Open Source Overhang
As the last major frontiers of computing get settled (* see note at bottom), there is a lot software and system vendors of what I call near misses or got brutalized or Open Source overhang. These are products that are not going to find a niche and be able to survive with small revenues but […]
The Image as Word
The following image taken from Webalizer output speaks volumes: I suspect the Microsoft Executive Suite knows but cares not; they are too busy getting the World “People Ready” for their offerings. (c)JBSurveyer 2006
WAMP or XAMPP: Install Magic
Anybody who has had to install portions of the LAMP suite on Windows knows that that can be an excruciating exercise depending on what versions of the various LAMP suite you are using. Well two Open Sourcers, WAMP and XAMPP, have changed all that. I use both, changing when one gets closer to to my […]
“Dont Fear the Penguins”
The above screenshot is a snapshot into the Linux community and its take on the Microsoft/Novell deal. Where did I go to get that view – slashdot.org. And one thing I noticed while there, slashdots motto – “dont fear the penguins”. But that is precisely the problem in the commercial software world, from the Microsoft […]
Now That Novell Has Committed Hara-Kari
Now that Novell has committed Hara-Kari it is only proper to let CEO Ron Hovsepian and Novell know that they are bleeding to death. Novell had hit on hard times. They needed some money to do some of the crazy things that IT shops do these days. So they went to a friendly Handy Cash […]
Companys Built on One Leg
Infoworld has been arguing that Suns Scott McNealy was right – the network is the computer. And Microsoft has been waging a largely losing war of arguing that the PC and Server make the Network necessary but not sufficient. And anybody who has not been able to connect to the Internet (or to do so […]
Google as Extreme Programming
Of all the the PC Accidental Empires, Google has what at one and the sametime seems closest and farthest from Accidental. Farthest, because Googles astronomical stock and revenue gains are built on engineering excellence of a tall order. Google has built and refined the often hawked grid computing onto the scale of hundreds of thousands […]
Adobe as BullsEye: Dreamweaver/GoLive
We have argued elsewhere that Microsoft has painted a bullseye on every major Adobe product. Here is the Expression Web – EW arrow aimed at the heart of Dreamweaver/GoLive for web development. Keep in mind the following restrictions for Expression Web: a)EW runs only on Vista and XP versus Dreamweaver on Win 98, 2000, XP […]
Best IT Portrait
The best IT portrait by way of interview that I have read this year is the one by Darryl Taft with Marc Fleury, the boss (or the subordinate boss) of JBoss. This is what fiction writers call delicious. Fran, open but also exposing the complexities that is the marriage of two different Open Source cultures. […]
Adobe is in the RIA Game
For the past few quarters I have had my doubts about Adobe being in the RIA -Rich Interface[or Internet] Applications game. Yes, I knew about the Apollo Flash Player plans and followed the Dreamweaver/Ajax/Spry developments. But Open Laszlo has scored some very impressive wins with its Open Source Flash-based framework that can use Flash 7, […]
$64K Question ?
The $64,000 question is: Come January 1st 2007 how many PC vendors will be offering XP versus Vista and what will be the ratio of XP to Vista? This will be another “true test” of the effectiveness of the DOJ Antitrust Agreement with Microsoft. By the way, read this ZDnet FAQ on Vista and riddle […]
Ephraim Again: Microsoft is Toast
Ephraim Schwartz at InfoWorld appears to be positively cantankerous. First he was calling, like his InfoWorld colleague Tom Yager, the Microsoft-Novell agreement an exercise in creating FUD about the business viability of Linux (timed of course to coincide with the intro of Vista which is threatened by Linux as its much more cost effective alternative). […]
Vistas Vistas
Today I went to my favorite computer shop in Toronto – its a small, non-franchise place on Yonge just south of King in the heart of downtown. The reason I go here is that I usually have tough problems that the Sogo people have encountered and can solve. .. this time I needed a enclosure […]
Drupal Loses to Joomla … and Microsoft
Take a look at this screenshot encountered when running the Drupal install for the secure, standard Drupal 4.7.4. This is yours truly trying to track down a runtime error after a relatively simple but still somewhat tortured install process. For interested readers do the MySQL install and then the Drupal install and then tell me […]
Beware of Redmondians Bearing Gifts
This is the title of a piece by Ephraim Schwartz for his Infoworld column of November 21st. In it Ephraim describes how the recent deal with Novell “for interoperability” had a familiar ring to himself: – Aug. 6, 1997, at MacWorld – $150M and alliance with Apple – May 29, 2003, Microsoft and AOL Time […]
Ballmers Manifesto
Microsoft Vista is a watershed in the eyes of Redmond – it appears to be the point when Redmond can finally say, after 20 long years, they have dotted all the is and crossed all the ts in corporate IT ab”-ilities” for their Windows OS: scalability – declared a target in 1996s Scalability days, doable […]
Microsoft and Interoperability
The screenshot above is Microsofts view of Interoperability. To Redmond interoperability means we have the right of the Seigneur – the Lord of the Market. In effect, “Macht bilde Rechts”, Might has Rights, the right to pick and choose when to adhere to standards and when not to. So we choose not to allow Mozilla […]
Microsoft Watchers
There are a number of IT commentators and pundits that seem to agree with Keep an Open Eye about the true nature of the Microsoft Interoperability Putz … uhhh Push: Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Watch: About a year ago, I spoke with a Microsoft product manager about new interoperability efforts. Midway through the conversation, I […]
Microsofts Interoperability Push
Microsoft is on an Interoperability push. This campaign has been described by the New York Times as ” Microsoft’s latest effort to move from being a company that insists on the advantages of its own products to one that can adapt when customers use other companies’ goods.” The Times then went on to cite 3 […]
Office Live : Next Linux Attack Prong
Read this posting about Office Live from Infoworlds Oliver Rist and this other posting about Microsoft entering the domain name registration game. Microsoft appears to be opening up another front on Linux and LAMP. Linux is currently foiling Microsofts attempts to enter and dominate in the SMB-Small-Medium Business market with its 70%++ market share largely […]
Linux To Do List
It is really interesting to see what eWeek is doing right in the middle of its presentation on the new Microsoft Vista – it is offering a Dave Letterman-like Top Ten List on what Linux Should Do to get Bigger. Now why in the hell would eWeek do a thing like that ? Redmond surely […]
The Linux Debacle
Enterprise Linux is becoming unglued. This is because some major commercial players (read Oracle cutting in half the support for Linux Redhat – brought to you from India or China or both ??) and Microsoft (read an alliance made in the Hell that is the great name Novell going slowly under) have decided to attack […]
Loss of Trust
eWeek and Symantec are both reporting that eMail spam is reaching huge proportions in the last few month – greater than 75% of all email delivered on the Web in October. This is very debilitating for a number of reasons. First, it increases the opportunities for nasty and increasingly criminal-oriented malicious attacks – phishing, pharming […]
Security Rises to the Top
For the past 10 years one IT problem has been making a slow rise in the Top Ten Charts put out by IT Analysts and Advisory firms tracking IT Systems. Lo and behold lowly Security has risen from barely making the Top Ten 10 years ago. A decade ago Microsoft was just getting serious about […]
Screen Sharing Manifesto
Jon Udell has written another column that is spot on …. Simple, single-purpose screen sharing. Its all about trying to collaborate over the Web using screen sharing and collaborative conferencing software. You know the Adobe Breeze or Lotus Sameplace or Microsoft Net Meeting or Webex MeetMeNow or whatever. Somehow we just cant seem to share […]
The Race for SaaS Dominance
The race for SaaS dominance is getting hot and heavy. Jotspot has been acquired by Google which gives them a Wiki-like Office, calendaring, spreadsheet, planning collaboration platform based in AJAX and already using Google Maps and Search APIs. Salesforce.com has just announced its Apex language and developer workbench which will broaden its very successful AppExchange […]
Graphics are Serious
I am always on the alert for converging opinions – that is when two or more writers confirm independently that an area or topic of interest is truely worthy of “interest”. Such is the case for graphics. Four fairly independent sources have converged on the topic of graphics and how that field is becoming ever […]
Firefox 2.0
As promised I am updating readers on the penetration of Firefox alone on my two websites – the OpenSourcery.com and thePhotoFinishes.com. They have been averaging 1.2 million and 180k hits per month. And the the web analytics on browser usage show 20.1% and 22.2% are Firefox Gecko browsers. Now as in the past, my numbers […]
Database Giveaways
Ok who would have guessed that the Open Source movement would be embraced in this way – giving away your database for free by most of the major database vendors. Well MySQL started the trend and has been very successful at turning its 60% market hare in LAMP into very positive market share in the […]
Oracle Buys Sunopsis
There is a lot of dicussion among my financial friends of whether Oracle can digest all the application software vendors that it has purchased – and the jury is still out on that. The new Fusion middleware and its incorporation into the new Oracle App line-up is … well to be from Missouri – a […]
MySQL Mistake
MySQL is often accused of delivering the Redmond brew – Just Good Enough software. For a long time its database has lacked such enterprise features as Views, Triggers, Constraints, Stored Procedures, and basic Sub-queries. MySQL 4.x attacked the Views, Sub-queries and some of the Trigger/Constraints issues. The new MySQL 5.0 does a major fix up […]
Toshiba Laptop For $1000
Listen to this. I went to get my Toshiba laptop repaired. I had bought from Staples a 2 year extension to my warranty ,with promised 3 business day turnaround. I am halfway into the second year and battery life is down to 35 minutes, the charger suddenly drops, and now the computer drops dead too […]
Accessibility: Take 2
Tom Yager in the September 25th issue of Infoworld is arguing that accessibility should be the key measure of success for IT systems. And give credit where credit is due, Bill Gates and Microsoft rode the accessibility mandate to dominating positions on the desktop and contending position in several server software markets. The Redmond goal, […]
Accessibility: Take 2
Tom Yager in the September 25th issue of Infoworld is arguing that accessibility should be the key measure of success for IT systems. And give credit where credit is due, Bill Gates and Microsoft rode the accessibility mandate to dominating positions on the desktop and contending position in several server software markets. The Redmond goal, […]
End of Venture Capital Too
The September 4th issue of Infoworld has an enticing story entitled the “End of Venture capital ?”. The idea is that SaaS start-ups have tended to avoid the classic VC rounds of financing and have gone back to the HP garage model for idea to busness development. And of course the jade, fear and loathing […]
Accessibility as the Measure of IT
Tom Yager is arguing in his Infoworld column that accessibility should be the key measure of success for IT systems. But the key to this argument is what is defined by Accessibility. Lets listen in on what Tom has to say: “Accessibility is the measure of successful IT. On a macro scale, accessibility refers to […]
More Vista Re:Viewings
Well just as predicted, Information Week certainly helped open the logjam on candidness regarding Microsoft software. Oliver Rist in his coverage of the Vista RC1 candidate in Infoworld is borderline sarcastic as he asks rhetorically: “Are anticipatory chills running down your spine ? They shouldnt be.” And then Oliver describes the serious Installation (still not […]
Profit as Balm for Open Source
Neil McAllister in the September 4th issue of Infoworld is arguing that Open Source needs more than Eric Raymonds “opensource developers need to scratch their own itch” to make Open Source fully responsive to customers needs. And Neils solution is the profit motive. Neil cites the case of accessibility enhancements necessary in Open Office in […]
Attention Developers, Developers, Developers
I dont have to write this stuff – Redmond does it for me. So now attention Developers, Developers, Developers – here is how Microsoft may very well treat you if you are in a market Redmond wants to own – in this case Windows client and server security software. Now remember, McAfee, Symantec and dozens […]
AJAX Brewing
We have already covered how Sun is taking Java in some new directions. Java is going AJAX but also Basic – yes Basic as in Bill Gates Basic. But the fundamental land rush that is on in the developer community is to capture the AJAX Gold of Web 2.0 Midas Development potentate. In that regard […]
No More Microsoft to Kick Around
One of the reasons this column has been so tough on Microsoft is simply the fact that Redmond has been in the business of offering customers Chartreuse lowcut dresses. As my Kensington market shopkeeperess so eloquently describes them: “my buyer got us these lowcut dresses, unfortunately 2 dozen too many in chartreuse and spangles, so […]
Bell Canada:IT Integration Failures
I have been citing integration and interoperability as one of the primary goals of IT management. Any IT team whose company is involved in mergers, acquisitions, or divisional dissolution or consolidation know the problems of integrating systems in spades. But even large operational shops have many parallel systems. Take Bell Canada and its integration woes. […]
User as Sleuth
This is the title of a column by Jon Udell in Infoworld for August 28th, 2006. This article is definitely appropriate and can be appreciated by millions of end users and developers for that matter. We have been arguing in this weblog that debugging computer applications in the era of n-tier, heterogeneous,multi-platform systems has become […]
Java to Support More Languages ?
This is the headline in Darryl Tafts eWeek article about the latest trends in Java on page D6 of the August 14 , 2006 issue. Lets be clear – Java already supports a huge array of languages. There are three principle interfaces into Java: 1)the JNI API provides for low level hand off between Java […]
IBM: Software Powerhouse
15-20 years ago when IBM declared its intentions to become a software powerhouse with 40-50% of revenues to be derived from software sales this IT observer, along with a lot of others, said “I am from Missouri – show me”. And of course, we and the likes of Adobe in graphics, BEA in transaction processing, […]
Moores Law Revisited
Moore Law, that computing power will double in capacity for the same price every 18-24 months ,has been a rule of thumb that has lasted for close to fifty years. It has been the generator behind the Information Revolution sweeping through developed and under-developed economies. One of the problems with maintaining Moores Law increases in […]
More Services: Information Week Research
We have posited in our previous posting that the coverage of IT and computerization has become fragmented, specialized and barely able to deliver on the old trade press and medi/show models. More than ever before publications have to be agile about how to foster revenue/income streams, and how to do what they have been urging […]
Lost in Space: No Magazines to Guide me
I am literally lost in PC or electronic Bling Bling space – here there are no ready guides and postings to lead me along like there was for 20-25 years of the PC revolution. The same may also be happening in the IT world. What precepitated this reactions was the attempt to find info onlinking […]
Fotki and Java
All the photo world is abuzz about how AJAX has changed changed everything. Flickr started it and now just about every Web photo gallery site worth its salt is ofering various incarnations of AJAX/JavaScript powered pages that mimic desktop facilities but over the Web. Hence the talk that AJAX changes everything. Not Really The difference […]
Delicious Destruction: Pogues Review of Microsofts Ultra Mobile PC
NY Times David Pogue has a done a delicious review of Microsofts Ultra Mobile PC. It is delicious because by just presenting the evidence as Who, What, When, Where, and Why, the Ultra PC self destructs by sheer description alone. David barely has to add commentary. Okay, a Big Ooops and a few well placed […]