Get your
fix(es)
on Patch Tuesday.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/12/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Your non-news news of the week is that people still don't like Vista. Specifically,
some research group called Janco -- we've never heard of it, so get that grain
of salt ready -- says that Vista still has a market share of
less
than 15 percent after almost two years of availability.
Not quite 15 percent? That actually sounds a bit high to us, but we got to
wondering...where was XP at about the same point in its lifespan? Well, after
a very quick Google search (no, we're not even going to pretend that we use
Live Search, or whatever it's called), we found a vague, six-year-old
reference on a message board to a long-departed article, which apparently
stated that XP had gained 20 percent market share in less than a year.
What really strikes us, though, is the tone of the posts on the vintage message
board. Sure, there are complaints about XP there -- specifically about how it
"phones home" -- but, at least in this particular board's little corner
of the Web back in 2002, there wasn't the poison attitude toward the OS that
we see so often with Vista today. (And, yes, we also love the reference at the
bottom of the page to the $45 copy of Windows 98.)
Still, some of the stuff sounds familiar -- folks talking about waiting for
service packs before installing XP or being "sick" of hearing about
the then-new OS. Microsoft is pushing Vista hard again, trying to shake the
notion that it's a failed product. It's certainly not picking up much momentum,
though, and it has had plenty of time to get rolling. We do kind of wonder how
folks plan to move from XP straight to the post-Vista version of Windows (effectively
making XP their OS for nearly a decade), but at this point we're sure that a
lot of people are going to try to do just that.
On another note, Firefox -- according to these Janco people, anyway -- is eating
away at Internet Explorer's market share rather quickly. Apparently IE is down
to just less than 60 percent market share, whereas it had 80-plus percent three
years ago. And Firefox is roaring with almost 20 percent. What really surprises
us, though, is Netscape(!) clocking in with a seemingly impossible 11 percent
market share.
What? Netscape, at 11 percent? Are there that many people still living in 1997?
Maybe so. After all, those of us who still use XP are living in 2002 -- and
we like it there.
Will you stretch XP out until the next version of Windows arrives? If so, how?
Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/12/2008 at 1:22 PM1 comments
Let's not even pretend that this has been an interesting news week for Microsoft followers. Tonight's earnings will provide plenty of fodder, sure -- but, for the time being, it's a famine after last week's Worldwide Partner Conference news feast.
So, today, we have the final pieces of Microsoft's virtualization product offering falling into place. Specifically, we now know that Virtual Machine Manager will ship in the fourth quarter of calendar 2008 and will not have to be bundled with the over-named System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise.
So, whether you're psyched about Hyper-V or less than enthused, at least now you know more of the details. And that's what's passing for news this week.
Posted by Lee Pender on 07/17/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
We bring you
this
little item only because Microsoft still
hasn't
stopped trying to acquire Yahoo (apparently) and because such an acquisition
would bring Microsoft from a distant third in search to a somewhat less distant
second.
Posted by Lee Pender on 07/16/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Last week's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference was, as these things always
are, quite a production. But behind the bands, the fireworks, the Nobel Prize-winning
keynoters and the half-decent meals is one thing: money. It's always the bottom
line, of course, and this week, the financial rubber hits the road again.
Microsoft is announcing earnings in a market that we might call unstable if
we were in a friendly mood. In an unfriendly mood, we'd call it a bear market,
which it technically is -- or has been, at least, at times in recent days. So
Microsoft's earnings report, due Thursday after the close of the stock market
(and therefore not likely to appear in RCPU until Monday, although RCPmag.com
will have coverage) is a big deal. Maybe a bigger deal than usual.
Analysts are bullish right now; Microsoft's stock price jumped a hair on Tuesday
on news that the results for the company's fourth fiscal quarter should
be pretty solid. But while the quarter-by-quarter mentality of Wall Street
dictates that Q4 gets the headlines, Microsoft will also be announcing results
for its whole fiscal year 2008. With that report, usually, comes plenty of news
for partners and a checkup on how various business units in Redmond are doing.
With banks and mortgage lenders seemingly dropping like flies, the technology
industry mostly just keeps rolling along. Of course, Microsoft is one of the
major catalysts that keeps it rolling, so Redmond's financial health should
be an indicator of just how stable or unstable the rest of calendar 2008 is
going to be for propeller heads like us. It's not that we're necessarily cheering
for Microsoft here (although we certainly don't cheer against it), but we are
hoping for solid results, as any good news on the economy is welcome news, and
anything that keeps the industry stable is positive, as well.
Posted by Lee Pender on 07/16/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
The ActiveX attacks on the database aren't done yet, the security giant
warns.
Posted by Lee Pender on 07/15/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
With all the
WPC news last week, this week is bound to be kind of flat -- and it has started out that way. In fact, about the most interesting thing we found was that Windows Update is the most reliable operating system update service,
according to a company that tracks that sort of thing.
Earth shattering? No...but we figure that with last week's WPC news still relatively fresh, you don't need to much more to digest at this point. Goodness knows we don't.
Posted by Lee Pender on 07/15/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments