Microsoft hoped that Vista, with its new features and slick new interface, would explode on the market like Little Boy. Instead, this dud is barely ticking. Forrester's latest report states the obvious -- that
enterprises are sticking to XP
like grim death while waiting for some Windows 7 relief.
For a normal company, a failure on the scale of Vista would be fatal. But Microsoft's hold on ISVs and OEMs thoroughly protects the Windows monopoly.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/30/20090 comments
There are two reasons mainframes have survived: They handle big apps very well, and there's little benefit to redoing much of this software to run on other architectures. And mainframes, if configured right, are greener than a Tiger Woods dream. The highest-end IBM System z mainframe, for instance, can act as 1,500 separate servers.
I looked into the System z and while it's designed to run Linux VMs, I was told by an expert I trust that there was no architectural reason it couldn't run Windows, as well.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/27/20090 comments
Microsoft has more or less conceded Internet search to Google; there's no force powerful enough -- not Yahoo and not MSN Live Search -- that can topple the Google. But enterprise search is another matter, and here Microsoft may at least have a shot, if not an edge.
That's exactly why Redmond bought FAST, a Norwegian search company. It seems that Microsoft will
tie the FAST search engine
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/27/20090 comments
I cut my journalistic teeth on MIS and mainframes. As a young buck writing for
Computerworld
in 1985, it was all CICS, terminal emulation, spaghetti code and leased big iron. A year or two later, pundits were predicting the death of the mainframe, upon which IBM exercised a Microsoft-esque (big) iron grip.
Twenty-four years later, I'm more of an old sow than a young buck, but the mainframe is as young as ever -- and so are lawsuits over IBM's monopoly. The old mainframe cloners like Amdahl are long gone, turning a mere monopoly into a sheer monopoly. And IBM will do whatever it takes to preserve its market grip.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/27/20090 comments
Marc thinks the
Vista Capable lawsuit
is still much ado over nothing:
I am surprised we are still talking about this! The Vista Capable specs (800MHz, 512MB of RAM) were no more ridiculous than the original Windows 2000/XP specifications (300MHz, 64MB of RAM). Microsoft has a long history of stating MINIMUM specifications which were technically accurate, but deplorable just the same. Should someone have raised a stink in 2000? Probably, but nobody did. Were the Vista Capable specifications misleading? Well, yes! Practically, though, what was the extent of their damages? If you bought a brand-new low-end machine in January 2007, it was equipped with a 3GHz+ Celeron, 512MB of RAM and integrated Aero-capable graphics capability -- and you paid under $400 for the system. At that time, 512MB of RAM cost about $50, so the REAL damages for a buyer of one of those systems was the cost of a RAM upgrade.
If anyone deserves damages regarding the Vista Capable moniker, it was those folks who went out and bought shrink-wrapped Vista code expecting to install Vista on their (circa 2000) 800MHz, 512MB machine. They paid anywhere from $100 to $400 for Vista expecting it to work on LAME hardware. No amount of hardware upgrades would make such a system "acceptable."
-Marc
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/27/20090 comments
Everything I know about Internet Explorer 8 I've learned from you, the faithful Redmond Report reader. First you told me the beta and release candidate were shakier than the world economy. Then you told me the final version was actually pretty darn clean. But a number of you still report glitches -- and these have the IE 8 dev team tracking, prioritizing and, hopefully,
soon fixing all the bugs
.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/25/20090 comments
Last week, Doug expressed his
misgivings
about IBM's possible acquisition of Sun. But Marc thinks he knows what's behind Big Blue's reasoning:
I agree that IBM may not be gaining a lot in a buy-out of Sun, but Sun would certainly benefit from IBM's considerable clout in the marketplace.
What Sun does have to offer IBM, though, is considerable intellectual property rights to Unix, which IBM lacks. As a co-developer of Unix System V (along with AT&T), Sun's IP rights to Unix are equal to Novell's. Buying Sun could free IBM from threats of any future potential Unix litigation. Sun also has considerable x86 assets with Solaris x86, as well as open source x86 assets with OpenSolaris.
-Marc
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/25/20090 comments
You may have noticed a recurring theme in this newsletter: Most of what I think about Microsoft's products and strategies comes from interactions with real customers -- that's you, the Redmond Report reader.
In my last item, I explained how most of you are having a good experience with the final release of IE 8, with a handful of exceptions. I also learned enough about Windows 7 from you that I wrote a two-part series, the first appearing on the cover of the March issue of Redmond magazine with part two running in April.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/25/20090 comments
Microsoft's open source strategy is foggier than an '80s hair band's stage show. Here's what I've been able to decipher through the haze: Microsoft wants to be friendly to certain open source tools like those from Novell. It also wants Windows to manage the open source tools, rather than having open source tools manage Windows.
