Finally, something realistic

Posted: 7:39 am
July 24, 2008
Microsoft
5 Comments

As of late the word out of Microsoft has been nothing short of idiotic fanboyism: Don’t look at others, we’re changing the world man!!! So it’s nice to see some realistic stuff come out from Microsoft that actually addresses the concerns – by the head cheese himself. You can read the whole note in its entirety here.

Some notable excerpts:

· Windows: The success of Windows is our number one job. With SP1 and the work we’ve done with PC manufacturers and our software ecosystem, we’ve addressed device and application compatibility issues in Windows Vista. Now it’s time to tell our story. In the weeks ahead, we’ll launch a campaign to address any lingering doubts our customers may have about Windows Vista. And later this year, you’ll see a more comprehensive effort to redefine the meaning and value of Windows for our customers.

For what it’s worth, lingering doubts is a little soft. People hate Vista and Office 2007 enough to ask for illegal or old copies of XP/2003 or abandon your entire platform and application to head over to a Mac.

Apple: In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We’ll do the same with phones—providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.

It’s nice to see that they actually recognize this now. For years Microsoft’s stance was: “Apple is not really our competition. IBM is.”

I’d like to propose something here. Take the $300 million and take $150 out of it and go by a webcam. Record Steve saying that out loud. Seriously. Add a soft voiceover: “Mac. Great for indulgent douchebags and toddlers that think the computing world revolves around myspace. For the other 97%, come take a look at Windows.” Invest the remaining money in the “Vista: Sunk Ship” campaign you were going to go with.

Seriously, how is it that a guy that runs f’n Microsoft can put together the reality of the business computing so eloquently in one paragraph but nobody thinks to run with the message on the actual facts?

Looking ahead, I see an incredibly bright future for our company. As I said at the June 27th Town Hall for Bill, we are the best in the world at doing software and nobody should be confused about this.

Nobody arguing that. We just wish that was what Microsoft focused on again.

You cannot be all things to all people. Or you turn into a Walmart. I for one think Microsoft is better than a Walmart, I hope Steve realizes that and figures it out before they lose even more ground. That’s the big Microsoft problem – it’s trying to be everything to everyone and everywhere all the while it’s competitors are getting better and better.

Oh, and for some Dilbert levity, kudos for the PHB quote:

5. Focus on employee excellence.

Howard Cunningham vs. Monkey: Round 2

Posted: 3:53 pm
July 23, 2008
Shockey Monkey
4 Comments

Most of you remember the Howard Cunningham feature in Shockey Monkey. Howard is a good friend from DC (Macro LLC) and always full of great ideas about the time value of money and getting the most out of your monkeys.

Last year at the Microsoft WPC keynote by Kevin Turner, or as will now go down in infamy as the “infrastructure flush heard around the world”, it became clear that for OWN to compete in the new world we need to be better, quicker and more standardized than the other guys chasing ads.

That means as a service company, we had to adopt ITIL and really drive down how we define the process of service delivery (you can read about that in my book). But I’m not just writing it to make Karl rich, it really is a blueprint to a service delivery model that you’re going to have to play by or go extinct.

When I looked at how we go from where we were, to where we need to be, I knew that my biggest value is in the time my people spend to render services. We needed something spectacular, quick and as fast as we are. We need to be as responsive to situations as IM. So here is what you know so far:

Nice inline components that slide in and out of view when they are needed. No screen clutter, no massive refreshes, no popup windows, no wasted resource anywhere.

quick1 

But then we throw Howard Cunninham into it.

Every ticket listing has an AJAX info bubble which you can roll over to see the last few updates. The rows get highlighted when they are updated between your page refreshes, and we can quickly act on them by previewing and tagging them.

Nothing like taking less than 5 seconds to review 3 tickets.

quick2

But let’s say that a support request update is something quick.

Something simple. Like “Did you reboot?”, “Whats the password”, “Have you tried this?”

quick3

Should a user be forced to load up an entire new page with all the assemblies, control panels and a page with more options than what they use to launch the f’n shuttle into the space?

What if it’s just a oneliner update, that shouldn’t use up extra resources, shouldn’t take up more bandwidth, should just be on demand and quick?

quick4

You’ve quessed it. Hit the Q for Howard Cunningham Quick Update!

Type in your update:

quick5

Quick options to make the support request update not send more email, not show up in the customer view or even close it out completely.

Update ticket. Done.

We can do this all day, no time wasted, no resources wasted. I feel like my computer has a little stroke every time I touch Outlook – now I don’t have to rely on Outlook. Heck, I don’t even have to rely on a computer, I can do this from the back of a data center, from a Kiosk, from an iPhone.

But don’t you worry about… No, I got AuthAnvil integrated baby. Oh, you give your customers Administrator password to a bucket of indians not even fit to work for PSS phone shields?

That is my differentiating factor. Enterprise software, enterprise infrastructure, talented staff in the new world and not a pile of monkeys with some degenerate CRM doing the needful and learning English one kb guess at a time. The world is changing, this is what I’m doing to remain on the top.

Consolidate yourself out of business… or Take the red pill, stay in wonderland, and I’ll show you how deep the monkey hole goes.

Where do you want to go today?

screwed.me

Posted: 10:14 am
July 23, 2008
Apple, Microsoft
5 Comments

Apple has been making some noise lately with the new iPhone 3G. While I’m a die hard keyboard fan, I rarely talk on my cell phone but carry around my iPod Touch everywhere and its easily my favorite gadget. Why? It works with my business stuff and it lets me enjoy the nice part of this business – the friends.

