Bad Windows

Everyone in the Linux world remembers Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s famous comment that Linux is a “cancer” that threatened Microsoft’s intellectual property.

Ballmer is still CEO of Microsoft, but that comment occurred in 2001, a lifetime ago in the technology market. While Microsoft hasn’t formally rescinded its declaration that Linux violates its patents, at least one Microsoft executive admits that the company’s earlier battle stance was a mistake. Microsoft wants the world to understand, whatever its issues with Linux, it no longer has any gripe toward open source.
In 2010 Microsoft is trying hard not to be public enemy No. 1 to open source proponents, in some cases by making key contributions to open source code and in other cases by making Microsoft products interoperable with open source software.

Read more at NetworkWorld

What keeps Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer up at night? A few years ago, the answer likely involved Linux, Red Hat, MySQL and other disruptive open source upstarts. Now fast forward to this year’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC10), and there’s nary a mention of open source here at the event. Why’s that? Three answers: Google, VMware and the cloud. Here’s some perspective from The VAR Guy.

Earlier this evening, The VAR Guy attended a briefing about Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 14, a forthcoming upgrade to Microsoft’s unified communications platform. During a panel discussion, six Microsoft partners essentially dismissed competitive threats from Asterisk — the open source IP PBX. The reason: The partners claim Microsoft’s API (Application Programming Interface) and software development tools for OCS 14 easily beat alternatives in the Asterisk market.

Read more at The VAR Guy

Microsoft COO Kevin Turner this morning took aggressive shots at Apple, Oracle, Linux, VMware and Google — even painting Google as a Big Brother-type company that tries to say they’re not evil in their mission statement. During a keynote at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010 (WPC10), Turner described how Microsoft’s mobile, desktop and cloud strategy will allow the software giant to beat back top competitors. Turner also described market share gains against Apple, VMware and Google. Here’s a recap.

Turner attempted to provide a reality check on multiple competitive fronts. Among the highlights:

Read more at The VAR Guy

Microsoft has signed a deal to open its Windows 7 source code up to the Russian intelligence services.

Russian publication Vedomosti reported on Wednesday that Microsoft had also given the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) access to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server source code, with hopes of improving Microsoft sales to the Russian state.

The agreement will allow state bodies to study the source code and develop cryptography for the Microsoft products through the Science-Technical Centre ‘Atlas’, a government body controlled by the Ministry of Communications and Press, according to Vedomosti.

Microsoft Russia president Nikolai Pryanishnikov told Vedomosti that employees of Atlas and the FSB will be able to share conclusions about Microsoft products.

Read more at ZDNet

U.K. government staff suggested replacing Microsoft Corp. operating systems on computers with free alternatives in response to a call for ideas for Prime Minister David Cameron’s cost-cutting drive.

Cameron asked the 600,000 government workers last month to make suggestions on saving money as his administration seeks to cut Britain’s record budget deficit. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne today published a sample of the 56,000 submitted ideas, which including abandoning Microsoft, switching office lights off and centralizing stationery procurement.

Read more at BusinessWeek

Once again, Microsoft has a product that failed miserably. The Microsoft phone “KIN” has already been pulled from the US market, and will not be making its European launch as had been planned. The reality here is that Microsoft’s only money maker is Office. Windows sells well only because of its being pre-installed on most PCs. Linux would likely do just as well were MS Office available for it. Likewise, if people did some research and found out that iWork and MS Office were available on Macintosh machines, I am willing to bet that Mac sales would escalate even higher. This isn’t the first Microsoft product to fall flat on its face (the KIN sold, by some reports, only 500 devices).

Read more at Eleven is louder

As Windows 7 sales kick into high gear and Microsoft begins work on Windows 8, it’s no surprise that the software giant is starting to retire many of its older operating systems. In fact, Microsoft will end support for quite a few Windows releases within days. Here’s the death, er, retirement watch…

July 13th, 2010 is the day you can way goodbye to extended support of Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000 Professional SP4 and Windows 2000 Server SP4. If for some reason, you’re running Windows Vista RTM for some reason, “mainstream” support of that OS will drop as well (though you’ll still apparently be eligible for security updates.)

Read more at The VAR Guy

Love him or hate him, Bill Gates was, and still is, the face of Microsoft. What Microsoft doesn’t want you to know though is that Gates has almost nothing to do with the company anymore.

That’s what comes across loud and clear in the recent Fortune overview of the world’s richest man. Instead of plotting out how to knock Apple back into the dirt or how to put Google in its place, Gates spends his days on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stopping by the laboratories of Intellectual Ventures to talk blue-sky ideas every few weeks with Nathan Myhrvold, and dropping off or picking up his three kids from school.

Read more at IT World

The VAR Guy saw this coming. On June 10, The VAR Guy was first to report Dell considered Ubuntu Linux safer than Windows. But now, Dell has apparently updated its web site to remove/alter that statement. Linux conspiracy theorists think Microsoft pressured Dell to make the change. Is that really the case?

Frankly, The VAR Guy doesn’t know for sure. Our resident blogger has requests for comment out to Dell, Microsoft and Canonical — promoter of Ubuntu Linux.

Read more at The VAR Guy

Microsoft has announced its online Office web applications but are they really going to give Google a run for its money?

Microsoft recently announced its Office Web Apps, a collection of browser-based applications that provide some, if not all, of the features of its popular Office suite. The web-based applications are available at this point to US- and UK-based users and require that the user has a Windows Live account.

Microsoft’s web-based Office strategy has hardly been a secret but it has been a long time in the coming. Competing online applications such as GoogleDocs and Zoho Office have been available for close on four years now (GoogleDocs launched in October 2006) and in that time have been gaining ground.

Read more at MyBroadband