IT-Director.com | Death knell for Enterprise Portal pure plays

IT-Director.com | Death knell for Enterprise Portal pure plays More evolution than death knell, in my opinion, a trend that will soon be accelerated by SharePoint(s) 2003

Back to the .NET Future

Back to the .NET Future Microsoft Smart Solutions Web newsletter companion article following my recent "Got .NET Yet?" column.

EE Times - Cryptographers sound warnings on Microsoft security plan

EE Times - Cryptographers sound warnings on Microsoft security plan "Just three weeks before Microsoft Corp. publicly details plans to create a secure operating mode for Windows PCs, two top cryptographers have raised concerns about Microsoft's approach.
Whitfield Diffie, a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, said an integrated security scheme for computers is inevitable, but the Microsoft approach is flawed because it fails to give users control over their security keys. Ronald Rivest, an MIT professor and founder of RSA Security, called for a broad public debate about the Microsoft move."

Via Tomalak

SPOnG.com: The Internet Computer and Video Games Database: News:

SPOnG.com: The Internet Computer and Video Games Database: News: "After three years of Microsoft denials, Xbox keyboard is confirmed [14th Apr]" "After three years of denying that it would ever implement keyboard support for the Xbox, Microsoft has altered its stance.
Coming inside every copy of Phantasy Star Online for the machine is a flyer which gives details of how an adapter, enabling the Xbox to make use of any USB keyboard, will be given away free of charge.
...
Understandably, the “Xbox-is-a-Microsoft-Trojan-online-PC-in-your-lounge” camp is outraged, pointing to this, combined with the admission that multimedia support in the form of Media2Go is scheduled, as proof of its case.
One of the last things left that Microsoft will never do, is enable full web browsing through Xbox. It will be interesting to see if this stance is shifted in the course of the coming year. "

Via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

Microsoft Takes Lead in OLAP Industry

Microsoft Takes Lead in OLAP Industry "Microsoft Corp. announced results of independent research demonstrating that it continued to take charge of the business intelligence (BI) industry in 2002, claiming the leadership position in online analytical processing (OLAP). The findings are presented in The OLAP Report, a leading source of independent research and analysis of the OLAP industry (http://www.olapreport.com/Market.htm). Microsoft, which doubled its installed base in 2001, followed with further growth in 2002 to overtake Hyperion Solutions Corp. as leader in the $3.5 billion industry, with 24.4 percent of total sales worldwide. Microsoft first integrated OLAP into the SQL Server (TM) relational database in 1998.
"Microsoft's SQL Server Analysis Services grew faster than the market and therefore increased its market share again," said Nigel Pendse, lead author of the OLAP Report and the OLAP Survey, in this year's market share report. "As in previous years, usage of Analysis Services grew faster than SQL Server itself, as Oracle and DB2 sites continue to select Analysis Services to build BI solutions on top of their existing relational databases."
Microsoft's growth continued in an overall low-growth year for the business intelligence industry, with several vendors declining; Oracle Corp., for example, dropped out of the top six this year, continuing several years of decline to just 4.7 percent of the OLAP segment."

Profits Up at I.B.M.

Profits Up at I.B.M. "I.B.M. reported solid gains in both sales and profit for the first quarter, showing again that the company has made itself into a bulwark of comparative stability amid the deep slump in the technology business.
I.B.M. executives declared the company "on track" to meet Wall Street's consensus estimates for profit of about $4.30 a share for the full year.
Still, growth in the quarter was not spectacular. Revenue at $20.1 billion, was up 11 percent from the quarter a year earlier. Profit increased 8 percent, to 79 cents a share. The revenue totals were buoyed by a big acquisition and a weak dollar, while the profit comparison was enhanced by cuts in I.B.M.'s work force and unprofitable operations.
But the steady performance, analysts said, indicates that the company's strategy of shifting away from computer hardware to rely increasingly on technology services and software has enabled it to weather the severe technology downturn fairly well."

WSJ.com - Microsoft Center Breeds New Software Technologies

WSJ.com - Microsoft Center Breeds New Software Technologies "Talking computers, video e-mail, and business presentations that download automatically to every laptop in a meeting room may sound like the future.
But they are on display now at Microsoft Corp.'s Center for Information Work, a seven-month-old demonstration lab on the company's sprawling campus here. The center is a breeding ground for technologies the software giant hopes will help remake products, such as Office.
It also is an increasingly popular stop for outside executives traveling to Microsoft's leafy headquarters."

RSS Feed Reader / News Aggregators Directory :: hebig.org/blog

RSS Feed Reader / News Aggregators Directory :: hebig.org/blog Handy list via Dave Winer. I've been exploring Syndirella recently; it works well.

O'Reilly Network: How Many PCs Were Sold in 1985? [April 14, 2003]

O'Reilly Network: How Many PCs Were Sold in 1985? [April 14, 2003] Check the link for some astounding market share numbers.

Netcraft: Windows Server 2003 overtakes Solaris 9

Netcraft: Windows Server 2003 overtakes Solaris 9 "The number of sites running Windows Server 2003 has overtaken Solaris 9, in spite of the fact that Windows Server 2003 does not launch until later on this month.
Solaris 9 launched in May 2002. However, Sun seems to take relaxed view about envangelising new operating system versions; even www.sun.com is still running Solaris 8. www.microsoft.com is at the opposite end of the product advocacy spectrum and started running Windows 2003 last July."

via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

CRN -- IBM Plans Sneak Attack On Microsoft Office

CRN IBM Plans Sneak Attack On Microsoft Office I guess it's insufficiently sneaky

The Register: IBM vows Java Office

The Register: IBM vows Java Office Brief history of IBM's desktop forays.

Microsoft Connect To Your Data :: Welcome

Microsoft Connect To Your Data :: Welcome FYI you can sign up for a free subscription to Microsoft Smart Solutions at this site -- enter "Guest" for the first screen and then register.

Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server 2003 To Offer More Secure, Manageable Instant Messaging for Enterprise

Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server 2003 To Offer More Secure, Manageable Instant Messaging for Enterprise "Microsoft Corp. today announced that the technologies formerly referred to by the code name "Greenwich" will be delivered as the Microsoft® Real-Time Communications Server (RTC Server) 2003 Standard Edition for more secure, manageable enterprise instant messaging. The Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server is a manageable and extensible instant messaging (IM) server that enables business agility by empowering corporations to reach, collaborate and respond to new information more quickly, and to take advantage of industry-standard protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) when deploying and structuring real-time communications tools.
...
The Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server 2003, the presence add-on for Windows Server 2003 and the Real-Time Communications SDK for MSDN are expected to be available in the third quarter of 2003. Licensing and pricing for RTC Server has not yet been determined. The Windows Server 2003 add-on component will be available free to Windows Server 2003 customers, and the SDK will be available as part of a subscription to MSDN."

(Re-posted after noticing original post lost the link somehow.)

Presstime: Syndication Made Simple

Presstime: Syndication Made Simple Good RSS market snapshot, via Dave Winer (of course...)

Microsoft Windows CE .NET to Enable Next Generation Of IP-Based Set-Top Boxes for DSL Networks

Microsoft Windows CE .NET to Enable Next Generation Of IP-Based Set-Top Boxes for DSL Networks "Today at NAB2003, the National Association of Broadcasters convention, Microsoft Corp. announced that the forthcoming release of Microsoft® Windows® CE .NET version 4.2 will include the latest Windows Media® 9 Series, which offers the same video quality in one-third the bit rate of MPEG-2 and one-half the bit rate of MPEG-4 over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, Internet Explorer 6.0, with special support for a richer television Web browsing experience. The company also announced that top silicon vendors ATI Technologies Inc., National Semiconductor Corp., STMicroelectronics and VIA Technologies Inc., and leading set-top box software vendors iMagicTV and Stellar One Corp. will optimize their solutions for the Windows CE .NET operating system. In addition, set-top box original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) CosTron Co. Ltd., HUMAX Co. Ltd., NEC Corp. and Tcom&DTVro Co. Ltd are currently building set-top boxes powered by Windows CE NET."

Tech Digest: Nintendo cedes No. 2 spot to Microsoft

Tech Digest: Nintendo cedes No. 2 spot to Microsoft "Nintendo Co. says full-year profit fell by about 38 percent and sales of its GameCube console lagged forecasts by about half, handing Microsoft Corp. the title of the world's No. 2 maker of video-game machines.
Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo, until this year second only to Sony Corp. in console sales, said it sold about 5.6 million GameCubes in the fiscal year ended March 31, 44 percent short of its 10 million unit goal. Microsoft expects to sell 9 million of its Xbox game machines in the fiscal year ending June 30.
The weaker-than-expected GameCube sales at Nintendo, the North American headquarters of which is in Redmond, may increase pressure on the company to follow in the path of rival Sega Corp., which scrapped its Dreamcast game console when sales flopped. The poor sales may also force software designers to abandon the machine in favor of Sony's PlayStation 2 or Microsoft's Xbox."

Story: How I turned my laptop into a mobile phone - ZDNet

Story: How I turned my laptop into a mobile phone - ZDNet "Using TeleSym's SymPhone software, a standard headset, and their built-in microphones, I've been able to turn my IBM ThinkPad and the Wi-Fi-enabled Toshiba e750 into mobile phones."

HP does low-price PC limbo | CNET News.com

HP does low-price PC limbo | CNET News.com "Lowering the bar on the price of an entry-level PC, Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday introduced a line of build-to-order models that start at just $319 after a $50 rebate.
For that price, customers get a Compaq Presario S3000V desktop computer that includes a 2GHz Intel Celeron chip, 128MB of memory, a 40GB hard drive and a CD-ROM drive. What they don't get is a monitor, which is sold separately. Shipping is also extra, with HP typically charging around $99 to ship a PC and monitor."

Maybe they plan to profit from the shipping...

I think Blogger RSS is busted again

I think Blogger RSS is busted again.

Sorry about that -- will try to find work-arounds...

Q&A: PlaceWare CEO George Garrick

Q&A: PlaceWare CEO George Garrick "We're always looking at ways of making our product better. In the next few months we're introducing a new client interface that will be based on native Windows rather than Java, which is what we use today. That was a decision that we made some months ago even before Microsoft even contacted us. It gives us a better functionality such as drop down menus and right clicking. We are also working to do more to embed audio multimedia so that you will be able to control the phone call right from the product."
...
Q: How do you differentiate yourself from the competition?
The military uses PlaceWare in the Middle East and they use it to connect soldiers in the field with controllers up in the airplanes with people back in the Pentagon.
Q: And they'll be connected by satellite?
We use existing Internet connections and phone lines. What happens behind the scenes is irrelevant. For example, you'll have a general up in a like an EC2 one of the big reconnaissance planes - sort of like a flying command center -- and you'll have officer and field staff on the ground all they'll all be using PlaceWare to coordinate battle plans and information on the enemy. We've seen an increase in our business in the last few months as part of the security issues overseas."

(some quotes from p. 2 of interview; found via Microsoft Watch)

WSJ.com - Oracle's Larry Ellison Expects Greater Innovation From Sector

WSJ.com - Oracle's Larry Ellison Expects Greater Innovation From Sector ... "Mr. Ellison believes that tech firms have sown the seeds of their own demise by developing ever-more-complex "solutions," before identifying problems. Then, he says, tech firms try to fob these tough-to-use products onto unwitting customers. "We became the largest industry in the world by selling things that people didn't want to buy," he says.
Critics, of course, say this is precisely what Oracle has been doing since the company was founded. (An Oracle spokeswoman responds that the company has always tried to simplify products and services, when possible, to make them easier to use.)
Venture capitalists compound the problem, Mr. Ellison says, with a herd mentality that results in funding too many companies chasing the same idea. "Every child is unique; every computer doesn't have to be," he says.
But Oracle isn't above chasing technological fashion. The company has been moving aggressively in recent years to support Linux, an operating system maintained by a global army of volunteers. Mr. Ellison sees Linux as a competitive weapon against Microsoft. "You just can't fight it," Mr. Ellison says of Linux. "You embrace it or you die."
Oracle itself may be vulnerable to the same kind of "open source" technology -- cheap or free software whose underlying code is available to all users to freely customize. An open-source relational database called MySQL is gaining a small following among companies that don't like paying big fees to vendors such as Oracle.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Web-search company Google Inc. (www.google.com), says Mr. Ellison has correctly diagnosed Silicon Valley's challenge. He says tech is plagued with chronic overcapacity, similar to the airline industry, because of rapid technological advances. But Mr. Schmidt thinks Mr. Ellison has the wrong prescription. "The only solution is to come up with grand new visions, which we're particularly good at," he says."

Got .NET Yet?

Got .NET Yet? "... it's timely to take another look at .NET, once more from the top, and to present a .NET report card to coincide with a major platform milestone: the release of Windows Server 2003."

My latest Microsoft Smart Solutions column

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Ellison Notes Linux Success, but Forgets Something

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Ellison Notes Linux Success, but Forgets Something Indeed...

O'Reilly Network: FlashForward SF 2003 - Day 2: Tim O'Reilly Watches the Alpha Geeks [April 04, 2003]

O'Reilly Network: FlashForward SF 2003 - Day 2: Tim O'Reilly Watches the Alpha Geeks [April 04, 2003] "How can Macromedia and Flash developers avoid being relegated to a side canyon of history? How can they compete with Microsoft, even as the .NET initiative pauses if not stumbles? Macromedia has to continue to promote the platform against which others will develop. They must maintain and extend their lead in Rich Internet Application (RIA) development. The community can help by creating a critical mass of open source components."

BlogWeaver: Integrates directly with Blogger.com to give you a Visual Editor

BlogWeaver: Integrates directly with Blogger.com to give you a Visual Editor Very cool to see this kind of innovation in the market again.

Microsoft Tackles Lucrative VoIP Market

Microsoft Tackles Lucrative VoIP Market "VoIP functionality in Windows CE .NET 4.2 will encompass three primary areas: a fully integrated, graphical telephony UI that third parties can extend, customize, or use as-is; a VoIP application interface layer that developers can leverage when creating applications and services that integrate with Microsoft Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Real-Time Communications (RTC) technologies; and a set of enterprise-ready integration services that support the Windows .NET Compact Framework and other related technologies such as IP Security (IPSec), 802.11a wireless, Active Directory (AD), and Kerberos, all of which corporations require to integrate new Windows CE .NET-based devices into their infrastructures. Microsoft will also integrate Windows CE 4.2's VoIP functionality with Greenwich, the RTC Server product that Microsoft will ship later this summer."

Microsoft Research Finds Women Take a Wider View

Microsoft Research Finds Women Take a Wider View "Microsoft Research has found that women are 20 percent faster in navigating 3-D environments on computers when optical flow cues, or continuous visual cues for navigation, are built into an application's user interface. This discovery is a key factor in overcoming known gender differences in the approach men and women use in navigating 3-D environments. The study concludes that software designers should build applications optimized for large displays and multimonitor configurations, because these form factors more naturally allow for the presence of optical flow cues in scenarios such as gaming, graphic design, architectural walkthroughs and various training programs."

Theater chain goes digital with Microsoft

Theater chain goes digital with Microsoft "All 53 Landmark Theatres in the United States will be equipped with digital movie-playback systems that use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system and its Windows Media 9 Series multimedia software, the companies said yesterday.
They said the largest U.S. digital-cinema installation yet will equal or exceed standard 35 mm film in picture quality and sound, and will promote the growth of independent film-making because it's cheaper."

IBM lets WebSphere developers deploy to BEA WebLogic - Computerworld

IBM lets WebSphere developers deploy to BEA WebLogic - Computerworld IBM attempts to Eclipse BEA...

DaveNet : NY Times pulls back

DaveNet : NY Times pulls back "Until today the Times archive was perfect. If you pointed to a Times article from an essay or a weblog post, as I have for almost ten years, the link would continue to work, year after year.
Today that ended. All my links into the NY Times archive that are older than 30 days are broken. I suspected this day would come, eventually. Advertising doesn't pay for Web publications. It probably doesn't pay for print pubs either anymore."

Boo hiss...

InfoWorld: CTO Forum: Ray Ozzie charts dynamic collaboration: April 02, 2003: By Cathleen Moore: Applications

InfoWorld: CTO Forum: Ray Ozzie charts dynamic collaboration: April 02, 2003: By Cathleen Moore: Applications "Groove was built with this important concept in mind, Ozzie said, not as a replacement to e-mail but as a way to get group conversations into a more natural environment. "If five people on a [project] team say they are to be notified about a certain subject, then they all get the notification and find themselves together in a workspace," ready to collaborate on that specific topic, he said.
"This brings people together automatically, out of satisfaction of a selfish need for information," Ozzie said. "It is a smart model that brings people together based on selfish requirements. That's how real world collaboration works."

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Ballmer plans a long tenure at Microsoft

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Ballmer plans a long tenure at Microsoft "Ballmer said he'll work at least 14 more years, which would give him an extraordinary 17 years as chief executive. That's more than double the average tenure of chief executives, 7.3 years, according to a study last year by Booz Allen Hamilton, a McLean, Va.-based research company.
The timing also would leave Ballmer, 47, running the company for several years after Chairman Bill Gates is expected to retire. In a recent Seattle Times interview, Gates, 47, said he plans to retire in about 10 years."

How Digital Pioneers Put the 'Personal' in PC's

How Digital Pioneers Put the 'Personal' in PC's "The modern personal computer came to life three decades ago this month when a group of Xerox engineers projected an image of Cookie Monster from "Sesame Street" onto the screen of an unfinished machine known as the Alto.
...
"Most people still thought the purpose of a computer was to grind up numbers," said Mr. Thacker, who spent many years at the Digital Equipment Corporation and now works at Microsoft, where he recently worked on the company's Tablet PC design with Mr. Lampson. "We thought it was a communications device."

Reuters | Microsoft Says to Take Aim at Google

Reuters | Microsoft Says to Take Aim at Google "We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing," Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division, said."

WSJ.com - Prices of Flat-Panel TVs, Monitors Are Dropping

WSJ.com - Prices of Flat-Panel TVs, Monitors Are Dropping "The surge in capacity is good news for consumers because it is likely to drive sharp price decreases for flat-panel monitors and TV sets. DisplaySearch, an industry research company, expects manufacturing capacity to soar by an average of 41% a year between now and 2006. That could cause the price of a standard 28- to 32-inch LCD TV set to plunge about 70%, to $1,625, by the second quarter of next year, from $5,357 in mid-2002, it predicts. Falling prices could also give LCD TV sets a competitive advantage against the more-costly plasma TV sets, which employ a competing but less widely used technology. But LCD TV sets are still a good deal more expensive than regular old tube sets. A 20-inch LCD TV set sold by Sharp, for example, currently lists for $1,799.99 at Best Buy Co., the U.S. retailer. A 25-inch nonflat-screen TV from Sharp, by contrast, sells at Best Buy for just $199.99."

DualView and two or three 20" flat-panel monitors -- time to update my Amazon wish list...

O'Reilly Network: InfoPath and XForms go their separate ways [April 02, 2003]

O'Reilly Network: InfoPath and XForms go their separate ways [April 02, 2003] (Note the author bio)

Microsoft puts its spin on office chat | CNET News.com

Microsoft puts its spin on office chat | CNET News.com "Indeed, Smith's comments highlighted Microsoft's view of how its software would allow different devices to exchange text and voice under one network based on the Internet Protocol. Features commonly associated with phones, such as voice calls, voice mail, call forwarding and the like, will become features within an IP-based corporate network.
As a result, Microsoft's Windows server software will run various applications that serve data to devices running the Windows XP operating system.
"A phone over time...it will collect dust," Smith said. "Phones become less and less useful."

CW360° - Linksys and Ricochet unveil wireless Wan router

CW360° - Linksys and Ricochet unveil wireless Wan router "Linksys Group has teamed up with Ricochet Networks to build a router for US homes, small offices and public wireless Lan hot spots that uses Ricochet's wireless wide area data service."

Microsoft's shifting plan has users frustrated

Microsoft's shifting plan has users frustrated "The only thing clear about Microsoft's ongoing remake of its collaborative software strategy is that large corporations can expect it to require yet another round of expensive infrastructure upgrades.
Everything else about the plan looks like an unmade bed, customers and industry experts say."

Via Ed Brill's blog

InformationWeek > Article > Adobe Gets Ready To Rumble With Microsoft > March 28, 2003

InformationWeek > Article > Adobe Gets Ready To Rumble With Microsoft > March 28, 2003 "Chizen insists that Adobe is "focused on a much different place" than Microsoft. "Microsoft will continue to be successful for internal processes," he says. "The problem is when you reach outside the firewall, you can't ask your user to use a certain platform with Windows and the latest version of Office.""

Jon Udell: First look at InfoPath

Jon Udell: First look at InfoPath "InfoPath generally met my expectations, which were high. My two main criticisms were the weakness of the XHTML editor, and the disconnect between validations applied using InfoPath wizards and validations expressed in the XML schema."

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft server ready; are buyers?

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft server ready; are buyers?

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Released to Manufacturing

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Released to Manufacturing "With significant improvements to core server fundamentals, including scalability, reliability, security and manageability, as well as technological innovations, Windows Server 2003 creates opportunities for customers of all sizes to drive down costs and increase productivity. Early results from customers deploying the product include these:
Consolidation. 20 to 30 percent reduction in servers
Performance. Twice as fast across all workloads
Management. 20 percent reduction in overall costs
Productivity. 35 percent of customers redeployed IT staff to higher-value projects
Deployment. 50 percent reduction in cost over Windows NT® Server 4.0"

WSJ.com - Ten Technologies That You Need to Know About Now

WSJ.com - Ten Technologies That You Need to Know About Now Introduction to WSJ special section

More Trails to Blaze [Andreessen interview]

More Trails to Blaze [Andreessen interview] ... "Andreessen: Six months after they bought Netscape, [AOL's] market valuation went from $40 billion to $170 billion. It went up [by four times] in six months. That was really good for Netscape shareholders, but it meant that they immediately stopped caring about Netscape. If you're a $170 billion company and you weren't six months ago, the question is not what do you do with this $10 billion thing you just bought [Netscape], the question is do you go buy Time Warner, Viacom, AT&T, the United Nations? Who do you go buy? Topic A at AOL board meetings at that time was a bar chart they had of the biggest companies in the world rank-ordered by market cap. They were on the list; therefore, anybody below them on the list could be bought. At one point, they had a draft plan to buy all of the top five newspapers in the country—The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe. [But] what they really wanted to do was to buy Verizon or somebody like that. But those guys were a little too big.
Then the dog caught the bus, and they bought Time Warner and, at that point, they didn't care about Netscape, and they increasingly didn't care about their own business. ... The AOL part of the business just wasn't being paid attention to by good-enough people."

InfoWorld: Windows Server 2000 [sic] adoption to be slow: March 28, 2003: By : Platforms

InfoWorld: Windows Server 2000 [sic] adoption to be slow: March 28, 2003: By : Platforms "Microsoft on Friday said it has wrapped up the development work on Windows Server 2003 and will ship the operating system on schedule next month. However, a just-released survey by the Yankee Group says that only 12 percent of the current Windows installed base plans to adopt the new OS in the next year."

The Register: NT4.0 too flawed to fix - official

The Register: NT4.0 too flawed to fix - official "The architectural limitations of Windows NT 4.0 do not support the changes that would be required to remove this vulnerability," Microsoft says. "Windows NT 4.0 users are strongly encouraged to employ the workaround discussed in the FAQ in the bulletin, which is to protect the NT 4.0 system with a firewall that blocks Port 135."

via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

Microsoft Describes Promising Vision for Real-Time Infrastructure

Microsoft Describes Promising Vision for Real-Time Infrastructure "Microsoft's vision is not as broad as IBM's, nor will it deliver significant immediate value like HP's Utility Data Center. But Microsoft will influence developers, and its limited focus on Windows will lead to useful results for enterprises with Windows applications — especially enterprises with all-Windows infrastructures."

via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

Microsoft's Ballmer envisions telematics in all cars

Microsoft's Ballmer envisions telematics in all cars ""Five or six years from now, we think 100 percent of the cars will have some sort of telematics device, and we want to have at least a piece of all of that," Ballmer said in an interview after a speech at a Microsoft automotive conference in Dearborn, Mich. ...
"There will be huge progress" in the spread of technology such as voice recognition or downloading digital music, he said in the speech. "If people sleep eight hours, Microsoft ought to be able to provide them with information the other 16 hours."

Adam Osborne, Pioneer of the Portable PC, Dies at 64

Adam Osborne, Pioneer of the Portable PC, Dies at 64 Very sorry to see this. Osborne was a big direct and indirect influence on me, e.g., with the Osborne 1 (I still have a Kaypro, the "portable" line that followed after "Osborne" became a business verb for company self-destruction) and with his books and articles.

Microsoft breaks with standards effort | CNET News.com

Microsoft breaks with standards effort | CNET News.com I guess the other W3C members' choreography in this context wasn't working for MS...

Microsoft's Suite Dreams - Computerworld

Microsoft's Suite Dreams - Computerworld Includes handy version summary back to Office 1.0

IDG.net

IDG.net: Corel puts itself up for auction Mkt cap < $85M...

Microsoft rations Hotmail users' e-mails to cut spam

Microsoft rations Hotmail users' e-mails to cut spam Interesting brute-force appoach.

(p.s. sorry for the blog lapse; I was on vacation for a few days.)

Windows Detour? Not So Fast…
"There's no Longhorn server family on tap, Microsoft says. But there might be a limited edition server timed around Longhorn client's release."

This must be some kind of press full-employment act. Obviously there will be an upgrade on the server side with the Yukon-dervied Windows file/future store is complete, circa Longhorn, even if they don't hire the Rolling Stones to launch it.

News @ Cisco: Cisco Systems Announces Agreement to Acquire The Linksys Group, Inc.

News @ Cisco: Cisco Systems Announces Agreement to Acquire The Linksys Group, Inc. Glad to see this; I have been a happy Linksys customer for many years.

Softpro Events

Softpro Events "Software Legends Night comes to Softpro Books in Burlington! Mark your calendar for an evening of tips, tricks, best practices, and fun with best-selling authors David Platt and Chris Sells.
You've read their books. You've learned from them. Now come meet them! David Platt, the author of Introducing Microsoft .NET and Chris Sells, the author of Programming Windows Forms Applications with C# will be on hand to answer your questions and share their tips. Join us for this highly interactive evening of fun and learning. No PowerPoint presentations - just answers to your questions and programming tips.
***Special Pricing on all .NET books: Every in-stock .NET title will be 50% off this night only, and only in our Burlington store. If a book covers .NET or any of the .NET languages, it's on sale! Sorry, no rainchecks or special orders."

Mercury News | 03/19/2003 | Dan Gillmor: Newest phones show promise of wireless

Mercury News | 03/19/2003 | Dan Gillmor: Newest phones show promise of wireless "It's just a whisper right now, but there are signs that the mobile carriers -- which pretty much control what the handset makers do -- are considering a radical notion: They may embrace WiFi, the local-area wireless networking standard, instead of reacting with their standard fear and loathing when confronted with new technologies.
Here's why. It's hugely expensive to put in new infrastructure for wireless communications, such as the base stations and towers the carriers install today.
Suppose your mobile phone automatically sensed a WiFi network in your home or business and automatically switched to that network, using Internet telephone technology? The carriers might save on infrastructure costs, and mobile phone users would be more inclined to drop their land lines.
Now this isn't going to happen overnight, even if the carriers wise up, for technological as well as cultural reasons. But the potential is there. Let's see who goes first."

PCWorld.com - Microsoft May Change Longhorn Plans

PCWorld.com - Microsoft May Change Longhorn Plans "Microsoft officials say they are again considering shipping a server version of the Longhorn operating system after announcing late last year that it would be released for the desktop only.
In addition, the company also is again considering a desktop version of Blackcomb, the follow-on release to Longhorn, after saying that version of the OS would be a server-only release.
Versions of both operating systems, which will follow Windows Server 2003 slated to ship April 24, are now being reevaluated, says Brian Valentine, senior vice president of the Windows division at Microsoft."

Bill Gates' Web Site - Speech Transcript, 2003 Mobility Developers Conference

Bill Gates' Web Site - Speech Transcript, 2003 Mobility Developers Conference "Now, the Smartphone is a new form factor for us that gets us down to the high volume arena, with the smaller screen size and, therefore, a smaller overall device. We have some experience with the Smartphone primarily in Europe where it's been growing. The average revenue per user is up 15 percent above any previous device, and the data services are driving 90 percent of that gain. There is actually some gain in the other forms of uses as well. Smartphone users are more loyal, that is there's lower churn, partly because they put onto their device a lot of very important data that they have. And so the switching cost on top of that carrier relationship are much higher than they would be otherwise. We're seeing that the voice and SMS revenue actually not only hold up, but go up slightly, and then you see these additional data activities driven by the rich applications that are connected there.
Another point, and this is a piece of measurement in the United States. In this market, of all these PDAs, platform devices, a 55 percent share of those are the Windows-based devices, and so we also have Palm and Simian. Palm, all of the different people who manufacture based on theirs, likewise for Simian. But we have a significantly higher share than either of them with the majority of that market.
Now, to be clear, Microsoft is just at the beginning of what it's doing in this business. We've said that about many businesses before, and I think we have a very strong track record of credibility when we say we're going to invest that we do that, and follow-through, literally, for decades in evolving the platform in a very compatible way, making it work with all the different things that it needs to work with."

(Fun transcription error -- "Simian" instead of "Symbian"... His point: 55% of wide-area wireless PDAs in the US are now Windows CE/Pocket PC)

Memories as Heirlooms Logged Into a Database

Memories as Heirlooms Logged Into a Database "A small team of Microsoft researchers is devising software for an electronic diary that can keep track of a multitude of everyday details in a person's life - the e-mail sent, the family photographs taken, the phone calls made, the Web pages visited - in a single database.
...
Dr. Bell is not worried about the obvious security risks posed by MyLifeBits. "We are looking not at the dark side," he said, "but at all the potential it has as a surrogate memory." He is not sure when the program will be ready for sale, but in the meantime he has some advice for people who might be interested in using it.
"You should be capturing everything digitally," he said."

For Laptops, a New Way to Say 'Fast'

For Laptops, a New Way to Say 'Fast' "The trouble is, Intel treats the Pentium M breakthrough as though it were a mere dot of foam in the Centrino tidal wave. The company gives much more play to the other half of what it calls Centrino Mobile Technology: an Intel wireless card. This radio card, sometimes called a Wi-Fi or 802.11b card, lets a Centrino laptop connect to the Internet in any of thousands of wireless "hot spots" in hotels, airports, coffee shops and, at least in Manhattan, McDonald's restaurants.
The astounding part of Intel's marketing message is its implication that wireless laptops are somehow a new idea - Intel's idea, at that. In fact, wireless networking has been a smash hit with laptop luggers ever since Apple introduced wireless PowerBooks in mid-1999."

T-Mobile, Boingo join to help bridge wireless networks

"T-Mobile, Boingo join to help bridge wireless networks "T-Mobile and Boingo said they'll ensure that signals are smoothly handed off from T-Mobile's Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) networks -- usually referred to as hot spots -- to its GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) cellular network, which carries data in conjunction with T-Mobile's GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) voice network. Such handoffs aren't widely possible today."

Pondering PlaceWare

Pondering PlaceWare My latest Microsoft Smart Solutions column

Internet Week > Microsoft Windows > Windows' Biggest Enemy Is NT, Not Linux > March 18, 2003

Internet Week > Microsoft Windows > Windows' Biggest Enemy Is NT, Not Linux > March 18, 2003 "While it is conventional wisdom that Linux is its biggest competitor, my thought is that Linux will have to take a back seat to the real challenge: Getting people to convert from NT."

Good assessment; via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

Microsoft Announces Dynamic Systems Initiative

Microsoft Announces Dynamic Systems Initiative This is a major milestone and is at the center of Microsoft's strategy to compete with IBM.

CW360° - Nextel plans Wi-Fi phones

CW360° - Nextel plans Wi-Fi phones "Mobile operator Nextel Communications is to begin trials of a phone that can be used on Wi-Fi wireless Lans and added that by next year it would offer a mobile phone with Motorola based on Microsoft's Windows Powered Smartphone platform."

Would be a big win for Smartphone. Second device this week to include tri-band plus WiFi -- looks like a trend emerging...

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Cellular pioneer scopes out the future

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Cellular pioneer scopes out the future "When The Great Brain goes to the wireless industry's annual convention, he makes it a point to head for the fashion show. On the way over, he explains the future of the business.
Like everybody else here, Rob Mechaley does business at the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) show. But unlike most, he is something of a cell-technology pioneer, and following him as he makes the rounds at the convention, which began yesterday and runs through tomorrow, puts the current state of the industry in perspective."

(More from the RadioFrame fan club)

Microsoft to Focus Effort on Corporate Data Centers

Microsoft to Focus Effort on Corporate Data Centers "The Microsoft program, called the Dynamic Systems Initiative, is an effort to improve the efficiency of managing large numbers of data-serving computers that run Microsoft Windows. An initial set of software tools for automating the management of Windows programs, called System Center, is intended to work with the next version of Microsoft's server operating system, Windows Server 2003, which the company plans to introduce next month....
"Microsoft had to do this," said Tom Bittman, an analyst at the research and consulting company Gartner Inc. "Windows is the platform that causes the most angst and inefficiency in the data center."

New memory-boosting drugs could be 'Viagra for the brain'

New memory-boosting drugs could be 'Viagra for the brain' File under "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature"...

ongoing·XML Is Too Hard For Programmers

ongoing·XML Is Too Hard For Programmers Tim Bray, co-creator of XML, explains why XML is too hard for programmers. Via Dave Winer.

TI unveils a design called Wanda | CNET News.com

TI unveils a design called Wanda | CNET News.com "The design package, called Wanda, is meant to create a cell phone that TI said would connect to each of these technologies: a Wi-Fi hot spot, which uses the 802.11b standards; a cell phone network using GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications); and any device using the short-range wireless standard called Bluetooth. TI says it is the first to combine all three in a single design."

I'd like one, along with a USB connector for my laptop to facilitate high-speed comms with the laptop and power to the Wanda device.

RIM, Symbian partner on cell phone e-mail | CNET News.com

RIM, Symbian partner on cell phone e-mail | CNET News.com "The companies plan to announce Monday at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) trade show a partnership to provide RIM's BlackBerry e-mail service on handsets using the Symbian operating system. The deal means that cellular service subscribers will be able to wirelessly send and receive e-mail and corporate data on Symbian phones."

