Vista Bites

Just a quick note before we get started: We're giving you a break from reader feedback this week, even though we've had some great stuff come through recently. This week's entry on social networking has drawn some especially interesting feedback, so we're actually going to blow that out a bit and come back to the subject in future RCPUs. In the meantime, keep the good stuff coming to More

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/12/20080 comments


Glassdoor Reveals Salaries, Satisfaction Levels in Redmond

While it has absolutely nothing on RCP the magazine's annual salary survey , we'll admit that Glassdoor, a new startup, sounds pretty cool. It's all about tracking salaries and levels of employee satisfaction in companies such as Google and Microsoft. Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogger John Cook has the lowdown here

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/12/20080 comments


Microsoft Gets Virtual at Tech-Ed

These days, Microsoft's Tech-Ed conference is an obnoxious two-week binge, with one week devoted to developers and the second to IT folks. With a minimum of product announcements on the slate, the more interesting (or at least somewhat less nerdy) second week is all about agenda-setting for Redmond rather than about product pumping. (And, no, RCPU is not there, in case you were wondering.)

So, what's on Microsoft's agenda? This week, anyway, it's our old friend virtualization. Microsoft is touting its architecture and applications as excellent candidates for the virtualized environment, pushing the forthcoming Hyper-V and noting that the Forefront security suite, if anybody wants it, will run in a virtualized environment.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/11/20080 comments


Office 2009 Revealed?

Mary Jo Foley suspects that Office 14 might just end up being called Office 2009 .

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/11/20080 comments


Bill Gates' Exit Interview

Apparently too intimated to sit down and face the icy stare of RCPU, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer instead went running to the Wall Street Journal (how very old-media of them) to reminisce about old times and talk a bit about the future. Actually, this is a really entertaining interview.

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/11/20080 comments


Redmond Red-Faced over Open Source Gaffe

Releasing an open source product with no source code ? Tsk, tsk, Microsoft. The party does not tolerate that kind of behavior, comrades.

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/11/20080 comments


Social Networking Comes to the Office

Here's something you should know upfront: Your editor is not on Facebook, or MySpace, or any of the popular social networking sites of the day. A few message boards? Sure. E-mail? A lot. The Internet in general? Pretty much all the time.

But not the social networking sites. Why? Well, it's hard to see what they deliver on top of everything else, other than providing little ego.com spaces for most of the people on them (and most of your editor's friends are on them, in case you were wondering). This relative luddite still gets by on e-mail and occasionally via telephone without much problem.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/10/20080 comments


Microsoft, Kaiser in Online Health Records Initiative

Here's one for all you health care partners out there, in case you missed it. Kaiser Permanente (as opposed to Kaiser Temporalis, we suppose) and Microsoft have an initiative to digitize health records and safely store and transfer them online.

Safely? Well, that might be a bit of a sticking point, we suspect, with a lot of patents and doctors. Still, there could be money to be made here for enterprising health care channel players.

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/10/20080 comments


It's Patch Tuesday Again

Like RCPU, it sort of hits you with unrelenting regularity. This month, seven patches . Enjoy.

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/10/20080 comments


Instant Messaging Safety Put to Test

Ever wonder who's really seeing those IMs that are always flying around your office? Depending on which client you're using, they might be more public than you think. Check out the comprehensive (we'll give CNET credit for this one) review of IM security here .

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/09/20080 comments


Careless Whispers in VoIP Conversations?

Is somebody plotting something dastardly in the background while you're on Skype with your best friend in Europe or maybe virtually attending your family reunion? Could be, apparently .

Posted by Lee Pender on 06/09/20080 comments


Unified Communications Still a Baffling Concept for SMBs

There's the forest, and then there are the trees. Sometimes it's hard to see one for the other. That seems to be the case right now with unified communications (UC).

With what? That's the question a lot of small to midsize business (SMB) owners are probably asking themselves if they're reading this. bMighty.com, a Web site for SMBs, recently released results of a survey that revealed that SMB owners and IT folks aren't nearly as excited about UC as some of us in the trade press and the channel are.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 06/09/20080 comments


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