mac fanatics boo and hiss at Gates' overwhelming
mug. The Big Brother connotation is not exactly subtle, but what do you want
from a made-for-TV movie? (By the way, if Pirates had been a theater
release and not a made-for-TV flick, "I got the loot, Steve!" would
have been one of the great cinematic catchphrases of the late 1990s. Alas.)
And so we jump forward a decade or so to this
year's edition of BrainShare, Novell's annual user conference. Except, instead
of Bill Gates -- or even Anthony Michael Hall -- it's Microsoft's Craig Mundie
who's playing the role of big brother. OK, sure, the situation is different
here. Microsoft's not saving Novell, and Mundie isn't exactly a lightning rod
on the level of Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer. But in terms of clashes of cultures
and an (at least partially) angry user base (including the ubiquitous "Microsoft-as-the-devil"
reference), there's
some drama playing out in Salt Lake City.
Just don't tell Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian that. He's busy
telling everybody that the deal is just great for both parties. It sounds
as though he'll have to do a little more convincing before he wins over his
company's hardcore followers, though. But with new enterprise customers picking
up on the deal and Microsoft pumping money into Novell and SUSE Linux, Hovsepian
might not care all that much about the ranting of a few dogmatic Penguinites
-- nor should he.
And speaking of Linux, after readers told us a few weeks ago to "Fear
the Penguin!" blogger John Obeto II, managing partner and chief technology
officer of Logikworx, responded
with a hearty rebuttal. We'd like to thank John for his faithful readership
and for taking the time to go into such detail in discussing a humble RCPU entry.
Redmond magazine, our sister publication aimed at IT folks, also got
some talk stirred up with its March
cover story on Microsoft opening the door to open source.
We always enjoy your comments on open source, Linux, Novell, Microsoft or just
about anything else you want to talk about. Send them to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/21/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Philippe Gaillard (who, it randomly turns out, was a neighbor and rugby opponent
during your editor's days living in Paris) gets it. The president of Neocase,
an ISV that provides support applications and integrates its wares with Dynamics
CRM, explains very succinctly why Dynamics ERP and CRM are getting attention
from so many companies:
"They look [at Dynamics] because they're sick of paying millions of dollars."
Et voila! There are a lot of reasons why companies of all sizes are looking
at Dynamics, but none is more compelling than the potential for getting serious
functionality without paying the exorbitant prices often associated with enterprise
software. Combine that with Microsoft's integration message, and what could
go wrong for partners selling Microsoft's applications?
Channel congestion, that's what. Yes, apparently some partners feel as though
the Dynamics channel is too crowded -- and this at a time when Microsoft officials
say that partner recruiting is going "very well." More partners competing
for gigs can mean tighter margins, dangerous implementations and maybe even
more sales for SAP and Oracle -- especially when those companies approach with
their direct sales forces customers befuddled by a flotilla of Microsoft VARs.
Jeff Sampson, founder and CEO of Kineticsware,
was one of the architects of Microsoft's industry builder initiative. He's seen
what can happen when Dynamics partners fight for a place at a customer's table.
"We would very frequently get involved in customer situations where you
had sometimes eight VARs," Sampson says. "You're a buyer -- you have
Oracle, SAP and eight Dynamics VARs, with three of them pitching one product,
two pitching another and so on. The customers says, 'Microsoft, can you tell
me which one to work with?' and Microsoft says, 'No.'"
Microsoft has to say no. That much is obvious. But what can Microsoft do about
channel congestion? Stop recruiting new Dynamics VARs, some partners say. But
a more likely scenario is for Microsoft to choose the partners it invites to
bids at a customer's request more carefully.
"Why should you invite smaller partners to global accounts?" asks
Aliona Geckler, vice president of global marketing for Columbus IT http://www.columbusIT.com
, who calls the problem of competition within the channel "huge."
"If the customer asks Microsoft, [Microsoft] shouldn't go with more than
one partner, more than two partners. It should be very clear by industry and
by size."
Those are all valid points, but there's nothing wrong with a little competition,
right? Well, no. And channel crowding is, unfortunately, one of the disadvantages
of the indirect sales model. To some extent, that's just the way it goes. At
the same time, Microsoft should be careful not to submarine its strong Dynamics
offering by overwhelming potential customers. Maybe carefully choosing partners
to respond to customer requests is a good strategy -- not that Microsoft isn't
trying to do that already, and not that that's easy to do for a vendor that's
supposed to stay partner-neutral.
Perhaps, though, the best idea is for partners to police themselves. That's
the message that Mark Jensen, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics market development,
wants partners to get.
"Do some soul searching to find out who you really are," Jensen says.
"Are you really a VAR, are you really a full-service implementation partner,
are you really an ISV? We see too many examples where partner organizations
might be struggling because they're trying to be what they're not. Find out
who you really are and then don't fight it."
In other words (our words), don't jump into a job that you know you really
can't do and ruin it for everybody. That's easier said than done, but it would
be a shame to see a potentially massively successful concept like Dynamics struggle
due to Microsoft's greatest asset -- its partners -- spending too much time
and money fighting with each other when it's not really necessary to do so.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/16/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Forget the news, even though there's a lot of it. Two shocking revelations
emerged from Microsoft's Convergence show in America's most beautiful city today.
First, and perhaps most disturbing, is that one of the editors of this newsletter
(as in one of the guys who reads it and tries to put my ramblings into some
sense of order) owns a Zune, aka "the uncool iPod." Bought it himself.
And likes it. And sort of resents RCPU's incessant pounding of it in recent
months. Who knew?
Second, I was apparently the first (and perhaps only) registrant to float a
line from the Anchorman
movie at the San Diego Convention Center registration booth. It went over like
a lead balloon. Anchorman quotes used to be universal currency in any
discussion of San Diego. However, that was par for the course. I also asked
an attendant here where Jack Murphy Stadium was, and he said, "What? Jack
Murphy?" I explained that I was talking about the place where the Chargers
play, and his eyes lit up. "Oh, Qualcomm!" he exclaimed. Um, yes...Qualcomm.
Well, it used to be Jack Murphy Stadium. Apparently, I'm spending too much time
writing newsletters.
But enough of those digressions. There was a lot of serious business to talk
about at Convergence. RCP's excellent wrap-up of it all is here.
A few key themes have emerged. We'll be writing about them all week (remember,
there are four RCPUs a week now), expanding on things as we get feedback from
partners, analysts and Microsoft folks. First, though, a few tidbits about the
show, just to give you an idea of what it's like to be here.
The affable Doug Burgum, senior vice president of the Microsoft Business Solutions
Group, threw out some interesting numbers. There are 8,700 attendees at this
year's Dynamics-oriented get-together, up considerably from the 47 who showed
up for the first edition of Convergence 11 years ago. We seem to remember Microsoft
saying that there were 6,000 attendees last year in Dallas (although that's
not fact-checked), so interest in Dynamics appears to be increasing. Either
that, or every partner, IT pro and reporter in the Northeast and Midwest couldn't
resist four days in sunny San Diego. There are no fewer than 1,000 Microsoft
people here this week, meaning one Microsoftian for every 8.7 attendees. It's
a high-touch show.
Newswise, the big announcement was the introduction of Dynamics Client for
Office and SharePoint. The app integrates Dynamics with the familiar Office
interface and the useful SharePoint server in very much the same way that Duet
ties the Office front end to an SAP back end. Dynamics Client delivers on the
desktop integration promise that could be Microsoft's ace in the hole over competitors
like Oracle and SAP. Those guys don't have 90-plus percent market share in the
productivity-suite game and have a much harder time giving users the information
and capabilities they need in an interface with which they are comfortable.
But with Dynamics Client comes a mandate for Dynamics partners -- get up to
speed on SharePoint and develop a competency around it. Dynamics is blending
in the Microsoft stack just the way Redmond wants it to, and just being a "Dynamics
Partner" ultimately won't be enough to guarantee success.
Also new from Microsoft and getting tongues wagging is Sure Step, an implementation
methodology intended to make it easier to get Dynamics up and running. Microsoft
looks at Sure Step as a universal, ever-evolving aid for partners of all sizes
-- and it will be, although it's clearly aimed at smaller shops that don't have
well-developed methodologies of their own.
It wasn't just the announcements that had people talking today, though. Apparently
the Dynamics channel is not immune to the old problem of overcrowding. Put simply,
Microsoft is recruiting Dynamics partners at a time when some partners would
rather see fewer players in the field. Margins are getting tight, and some partners
are calling for Microsoft to rein in companies that bid for implementations
that they don't really have the expertise to pull off.
We'll explore all of those issues in greater detail and with input from Microsoft,
partners and others as the week goes on. Your week's newsletters will look like
this:
- Wednesday: Getting ready for Dynamics Client for Office and SharePoint
and the evolving Microsoft integration story.
- Thursday: Sure Step, implementation methodologies and the roles of
the little guys and the Global Systems Integrators.
- Friday: Channel crowding and a quick look ahead to Convergence 2008.
If you have any thoughts on any of these topics, send them to me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/13/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Here are a couple of pieces of good news: Microsoft has two new wrinkles in
its already excellent Partner Program, one an enhancement and one a brand-new
initiative.
For starters, Microsoft now includes hardware in version 3.0 of its popular
Buy Local Program, which helps system builders find customers
in their hometowns. Previous versions of the program offered customers free
software and Web services but stopped short of offering hardware.
The second program boost is the Influencer Revenue Program, through which partners that
sell to small- and medium-sized businesses but funnel their sales through Large
Account Resellers will get credit for their work. This new program will be a
boost for partners that sometimes have trouble catching Redmond's attention.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/09/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
With the next version of
somewhat-maligned
Windows Live OneCare supposedly
on
the way, we've had some great reader e-mails on experiences with Microsoft's
fledgling anti-virus suite.
Bill says that he likes it just fine:
"I have it on three home computers: An on-campus university student's,
a World of Warcraft player's and a laptop used for e-mail on business and
pleasure travels. Windows Defender is loaded on all of them and they are all
kept up-to-date. None of them has been affected with anything and I have not
had any trouble with the software. I do not use the backup (I am still making
images with Drive Image 7) nor the defrag (I use PerfectDisk 8).
"I like the invisibility of OneCare and was pleased with the lack
of problems. I will have to check out the AV test results.
"I also use Norton AntiVirus 2007 on three computers with mixed results.
NAV provides annoying messages and on one machine shuts down AutoProtect at
random."
David writes from Australia (and not Austria) to say that the anti-virus tests
that banished OneCare to last place recently might not be the most reliable
out there:
"The anti-virus tests you've referred to may not be all that reliable.
I've always found the Virus Bulletin VB100 results to be reliable and in testing
for Vista compliance, OneCare failed, but so too did the AntiVirusKit from
G Data."
But Tom, who said in the subject of his e-mail that OneCare was "Amateur
Hour," isn't so impressed:
"It was fairly obvious, beginning with the ordering process, that
OneCare would not live up to the normal Microsoft standards. In order to get
an invoice which included tax, I had to visit their Web site (most online
orders will reflect an invoice in your browser after the purchase, plus send
you an invoice via e-mail for good measure). OneCare also noticeably slowed
down the system, which was a Vista PC."
See, Tom, you wouldn't have this problem if you worked for the Department of
Transportation. But we digress.
Paul wasn't thrilled either:
"I tried OneCare and it had so many holes that I uninstalled it and
will never try it again. One reason Microsoft stated for the holes was that
if anything you loaded in the past had an End User License Agreement that
stated it would infect your computer, Microsoft would honor the EULA. It would
find stuff and then tell you it could not remove it, and it just plain missed
stuff completely. I had pop-ups even when Internet Explorer was not open;
the system slowed to a crawl, and I found applications running that I could
not stop nor delete."
So there you have it. Incidentally, I am sorry that I no longer have time to
respond personally to every e-mail I get. Rest assured that I always read newsletter
responses, though, and I really appreciate your input. Thank you all.
Any other thoughts? [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/08/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Yin and yang on the security front last week for Microsoft. For starters, it turns out that a
script that supposedly circumvented Vista licensing by using a "brute force" method (we'll let you dream up your own imagery here) turned out to be a
big joke and doesn't really work at all. This no doubt made for
big laughs on nerdy message boards and gave Microsoft cause for a little sigh of relief -- despite the fact that some pundits insist that such a script
could still work in a blind-squirrel-finds-a-nut sense once in a while.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, that was the good security news. The bad news involved Windows Live OneCare, Redmond's fledgling antivirus software. In tests by a bunch of Austrian graduate students from an organization called AV-Comparitives.org that compares antivirus applications, OneCare not only failed to be certified as a "standard" (as in, barely better than useless, as far as we can tell) performer ... it actually finished dead last out of 17 AV packages in the competition. The numbers were not especially pretty, either, as OneCare whiffed on 17.6 percent of the malware that came its way. The winner, by contrast, the cleverly named AntiVirusKit from G Data Security, had a failure rate of less than one percent. Microsoft officials are "looking into the methodology" used in the tests, as you might imagine, but it appears as though they have work to do.
What has your experience been with Microsoft antivirus applications? E-mail
me (if you're not recovering from a crippling attack that OneCare didn't catch)
at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/06/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Funny little story this week regarding Dell. A couple of weeks ago, the
computer maker launched a suggestion-box site called IdeaStorm. (Really,
did somebody get paid to come up with that name? Maybe we should call
this newsletter WordFlood.) Within about 10 days of its launch, IdeaStorm
got bombarded with posts from users demanding that Dell release PCs pre-installed
with Linux. Dell then released a statement saying that it would certify
some of its lines of computers to work with SuSE Linux from Novell, which
is the distribution of Microsoft interoperability fame. So then a bunch
of half-baked stories and blog entries (most of which seem to have disappeared)
came out in the tech world talking about how Dell is going to offer PCs
with Linux pre-installed.
Well, uh, sort of ... but not quite. Dell is going to certify some
of its mainstream computers to run SuSE Linux, meaning that they should
work with the operating system. It already
offers some high-end machines with Linux pre-installed. The company
is also talking about selling more computer lines with no
OS at all installed. But massive pre-installation of Linux on mainstream
PCs isn't going to happen ... yet. Why? Because, as the second
article linked above notes, neither Dell nor Linux enthusiasts can decide
on which distribution of the OS to use. (Plus, Dell apparently doesn't
support Linux on its machines. No small matter, that.)
Therein lies the continuing problem with Linux and the reason Microsoft
isn't sweating open source more than it already is -- a lack of organization
in the open-source community around Linux and a lack of consensus among
Linux users about which distro should be standard. (And there has to be
a standard eventually, right? For business use and supportability, there
does.) In fact, some experts are not so sure that Dell offering Linux
broadly is such a great idea ... for a lot of reasons, compatibility
and support issues chief among them. As we've said here before,
the business case for switching from Windows to Linux has never been clear,
and there's no solid proof (and if you have some, please send it
our way) that Linux is cheaper to run than Windows in the long run.
Keeping all of that in mind, more than 80,000 users (and perhaps far
more than that by the time this e-mail hits your inbox or you read the
blog entry) had hit IdeaStorm demanding Linux on Dell PCs. Of course,
you know how the internet can be -- a small but determined minority
can make itself look very large and influential on certain sites.
Still, 80,000 -- in not quite two weeks -- is a big number of user demands,
and it's one that Dell is obviously taking seriously.
What does all this mean for the future of Windows? Probably not much
right now, given Linux's perpetual state of confusion and Microsoft's
monster market share. But this little episode does raise one question.
Is Dell's IdeaStorm experience just an incredibly successful hijacking
by a determined band of Linux lovers, or is it a real sign that a significant
number of PC users want to turn away from Windows? We're guessing
a lot of the former and a little of the latter. And we're not predicting
a mass exodus of users -- especially business users -- to Linux anytime
soon.
But for Microsoft and its partners, the need to understand what's
driving people to Linux (and who is along for the ride) becomes more pressing
all the time. That's no secret to Redmond, of course, as recent events
show -- but what we'll be waiting to see what further steps the company
takes to combat its scattered but increasingly popular rival and just
how big of a thorn in Microsoft's side Linux will really turn out
to be.
Would you like to see more PCs pre-installed with something other than
Windows ... or nothing at all? Do you think Dell's experience represents
a genuine cry for Linux or a tempest in a teapot? Tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/01/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
First, Microsoft throws a wrench into Vista upgrades for Mac owners citing
concerns about virtualization and security. Then, VMware, virtualization king
of the jungle, attacks Microsoft for "trying to restrict customers' flexibility
and freedom to choose virtualization software by limiting who can run their
software and how they can run it" (and Mary Jo Foley thinks she might
smell
another lawsuit). Is Microsoft
stumbling
all over itself with its virtualization "strategy"? Hard to say,
but there could be a couple of showdowns coming for Redmond with this vital
new technology. Stay tuned.
Any thoughts on Microsoft's virtualization entanglements? Toss them my way
at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/27/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments