For those of you still not using Firefox (oooh, snap), the first release candidate of Internet Explorer 8 is
available. And, bonus!
Here's one reviewer's first look at it.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/28/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Champagne in the Valley for VMware, which beat analysts' expectations with its
Q4 and fiscal-year earnings. But not too much champagne -- and not too expensive -- as the company, like most other vendors, is signaling that 2009 might be a bit difficult. In fact, VMware is following the trend of not forecasting for 2009 at all. Not a particularly good sign, if not surprising.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/28/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
We want to believe. We really do. We love the IBM commercials with the cartoon pixies dancing around executives, and we're ready to buy into the promise of green technology -- the cost savings, the benefits to the planet, the overall feel-good nature of the whole thing.
But last time we checked -- and that's not meant to be a cliché; we literally mean the last time we checked -- green technology, green IT or whatever you want to call it was still more hype than reality. Way more, actually.
Now, we'll admit that the last time we checked on green IT was last summer (the story linked was from August) and a few things have changed since then. Look at your 401K if you need any reminder of that. So it's possible that green IT projects have gathered steam in the last few months, but we're more inclined to say that with budgets and possibly IT teams shrinking, any sort of new or proposed green activity has probably been put on the shelf like a house plant.
So it's into this hype-reality dichotomy that a very big player, Cisco, wanders with a team of partners. The networking titan has created the EnergyWise program, which focuses on controlling network power usage. A few hearty souls have also signed up for the journey, including Schneider Electric, Veridem and SolarWinds. They'll integrate their applications into Cisco products, specifically the Catalyst line of switches.
While Cisco's program seems to have an ISV focus for the time being, it should serve as an invitation for channel partners of all stripes to grow their competencies in green IT and jump on the back of a vendor that's making a concrete commitment to environmentally friendly technologies. EnergyWise is a big step in converting green technology from hype to reality, especially given that the Cisco name is attached to it.
Microsoft's own green plans seem circumspect and somewhat non-specific at this point, so we'll have to wait and see how Redmond plans to turn talk into action on the green front. Of course, technologies such as virtualization, in which Microsoft is making a heavy commitment, have green elements in their very nature (so to speak). But Microsoft is mostly green around the edges right now and not so green at its heart.
Cisco, though, believes -- or is at least taking concrete steps to show that it's making a commitment to green IT. We still want to believe, too, and maybe this major vendor throwing its name behind a green-specific initiative and recruiting partners for it will help reality begin to approach hype. For partners, that could turn green IT into greenbacks -- and everybody could use more of those.
What's your green IT strategy? Are you making money by helping customers go green? Tell us at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/28/2009 at 1:22 PM1 comments
This
isn't what we wanted to hear from Redmond about how cost-cutting would affect Microsoft's product offerings. Apparently PerformancePoint Server is
up for the chop -- more specifically, it'll be folded into SharePoint -- in the months to come.
OK, so maybe PerformancePoint isn't a massive moneymaker (we don't know) and folding its capabilities into SharePoint probably makes sense. But on a broader scale, Microsoft, we wish you'd leave the enterprise stuff alone and look for efficiencies elsewhere. After all, the server and tools business is the one that's still raking in the bucks for you and for the channel.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/28/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Windows Live and Office Live, the somewhat amorphous concepts that (at this point, anyway) aren't hosted versions of either application, are now
under the same umbrella in Redmond. And if rumors prove to be true, they might end up with a new name: "Kumo," a Japanese word that apparently can mean "cloud" but also "sea spider." That should make for one heck of a mascot.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/27/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Last week's
announced layoffs made news, but there's more than just pink slips to Microsoft's cost-cutting measures.
This week, Microsoft announced that part of Iowa will remain prairie for longer than planned, as Redmond is delaying construction of a datacenter in West Des Moines. OK, we know -- West Des Moines (probably) isn't prairie land, but we like to think of Iowa as a verdant alternative to slushy suburban Boston.
It's a prudent move by Microsoft, of course, but we're wondering how much further Redmond will go to get the numbers back on track without hacking even more employees off the rolls. And as we've said before in this space, this downturn might be an opportunity for Microsoft to streamline operations a bit, to refocus on the technologies that made the company what it is as well as to concentrate on innovating for the future.
Of course, we at RCPU would love to see Microsoft pour money into nothing but Windows, Office, SaaS, enterprise servers and software, and the Partner Program, but we realize that Redmond might want to have a little more diverse a portfolio than that. Still, it could be time to pull back a bit on the quest to catch Google in consumer search or on some of the consumer stuff (we're looking at you, Zune) that really isn't part of the company's bread and butter.