Microsoft plans wireless software push | CNET News.com

Microsoft plans wireless software push | CNET News.com "Microsoft, Symbian and PalmSource are battling over what operating system handset makers use to build new generations of cell phones that combine the features of a personal digital assistant and a cell phone. For now, it's a very young market with about 2 million devices in circulation. By comparison, there were 400 million traditional cell phones sold last year.
But the market for the phones is expected to grow significantly. By 2006, IDC expects Symbian will have increased its market share in the powerful phones to 53 percent from its current 46 percent. Microsoft will have about 27 percent of the market, with Palm at 10 percent. IDC predicts that Linux could take as much as 4.2 percent of the market.
Microsoft considers its biggest competition the rival phone operating system from Symbian, a company owned by Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and most other major handset makers. Even Microsoft concedes that Symbian is the clear leader. Microsoft may have signed up HTC and two small handset makers to make phones using its smart phone software, but most major wireless device makers are already developing Symbian phones, said Symbian Vice President Peter Bancroft."

Microsoft Is Said to Shift Strategies for MSN Service

Microsoft Is Said to Shift Strategies for MSN Service "Is Microsoft charting a new course for its MSN online service?
IDC, the big technology research firm, certainly thinks so. In a report posted on Thursday on its Web site accessible to clients, IDC said Microsoft had abandoned its goal of trying to overtake America Online as the largest online service. "MSN," the report states, "has adopted a new strategy — to ultimately become a portal or software company, with customers obtaining their own Internet access from any source."

Microsoft Mulls Self-Managing Technology

Microsoft Mulls Self-Managing Technology This is what all the people MS hired from BMC and CA have been up to...

WSJ.com - AOL Launches New Tool To Keep Teens in the Fold

WSJ.com - AOL Launches New Tool To Keep Teens in the Fold "To upgrade its image among technically savvy Web surfers, America Online is quietly rolling out a preview version of a new product called AOL Communicator. It won't be marketed until this summer but already is being offered to some subscribers. AOL Communicator looks a bit like a souped-up version of AOL Instant Messenger, the hugely popular free software used to hold running online text conversations.
AOL Communicator lets users send more than just instant messages, though. Users can easily send e-mails to the people on their instant-message "buddy list" as well as send e-mail to other people. Since Communicator is always online (provided the computer has a live Internet connection), users don't have to launch another program to send and receive e-mail, or go to AOL's Web site to see if they have a new message. And they can run a Google search inside the program, instead of by opening up a separate Web browser."

An entirely new email client would certainly be welcomed by most current AOL client users...

WSJ.com - Clash of the Titans

WSJ.com - Clash of the Titans "Sony, Finland's Nokia Corp. and Microsoft Corp., of Redmond, Wash., are beginning to vie for control of the market for "gateway" devices like the P800 -- machines through which consumers exchange and play digital content. At the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, Germany, this week, Sony, Nokia and Microsoft are showing game consoles, hand-held computers, mobile phones and a host of other devices all capable of connecting to the Internet, playing games, video and music.
All three companies are trying to capture a broad swath of the home-entertainment market -- and steer the future development of consumer technology in a direction that plays to their own strengths and their rivals' weaknesses."

EContent Xtra: Microsoft Office 2003 Beta Includes Access to Fee-Based Information Services

EContent Xtra: Microsoft Office 2003 Beta Includes Access to Fee-Based Information Services MS is getting good at exploiting services from within Office

Kevin Lynch: Flash Travel

Kevin Lynch: Flash Travel "I noticed Flash in a couple of places on my recent trip -- it was used to drive the departure displays at the United areas of the San Francisco airport, and later I randomly passed a cab with Flash running on a roof display in New York!"

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Computer development is new focus at Microsoft

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Computer development is new focus at Microsoft "To play a bigger role in the development of computers — as well as software — Microsoft has formed a major new division to produce specialized versions of Windows and build prototypes of computers of the future.
Called the Extended Platforms Division, the group has 900 employees assembled from the Windows, research and business-productivity divisions. It also includes industrial designers and evangelists who will pitch the concept computers to manufacturers."

Microsoft Releases Microsoft Office System Beta 2

Microsoft Releases Microsoft Office System Beta 2 Some initial impressions, after installing beta 2:
1. I just retired Outlook Express -- Outlook 2003 is finally a better user experience, even for POP3 and Hotmail
2. The myriad subtle UI changes are very effective
3. The new Research task pane is pretty cool -- but I'm also going to continue using GuruNet (aka Atomica)
4. Shared Workspaces are very compelling

Q&A: Microsoft Unveils Vision for End-to-End Enterprise Management Solutions

Q&A: Microsoft Unveils Vision for End-to-End Enterprise Management Solutions "... An industry veteran with nearly 15 years experience in enterprise management, Tatarinov co-founded Australian-based Patrol Software and pioneered the development of the PATROL family of management applications. He later served as chief technology officer and senior vice president for BMC Software, a management systems software vendor. In advance of the Microsoft Management Summit, to be held March 18-21 in Las Vegas, PressPass asked Tatarinov to provide an overview of what he's heard from customers and to describe Microsoft's vision for enterprise management solutions."

WSJ.com - Oracle Market Share Declines

WSJ.com - Oracle Market Share Declines "Oracle Oracle Corp.'s lead in the database market declined last year as rivals International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp. both gained a greater share of the market, according to a new study by industry research firm IDC. The new study, released Monday, offers new evidence that Oracle is seeing increasing pressure from competitors as the gap between the Redwood Shores, Calif., company and No. 2 IBM closes. Oracle's sales fell last year to $5.1 billion, or 39.4% of the market, from $5.4 billion, or 41.7%. IBM of Armonk, N.Y., saw its sales rise to $4.4 billion, or 33.6% of the market, from $3.99 billion, or 31%. Microsoft, which ranked third among database software vendors, saw its 2002 database sales increase to $1.4 billion, or 11% of the market, from $1.3 billion, or 9.7%, in 2001."

The Register: Sun aims StarOffice PC bundles at Joe User

The Register: Sun aims StarOffice PC bundles at Joe User "The open source equivalent to Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose will retain all eight engines, however. Venkatesan said there had been little interest in Sun's offer to separate the applications into discrete installs, and most users simply installed the entire suite."

