AMD won't be fab -- or, more precisely,
have
fabs -- much longer.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/08/2008 at 1:22 PM1 comments
One of the more entertaining scenarios in the recent history of Microsoft,
the infamous
Vista
Capable lawsuit, has led to a semi-comical deposition from Steve Ballmer,
who
pretty
much denies ever having heard of Vista.
OK, he didn't go that far, but let's just say that baldness isn't all that
he and Sgt. Schultz
have in common.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/08/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
This just makes a lot of sense if you think about it, or even if you don't.
Why let a bunch of other vendors make a bundle on business intelligence applications
that are mainly centered on your database when you can
build
the stuff in yourself?
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/08/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
The launch was kind of, sort of last month, but the product's out there today.
Go figure. Anyway,
here's
the press release.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/02/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
OK, we get the point here. Microsoft is saying that using pirated software
could
lead
to huge problems -- of the technical, and not just legal, kind.
But the deck of this story made us chuckle a little bit: "Company-sponsored
report says counterfeits lead to system failures, lost data." Wait, doesn't
using a legitimate copy of Windows lead to that stuff?
Oh, come on, it's only a joke. Lighten up and enjoy the rest of the week. We'll
be back on Tuesday. Be sure to tip your waitress...
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/02/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
It's so hard letting go. All the money, all the memories, all the good times -- it's
hard to think of them as things of the past. Just look at Microsoft. Cloud computing
is here, and the old operating system and productivity suite are becoming less
and less relevant all the time. But Microsoft just can't let them go.
OK, most of that last sentence was a massive overstatement -- but we got
your attention, right? We know that Windows isn't going to be obsolete any time
soon, if ever. And Office is likely to be the suite of choice for the masses
for at least a few more years to come.
Plus, there's no guarantee that SaaS, cloud computing or whatever you want
to call it will ever unseat the old-fashioned desktop computing model, much
less bump it off within the next few years. (After all, ASPs never ruled the
world, and they were really just early SaaS providers.)
Still, SaaS is looking more like a viable alternative every day, and companies
like Google, NetSuite and especially Salesforce.com are building nice little
(actually, pretty darn big) businesses around it. So we're intrigued by some
of the comments
Steve Ballmer made this week when he dropped a few hints about a forthcoming
"Windows Cloud" OS that will be aimed at developers of SaaS applications.
Never mind, first off, that some
startup seems to have beaten Microsoft to the Windows
Cloud punch. What we're interested in is Ballmer's attitude toward SaaS
-- or Software Plus Services, as Microsoft calls it -- more than the scant details
the Microsoft CEO released on Windows Cloud.
Let's check some quotes from the PC World article linked above:
"Ballmer was quick to point out that Microsoft doesn't envision products
such as the Office productivity suite to move entirely off desktop PCs and
onto the Internet.
But Microsoft is working on a service that would let people do 'light
editing' of Office documents at places such as a public Internet kiosk, Ballmer
said."
Ballmer doesn't envision Office moving entirely onto the Internet? At all?
Ever? Why not? We're not saying that a SaaS-model Office would outsell the traditional
offering. But as cloud computing gains acceptance, why wouldn't Microsoft at
least offer a hosted option for Office? Would it cannibalize desktop revenues
that much? Is the model just too difficult to put into action, and too risky
financially?
If so, then Microsoft really might be in trouble. Again, we're not flying a
flag for a SaaS revolution here, but we do acknowledge -- who doesn't? -- that
it's an attractive model for customers and partners alike who know what they're
doing. It's growing now and seems likely to continue growing, and, unlike the
ASPs of the '90s, companies such as Salesforce.com seem to have the confidence
of small-business and maybe even some enterprise customers.
In a tightening economy, with midsize companies increasingly looking to save
costs and dump off IT management on somebody else, Ballmer is talking about
Office being on the desktop for at least the foreseeable future. And, in doing
so, he's kind of dismissing cloud computing (more on that shortly). Those are
worrying signs because they seem to point to Microsoft being either unable or
unwilling technically and financially to fully embrace the increasingly popular
cloud computing model with its core products.
And then there was this:
"Ballmer was dismissive of Google, saying Docs and Spreadsheets has
'relatively low usage' and that users want richer features in an office software
package.
'We want software more powerful than software that runs in a browser,'
Ballmer said."
Whoa. OK, he's right about the first part. Google Docs and Spreadsheets is
a pretty weak offering thus far, both in terms of functionality (compared to
Office, anyway) and in terms of market share. But the second part of the quote
above is the kicker. If Ballmer's just talking about Office being more powerful
than Google's apps, fine. But -- and this could come down to how the reporter
wrote the story, we'll admit -- it sounds as though he's suggesting that cloud
applications aren't as powerful as their on-premises cousins.
Salesforce.com, its users and partners will likely beg to disagree. And if
Microsoft's attitude is that desktop apps will always trump SaaS offerings in
terms of functionality, there would seem to be a serious lack of vision in Redmond.
Surely that's not the case...right?
We'd like to think that Microsoft is moving toward fully embracing cloud computing
and bringing partners along for the ride. And, to be fair, there have been lots
of signals to that effect. But Ballmer's comments seem to be those of a
CEO who doesn't want to see the old-school OS and desktop productivity suite
-- his company's moneymakers -- become less and less relevant all the time.
We know it's hard letting go -- but everybody, even Microsoft, has got to move
forward.
Does Microsoft get cloud computing? Let us know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/02/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Somewhere between helping companies more easily retrieve long-buried data and
seeing its vendors get snapped up by tech giants, business intelligence (BI)
technology got expensive...and complicated. Kalido and its partners are out
to take BI back, in part by moving it online.
"It's been very difficult for companies to get enterprise-wide adoption
of BI tools because the infrastructure required to support them is very heavy,"
said Bill Hewitt, Kalido president and CEO, in a phone chat with RCPU this week.
Hewitt was referring specifically to business intelligence applications from
Business Objects and Cognos, the two main market players, which were recently
snapped up by software titans SAP
and IBM,
respectively.
"The cost of implementing Business Objects and Cognos is cost-prohibitive.
SAP and IBM make it clear that you need to buy their apps," Hewitt said.
Even before the mega-vendors picked the BI market nearly clean, BI technology
-- which basically lets companies easily find and manipulate critical business
information from multiple sources, especially databases -- had become too big
and expensive for mid-market companies. Apps that were meant to simplify life
suddenly had implementation schedules that ran for months (or years) and costs
with a lot of zeroes before the decimal point.
So Kalido is stepping in with an offering intended for mid-size companies --
and hosted and managed by partners. It's BI in the cloud, with a monthly subscription
fee and outsourced management for customers rather than a huge start-up cost
and an overworked IT staff. Oh, and that means a recurring revenue stream from
subscriptions for partners. Kalido's offering starts at $5,000 per month priced
to the reseller -- which can then charge as it sees fit for management and services.
"We take the data from the source system to the BI tool with a business-driven,
fully automated engine," Hewitt said. "There's no manual coding. The
result is far fewer people are needed to maintain the environment. If you take
BO and Cognos as the best examples, they are the traditional BI stack. Those
products need to be integrated by the customer. Customers need to know infrastructure
pieces for SAP and IBM. You can get infrastructure up and running in 90 days
with our approach."
Kalido's partner-hosted offering will actually integrate with both BO and Cognos
apps -- or it'll work with Microsoft Excel, which Hewitt called "the most
popular reporting tool on the planet." It also simplifies reports -- one
company moved from using 5,000 reports to using just 1,800. The key, Hewitt
said, is to take the burden of BI management off of IT people and create a more
useful business context for the technology -- putting control over reporting
in the hands of users rather than in the hands of IT folks.
"They manage the environment, but IT people don't understand a context
of the way info is used," he said. "When business users take accountability
for what they want to see, they end up getting what they want."
There's more about Kalido's hosted offering here.
This was just one of those technology offerings we found interesting enough
to feature in RCPU. If you've got something you think is cool, unique or especially
useful, feel free to drop us a line at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/01/2008 at 1:22 PM1 comments
What we like about this company is...well, it's based in Biarritz. That's
the
Biarritz, as in the seaside resort in the southwest of France. Mmm, Biarritz.
Anyway,
here's
the PDF of the press release.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/01/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Visual Studio and .NET might seem a touch mundane as topics in comparison to
the end of Western Civilization and the collapse of the global economy -- but,
hey, somebody's bound to be really excited about
this
stuff.
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/30/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
jQuery sounds to us like the nerdiest rap name ever, but apparently the fact
that Microsoft is going to
ship
it with Visual Studio signals a further move on Redmond's part toward embracing
open source, at least a little bit.
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/30/2008 at 1:22 PM1 comments
If you're singing the old REM song in your head now, we're sorry, but the noise
of Michael Stipe blurting out semi-random words might just help drown out that
crashing sound coming from Wall Street.
Before we even get into this (again),
here's our obligatory caveat: By the time you read this, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average might be back up 500 points, or 700, or 1500, or whatever, and Congress
might have passed a package that will save our very mortal souls -- or at
least drag the country out of a mess the likes of which we haven't seen in decades.
So there you go.
Still, we're writing this about an hour and a half after the Dow lost
777 points in another day that had people freaking out all over the globe.
Closer to home for partners and Microsoft, the NASDAQ chopped off almost 200
points, or almost 10 percent of its overall value. Wow, that sounds bad.
And, of course, it is. And the worst part is that nobody seems to know what
to do about it. It's way beyond our purpose here to get into why we're in the
mess we're in, and there's plenty of blame to go around. We blame the Cowboys'
secondary...wait, that's something else altogether. No, really, there's
plenty of blame for this financial mess but not much consensus on a solution,
which pretty much sums up everything that's happened in Washington for as long
as we'd care to remember.
We thought -- and, apparently, investors thought -- that Congress would have
passed a bailout plan by now (see caveat -- there's a time lag here) that would
have, if nothing else, stabilized the financial markets at least for a little
while. Microsoft, which is trying to patch
the leaks in its financial battleship, was on
board with it. And so were a lot of people who are now worried about the
end of the world as we know it -- more specifically, the end of credit, the
end of any semblance of a housing market, the end of a pretty long era of relative
prosperity and the beginning of another Great Depression. The end of the investment
bank is already upon us -- in fact, it's old news.
Many have the times been that we've advocated the free market here at RCPU.
We've used -- in our own limited way, as nobody here claims to be an economist
(although your editor does read The Economist) -- the free-market argument
to defend Microsoft in European antitrust matters and to rail against some of
the more
Communist elements in the open source movement.
But, in our defense, we said all that stuff in the specific context of Microsoft
and the technology industry -- and we stand by it. The crisis we're facing
now is bigger than that, brought on by years of bad decisions and, well, unchecked
greed from pretty much all corners. It's bigger than all of us -- although
it's going to affect all of us in a serious way if it hasn't already. So, we're
not here to preach free-market economics and oppose a bailout plan, nor are
we here to support a bailout plan -- because, frankly, we don't fully understand
what's going on here, and we have no idea what to do.
Unfortunately, that seems to put us in a category with pretty much everybody
else in the country, including lawmakers and quite possibly the Treasury secretary
and Fed chairman. And that's the scary part. Normally in times like these we
turn to people smarter and more experienced than we are, but those folks mostly
seem to be either throwing Hail Mary passes or staring at their hands about
right now.
It's kind of like going to the emergency room in extreme pain and having a
doctor say, "Well, we can't figure out what's wrong with him, so let's
just give him some aspirin and hope he gets better," right as another physician
darts in to say that there's nothing wrong with the patient that won't heal
over time. Meanwhile, we're hurting over here.
We'll grant that most of the colossal freak-outs -- the dire predictions
of a depression and the prophecies that nobody will ever be able to buy a house
again if somebody doesn't do something -- have mostly taken place in the
freak-out-fertile fields of Internet message boards and blog commentaries. But,
then again, even supposedly level-headed experts don't seem to have any idea
of what's going to happen from here.
We don't like that type of insecurity -- and markets hate it (again, see
caveat). We're all subject to the market's moves now, to the state of credit,
to the action or inaction of Congress. And the road ahead is foggy at best.
It turns out that Michael Stipe might not have written such a prophetic chorus
after all. If this is the end of the world as we know it, we certainly do not
feel fine.
How would you fix the current economic crisis? All ideas, from the ridiculous
to the chin-scratchingly interesting, will be considered. Send them to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/30/2008 at 1:22 PM2 comments