Maybe it's also time to look at scaled-down versions of Windows and get a little more serious about Linux interoperability. As folks in Redmond know by now, just about everything in computing is getting simpler, smaller and cheaper, not the other way around. Vista was such a resource monster that it seemed to reflect a company out of touch with what both consumers and companies wanted and needed.
Hopefully cost-cutting in Redmond won't mean chunks being taken out of the Partner Program's budget or out of the money set aside for channel marketing and the like. There's no indication that anything like that is on the chopping block at this point, and the all-important server and tools business at Microsoft is one of the few areas that's still booming, relatively speaking.
So the channel doesn't seem likely to take much of a hit from Microsoft's budget pinch, which is a good thing. And if Microsoft itself can come out of this mini-crisis a more focused and in-touch company, the current financial cloud will have completed the old cliché by actually having a silver lining.
Where would you like to see Microsoft cut costs? How do you want the company to refocus? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/27/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
It's all the rage online, but if you want to be a part of Windows 7 madness, you'd better hurry -- download availability of the beta is scheduled to
end on Feb. 10.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/27/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Remember the lawsuit that led to the release of so many
hilarious internal Microsoft e-mails? We know you do because it just keeps coming up. And last week, we found out that the suit could -- but, let's face it, probably won't --
cost Microsoft $8.5 billion. As unlikely as it is to come up in a judgment, that's still a big number at a scary time.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/27/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
If accurate,
this news will come as a terrible shock to the 35 people who are anxiously awaiting Vista SP2. Just kidding; it's probably more like 50. No, no -- kidding again. Hey, with Windows 7 on the horizon, we've got to get our Vista jokes in while we can.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/22/2009 at 1:22 PM2 comments
Last week, in the spirit of the peaceful transition of leadership in this country (no small thing, actually), we
drew some parallels between Windows 7 and Barack Obama...and between Vista and George W. Bush.
We were only making those comparisons in terms of the relative popularity of the operating systems and presidents. We certainly weren't trying to make a political statement or any value judgments. (In other words, we weren't Bush-bashing...seriously.) We generally stay away from national and international politics here unless we're ripping on the EU. The EU is always fair game.
Anyway, most of you got what we were doing, and when we asked what you'd like to hear in Windows 7's inaugural speech, we got a couple of nice responses. But before we get to those, we'd like for you to sit through a long, rambling poem. Just kidding. Let's have Steve start us off:
"I want to hear that freedom is more valued than protection. I don't want an OS that protects me from my own software, or from software I've used on previous systems.
"I want to hear that it doesn't cough up on its own programs. Virus protection is great, but I'm angry about Vista constantly asking me for permission to run a program I've already said I want to run."
We're standing here hand on heart, Steve. That was downright inspiring. From what we've heard and read about Windows 7, you should be pleased with the new OS when it comes out. Apparently, Microsoft heard the chorus of complaints about user access control and warning messages and made some improvements. Maybe you've seen that if you've played with the beta -- which we haven't done.
Next we have Brad, a fellow native Texan and frequent contributor to RCPU. Brad's not quite ready for Windows 7 to take office yet. He's (certainly not alone in) sticking with XP for now -- an OS for which we don't have a presidential comparison, although it's been around so long that Franklin Roosevelt's multiple terms come to mind.
"Pretty funny comparing Obama/Bush with 7/Vista. I hope your humor doesn't draw unnecessary political banter. I went to the beta site for Windows 7; the warnings are enough to make me wait until I try any new OS. I'll stick with my XP until 7 is out of the beta diaper and taking its first steps."
Understandable, Brad. XP's likely to be the incumbent for a while to come, if you'll allow us one more flourish with the presidential theme. But Windows 7's time will come eventually...and we'll see whether it'll live up to expectations.
In other news, sans political humor, Carl wrote to us about Citrix's rockin' "bare metal" hypervisor announcement:
"Intel has engineered its latest chips and desktop/laptop motherboards to support V-Pro...allows for out-of-band management for patching OSes even if the whole machine is asleep or powered off (needs to be plugged in, though). It is not a stretch to figure out that Citrix is doing anything to salvage its hosted solution stranglehold on its loyal customer base. Intel has left open the option to store a chunk of code that is accessible at power-up to do things like out-of-band testing of a VM/HDD to search for A/V updates, etc...The machines can be redirected to boot from a remote location (this smells like hook to a master Xen server...) and then the centrally located/managed profiles can be coded for booting an appropriate VM on the local HDD.
"I see them trying to do anything to make a proprietary hook into the VDi initiative. I'd like to see DVD playback and streaming audio delivered to the endpoint...then we know they have something worthy of purchase."
Interesting. Frankly, you follow this stuff in more detail than we do. We're not sure what sinister motives Citrix or Intel might have, Carl, but we thank you for your perspective.
Anything to add? About anything? Add it at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/22/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
It was kind of like finding out that a person who's been in the hospital for an extended period of time has finally expired. It wasn't unexpected -- it was inevitable, actually, and anticipated -- but when the news landed it still hit with the sudden jolt of a rock on a windshield. All that's left to do now is assess the damage.
Microsoft just spat the bad news out today, eschewing its usual post-market-close earnings announcement timing and instead deciding to drop a dead fly in the industry's morning coffee. The company announced layoffs and disappointing earnings, the pertinent details of which are recounted superbly by Redmond Developer News' Jeff Schwartz here. The bottom line? Layoffs, 5,000 of them in the next 18 months, with 1,400 of those coming today. Oh, and earnings that missed expectations.
Despite the unusual timing of the announcement and the therefore somewhat shocking effect of the news, Microsoft's revelation is hardly a surprise. As Microsoft guru and Redmond magazine columnist Mary Jo Foley notes, it could have been worse. Microsoft will still be a battle ship with more than 80,000 employees, even post-layoffs.
But another press release full of bad news isn't what the industry or the economy needed. On top of that, Microsoft is finished even trying to give guidance about future earnings, which doesn't seem like an especially positive sign.
As for partners, it's hard to say right off the bat what this will mean -- maybe not much. Microsoft's server and tools business, a big moneymaker for the channel, actually recorded a 15 percent increase in revenue year over year. In fact, Microsoft really took the biggest hit in its client revenue (read: Windows), which was off by 8 percent compared to last year.
Those numbers indicate that enterprise partners might actually get out of this situation relatively unscathed, given that most of them don't make much money from Windows or Office sales, anyway. Really, most don't make much money from selling software or hardware anymore -- it's all about services now. And there appears to still be plenty of Microsoft enterprise technology flowing from the channel into companies, ready to be implemented and customized.
The really interesting bit from the earnings report is probably of less interest to enterprise partners, but it's still interesting. Microsoft came out and said that while demand for PCs is dropping, sales of netbooks are starting to eat away at what would have otherwise been PC sales. Given that a lot of netbooks ship with Linux, that's a problem for Microsoft.
There are lots of reasons for Microsoft's troubles, the economy chief among them. But the PC-netbook thing is intriguing. On the one hand, it's easy to see why in a weak economy consumers are turning to lower-priced netbooks as opposed to PCs. But there's another factor in Microsoft's weak Windows numbers. Oh, yes. You know what it is.
This could be, at least in part, the wrath of Vista. Microsoft spun and spun and spun Vista -- and then finally gave up and started pumping Windows 7. The fact is that Vista hasn't penetrated the enterprise in any serious way, and we're guessing that a lot of consumers have avoided it as well. Just look at the downgrades to XP companies like Dell were offering long after the Vista launch.
The numbers don't lie. They seem, at least, to bear all this out. It hardly seems like a coincidence that Microsoft's Windows sales are sagging with Vista as the lead ship in the fleet. It bombed, and this appears to be the fallout -- not the main cause of Microsoft's woes, but a factor. Fair or not, problems resolved or not, Vista couldn't overcome the compatibility issues and massive hardware requirements that sunk it right as it left the harbor. Microsoft also created a fair amount of ill will by continuing to push an OS the public had pretty soundly rejected.
Early accounts suggest that Windows 7 is much better than Vista -- we've heard it described as everything Vista was supposed to be. No wonder Microsoft's in such a hurry to release it and confine Vista to the scrap heap of history. (However, maybe Microsoft should pay attention to this netbook thing and note how small, cheap and simple is starting to trump big, expensive and complex. Just a thought.)
The rock has hit the windshield. Will the glass shatter or just crack? Stick around.
How will Microsoft's financial problems affect you? Let us know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/22/2009 at 1:22 PM3 comments
A ray of sunshine in this stormy economy, IBM is apparently
rolling in it these days.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/22/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments