The year 2009 has been one of the more forgettable we've experienced in...well, quite a while, anyway. And while it's hard to tell whether the economy is recovering (ask a stockbroker and somebody who's out of work, and you'll likely get two very different answers), glimmers of hope for 2010 are starting to show through the thick financial clouds that have been over us for close to two years now.
Microsoft hopes it's seeing one of those glimmers with the release of Windows 7. A Microsoft VP said in London this week that the company hopes the new operating system will spark a "PC refresh" in corporate IT departments in 2010. Spake Neil Holloway of Microsoft International:
"'Most people do expect that there will be a PC refresh. And I think one of the things that will hopefully drive that will be Windows 7,' he said."
Well, of course you do, Neil. We all do. But while Windows 7 is still getting mostly rave reviews, we're not so sure that it'll be the catalyst for a wave of corporate PC purchases. Operating systems just don't have that kind of impact anymore; as long as XP is still useful, cash-strapped and recovering companies will get all the use out of the old OS that they can.
Your editor is currently writing a story for Redmond magazine on Windows 7 migrations (and thanks, by the way, to those who contributed to it). We've received quite a few e-mails in the Redmond Media Group about Windows 7 migration experiences -- but most involved folks upgrading their own computers at home. If we had to make a conclusion about our entirely unscientific little e-mail data pile, it would be that XP is still going to be the OS market leader by some distance at the end of 2010. Most folks told us that their organizations have no plans to upgrade in the near future.
We're still skeptics about the economy here at RCPU, although we're hardly experts on it. But what we do know is that a new release of Windows doesn't have the same effect on companies that it once did. Windows 7 is, from all we hear, much better than Vista and a huge leap forward from XP. But despite enthusiasm about it, it's not an absolutely necessary upgrade (yet).
Besides, it's the economy that dictates PC refresh cycles, which in turn give us OS market share sea changes. It doesn't work the other way around anymore, if it ever did. And while we're seeing the same slivers of economic sunlight that everybody else is seeing, we're not sure they'll last. And we're pretty sure that they don't justify Microsoft (or any other software company) putting on metaphorical sunglasses.
What are your plans to migrate to Windows 7? Do you expect a PC refresh bump in 2010? Send your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/03/2009 at 1:22 PM1 comments
OK, so Google Chrome has 3.9 percent market share, according to Net Applications. No big deal, right? Well, it kind of is, considering the fairly new browser apparently had only 0.4 percent market share at the beginning of November. As for IE, its current share is its lowest ever -- although it's still at almost 64 percent.
Oh, by the way, Bing is still struggling to make a dent in Google's search share, although it's not a total dud numbers-wise.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/03/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Netbooks, the beloved (by your editor) little machines that haven't quite penetrated the enterprise but still sell in big numbers, have fallen under the market share spell of Windows for the most part. But a couple of companies are nudging them in a different direction.
Intel's new SDK for its Atom processer points developers pretty strongly in the direction of Moblin, Intel's own Linux-based operating system. And netbook maker Acer is going to start (gasp!) putting Google's Chrome OS on netbooks. Just a couple of little things to look out for with these little devices, Microsoft partners.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/03/2009 at 1:22 PM1 comments
We in the software world get so used to blaming Microsoft for these types of things that when news broke of a "black screen of death" (oddly abbreviated KSoD in some places) plaguing multiple versions of Windows, lots of observers, including RCPU, instinctively pointed a finger of blame at Redmond.
Well, as your editor's second-grade teacher used to say, "Every time you point at somebody, there are three fingers pointing back at you." (This led, of course, to kids pointing with all five fingers at presumed guilty parties, which was pretty funny now that we think about it.) Anyway, we're acknowledging here the three fingers pointed back at us and offering Microsoft's side of the story, which is, essentially, "It's not our fault." Wrote a blogger from Microsoft's Security Response Center:
"We've conducted a comprehensive review of the November Security Updates, the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, and the non-security updates we released through Windows Update in November. That investigation has shown that none of these updates make any changes to the permissions in the registry. Thus, we don't believe the updates are related to the 'black screen' behavior described in these reports."
The rest of the short blog entry is here. Generally speaking, when Microsoft has a security flaw, it acknowledges it and eventually gets around to fixing it. So, we're inclined to believe Redmond's pleas of innocence here and conclude that the KSoD problem is coming from somewhere else.
Not that it matters, of course, because a problem's a problem, and somebody has to fix it. Security firm Prevx says it has a fix, but the fact is that it might be better if this flaw did come from Microsoft because then, at least, Microsoft could get to the bottom of it and issue a fix for it. If it's really not Redmond's problem, and we don't know whose it is...then we're not sure who's going to fix it (or whether Prevx's fix really works). For what it's worth, Prevx thinks it knows what the problem is, and is working with Microsoft on the matter.
But we also don't know how big a deal this flaw really is, and Microsoft is saying that it doesn't seem to be a broad customer issue. So, maybe this whole story is a whole lot of nothing, or at least not as exciting and significant as some of us in the press and blogosphere (we hate that word, by the way) would like it to be during a slow time for news. In fact, now might be a good time to stop talking about it altogether.
Have you experienced the black screen of death? If so, have you found a fix for it, and where? Share your information at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/02/2009 at 1:22 PM2 comments
Rob Enderle ponders this week whether Microsoft could have taken over the world with Windows Mobile if Redmond just made the mobile operating system seem cooler, the way Apple promoted the iPhone. He has a point, of course, but Microsoft is to marketing as Apple is to non-proprietary development (heh heh). Incidentally, a recent Windows Mobile 6.5 update did come with a few new features.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/02/2009 at 1:22 PM4 comments
Your editor is swamped with other responsibilities this week, so expect some short RCPUs. (Yes, we always say that and it never happens, but it's going to happen this week.)
There's an interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week about how Silicon Valley has warmed to Microsoft over the last decade or so. The paper offers a couple of explanations for the thawing of relations between Redmond and the Valley.
First, there's the notion that Microsoft really is a friendlier company, that it was humbled by the U.S. antitrust suit of the '90s and that its leaders decided after that to be more open and friendly with the industry. The second possible explanation is that Microsoft just isn't the threat it used to be and competitors and partners alike don't hate Redmond because, with the importance of the operating system on the decline, there is less about Redmond to hate. Microsoft is old money now, the thinking goes, and the really obnoxious new kids on the block -- as well as the biggest threat to the industry as a whole -- are new money (read: Google).
We're convinced of Microsoft's staying power as a company, but we kind of lean toward explanation No. 2 -- if the issue is binary, which it probably isn't -- as to why Microsoft isn't such a pariah anymore. Sure, Microsoft has opened up to the software industry and open source somewhat (and sometimes) and has introduced some transparency and flexibility into its operations. But Microsoft is like the Dallas Cowboys (and here, your editor sheds a tear): a once-dominant behemoth that's still successful but just doesn't scare competitors the way it used to. Well, OK, Microsoft is a lot more dominant and successful than the Cowboys, but you get what we're going for here.
We're wondering what changes you, Microsoft partners, have perceived in recent years regarding opinions of Microsoft. Is Microsoft -- and are you, as the company's sales force -- meeting less industry resistance these days than you did, say, 10 years ago? Twenty years ago? And, if so, do you think it's because Microsoft has played better with its industry friends or because it's not as scary as Google is now? Or both? Send your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/01/2009 at 1:22 PM5 comments
This is one launch that won't include a ribbon-cutting ceremony, if you know what we mean. Heh heh. Oh, yes, the ribbon will be back and likely more confusing than ever by the middle of next year.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/01/2009 at 1:22 PM1 comments
At least that's what one software company and some users are saying. Redmond's latest patch is (allegedly) crashing computers running all sorts of Windows versions.
