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Sorting truly sustainable tech from greenwash
Monday 25 February 2008, 1:10 PM
Bill Gates' departure means Microsoft holy cows are being slaughtered.
That is the take from analyst The 451 Group following Thursday night’s “it looks really big but its actually not” announcement from Microsoft that was positioned by the software giant as if it had come over all fluffy and liberal about sharing its APIs and not stomping all over open source competitors.
The analyst had a lot to say on the announcement but this specifically for chief information officers and other top-of-the-food-chain IT pros:
Open house at Redmond? Well, no but the departure of Bill Gates means some of the holy cows are finally being slaughtered. The rationale, as ever, is to dominate.
MSFT controls the desktop and has no intention of ceding that to anyone, open source or otherwise. By opening up the APIs it is attempting to at least manage (control, preferably) the direction of the open source movement.
For some CIO’s, the initial reaction to MSFT’s new found openness will be a cycnical belly laugh. Equally, many who are wary of using open source in anger at the enterprise level and the consequent risk to brand – real or perceived – will be more likely to take Redmond’s route to open.
MSFT is taking a number of calculated risks. For one, it has validated the concept and legitimized any number of competitors, all of which have open source pedigrees, unlike Microsoft.
MSFT’s business model is not based on openness. It will be fascinating to see how it goes open and maintains its number one position. This could be it’s long awaited entrée into the enterprise (where it has always denied any ambitions) but anything that offers CIO’s more choices – be it supplier management, costs or technologies - has to be applauded.
What is clear is that the software landscape has undergone a fundamental change today. The effects won’t be immediate but vendors and users are now operating in a very different climate, At the very least this is disruptive and in the long term, probably seismic.
Winners…
• WINE - if you know all the Windows APIs, you should be able to get any Windows Application running on Linux quite nicely
• Vendors wanting to get their client software interoperable with Exchange
• SAMBA - proper interoperability with Windows File and Print services without having to guess the APIs. (Note: Samba struck a paid interoperability with Microsoft at the start of this year).
• Exchange alternatives - Zimbra etc. Enables them to develop proper interoperability with Exchange servers and the ability to act as a replacement for Exchange
• Calendar and Workflow clients - they will be able to build proper hooks into Exchange.
• Vendors and end-uses looking to implement web services and software-as-a service architectures, who require deeper and more consistent access than has sometimes been available from Microsoft.
And losers:
• Any company attempting to sell hub workflow servers that competes directly with Exchange & SharePoint. They might end up having to implement Microsoft protocols. On the other hand, they can still offer interoperability.
• Any companies whose secret sauce involved reverse engineering MS APIs.
• Google – as an open platform advocate – and Linux-focused vendors such as Red Hat and Novell may find themselves less able to play the “proprietary” card against Microsoft in the future.
www.the451group.com
Thursday 21 February 2008, 4:19 PM
Mystery announcement solved: Microsoft reaches out to open source?
The mystery announcement we got wind of yesterday looks like it won’t have anything to do with XP SP3 as we first thought – that probably won’t drop until later in the first half of this year according to Microsoft.
As we have just heard from our sister site in the US, News.com
, that Microsoft is preparing to make an announcement around its relationship with open source – full news story to follow.
Thursday 21 February 2008, 10:36 AM
Spoke too soon about XP SP3?
Yesterday we got wind that Microsoft would be making a significant announcement today but no more than that.
After putting our collective noggins together we guessed that the mystery release could be the long awaiting update to XP - service pack 3.
However after doing some fishing with Microsoft's press officers, we got the following statement back last night (in full-blown Microsoft speak) which seems to indicate a release later in the first half of this year:
Yesterday (19.02.08), we released Windows XP SP3 RC 2 to the Microsoft Download Center. This release catches the build up on previously released hotfixes and responds to the critical feedback from the previous betas. We are targeting 1H 2008 for the release of XP SP3 RTM, though our timing will always be based on customer feedback as a first priority.
Bonus points to anyone able to decode this message which sounds like it's been written in Klingon and then run through Babelfish to me. I guess we'll have to wait and see what today brings - I am still not ruling out XP SP3 as that message is classic non-denial denial but it's looking less likely.
Wednesday 20 February 2008, 12:16 PM
Windows XP SP3 coming tomorrow?
Thanks to a variety of sources, including ZDNet.com’s Microsoft guru extraordinaire Mary Jo Foley and ZDNet.co.uk’s Rupert Goodwins, we have got wind that Microsoft may announce the final version of Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 3 tomorrow.
We have made some exploratory calls to Microsoft’s press centre and when asked outright if XP SP3 was on its way tomorrow we were greeted with a “we’ll get back to you” rather than say a “not got a clue what you are on about” or a simply “no”. We might be multiplying hypotheticals but guess we’ll find out soon enough.
We are pretty sure there is goingt to be a big annoucement tomorrow and XP SP3 seems a likely candidate.
Mary Jo blogged this week that Microsoft posted the release notes (version 1.0) for XP SP3 on February 19th – which she claims is a sure sign that its ready to roll out the service pack.
Wednesday 20 February 2008, 9:46 AM
Top five hard drive mishaps
This comes off a press release from Kroll (surely a crap 80's sci-fi flick? hang on that might be Krull...close though) Ontrack - who claim to specialise in data recovery - but I think there's some useful advice between the spin:
Avoiding these common blunders can increase the chance of successful data recovery in a data loss situation.
1. Test your backup – Following a data loss situation, the user decides they need to completely wipe their drive and restore all data using a backup. A complete reformat and reinstallation is performed, only for the user to realise the backup does not work. There is then little hope of retrieving the lost data. To avoid this error, individuals should test their backups by restoring data to an alternate location before assuming the backup is reliable
2. Mixing drives - When a non-working drive no longer spins, the user attempts to buy a similar drive and swap what he/she believes to be the non-working part with the new drive equivalent. As current hard drive parts contain drive-specific information, the new part is not programmed to “talk” to the drive’s original parts. In this situation, Kroll Ontrack recommends seeking recovery assistance from a reputable data recovery provider
3. Drive abuse – In this case, if the drive’s spinning cannot be detected the user believes the head of the drive is stuck. In an attempt to perform a “quick fix,” the user removes the drive and proceeds to shake it, or even worse, unscrews the case to take a look. Creating physical damage in this way could potentially render some data unrecoverable. While there are many reasons (electronic failure, power outage, etc.) why a hard drive head stops working, it is certain that shaking the drive won’t address any of these issues
4. Washed away - A hard drive is water logged in either a flood situation or from a spilt drink. Referencing a common data recovery myth, the user attempts to remedy the situation by using a hair dryer, further damaging the drive. In water damage scenarios, it is recommended that the drive remains in its wet condition and is sent in for recovery. This will maximise the chances of recovery success, as drying a drive only adheres the liquid to a greater extent
5. Be safe not sorry - The user implements an operating system failure programme such as CHKDSK, Mac Disk Utility or FSCK in order to remedy what is believed to be an operating error. If the drive is physically damaged and the user runs the programme, it will further damage the drive making recovery more difficult. In this case, the user should run the system failure programme in “safe mode.” By doing so, the programme is able to report on the condition of the system without actually attempting to fix it. The user can then decide how best to proceed
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