What's less clear is whether Microsoft itself should release open source software. So far, there has been little more than dabbling and dribbling. A prime example is !exploitable Crash Analyzer, an open source tool to help programmers figure out why their software is crashing and how to fix it. It can also prioritize crash causes so you can fix the worst culprits first.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/25/20090 comments
As Doug mentioned, most of you who tried the
final version of IE 8
were pretty pleased. Here's what some of you said about it:
I loaded IE 8 on my PC at work. No compatibility problems so far. It's pretty peppy, and I love the "Accelerator" feature (e.g., highlight a word and launch a Google search in a new tab). Another nice organizational feature is coloring related (spawned) tabs.
I also loaded IE 8 64-bit at home on my dual-core Vista 64. Very quick Web action!
-Elgin
Since the release of IE 8, I have done additional testing at work and home and I have found the released version to be quite good. I have noticed a speed improvement -- not by leaps and bounds but something noticeable. I have not had a single crash or freeze. I have tested many sites and tried to focus on some of the problem sites. However, all is well. Overall, I'm quite happy with IE 8.
-Craig
For the past few months, I've been using Windows 7 (build 7000) for my primary workstation, with IE 8 as my primary browser. Under XP, I used Firefox because of speed and security; I avoided IE 7 except for those sites that didn't render properly in Firefox.
On my Windows 7 install, I haven't even installed Firefox. For one site that I've had problems with, I use a portable version of Firefox. This may also say something for the unbundling proponents.
-Yehoshua
I downloaded IE 8 last Friday. My primary driver was that some change on my system had introduced a bug into IE 7 about a week before, so I was hoping that IE 8 would resolve it. IE 8 reported that one of the HP add-ons was incompatible, so I disabled that. It's running fine with no problems.
The concepts in IE 8 are great. Accelerators are a great way to get things done quickly. Group tabs are cool. I haven't noticed a huge difference in speed of presentation of pages -- maybe a slight edge but the real issue is speed of Internet connection and that varies quite a bit. Web Slices will take time to come of age but the concept is good. The SmartScreen Filter is probably helpful for casual users. No stability issues. For me, IE 8 is a mature version of IE 7 and group tabs are a sensible development. Glad to have it and I expect that a rich set of accelerators and Web Slices in due course will be a great improvement. I'm also glad that my IE 7 bug is gone.
-Joe
I got the final release yesterday night on Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, updated using a very slow Acer 5103WLi Laptop connected to a Wi-Fi network at 2Mbps. The effect was immediate: IE 8 transformed my machine into a FERRARI! Thank you, Microsoft!
-Rainer
I moved from the beta to the final version yesterday. Even in beta, I did not find any issues and IE 8 is and will be my default browser. The installation and automatic removal of the previous version was very smooth.
-Narayana
After countless problems with both beta versions, the version released Wednesday hasn't crashed one single time. I am amazed at the difference in speed and reliability this has over the beta. I think the biggest problem was that add-ons on IE 7 didn't work in IE 8. Best way to use this new IE 8 is to uninstall all add-ons before you download, and wham! It runs like a jewel. I even changed my default back from Mozilla to IE 8, if you can believe that.
-M.
I downloaded twice yesterday, once for Vista Ultimate and once for XP Pro. The downloads were very fast on my slow DSL. IE 8 installed well on both machines and works well on both machines.
I had a little trouble with adding favorites. I looked for the old icon and didn't notice the text line in the favorites drop-down. I accidentally wound up at the Windows Live Favorites, an idea that is pretty cool but I'll look into it in greater detail later. I always seem to choose search terms for Help that don't help me much but after a few tries I found out how simple it now is to add a favorite...to the local list. So far, IE 8 is great. No problems. I am happy.
-Eric
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/23/20090 comments
I've been getting mail from dozens of IE 8 beta and release candidate users and the reports aren't good. The pre-release software was flakier than French pastry. So I asked you all to report how well
the finished product
performs. Somehow, Microsoft pulled off a massive turnaround. This puppy is fast, stable and compatible.
This probably isn't enough to sway Firefox and Chrome fans, but for IE shops it looks like a nice step forward. With IE 8 looking solid and Windows 7 on the way, Microsoft is looking at a major desktop redemption. Tell me where I'm wrong at
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/23/20090 comments
PC buyers upset that Vista either didn't function or barely worked on new low-end machines have failed for the second time to get any kind of recompense. The first wallop of bad news came when the class-action status of a suit claiming damages because Vista wasn't as compatible as the logos said was
tossed out
.
Now, I'm no fan of most class-action actions because each plaintiff usually pockets pennies while the lawyers walk away with millions. But in this case, a class action is the only option. If each plaintiff only suffered tens or hundreds of dollars in damages, it's hard to pay for a lawyer good enough to take on Microsoft.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/23/20090 comments