Maybe you're not entirely sure what Software as a Service is. Sure, you read
a lot about it (even here), and maybe you hear people talking about it. You
see that Salesforce.com seems to be cleaning up revenue-wise with it. Perhaps
your customers have even puzzled you by inquiring as to what your SaaS option
is. So you're left trying to figure out what SaaS really is, much less what
your strategy for it should be.
Then along comes Microsoft, as only Microsoft can, changing the vocabulary
altogether. It's not SaaS that Microsoft is pushing, after all; it's S+S, or
Software Plus Services. Great -- another buzzword to learn and explain, another
strategy to develop.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 09/06/20070 comments
OK, so it's not the greatest play on words of all time, but we were trying
to go for something other than a "turns on Silverlight" phrase (which
Keith Ward already stole), which kind of makes us think of a lousy old Neil
Diamond song.
Anyway, Microsoft
released
Silverlight
this week.
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/06/20070 comments
And that's
a
big "no"
from a big standards organization for Microsoft's Office
Open XML document format.
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/04/20070 comments
With apologies to our friends outside the U.S. who were probably working yesterday,
we're still recovering from a long holiday weekend here and all the work we
missed on Monday. So, get ready for some quick hits today. (Yes, that means
you get a break from RCPU's usual ponderings, but we'll be back to ponder tomorrow.)
Also, we'll have a Friday edition this week, so be on the lookout for that.
In the meantime, as the grill cools and the kids whine about going back to
school, have a gander at Keith
Ward's excellent story on why, exactly, Windows Server 2008 is delayed again.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 09/04/20070 comments
If
this
stuff
works, it could spell doom for the makers of Skittles and Mountain
Dew.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/29/20070 comments
You know
all
those predictions
about how Linux was going to dominate the server market
on the way to crushing Windows altogether? Forget about them.
Windows
is still the king
, and it's actually taking territory from Linux in the
open source operating system's backyard: the server market.
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/29/20070 comments
We hear the phrase all the time -- "SMB," or small and medium-sized
businesses. Partners, vendors and analysts all say that the new pot of revenue
gold lies at the end of the SMB rainbow, now that bigger companies have just
about all the technology they can stand, thank you very much. But SMB is not
a homogenous category of enterprises. Indeed, some Bs are considerably more
M than S, and vice versa.
With that stratification in mind, channel heavyweight CDW recently completed
a study on how small businesses grow to be medium-sized (meaning, for the purposes
of this study, shops of 100 employees or more), and how much focus they put
on IT in the growth process. The study provides some insight into small-business
survival skills, given that only half of all startup businesses survive their
first four years. The survey results could also prove to be instructive for
partners setting their vessels out into the ocean of SMBs.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 08/29/20070 comments
For those of you who are into this sort of thing, apparently Microsoft's Office
Open XML standard, which seems to fluctuate somewhere between "American
Idol"-level popularity and Michael Vick-level unpopularity, is moving back
toward the "American Idol" side of the metaphor
with
the ISO standards organization
. (By the way, your editor has never actually
watched "American Idol," but he understands that it has quite a following.)
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/28/20070 comments
In a line that sounds as though somebody spoke it during a Congressional testimony
after a two-minute whispering session with a lawyer, Skype now contends that
Microsoft patches were a
"catalyst"
for and not a "root cause of"
its
recent
outage
. Oh, that's much clearer now, thanks. What's next, a non-denial denial?
Posted by Lee Pender on 08/23/20070 comments
Hey, it's August, and as we've said recently in this space, there's not a heck
of a lot going on. Since many of you are probably on vacation anyway, and not
even reading this, we're going to let the good folks who've taken the time to
write in do our work for us.
We'll commence with a couple of comments about Office 2007, which is now under
slightly (very slightly) more
competitive pressure from Google. Office lovers, turn away -- you might
not like what you're about to read, but we're just running what we've received.
If you like Office 2007 (and we're quite sure that many of you do), let us know.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 08/23/20070 comments