One thing to note: Black is the new blue. The famous BSOD has gone dark for the fall, as have some computers, apparently. Anyway, it's now the black screen of death, which seems less colorful and festive than the blue screen.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/01/2009 at 1:22 PM1 comments
Chris Liddell is moving on, and Microsoft is promoting Redmond veteran Peter Klein into the CFO role.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/01/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
At first glance, this almost seems a little unfair. The ERP market leader and the market leader in almost everything else -- two companies that aren't always the best of friends -- are teaming up to attack Oracle. But Microsoft and SAP have their reasons for getting together.
Oracle is a major ERP player these days and a threat to SAP's market-leading position in the space. (Microsoft wants to be an ERP player, too, but we'll get to that later.) Microsoft, of course, wants to cut into Oracle's massive share of the market for database software. So, Microsoft and SAP have come together in what is essentially a business-intelligence play in which Microsoft -- and its channel, presumably -- will recommend and implement SAP's BusinessObjects BI software for Microsoft customers...with that software running, of course, on Microsoft's database applications. There will also be some cross-sales and cross-promotion-type stuff.
There are a lot of entanglements here, and we wonder at first blush whether Microsoft and SAP are trying too hard to torpedo Captain Larry Ellison's Good Ship Oracle. (Larry's an avid sailor, you know.) First off, what does Microsoft embracing BO (a common abbreviation for BusinessObjects among company insiders -- and, yes, your editor did briefly work there in Paris almost a decade ago) say about Microsoft's own efforts to create a BI platform?
Although the concept for it has never seemed to have much structure, Microsoft has tried to lump together its own BI offering and has even made a few acquisitions over the last few years with development of BI in mind. Is this, then, the end of the Microsoft's half-cooked BI experiment?
Redmond has always talked about baking BI tools into a Microsoft stack rather than offering them as something of a separate entity; there's not really such a thing as "Microsoft BI" (although it would make a good name for a detective show set in Hawai'i). SAP, on the other hand, sells BI software as more of a separate commodity and has given BO some level of autonomy post-acquisition. (The BO name survives, anyway, as do many of BO's employees, who are now on the SAP payroll.)
If Microsoft really is going to send partners into accounts touting BO as Redmond's "preferred" BI software, there seems to be somewhere in that decision an admission that cobbling together BI capabilities has been more difficult and not as profitable as Microsoft thought it would be.
And speaking of things that are cobbled together, what does this agreement mean for Microsoft's Dynamics ERP suites, at least a couple of which feature Microsoft's own BI capabilities already? Does Microsoft now ask its channel members to go into Dynamics accounts pushing BO, at the risk of exposing those companies to SAP on the ERP side? And what of SAP -- which, by the way, uses a hybrid channel and direct sales model -- going on sales calls with representatives of a company that wants to eat away at its position as ERP market leader?
This isn't, of course, the first time that Microsoft and SAP have hooked up, and rumors of Microsoft's desire to buy SAP have persisted for years; only a few months ago, Steve Ballmer was busy quashing them again. Plus, there seems to be little doubt (albeit from biased observers in some cases) that this deal really could take a chunk out of Oracle's two primary business lines.
But at what cost? And why? "Coopetition" is a delicate balance. It should offer more benefit than risk, although there will always be a bit of both involved. The obvious benefit here is that Microsoft and SAP have an excellent opportunity to carve up and conquer Oracle, a frankly brash and unlikeable company (according to RCPU) that, in many ways, embodies the attitude of its CEO.
But in slicing and dicing Oracle, how often will Microsoft and SAP slip and cut each other and themselves? How will they and their partner bases avoid conflicts and stepping on each other's toes? And do the ERP titan and the world's most powerful software company really need to take all these risks to pick on Oracle at this point? We're not so sure. This deal seems to bring Microsoft and SAP too close. So close, in fact, that it might be time to dust off that Microsoft-SAP acquisition rumor again. Just for fun, anyway.
Are Microsoft and SAP going too far to attack Oracle? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 11/19/2009 at 1:22 PM2 comments