March 31, 2004 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft holds out olive branch on Java
Microsoft may not exactly embrace Java, but the company is at least making strides toward accommodation.
In attending recent Microsoft developer conferences, including the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in September and VSLive last week, I searched in vain on the agendas for something, anything, to do with acknowledging Java as a force in development, other than sessions on how to migrate Java programs over to .Net.
But a recently published free, online book by Microsoft seems to recognize that coexistence is going to happen between .Net and Java.
This book, Application Interoperabil-ity: Microsoft .Net and J2EE, was published earlier this year.
In publishing the book, Microsoft is realizing that there will be multiple, different back-end systems that an application needs to interoperate with, Rich-ard Burte, Microsoft technical product manager for the company's developer divi-sion, said. "J2EE is one of those platforms," Burte said. The book is focused on making systems work together, he said.
Microsoft and Java founder Sun Microsystems have gone back and forth in court in a dispute over Microsoft’s use of Java. Microsoft even has a utility, Java Language Conversion Assistant, to migrate Java code to .Net.
At attendee at VSLive, however, concurred that coexistence will be the order of the day for the two platforms. "The degree to which it’s peaceful coexistence is yet to be seen," said the attendee, Daniel Appleman, president of Campbell, Calif.;-based Visual Studio components developer Desaware.
Posted by Paul Krill on March 31, 2004 11:00 AM
March 30, 2004 | Comments: (0)
There seems to be two ways to look at most issues. There's the ground level view and the 10,000 foot view.
Now, the 10,000 foot view is usually scoffed at. In high tech, for example, many people will assume you really don't understand the technology so you're taking the big picture view out of necessity.
But a recent off hand remark by an executive in the telecommunications industry got me to thinking.
A company called Ekahau, featured in my column next week, has an e911 solution for Voice over IP phones.
The FCC has mandated that these phones, at this point desk phones not wireless, must comply with e911 so that in case of emergency you can be located.
For a business phone that is easy enough according to Tuomo Rutanen, Ekahau vice president. Location can be gotten out of the PBX system.
But at home, if you are using a VoIP it is not as easy. In fact, according to Rutanen, the only way to know your location is for the VoIP service provider to give all emergency services your name and home address.
Logical right? If you are in the midst of a home invasion or a fire it might save your life.
That's the ground level.
But then there is that pesky 10,000 foot level.
Here is yet another way in which you as an individual has to give up personal information, granted for your own benefit, but isn't that how big entities always seem to coax information out of us little entities.
If you want to save money at the supermarket, for example, you have to use your shopper card. It has a certain logic to it. Of course to me it would be more logical to just lower the darn prices but it doesn't work that way. You give up your anonymity and you pay less for a pound of Fuji apples. That's the way it works.
Maybe it's not a bad idea now in 2004. But over time, I wonder what the long term repercussions of all this will be?
Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on March 30, 2004 01:37 PM
March 30, 2004 | Comments: (0)
Gartner brings out kid gloves for Gates
I feel a little bit cheated. Monday I watched Bill Gates interviewed by Gartner CEO Michael Fleisher at the Gartner ITxpo in San Diego. Hearing that this was an interview style keynote upped its appeal. No sterilized PowerPoint charting momentum, an informed analyst setting the agenda of the discussion, maybe even a brief glimpse of Gates squirming in the hotseat…..
But the tough questions never materialized.
The one question I wanted to hear-- something, anything about open source-- was not asked.
The focus of the talk was the future of technology. Gates spoke about the power of speech technology, Microsoft's continued security efforts, and a bit about Longhorn's expected arrival date. Gates smiled warmly when the subject was raised of his incredible philanthropy in world health.
Fleisher did pose one question about the EU's recent penalty against Microsoft's licensing practices. But not one toe tipped into the open source or Linux waters. If this were a Microsoft show I would expect that. But this is Gartner. Aren't analyst firms supposed to be skeptical, asking the tough questions of vendors, spitting out the Kool-Aid after a quick sip?
Maybe Fleisher and Gates are old duck hunting buddies. Or maybe when an icon takes the stage at a major industry event you shouldn't expect the world.
'Wow, that was terrible' one response in the roped off press seating area immediately after the Gates interview.
I'm looking over my notes for a good quote or two for my story. "The magic of software has been underestimated," is one of the better ones unfortunately.
I didn't think it was terrible. I was pleasantly surprised by Gates' demeanor. I had heard he was not the best speaker. But I found him funny on occasion and engaging. Talking about how Microsoft is not interested in pursuing the services and system integration business, he quipped: "We are not in the services business, [as in] pay us 300 dollars and hour and we'll show you where your brain is." At another point in the talk, attempting to illustrate the usefulness of electronic ink and tablet computers he mimicked how awkward it would be to take a quick verbal note-to-self during a presentation. Gates playfully leaned into his microphone with a golf-commentator type whisper, "remember to send this slide to so-and-so."
Maybe you had to be there.
Posted by Cathleen Moore on March 30, 2004 12:33 PM
March 22, 2004 | Comments: (0)
Linus Torvalds threw a t-shirt at me
Yes the headline is correct, and yes I was slightly injured in the incident. But how did Linus Torvalds, an amiable fellow who also happens to be worshipped by uber geeks worldwide, find himself stooping to the rote chore of chucking t-shirts off a stage to a wildly enthusiastic crowd? Don't they usually hire a team of fresh faced temps for that? Well, here at BrainShare in Salt Lake City Linus was recruited in a whirl of excitement by Novell vice chairman Chris Stone during a keynote demonstration to throw the shirts, which were printed with something about "no bull" in derision of Microsoft's Longhorn. Linus looked a little surprised when Chris passed him a stack of the tightly wrapped black shirts, as if he had no idea what was role the shirts played in the technical demo. But he cheerfully obliged, and the first shirt he hurled into the crowd sailed directly toward me. I found myself reaching up-- not that I really wanted the XL size shirt that would be one of hundreds I am offered each hour at tech conferences like this one every week. My reach was more of a self defense move. But still, it is thrilling in some small way to catch something thrown off a stage, especially when the hurler is the leader of the free OS world. However, a strong and super enthusiastic man to my left reached up at the same time and grabbed the shirt with a greed and fervor that kind of disturbed me. And, he squished my finger in the process. But the man looked so pleased to have the shirt thrown by Linus that I was happy to relinquish my grip. Needless to say, there is a lot of excitement here at BrainShare.
Posted by Cathleen Moore on March 22, 2004 05:10 PM
March 10, 2004 | Comments: (0)
Is Veritas a veritable multi-market vendor?
On Monday I was sky high. Literally. Veritas held an event on the top floor of the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco to discuss its intentions to compete in the APM space. They were quick to point out the 'm' in APM stood for management, not monitoring. The 'a' and the 'p' represents application and performance, respectively.
Anyway, by my count this is the 18th new business Veritas has entered in the last year. Not really, but it sure seems like it though. With its recent acquisitions of Ejasent, Jareva Technologies, and Precise Software Solutions, Veritas looks as much of a storage company as does EMC these days. This has me curious.
Veritas argued the Precise acquisition and its i3 software are essential pieces to a utility computing model- Veritas's new focus. They assert a real utility architecture within an enterprise has the IT staff built like a public utility- providing services at measurable levels. So without APM software, it will be impossible for the IT department to determine a baseline for which it should be judged against. Makes sense, right?
I think it does. In the year 2006!!
I say this after having spent a few hours on Tuesday in the Sun Microsystems offices in San Francisco. There I learned that creating an IT environment that can bend to business needs is done primarily with a team of service professionals. That means not one solution fits every enterprise and that a lot of custom work has to be done. Know why? Becasue, every company has legacy equipment and applications. And you know what that means? Enterprises are likely going to go to its existing and established partnerships with its hardware providers for advice and a custom solution.
I could be wrong. We'll see. I do admire Veritas for branching out, though, and why shouldn't they? They are amongst the top ten largest software providers by revenue in the U.S. and are found in 99% of the Fortune 500, so they say. I guess I just wonder when and if their numerous businesses are going to come together in a way that customers can really understand. Then if they do (that is a big 'if') I'm still not convinced why an enterprise wouldn't go to its hardware friends first.
What do you think?
Posted by Scott Tyler Shafer on March 10, 2004 01:27 PM
March 05, 2004 | Comments: (0)
Call me 'Captain Obvious,' but this email worm problem has gotten way out of hand. In the first week of March alone, I think I read that there are approximately 18,000 new variants of Netsky, Bagle and MyDoom worms. Clearly, I exaggerate the number, but the problems only seem to worsen each day. And if I'm annoyed by it, I can only imagine how IT managers and antivirus product makers feel.
And it turns out I'm right. They are irritated! I spoke to both Joe Hartmann, director of North American antivirus research at Trend Micro and Chris Belthoff, senior security analyst at Sophos this week about malware and each told me what I already suspected (I already told you I'm Captain Obvious)- the problem of worms and viruses will never, ever, go away. NEVER!
After speaking to aforementioned, I realize in terms of coping stages the industry is way past denial, bargaining, and anger. So perhaps we're in between the despair and acceptance stages. Either way let's stop fretting about the present and look to the future.
Both Joe and Chris agreed that the education of end users is pivotal. The three of us are dumbfounded that somebody would actually double click a .zip attachment until we remembered we work in the IT industry and are hyper-aware of worms. However, most companies do have an IT person and it is their responsibility to teach its users safe email practices. IT managers should also be diligent about patch management and network management. And finally they should be using, or evaluating, antispam and antivirus solutions. If these things are done, the email worm issue can be mitigated. I said mitigated, not eliminated.
I'd be remiss if I didn't use this opportunity and platform to rip Microsoft. As the closest thing to being a monopoly without me calling them one for fear of my life, Microsoft has a big responsibility in terms of education and changing its code creation process. And as I write this, I see they are thinking about education, so I guess I should delete the following sentence (but I won't).
I'll acknowledge they have recently begun to accept this role, but even more needs to be done considering its code is what is being attacked. It needs to be encumbered upon them to make changes to its future development cycle to include even more quality assurance. As for the code already out there, forget about it. Sure they can and will go back and comb through it looking for vulnerabilities, but there is so much out there and only so much can be done. And anyway we're talking about the future here.
So going forward ALL software developers need to place even more emphasis on checking and double checking code before it goes out the door. Unfortunately, Microsoft and its users (that's me) have always wanted features, features, features. Hence its focus on providing them over the years. This blog is surely not going to change their entire philosophy overnight, but we can hope developers see the value of making security a feature. Hell, I never thought I'd ever want a telephone that takes pictures, but I do. Badly. So maybe I too can get excited about security features.
The last audience we need to address is security vendors. Basically, I think they are doing a good job. They are all educating its customers as best as they can and are working very hard to recognize and respond to new worm and virus variants as they arrive.
As for the future, most are looking to build new platforms that are adaptive. I imagine this is easy to do, since customers are demanding products that are both effective today and tomorrow This is key. Vendors with a product that can't scale, be updated on the fly, etc. will be of no interest to enterprise customers.
So let's recap. Microsoft is evil, users are dumb, and security vendors react too late. I'm kidding.
In all seriousness, the problem of malware won't go away. We know this. All we can do is move toward acceptance and hope that the big boys will follow through with education, better practices, and adaptive products.
If Captain Obvious had a sidekick, right now he'd yell out- I agree! Let's call him- Affirmation Man.
Posted by Scott Tyler Shafer on March 5, 2004 11:00 AM
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