Even mobile karma is a bi…

Posted: 11:39 am
December 16, 2005
IT Business, Legal
4 Comments

Now I know you've heard that expression but the folks over at Microsoft Mobile are really saying it today. Research in Motion, the maker of a popular business communication brick Blackberry, has been in a patent lawsuit for a very long time allowing Microsoft to grow and become a serious contender in the mobile business communication. However, Microsoft was always criticized for having no push support for email or centralized security for its mobile devices. All that changed with the release of Exchange 2003 SP2 which integrated management interfaces for mobile security, management, push email and more. Now the only missing piece of the puzzle is the software that goes onto the Windows Mobile device called Microsoft Mobile Security and Feature Pack (MSFP) which enables the device to work with the Exchange server to establish a security poliy, push email and get wiped remotely. Microsoft released this piece to its OEM's (guys actually making the phone or handheld device) for testing and development in November and we were told to expect it in the first quarter of 2006. But yesterday a former Microsoft partner and an ISV decided to file a lawsuit contending that technology behind MSFP is covered by their patents. They put out this press release just days after RIM lost their patent fight. Ouch, talk about karma. Now this part made me laugh because it comes on the heels of the post I wrote just yesterday:

"For more than a decade, small, innovative companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere have lived in fear of the day Microsoft decides to enter their market," Bogosian said. "They are a big, powerful, wealthy company, but they have no real growth, even in their most profitable divisions. They want to show investors that they can sustain growth in a new, developing market, like mobile access to email and data, but they cannot be permitted to do that by misappropriating another company's intellectual property." "Innovative companies have been pummeled out of existence or into minor players after Microsoft decided to enter their markets," Bogosian added. "Netscape and RealNetworks are among the best known examples. Courts around the world have ruled time after time against Microsoft, saying that it has acted either inappropriately or in violation of the law, especially concerning how they have treated competing companies. We will not let that happen to Visto."

Now mind you, my article was written from a standpoint of a software publisher and a small business owner so my look was more on the changing face of software and big business competition. I think we all can learn and owe it to our companies to see the big picture and see how remarkably successful companies are trying to eliminate their competitors. Visto is on the receiving end of that equation, and really going after Microsoft on this one. So there is your business lesson for the day – either learn to compete and negotiate or CYA with patents and hope the lawyers you have will work on contingency basis. Good luck with the lawsuit boys, statistics are against you. And if someone has some spare cash to sue Microsoft could you please demand immediate release of MSFP? How you settle with Visto is between you and them, but I need to get my spam a lot faster than I do now. (No, I still don't have it, do not email asking for it..) Come on, someone go to Taiwan and crack the whip on HTC already!

SBS Show #10 – Vladless in Tuscaloosa & Kent

Posted: 1:39 am
December 16, 2005
SBS Show
2 Comments

The SBS Show #10 will be recorded at some point tomorrow but will be an interesting departure from the norm in that I will not be a part of it. Because I did not bring my headset Chris & Susanne will give this show a go on their own and bring you the latest SBS news you need to know. So you know the drill – if you have an SBS group meeting coming up or if you'd like an SBS take on something you saw in the news… ping Chris or Susanne and get them to chat about it.