AOL Is Planning a Fast-Forward Answer to TiVo

AOL Is Planning a Fast-Forward Answer to TiVo Somehow I suspect the people who signed up for the recently-scuttled (still active but not accepting new subscribers) AOLTV won't be the first in line.

Story: Office 2003: Should you upgrade? Yes, if... - ZDNet

Story: Office 2003: Should you upgrade? Yes, if... - ZDNet "However, to get the real benefits from Office 2003, you'll need at least one new server, some power-user skills, and the persuasiveness to talk your coworkers into changing the way they work together and your IT department into supporting the whole thing.
I hope you (or people in your company) possess all of the above, because Office 2003 represents a watershed in the not-so-illustrious history of collaboration software, aka "groupware."

News: MS InfoPath: Too complex to follow?

News: MS InfoPath: Too complex to follow? Lots of interesting speculation and opinions in this context, but I think ultimately it comes down to a question of how simple app dev can become in this context -- dynamic, form-centric applications that can tap into external and back-end resources via Web services, ADO, and by using XML Schemas. Not exactly end user stuff, from a design perspective, but if it's simple to create new form instances via InfoPath and SharePoint, I don't think the developer conceptual model is the primary leading indicator of InfoPath's likely market acceptance.

For PC Buying, a New Picture

For PC Buying, a New Picture "Those who see the tide turning make this case: high-performance applications like Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition are transforming computers into ever more sophisticated music studios, digital darkrooms and video-editing bays - even so-called entertainment servers that can record and play back television shows with the touch of a special remote control."

Check the average selling price chart...

Exclusive: Microsoft to Launch 2003 Edition of Office System Beta 2

Exclusive: Microsoft to Launch 2003 Edition of Office System Beta 2 Handy feature summary. I have read beta 2 will be on MSDN Monday 3/10 (or sooner).

WSJ.com - Personal Technology: GuruNet as a Reference Tool Goes Beyond Search Engines

WSJ.com - Personal Technology: GuruNet as a Reference Tool Goes Beyond Search Engines "But I have been testing a new, expanded version of a clever piece of Windows reference software that can give you quick answers instead of links. Those answers are presented in a format designed for reference work and are drawn from known, standard sources. Oh, and this program will also throw in that same general Google search, plus results from other search engines, in case its answers leave you wanting more.
The software is called GuruNet and can be downloaded from www.gurunet.com. The product of a small Israeli company called Atomica, GuruNet has been around for years as a free utility, but now it has been greatly expanded and reorganized, and is being sold for $34.99. You can try it free of charge for two weeks before you're asked to pay. If you decide not to pay, you can still use it as just a dictionary and thesaurus."

I've been using Atomica/GuruNet (fascinating they should revert to their original product name) for several years; it's a fantastic tool.

WSJ.com - Xbox Live Brings Microsoft Success in Gaming World

WSJ.com - Xbox Live Brings Microsoft Success in Gaming World "Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox videogame business is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars. Its boasts of late have been along the uninspiring lines of "We're Number 2!" in sales of its game consoles.
But Xbox Live, Microsoft's online videogame service, has surpassed expectations with 350,000 subscribers signed up just three months after launch. And the rapid increase has helped the company break new ground in the industry, a coup that has competitors on the defensive, analysts say.
"The success of Xbox Live has caught everyone by surprise, including Microsoft," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, a Kirkland, Wash.-based independent research firm that specializes in Microsoft."

The Register: Sony keen to buy PalmSource

"The Register: Sony keen to buy PalmSource Sony's chairman and CEO, Nobuyuki Idei, would buy Palm's system software division given half a chance - or "if they want to sell", according to the man himself in an interview with web site AlwaysOn.
And if he can't get PalmSource, Symbian will do: "I really want to own either Symbian or Palm - I want to buy them," he says."

SD Times: Borland Fires ‘Sidewinder’ at VS.NET

SD Times: Borland Fires ‘Sidewinder’ at VS.NET "Bringing together its compiler and IDE expertise, newly acquired modeling software from TogetherSoft, and the .NET Framework SDK licensed from Microsoft Corp., Borland Software Corp. is preparing to release its own C# IDE for .NET."

Xbox Live Bursts Through 350,000-Subscriber Mark As Players Rush for Fresh Downloadable Content

Xbox Live Bursts Through 350,000-Subscriber Mark As Players Rush for Fresh Downloadable Content Very good example of software as service/subscription

Nearly 30,000 Consumers Ready to Test-Drive OneNote Note-Taking Software

Nearly 30,000 Consumers Ready to Test-Drive OneNote Note-Taking Software "Designed to complement people's highly personalized note-taking styles, OneNote combines the flexibility of paper notes with the efficiency and power of digital media. OneNote enables people to input information anywhere on the page as well as capture it in multiple formats including typed text, digital ink, drawings and diagrams, and audio notes. From there, people can easily rearrange the contents of their notes, organize them according to personal preference, quickly search across all notes, e-mail their notes from within the application, publish them to a Web site and perform other useful tasks. In addition, OneNote is a solution that works well with a variety of personal computers including desktops, laptops and Tablet PCs."

Software links wireless networks

Software links wireless networks "A tiny Seattle start-up led by a group of former McCaw Cellular executives will unveil software today that links together the patchwork of wireless networks at homes, hospitals and corporate campuses.
Chameleon Technology, which is backed with about $2 million in venture financing from Toucan Capital and NextPoint Partners, allows users of laptops or Tablet PCs to roam from network to network securely and with limited data interruptions."

(p.s. sorry for the blog silence during the last couple days -- Blogger's Blog This! interface wasn't working and I was lazy...)

Clash of the cellphone contenders

Clash of the cellphone contenders "The world has tolerated PCs, which crash and which need rebooting, but the world has grown up to expect that your phone remains working," he said. "In fact, it is incredibly intolerant of phone software which is not robust."

Pioneer tames his Web revolution

Pioneer tames his Web revolution "We helped create the problem by introducing the technology and we're hoping to help clean it up now," Andreessen says.