January 31, 2008 | Comments: (0)
I've been called plenty of names in my time, but never so many and from so many different people, as I have in response to my post titled "Save XP? Why bother?" Apparently a lot of folks needed a target for their pent-up Vista-induced anger, so I hope they feel a bit better.
One sentiment rang uniformly throughout the majority of readers' comments (amid the anger, and name calling ... and mild profanity): Many of you are content with what XP offers and pleased with its current functionality for your organization. You're not impressed with the features that Vista brings to the table, nor are you pleased with the tremendous expense for Vista, for new hardware, and for more training.
In fact, there were several comments that really showed insight into the problem, and I know for a fact that persons from Microsoft read through these. Allow me to share some of the sentiments of your fellow readers:
Keith Dunlap said, "Personally, I would be looking at $2,000-3000 in software and peripheral hardware upgrades simply to support Vista. For now (and perhaps the next 3-4 years) I'll stick with XP. XP and my current applications do everything I need them to do."
Stephen Smith said, "Everything is moved around for no good reason and hard to find. Security is useless since you have to turn off UAC to do anything or be driven crazy."
JCWarren showed a great deal of insight into the situation. I won't reprint all that he said but this point caught my attention: "Vista has been out in the wild for over a year and IT administrators still do not have the tools to manage their Active Directory domains with Vista. References to how long it took XP to get up to a certain level of supportability (legitimately SP2) are irrelevant in that Microsoft should have learned from that experience and not expect IT pros to wait years for Vista to be enterprise ready. (At the WinConnections conference in Fall 2006 I informed the MS reps that I felt this lack of tools to be unacceptable and received applause from my IT peers in attendance)."
SThompson said, in a humorous and sarcastic tone: "Your idea to just go out and buy new equipment is great. I'll lay off 6 or 7 people from the workforce and wait a year, then I will use the savings from their wages to pay for all the new equipment. Isn't that the American way?"
On the positive side, I had a few respondents that were eager to move to Vista, or who have already made the move and found the experience to be without incident:
PCWizard said: "I run an IT department at a small government agency and I would like to say that I agree with the author, for the most part. I won't go into arguing with all of the negative commenter's, but we have been implementing Vista and Office 2007 since they became available and, while we have experienced a few problems, on the whole we have not experienced *any* of the nightmare scenarios that most are describing."
"Because we are the government, we do not have large budgets for hardware, so we make up for it by planning ahead - we began to buy machines that would be Vista capable as much as three years ago, adding memory or DVD drives to them when they became cost-effective and just recently adding graphics cards to the last bunch. Vista runs great on all of them - would XP run faster? Perhaps, but most of the small problems were obliterated with Vista SP1."
"And we like all of the security features *a lot* and we use almost all of them to keep confidential information private and to keep our systems from being hacked. Sure, Vista has its glitches, but we just checked our logs and none of our IT support people have had a crash with Vista in more than 6 months..... I don't have time to say more, but the author deserves a break -- most of his comments are dead on...."
Al Smith wrote: "Virtually every OS issue we see are caused by bad drivers. I don't care whether it's Linux or Windows (Apple controls the hardware and the OS but even with that ideal environment, they have their share of Leopard issues). To Microsoft's benefit (and perhaps to their detriment), people have become attached to well-working WinXP systems running the software they enjoy using, with quite modest hardware. Still not convinced? I guess another way of looking at it is, once XP is no longer supported and your company is forced to migrate to Vista, you'll finally have a PC on your corporate desktop that is reasonably modern and contains hardware that, for many serious users, is what they should be running today, anyhow."
As for me, I don't plan to weigh in on the Save XP campaign a second time. I may continue to extol the many virtues of Vista from time to time, perhaps compare Vista vs. Macs or Linux (that should elicit some interesting responses) but the primary purpose of this particular blog is to focus on Enterprise Windows. Look forward to future posts that relate to Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server, PerformancePoint 2007 and Groove Server 2007 for starters.
In addition, I will post items that may assist with some of the many issues you've raised regarding your frustration with Vista. UAC tips, using the Software Deployment Kit (SDK) and Application Compatibility Toolkit and especially the Standard User Analyzer (tools that have received little or no press, but are excellent for enterprise deployments of Vista), and the utilization of Group Policy to help admins with both Vista and XP machines in their environment.
Posted by J. Peter Bruzzese on January 31, 2008 01:08 PM
January 30, 2008 | Comments: (0)
I'd love to defend Microsoft Vista against Mac, Linux, or some obscure OS -- but instead, I find myself defending it against Windows XP. That's because all I hear is warring from within the Microsoft community about how unfair it is that they will one day have to stop using XP -- a sentiment perpetuated by InfoWorld's Save Windows XP campaign.
First off, no one is forcing you to do anything. The only step Microsoft is taking so far is to stop selling XP six months from now. If you want to keep using a seven-year-old OS with security holes a-plenty, go ahead. Who's stopping you? Hey, install Windows 95 too, while you're at it. But you can't expect Microsoft to indefinitely support XP when it's poured so many resources into developing its best OS to date in Vista.
The fact of the matter is, Vista is incredible. I've been working with it since Beta 3, and I won't return to that cartoon-looking XP for anything. Not only is it more secure than XP, it includes a host of invaluable new tools and applications (more on those in a bit).
Yes, Vista is more resource-intensive than XP. Yes, upgrading from XP to Vista requires putting some cash on the table. But Vista beats XP hands down, and the Save XP campaign amounts to unfairly criticizing Microsoft for adhering to a core capitalist practice: retiring an old product to sell newer, better ones.
For years, one of the biggest complaints about XP (and Windows in general) was its lackluster security. So in Vista, Microsoft created a slew of powerful security features, including User Account Control (UAC), Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Windows Service Hardening, Windows Integrity Control, Windows Resource Protection, and other behind-the-scenes solutions. (If you've never heard of these, read chapter four of my book "Tricks of the Microsoft Windows Masters".) Microsoft has also included Parental Controls that reside at the OS level to provide added protection for families, and Bitlocker technology to completely encrypt the data on a laptop for traveling businesspersons.
These much-anticipated security enhancements should be reason enough for Windows shops to upgrade to Vista, yet they represent just a portion of the OS's advantages over XP. There's also enhanced collaboration possibilities, improved built-in diagnostics and self-healing, and simplified networking.
Getting more granular, Vista delivers enhanced search capabilities that can save a user a tremendous amount of time. Power management with Group Policy settings allows for reduced carbon emissions and savings. Admins have greater control through Multiple Local Group Policy Objects (MLGPOs). There's also increased support for Tablet PCs, which could lower TCO by 14 percent for mobile PCs each year. Most important, of course, there's a cool new interface for solitaire! Yet despite all the advantages Vista holds over XP, customers have continued to resist, throwing up other arguments for not upgrading.
One such argument: Critics complain that some of their applications won't work properly with Vista or that drivers aren't available. Why is that Microsoft's fault? Look, XP was released in 2001, Vista in January 2007. Why aren't customers complaining to their software vendors for not doing their job of developing apps that work with Vista? We knew it was coming for years. Microsoft released the necessary info for it to happen. Some vendors jumped right on it; others were too lazy to support the people and the move to Vista. Maybe they just thought, "Oh, well, we'll wait until SP1."
Here, an enterprise customer merely has to say, "We're going to Vista -- and any software vendor that doesn't support Vista will be dropped from our company." Watch and see how fast everything will start to work with Vista.
As for complaints that Vista is too resource intensive, I've had no problems with that -- then again, I went out and bought new computers. So you know what? Go buy new computers. I'm sorry if you want to keep those dusty, five-year-old systems going a bit longer, but this industry needs cash to keep it moving forward. We get new cars every few years because we want the latest and greatest features, such as GPS, a camera in the back for safety, swivel seats, and DVD players. Do you complain that they cost more? Do you argue with the dealership for not also allowing you to buy a "new" model from 2000? But Microsoft shouldn't develop a new OS -- and charge for it? And the new OS shouldn't require anything more than what your system needed six years ago? Give me a break.
If you read a lot of the comments that people have been adding on the Save XP pages, you might note that an awful lot of people say, "Go to Linux," or "That's why I use Linux." You know, I've never heard a Mac user complain about Apple or their Mac, nor a Linux user complain about Red Hat or whatever version they are using. That's not to say they don't have problems; they just keep the discussion among themselves. But they are having a field day watching Microsoft users fight each other. Ever think they're the ones stirring up this whole Save XP campaign?
You are welcome to express your opinion by commenting to this blog post, or within InfoWorld's Save Windows XP campaign.
Posted by J. Peter Bruzzese on January 30, 2008 03:00 AM
January 27, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Bill Gates: An Impatient Optimist AND the Unified Messaging Server
I want to discuss two topics today. The first is the new direction for Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The second is an overview of the Unified Messaging Server.
First off, Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world -- and one of the most generous. Nobody is obligated (other than by their own consciences, which many no longer have) to give a dime to others. True, it seems to be human nature to help a person in need -- but obligation comes from within, and Bill and Melinda Gates have that inner quality in spades. On Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland he announced the pledge of $306 million in grants to countries that need assistance to develop better farming. Gates said, "If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women."
Bill will be leaving Microsoft in July of this year to focus full time on his efforts to change the world. He says he is an optimist, but an impatient one and he plans on making a difference through more than just technology but through system innovation and "Creative Capitalism: an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities."
Some may wonder: What is the payoff for Bill? Where does he benefit from all of this? He responds with a quote from Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."
I'd say, regardless of my view of Microsoft, its products, its domination over the market, I wish Bill well on his life adjustment to pursue further this vision of optimism.
You can read the transcript here or watch the Webcast here.
The Unified Messaging Server Role
The Unified Messaging Server Role is new functionality introduced in Exchange Server 2007 offering the concept of a Universal Inbox, which brings together your e-mail, voicemail and fax into a single inbox. This means you may access your voicemail, fax, and e-mail from one location, using multiple access interfaces (your phone with e-mail-to-voice thanks to Outlook Voice Access; e-mail through your Outlook client and/or Web browser through Outlook Web access).
For this to work properly you are going to need an IP-PBX or VoIP gateway (if you have a legacy PBX). If you plan on using Unified Messaging with Exchange 2007, it is recommended that you seek out the assistance of a UM specialist. It requires a significant amount of telephony knowledge, in addition to the Exchange knowledge you need for configuration. Most of the settings you will be asked for may already be in place if you have a telephony admin/team and currently use a voicemail system.
The only portion that requires pure-Exchange know-how is the setup of the AutoAttendant, which is pretty much your Exchange Phone Operator. The AutoAttendant uses speech recognition to transfer callers to the appropriate extensions/people, although you can also configure it to accept non-verbal input (for example, "Press 1 for more options").
Posted by J. Peter Bruzzese on January 27, 2008 10:23 AM
January 23, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Vista successor already in the works
Well, we had to assume something would come after Vista -- or did we think Microsoft just folded its hands, looked at all it had created, and said, "It is good" in the Biblical way?
Windows 7, ladies and gentleman. What cool name will the minds at Redmond give it this time? And will they continue with the Spanish version, e.g. Windows Caliente? Or perhaps try some other languages for future projects, like Windows Akunamatata or Windows FeiChangHao? Who knows? But we have several years to find out: It's slated for 2009 (but we all know how that works, so let's plan for 2010).
But the first known build of Windows 7 was identified as a Milestone 1 (M1) code drop and was sent to key Microsoft partners this month in both x86 and x64 versions.
One of the next-gen OS's coolest features that's being discussed: the minimalistic version of the kernel, called MinWin (not to be confused with Windows 2008 Server Core). Back in October, our good friend Long Zheng (who no doubt appreciated my slight use of Chinese pinyin above) posted a demonstration of MinWin here that you might want to watch.
Now, I am no fortune teller, but I foresee this next release causing controversy as people complain about it and cry about leaving Vista behind. (By then, of course, everyone will love Vista, and talk badly about their XP systems with words such as cartoon-ish.)
Windows Grande Problemo. Catchy name.
Posted by J. Peter Bruzzese on January 23, 2008 08:31 AM
January 23, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft and VMWare go one more round
In the battle for the virtualization title, VMWare, the underdog scrapper from Palo Alto, Calif. is pitted against the mammoth-sized contender out of Redmond that is Microsoft. I say contender because, although Microsoft has managed to pummel just about everyone else that's stepped into the ring, VMWare has a solid position in virtualization. Now Microsoft has added a new maneuver to its repertoire in an effort to strengthen its offensive: the Calista/Citrix combo. I'll talk about that in a moment, but first let me introduce myself.
My name is J. Peter Bruzzese (MCSE, MCT, MCITP: Messaging, A+, Network+, iNET+, CNA, CCNA and more) and InfoWorld's new Enterprise Windows blogger. I've worked in IT management and training for the largest investment banking corporations in the world, as well as companies like New Horizons, CommVault Systems and, yes, even Microsoft (but that doesn't mean I cannot be objective). Since the days of NT 4.0 I've been writing books about enterprise networks, storage solutions, and all things Microsoft, and they've sold worldwide in various languages. Lately my world has revolved solely around the seven new Office 2007 Servers (PerformancePoint, Forms, Groove, and so forth) and Exchange 2007. However, with Server 2008 on the horizon, it looks like a new game is beginning -- and virtualization is at the heart of it.
Microsoft announced on Monday that it was acquiring Calista Technologies in an effort to improve upon its virtualization software, making it more competitive against long-time frontrunner VMWare. Calista software will assist in that, according to Microsoft, it "improves the user experience of ... virtualized desktop deployments and server-hosted virtualized desktops or applications using Windows Server Terminal Services."
"The addition of Calista technology to Microsoft's virtualization portfolio ... will enable remote workers to receive a full-fidelity Windows desktop experience without the need for high-end desktop hardware," Microsoft goes on to say.
In addition, Microsoft and Citrix continue their symbiotic relationship in the virtualization world and have announced plans to go forward with desktop and server virtualization solutions that work off of Windows Server 2008. Citrix will be promoting its XenDesktop solution, while Microsoft focuses on its Hyper-V, hypervisor-based virtualization software -- but both sides have agreed to extend support for the other.
Citrix is one of those interesting success stories. Microsoft has wanted to out-develop Citrix for years now -- and shove the company overboard, so to speak. But Citrix always stays one step ahead and that's held Microsoft at bay -- for now. Citrix knows not to turn its back for a second, though, as it smiles for the cameras and say things like, "We've built a tremendous partnership with Microsoft... . Our shared vision with Microsoft ... . Blah, blah, blah," all the while keeping its back to the wall and sliding away from the Microsoft table, watching the exits.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has to continue its friendship with Citrix. I'm hearing something from the Godfather along the lines of, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
It's a great move by Microsoft, this one-two Calista/Citrix combo, and it has to have VMWare feeling the hit. What's Microsoft's goal in all of this? Why, world domination, of course. The boys at Redmond plan out their moves with a Risk board in hopes of achieving that very goal. Is Microsoft spreading itself too thin? It doesn't seem to be so. The company has the money to buy what it needs -- or who it needs, e.g. Calista Technologies. It has other products to keep it afloat. So, Microsoft can churn out one shoddy attempt after another at virtualization until it either gets good enough to stand critique, or simply becomes so widely used that we simply conform, forgetting the good old days of VMWare.
So, is this the end of VMWare? Not yet. Remember, VMWare still has EMC in its corner and that is a big friend to have. But where VMWare surpasses Microsoft in quality (although that divide will probably shrink this year), its offerings are more expensive. After all, VMWare's sole purpose is virtualization, so its prices are high. Meanwhile, Microsoft can develop its virtualization counterpunch to within almost-as-good range, and give it away for free -- or nearly so.
Free. That's a powerful word in the world of enterprise virtualization. "Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio said in an interview with the Associated Press that "a comparable Microsoft offering could cost as little as one-third of what VMWare charges."
This should prove to be an exciting year for virtualization. And while I'm leaning toward Microsoft as the overall winner, I am (not-so) secretly rooting for the underdog. Go VMWare. In the words of Rocky Balboa, "It ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit, how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"
Posted by J. Peter Bruzzese on January 23, 2008 03:00 AM
January 09, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Two months after making its own search technology a commodity, Microsoft raised the ante today in the enterprise search space by going out and buying Fast Search & Transfer, an Oslo, Norway-based search software company for $1.2 billion.
FAST gives Microsoft a search reach that extends beyond its own platform and application stores, and certainly makes it more competitive with Google in larger enterprises. FAST also competes with Google for site-specific Web searches, including large commercial sites like CareerBuilder. According to a Gartner research report last spring, FAST was neck-and-neck with competitor Autonomy for market leadership in the enterprise.
FAST has a number of advantages over Google in the enterprise. It has a variety of customized solutions, and its engine can be tweaked and tuned specifically to customer needs. It's also a favorite of consulting firms. And Mark Bennett (the vice president of enterprise search consulting company New Idea Engineering), ironically compared FAST to Windows when describing how it was different from Autonomy (which he compared to OS X).
So, with a single purchase, Microsoft has moved ahead of Google in the high end of enterprise search technology, while it has already made the low end of the search market free. And FAST could conceivably help Microsoft's own Web search efforts considerably as well. While it won't stop Google in its tracks, it certainly does make the search market a bit more interesting.
Posted by Sean Gallagher on January 9, 2008 03:50 PM
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