How Google will end Microsoft desktop dominance

Posted: 10:04 am
December 15, 2005
IT Business, IT Culture
23 Comments

Title like that will surely bring in at least a dozen Microsoft emails, which is the norm anytime I bring up something that negatively impacts Microsoft. This time folks its not me — it's Google. The remainder of this article is written from a standpoint of an MCSE, Microsoft Partner, Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist and an ISV making some money off the Microsoft platform. Google's Aussie engineer Glen Murphy posted an insightful piece on his journey to Google and the atmosphere and people he works with today. If you read the article carefully you'll notice that there is a team of people at Google dedicated to working on a free web browser. In just five weeks upon his arrival the team he works on has immersed him in Firefox source and they managed to develop, approve, document and publish a stable extension to Firefox that allows for automatic blog comment retrieval of the page you are looking at. Similar to what Technorati search does, and similar to TheWorkingNetwork.com Stefan and Bob are working on at Microsoft. Find something interesting online, look at the status bar and see all the other bloggers comments on it. How is that for instant reputation and popularity indication? Quite similar to the project TheWorkingNetwork.com is up to but I have only met one human being that has heard of TheWorkingNetwork.com, while I had 16 messages in my inbox regarding this Google-Firefox plugin less than eight hours after its release. It's all about support, and doing as little of it as humanly possible. And therein lies the key to the end of Microsoft desktop dominance. No single vendor is capable of defeating Microsoft. No single body of standards, no government or continent can stop Microsoft from competing aggressively and pushing their agenda. I think they have realized that. Sorry IBM, cute commercials but I am not basing my applications on bloated middleware. Sorry Sun, here is your $2 billion, go die. Sorry Real Networks, even adult entertainment sites do not use your format anymore, and we all know that the adult entertainment industry only uses the best technology out there. Sorry Google, your search is nice but most of your traffic is still done on a Microsoft platform. I'm just handing out condolences today, I could go forever. But I'll stop here: Sorry Microsoft, but I think they've got it! I think that companies have finally realized that they alone cannot defeat Microsoft. So what they have started doing is putting their R&D resources behind popular open-source projects to bring them to the same feature level as Microsoft. Consumers love them, system administrators jump at the opportunity to use them, they are priced just right (free) and have huge networks of support. And support is key. By donating the code to the open and popular projects these companies drop off the liability, support and all the other hassle that gooes along with publishing software. IBM has lead the way in this, contributing both to Linux and to Apache in a very big way. There was a little bump in the road with SCO that many believe had a very nice backing by someone mentioned over and over in this article but the outcome was far from what they expected, I'm sure. It has lead to more corporate contributions into free software – operating systems, CRM, web browsers, web servers, office productivity software. Developers are creative creatures, every now and then they work on fun projects – so if company cannot make money by selling it, why not give it to some other popular project and gain a ton of goodwill? Well, it’s been going on for a while and lately in a very big way. IBM and Google are on the front lines of contributing code to projects that people are absolutely in love with. They are not stuck supporting them for 10+ years like Microsoft and I as an ISV know that my ability to compete with Microsoft in a software world is limited to Microsofts ignorance of my niche. Once Microsoft decides to move towards my audience, I'm dead. Same goes for Real, Intuit, IBM, Oracle, Google, Sony and any other company. Microsoft can outspend you, out-advertise you and even pretend to defeat you with an inferior product. So how do you fight it? So you want to kill Microsoft with a personal organizer? Killing it with a personal organizer, game console, crm or anything like that is like killing a dog by giving it a flea bath. Lets look at personal organizers, like Palm vs. Windows Mobile. These "me-too" Microsoft products have traditionally lost immense amounts of cash in hope of at least establishing presence in that sector. OVer time, they may become a dominant. Encourage third party vendors to support your software, sell devices with your productivity stuff on them while going deep into red. Now, why would a manufacturer back such an initiative with Microsoft? Because they know that there are only two Microsoft cash cows that will never go away: Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Those suites are where the Microsoft money is strongest at, and if your device plays with those you will have far better sales than if you back something that does not integrate with them well. Microsoft Pocket PC was a laughable proposition even a year ago because it required so many reboots and would require complete re-install if the battery ran down. Fast forward a few months to Windows Mobile 5 and its a dominant gadget on the market. Stable and people love it. The same way they love Firefox and Google. So if you're thinking about going up against Microsoft, using a PIM organizer approach may not be that brilliant of an idea. The key to destroying Microsoft is by attacking its cash cows (Windows, Office) and forcing it to defend its 90% market dominance without expanding into other segments. As the "desktop" becomes less and less prevalent platform and we move to the web (or web 2.0 if you like) the need for Microsoft Windows may not be that big. Can you tell a big difference between IE and Mozilla just by looking at how it renders a page? Not really. So if you do all your work on the web, who cares what is underneath it? It could be Linux. It could be OS X. If you're using only 5% of the features of your Office suite, is it worth $350 per seat to you? What if a free office suite (openoffice.org) were to provide your most used features along with the ability to view and edit Microsoft documents? Before you carve out the tombstone Now, sit back and look at your desktop. Are you running OpenOffice and Linux? According to the site stats for Vladville there is an 85% chance that you are not. Why not? Well, no reason to as of yet. So all things considered, it is up to Microsoft to shoot itself in the foot with what Vista and Office 12 bring to the table. Developers and ISV's are moving to the Web, as is Microsoft, so if Firefox and Google are more popular and moving in the same direction with free vs. Microsoft pricing, what will make you install Linux on your desktop? At this point, it’s really up to Microsoft to lose with how they roll out Vista. Just watch.

Why become a Microsoft Small Business Specialist

Posted: 12:51 am
December 15, 2005
Events, IT Culture
3 Comments

As mentioned earlier, Amy and I joined Eric Ligman for a quick chat about how we've been successful with SBSC. I got a number of questions (and congratulations) about the whole event so here is the quick braindump for those of you that could not follow my plugging. If you want to know about Microsoft incentives available to you as a small business specialist there are several places to look. First is Eric Ligman's blog covering SBSC for USA. Now if you would like to hold an event in a Microsoft truck there is the ability to reserve a multimedia bus and Chris Rue will tell you how to make the most out of it on over 8 posts on the subjects – with pictures and booth babes. If you want to know how Microsoft will invest money in your business to help you deploy Office, Windows, SBS and other Microsoft solutions you need to keep an eye on Microsoft incentives (http://www.microsoftincentives.com) and Mike Marshall, the tireless manager of TS2 that is the live Google of Microsoft incentives. Now once you've seen it all and you need to order, its time to check out the www.ms-gearup.com and check out the license configurator. But how do you get to this point? Well, you need to study. Beatrice and Harry will get you started, and the community will help you push through it. As a matter of fact, Magical M&M's host the smallbizserver.net forum where Beatrice and Harry are administrators of their very own SBSC chat board. So if you have a question, they will find someone to answer it. Business or technical. But more about the community. First of all, our pope, THE Susan Bradley is the #1 SBSC resource on the Internet, perhaps should be ranked above Microsoft partner site because she is honest. Look at her to give it to you right between the eyes. If you can handle that, go and find your own Susan Bradley in the local community – www.sbsgroups.com are a great resource of all the SBS user groups world-wide, so come out and hang out with us. We'll show you how to do SBS right. If you're in UK there is tremendous support, but if you're elsewhere and would still like the majestic voice of British parlament there is an alternative: SBS Show. As one of the SBS product managers said it the best: The SBS world is flat. It is. There are no boundaries in providing a solid product and service to the small to medium business customers. We are better and we help each other get better. Technically, financially….. So….sip on that koolade…. I mean, watch that webcast: http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2005/12/13/503299.aspx -Vlad in DC!

Exchange 12 Beta comes out

Posted: 12:28 am
December 15, 2005
E12
1 Comment

Okay, so I am out and about on the road up in DC but this didn't fall off the radar – Exchange team finally put out a press release announcing the features that will be included in E12. The good news is that they released all the features they promised at Barcelona IT summit a few months ago. I blogged about that event and even had some video on the demonstration of the new Outlook Voice Access and unified messaging. The bad news is that this press release comes short of everything coming with E12. I don't blame them, they are just PR monkeys that rephrase someone elses ideas but if you read the press release you'd be hard pressed to find anything that we do not have today or have been promised for a long time. More up-to-date IMF, stable antivirus API, bigger mail store, accessibility via mobile and secure mobile management, attachment filtering. All things you have (or should have) implemented already. The two lines that I find the most important are:

– A unified messaging system delivers voice mail and faxes to the Exchange inbox where, like e-mail, they can be accessed by Outlook, Outlook Web Access, mobile devices, and any phone through Outlook Voice Access with speech recognition. – A scriptable, command line shell saves IT administrators countless hours by allowing routine and repetitive tasks to be automated. Based on Windows® “Monad,” the code name for the next version of the Windows command shell, it includes capabilities above and beyond the Exchange System Manager.

Why are those interesting? Well for one they start the convergence of Outlook as the default communications medium. Currently Outlook "relies" on other hooks into LCS, MSN Messenger, etc to extend its functionality. Those "hooks" or plugins make Outlook slow and in some third-party add ons introduce instability. Providing these as a core offering will mean easier administration, easier management and security, and more flexible platform for collaboration. E12 is a long away from now… but if you are on a 10 year server plan, what do you do to get ready today? Order a DVD-R with your server and make sure its 64bit. Everything else can be figured out later and spend the extra $$$ on ram if you'd like to figure it out fast. P.S. Please stop emailing me asking for a copy of E12 beta.

Vlad “on the road again” and other rants

Posted: 1:31 am
December 14, 2005
Events, Misc, Web 2.0
7 Comments

Mega-rant ahead, thread lightly 🙂 Personal Schedule I'm boarding a plane to Washington DC in a few hours so I'm looking forward to meeting some SBSers up there. Sincerest apologies to my Florida SBS kinfolk, they all scheduled their meetings today and tomorrow so making it to any/all of them was impossible. Pimpin' aint EZ I was very honored to be invited as a guest on Eric Ligman's Small Business Specialist Talk Session webcast. Amy Luby and I had a great time and the recorded webcast is available here so check it out. This was a business-style webcast giving partners an idea the kind of success they can realize from the Small Business Specialist designation. Sorry about the voice quality. Thanks for the lovely sentiments, but no, the mic was not in my mouth. And its not LiveMeeting's fault, when you have all sorts of inputs, different headsets, etc.. it is impossible to level things out. We try to at the SBS Show but it takes so much time and effort that I frankly hope Eric Ligman can spend elsewhere. Besides, this is why we have added Susanne Dansey to our lineup, so we can have some sophistication to our show. We are in final stages of integrating some classical music behind her voice in an effort to sound more like NPR 🙂 Regarding the other comments – yes, I am shameless. I plugged no less than 10 sites during Eric's webcast not only because I'm the SBS pimp but because I believe you NEED to be informed and take advantage of every opportunity. You should know what Microsoft is offering in the way of incentives, what the customer is thinking from Susan Bradley, what the partner in USA is doing, what a partner in UK is doing, who can train you to do it, who can help you with day-to-day, etc. It is NOT easy, this is a profession people. But as to my pimp skills:

Subject: Holler at a player Heard the webcast. Two notes: 1) Step back from the mic. Just because you're in Orlando and he is in Redmond doesn't require you to yell loud enough so he can hear you over the air. Thats why you have a phone! 2) With skills like that you should blow off Google's offer. Move to Las Vegas instead and work the strip for the strippers. Those Mexicans don't have anything on you.

