Virtualization Nation

Let's try this again. Almost a year ago, we at RCPU launched a plea for you, the reader, to tell us your thoughts on virtualization -- what you're doing with it, what its potential is, what its weaknesses might be, whatever.

We got a few comments on the blog post itself -- which are always welcome and nice to see -- but, to our memory, the number of e-mails that rolled into your editor's inbox ended up being somewhere between zero and two. Of course, that was in 2007, eons ago, before RCP the magazine's sister publication, Virtualization Review, hit the stands for the first time.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/21/20080 comments


AMD Machines Blocked from XP SP3

Microsoft has put the brakes on on some users with AMD-powered machines trying to update to XP SP3.

Maybe Microsoft has been reading some of our reader nightmare tales of SP3. Or maybe not. In any case, we're still getting them and we'll try to run some more this week. If you have any to add, add them at More

Posted by Lee Pender on 05/20/20080 comments


Yahoo Thing Not Over Yet

Yawn. Here's your obligatory Microsoft-Yahoo update for the week, in case you're still curious about that whole scenario.

Posted by Lee Pender on 05/20/20080 comments


Microsoft Shares the SharePoint Wealth

SharePoint -- or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, or even MOSS -- is a hit. It's a moneymaker for Microsoft and a collaborative boon for customers. And while it was already a cash driver for partners, SharePoint just got a bit better for the channel.

Software Assurance subscribers can now take advantage of what Redmond is calling SharePoint Deployment Planning Services, a program that helps them deploy the popular SharePoint enterprise portal. SharePoint Deployment Planning Services is a little like a program that the Office team offers, apparently -- but, most importantly for the channel, it'll be partners who will be taking care of the bulk of the SharePoint assistance for customers.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/20/20080 comments


Microsoft Adds Partner Program Competencies

Microsoft, moving with the times and technology, has added three new competencies to its partner program: Business Intelligence, Unified Communications Solutions and Hosting Solutions. The details on all of them are available on the Partner Program Web site .

Posted by Lee Pender on 05/15/20080 comments


Interactive Intelligence Wants To Feel Your Pain

RCPU had a visit this week with Interactive Intelligence, a vendor pretty much in the unified communications space, over Brazilian cuisine (read: meat) here in Framingham.

Interactive Intelligence has some useful stuff out, including an IP communications software platform that combines a bunch of capabilities normally addressed with separate boxes (think PBX, ACD, IVR, WFM and some other acronyms we're not totally sure we understand) into one software-based platform running on a single server. Two of the products based on that platform are now integrated with Microsoft's Office Communications Server.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/15/20080 comments


Springtime Reader Feedback

It's 70 degrees and sunny outside here in suburban Boston. That means that spring is here -- really, this time, we think -- and the snows of winter are gone again until December. OK, November. Or possibly late October.

Anyway, with flowers popping and allergies in full boom, we're going to let some of our reader e-mails blossom at RCPU. It's been a while since we've run reader feedback, so, like the grass and buds emerging from the blanket of winter, get ready for some e-mails that have waited a while to see the light of day. (Well, one, anyway -- the others are actually pretty recent. But we're running with a metaphor here.)

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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/15/20080 comments


HP Rounds Up EDS

With Microsoft-Yahoo fizzing, another mega-acquisition that's actually happening is stealing the spotlight. HP is turning itself into (even more of) a services giant by snapping up EDS for $13.9 billion. Analysts and observers are setting the whole thing up as a big HP challenge to IBM More

Posted by Lee Pender on 05/14/20080 comments


SBS 2008 Pricing: More Money, More Servers

The headlines screamed this week, as they tend to do: Windows Small Business Server Prices Going Up ! Prices Increasing Up To 80 Percent !

Read past the headline, though, and you'll find -- as, to be fair, most reporters and bloggers did -- that there's a lot more to Microsoft's SBS 2008 pricing scheme than just a price hike. A lot more. In fact, in some cases, it might not even involve a price hike at all.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 05/14/20080 comments


IDC: IT Spending To Slow Throughout the Year

As the economy turns, some signs of a slowdown finally touching the tech sector are starting to emerge. RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker brings us up to date in IDC's latest semi-dire predictions here .

Posted by Lee Pender on 05/14/20080 comments


Microsoft To Appeal EU Fines

Redmond is hoping that its new "openness" will allow the company to avoid more than a billion dollars in Eurofines. We're with you on this one, Microsoft...but we don't like your chances.

Posted by Lee Pender on 05/13/20080 comments


Raikes To Head Gates Foundation

The former Microsoft bigwig will serve as CEO of Bill and Melinda Gates' charitable foundation, and more power to him, we say.

Posted by Lee Pender on 05/13/20080 comments


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