Microsoft is
shipping
two new servers
aimed at small businesses. Windows Small Business Server
(SBS) 2008 is pretty obviously aimed at smaller shops (not sure if Joe the Plumber
placed his order yet) and is based on its big brother, Windows Server 2008 itself.
SBS also comes with SQL and Exchange -- a one-stop shop.
We've looked at an earlier rev and found it solid, pretty easy to set up (some
readers disagreed with this notion as I recall), but not great at scaling by
making multiple servers work together.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/18/20080 comments
The lawsuit over "Vista Capable" labels is heating up as more and
more internal
e-mails pop up
, showing a pitched debate over what "capable" means
and how Microsoft should proceed. The verdict could really come down to parsing
words.
Here's the core issue: Microsoft agreed to provide the "Vista Capable"
logo for computers that could only run Vista Basic. Critics argue that this
was misleading, that consumers wouldn't understand this limitation. Even Microsoft
insiders
such as Jim Allchin felt this way.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/18/20080 comments
Parallels, formerly SWsoft, just
enhanced
its hypervisor
for Macs that lets these Cupertino beauties run Windows and
Linux.
Parallels Desktop 4.0 supports a staggering 45 different guest OSes, works
with DirectX 9.0, and has backup built right in.
Parallels is a feisty and interesting company, with two lines of server virtualization
tools and some cool desktop action, as well. I profiled it a while back
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/17/20080 comments
For this month's Patch Tuesday, John got way more than the
two
patches
Microsoft announced:
It is curious that the patches that Microsoft sends to the home users
seldom matches the number you give. This week I got eight updates to my home
computer. No, these were all new. I use my computer daily, and on patch Tuesday,
M$ sends me updates that install when I shut down for the day. This week it
was EIGHT. That is a lot more than the TWO you warned me about. Do you have
any idea why the count is different?
-John
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/17/20080 comments
Sun Microsystems, one of the few tech companies with true spunk, is
pink-slipping
some 6,000 workers
. That's almost the entire population of the small Massachusetts
town I live in.
Sun has been going through a difficult transition. Ten years ago it was like
Apple; almost all of its technology -- SunRay, SPARC and Solaris -- were entirely
its own. It's transitioning to a dual strategy, hanging on to its unique technology
while embracing other technologies (hint: like Windows!).
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/17/20080 comments
Late last week, Redmond
continued
its Live PR push
, announcing or at least pre-announcing a heap of new consumer
products and services.
Microsoft plans to enhance its Windows Live services with new Redmond-crafted
tools along with items built by partners such as LinkedIn and Flickr. Microsoft
also continues to pump out developer tools for the cloud and Web services --
so many, in fact, that it's actually hard to keep track. And I keep track for
a living!
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/17/20080 comments
I made short shrift of the last Patch Tuesday, not taking it too seriously
since there were
only
two fixes
, and only one of those critical.
Turns out one of the patches was for more interesting and important than I
thought. It seems that Microsoft has had a hole in its Server Message Block
-- a hole that took
seven solid years to fix! The vulnerability can let hackers control an entire
network. Security pros have no idea what took so long, and believe that many
may have been hacked this way without even knowing it.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/13/20080 comments
Once Microsoft pre-announces a product with massive competitive implications,
it simply won't stop talking about it 'til the darn thing ships -- no matter
how long it takes. The idea is to convince customers that Microsoft is the most
important game in town, even if it doesn't have a product.
That's what's happening now with Azure, Microsoft's upcoming cloud services
platform. Latest case in point: a speech
by David Treadwell that treads over some old Azure ground and then added
some news in the form of a real, live (or is that Live?) demo.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/13/20080 comments
Research firm Computer Economics released a study arguing that IT budgets will
be tight next year, but there's
no
real horror show
. The better news? IT shops are keen to keep staff.
On the chopping block? Equipment upgrades, travel and entertainment, and temps.
Let's hope they're right!
Posted by Doug Barney on 11/13/20080 comments
Microsoft may be busy talking up Azure, but Kevin thinks it's not all that revolutionary:
Isn't Azure nothing more than the remaking of the mainframe? Think about
this: Why do we even need virtualization? Shouldn't you be able to run multiple
apps on the same box under one OS? The OS doesn't protect apps from each other,
or them from wrecking it. Remember, IBM's Z/OS allowed hundreds, if not thousands,
of apps.
And I'm not even pointing strictly at Windows, as Unix and Linux also
seem to need virtualization. Virtualization has its place, but not for 80
percent of the servers in a site!
-Kevin
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/13/20080 comments
Live Mesh is a Microsoft technology that lets you synchronize data across the
Internet and keep it all current on different devices. This way your cell phone,
home PC and work laptop can all have your girlfriend's phone number, photo and
schedule. Oh, and Live Mesh apparently can also be used for business!
I've been worried that Live Mesh is too complex, will take too long to materialize,
that applications then have to be written against it and may, in the end, not
work nearly as well as promised.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/12/20080 comments
Microsoft made its billions selling packaged software with basic, though sometimes
tremendously complex, licenses. You pay for the right to use the software on
one or more computers. Moving to the cloud, as the new Azure platform entails,
brings a whole new technology, a whole new business model and a whole new set
of challenges.
The self-professed brainiacs from Gartner now argue that Azure is the biggest
Microsoft event since 1996 when Bill Gates realized the importance of the
Internet.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 11/12/20080 comments