I have wonderful friends, don't I? SBS Show & Depth This kind of started on the feedback forums of the SBS Show #8 announcement regarding how deep we went into the patch management stuff. Philip is a good friend and I don't take his comments as criticism but I'm sure many others are wondering the very same thing so I'll come out and say it yet again. We're an SBS Show. It is about entertainment and about information for those of you that are not 100% technical. If you're in SBS and you are 100% technical you are not going to be very successful because SBS by its nature is more about business than it is about technology. With the exception of perhaps BizTalk, there is no other Microsoft product where you need to be more in tune with the customers business needs than anything else to create an effective deployment that works for your customer. If you're just a wizard jockey thats not good either but you have to have a mix of two. I've spent years supporting Microsoft platforms and meeting partners through many Microsoft roadshows and I can feel the 2×4 coming right behind me – We are NOWHERE NEAR the technical competency we ought to be in the SBS land. How many of you backup? How many of you have a patch strategy? How many of you can honestly sit down and say that you've done everything that you possibly can to secure and assure smooth business operation of SBS? If you're saying "thats me" then tell me how many of your partners and coleagues are not. This is what I looked at for years. Chris and I talked about this at great length and our conversations in private are nothing like those you hear on the SBS Show. We are both MCSE's and CCNA's and we can make you tune out of the SBS Show in a split second if we actually talk about what we do. What you can't hear during the SBS Show is the first 30 minutes of the recording we did with Susan where we kept on back-tracking trying to get her to dumb it down (a lot) because that is not the objective of the SBS Show. So what is? The purpose of the SBS Show is to educate and inform the largest portion of SBS admin users, IT professionals and owners. Most of us are not Small Business Specialists. Most of us don't have IMF or Exchange configured correctly. Most of us have heard of WSUS but do not have it implemented. Most of us consider off-site backups, disaster recovery and business continuity very important things…. but most of us do not practice it. The goal of the SBS Show therefore is to give you an hour or so and get you going immediately. Whatever excuse you have for not doing what we're talking about should be something you can do right after you listen to our show. You're busy, I get it, but you're not going to get less busy with more and more software and customers to support. If you're really technical there is the Inside SBS show by Mark Stanfill. Their show is awesome, it is like a 200-300 level Technet webcast except geared at SBS. Done not by marketing and Death-by-Powerpoint crew but by the people that live and support SBS. One day when we've covered all the essentials we will get more technical, but I know my SBSers. What is the point of explaining group policy, propagation and insides of WSUS if you haven't even installed it? If you're that advanced you're in great hands with Mark, trust me. But I know that most of you are not and Chris, Susanne and I will keep the light on for you. Thats my promise. There are several things I am really good at. Really really good at. At everything else I'm a hack at best. Every now and then I need a solid kick in the ass and I want someone to explain the very basics and once I understand the theory and execution I can figure out the syntax and all the details. Thats what SBS Show is – a giant kick in your ass to get started managing SBS and Small Business IT the right way. I will leave the rest of the commentary to Mr. Chris Rue and my right and honorable friend Susanne Dansey. Orlando IT Pro Still coming off the high from last weeks SQL 2005 Launch. Wow, what an event. Culminis really hooked us up big time, I am writing a little report explain just how/what we did. But going forward, we do have a meeting next week, Thursday, Dec 22, 2005. We will have a massive braindump event going over all the things you can use to manage the Windows Server network better. We'll review the new Windows Server R2, Exchange SP2, MOM, WSUS, baselining, BCM on the server, etc. Basically we'll take turns talking about what we use and how we use it so leave the laptop at home for this one and be ready to share.

Patch Tuesday and other critical matters

Posted: 1:12 am
December 14, 2005
Security
1 Comment

Yup, its the second Tuesday of the month or affectionately called "Microsoft Patchday" and I've been a little swamped so if this is "news" to you it might already be a little too late. Hope you're not one of my fans that browse this site from a server using IE – critical security patch is available but you've got bigger problems than that. Hit up the patches, one way or the other this stuff has to be updated – WU, MU or WSUS, pick your poison and plow through it. And if you want to be better at it please take an hour or so and listen to Susan Bradley patching audio tape. It is the best way to get started doing this. MS05-054: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (905915) Rated: CRITICAL http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS05-054.mspx MS05-055: Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (908523) Rated: IMPORTANT http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS05-055.mspx Other non security patches released today: Update for Windows XP (KB910437) Install this update to prevent or resolve an issue in which Windows Update and Automatic Updates can no longer download updates after an Access Violation error occurs when using the Automatic Updates service. Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB910437) Install this update to prevent or resolve an issue in which Windows Update and Automatic Updates can no longer download updates after an Access Violation error occurs when using the Automatic Updates service. Update for Windows XP (KB908521) Install this update to resolve various issues that can occur when you use remote procedure call (RPC) for client/server communication in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows XP. Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB908521) Install this update to resolve various issues that can occur when you use remote procedure call (RPC) for client/server communication in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows XP. Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB896427) Install this update to resolve an issue in which you cannot view the contents of a subfolder on a network share. This issue becomes apparent after you install Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-011: Security Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB885250). Update for Windows XP (KB835409) Install this update on Windows XP Service Pack 1 systems to resolve an issue where System Restore may not work correctly or certain services may not function properly after using System Restore on SP1. Updated Malicious Software Removal Tool http://support.microsoft.com/?id=890830

SBS Show #8: Patch Management with Susan Bradley

Posted: 11:52 pm
December 12, 2005
SBS Show
10 Comments

After two weeks in production we're proud to present SBS Show #8 with Susan Bradley, MVP. We tried very, very, very hard to dumb her down and present patching and patch management to the magic "150" level where you're not being ridiculed but also not so over your head that you can't implement her advice. This is the show you pass on to your clients, to your boss, to every single person running Windows. I know there are more people out there like my dad, that see that yellow box and ask me 6 months later whether they should install it. This is the show for them. … and a show for you, the IT consultant. If you've ever seen Susan's blog (http://www.msmvps.com/bradley/) she is big on running things correctly and we've pressed her to explain everything – from patching to security to how she puts together Sam the Server posts. Professional, business and personal – this show has it all. In about a week when we clear out the rss/podcast traffic I will post the show in 128bit quality instead of the "royal flush gang" quality of 40bit. So what are you waiting for? Download SBS Show #8 (Runtime: 1:23:23) http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/sbsshow-episode8.mp3 Subscribe to SBS Show http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/podcast.xml Subscribe to SBS Weekly http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/sbsweekly.xml Susan's links to more info on Patch Management: WSUS, MU and WU oh my (ppt) Microsoft Security Response Center Blog Technet Security Bulletin Center Windows Server Update Services How to do WSUS on SBS Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) .. and if thats not enough, Susan Bradley also writes patch management articles for Windows Secrets.

Learn to opeR2ate a computer!

Posted: 10:58 am
December 12, 2005
System Admin
4 Comments

To all my international friends: I'm sorry if you didn't get the title. In USA there is this annoying and patronizing commercial for Video Professor, which is basically a collection of video's and how-to's to get you started operating your computer and are a big joke among IT professionals (it is a gift you give to an admin that just has no clue whatsoever) But the new guides from Microsoft are no joke, even though they employ the same process. You can download these directly from Microsoft and enjoy a few minutes presenting each topic in a "blogcast" format. Basically its a podcast with embedded video and it gives you a demonstration of a few tasks for each technology. The amount of content is huge and if you've never seen these.. they are similar to recorded webcasts except there is no Q&A, it is just a very hands-off, to the point presentation. Check a few out on your own. Here are a few just to give you a taste: # ADD-50 Demo 2: Windows Server 2003 R2 Active Directory Federation Services Claims-Aware Identity Federation # ADD-51 Demo 2: Storage Manager for SANs # ADD-53: Identity Management in Windows Server 2003 R2 Active Directory Federation Services # MGT-22: MOM 2005 – Microsoft Management Packs # EXC-06: Exchange Performance Tuning Download blogcasts.

TS2 content announced for next few months

Posted: 7:09 pm
December 11, 2005
Events
5 Comments

Indy has published the content that will be discussed over the next few months during the TS2 events. If you've never been to one, these are roadshows put together by Microsoft to help you understand Microsoft sales strategies for small business IT consultants. So if you fall in that group, or if you have anything to do with selling Microsoft (whether to the customer or your boss) – you should sign up for one – it free. Here is where you can find more info on TS2. So what are they talking about from January to March?: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, Shared PC Toolkit, and Enhanced Windows Mobilility with Exchange SP2. This will of course be in addition to all the other small business IT shop concenrs: Action Pack, Small Business Specialist, etc. … and on a personal note to those that will ask: "Vlad, should I go?" The answer to that question is almost universally yes if you are in the small business IT segment. I have not made my sentiments towards CRM a big secret, its bloated and overpriced waste of everyones time but Microsoft is betting on it big time. So with the exception of that (which is pretty much an opportunity to cash in your popcorn/coke cupon) it should be a great use of your time. Sign up as soon as it becomes available near you.