So last night I checked the Apple iPhone inventory and they had iPhone in stock. I showed up at about 8:20 am this morning and got into a line. Don’t get me wrong, I live in Disney World and standing in a line for 90 minutes for 45 seconds of fun is just a part of the magic.

I stood there and typed a long email to Howard and by the time I looked up nearly 30 minutes had passed and nobody had walked out the store. Finally, one person out with his iPhone 3G. I was not about to wait and figure out how long the 100 people would take to get through the line.

Just how hard did Apple and AT&T work to screw their customers? It’s pretty amazing, and intentional, to force people through the in store process and not rely on the online system that was used in the original iPhone launch. Is the iPhone that special that over a week after the launch they cannot properly stock and distribute the iPhone? Not really, they just don’t want to. They know that people standing in the lines are there just chomping at the bits to get the iPhone, so why not take the opportunity to make you stare and play with the entire Apple assortment of solutions while their 16 year old “geniuses” learn how to type.

Needless to say I left, but you know who I feel bad for? Microsoft. How demoralizing must it be to work there and see their competitor bash them in the press and television, come out with crippled services, uber-closed devices matched with extensive inability to meet the demand for both the hardware and software (Google for Mobile Me woes). You break your back working on Windows Mobile, team up with companies to build hundreds of solutions and offer variety and choice – just for the clients to vote with their feet away from you, away from your solution and away from your partners.

As tough as this may be for Microsoft, it’s an inspirational event for the rest of us. If you design a killer product that people want, they will take the abuse and tolerate problems because only you have what fits their needs.

As an entrepreneur, it is a pleasure to see that a giant multi-billion behemoth is unable to compete when customer is king.

WHS P-P-Preview

Posted: 2:05 am
July 22, 2008
Windows Home Server
4 Comments

Ok, so this looks like a major step in the right direction with the remote web workplace enhancements. It has a new Views filter that rather quickly renders picture thumbnails.

The Good

whsremote

Yes, something for the ladies there.

One interesting (or annoying, depending on how you work) part is that only filenames are clickable, clicking on the icons themselves does not open them. However, clicking on them does select them, so conceivably with the large amount of images you won’t have to strain your fingers to select a bunch of files on the page.

There is also a built in Search functionality, which actually seems to work rather well.

kiki

(btw, whoever owns this code, you should validate your inputs. Hitting Search on an empty search input field still pushes you forward to the results page even though you didn’t search for anything, making me wonder what else isn’t being validated)

I’ll give it an A on the picture management side, could have used a streaming screen saver or a slideshow function.

The Bad

The Video side of the home isn’t quite as well put together. There are no video previews or image snapshots. There also seems to be no option for the ability to stream files from the server, it’s very much a download and play type of an affair. Downloading multiple files gives me an option to download them as a self extracting executable or a compressed zip file, which doesn’t really do much in the way of media usability. No ability to create a playlist, which I am sure won’t go far with my audience that spends half their day on freeones downloading 15 second previews of larger movies and would like them streamed down from the home server.

The Ugly

The remote desktop access is too whiny. Four prompts after hitting Connect to your Home Server link, ending in a long bunch of text and techie jargon that no regular home user would understand (in order to RDP to the server you must add it to your Internet Explorer trusted zone) or follow. Pass, back to logmein.com.

Not much new to report on the Home Server console. I think this is the biggest fail for WHS, given that the PP has been under development for as long as WHS has been on sale. The Addins section is Microsoft’s opportunity to create an “App Store” like experience for its users and a way to promote its developers. Yet there is seemingly no way to add or search for addins from this screen. There is the general “Jr. Server Admin” rookie link leading to a chm that no home user would ever explore but no link to the web site to obtain them. The Live Search (hey, it’s default on the box) doesn’t show a Microsoft addin download site in first two pages of search results (“whs add-ins”) and the chm also fails to list where to download them. It does however list the worlds most unfriendly TechNet style process for installing an addin, with two more steps than it would take you to recover from an alcohol addiction. This is a Home server, right?

fail

Finally, the client console software autoupdate still fails. It sends the user to download a Troubleshooting package or to call Product Support.

All in All

Microsoft’s big problem with this solution is the apparent lack of fit and design – if it’s a server appliance it requires far too much server management experience (reading, downloading software, deploying it, reading chm files). It is not very user friendly, it doesn’t seem to update properly, it requires far too much effort to discover and install add-ins to extend it’s functionality. If it’s a home NAS solution it hides far too much of its power. If it’s just a Microsoft mee-too for the consumer NAS market then it really fails in usability and user friendliness when compared to the solutions 1/4 its cost.

If you paid $500 for 500GB and the above features, would you be wowed? Consider that for half the cost you could have this. Given the amount of time PP spent in development I’m not sure what level of hope there can be in a v2 of this.

Windows Home Server PP1 steps out of the closet

Posted: 4:24 pm
July 21, 2008
Windows Home Server
1 Comment

Windows Homo Server Pride Pack 1 has stepped out of the closet. Or Windows Hell Server Porn Protection is out. All relative to how low your morals are I suppose. There will not come a day on which you will convince me that there isn’t some dirty mind inside the bowels of Microsoft coming up with the most inappropriate acronyms to push this running joke of “So what do we call it?” that is WHS naming.

What’s in the pride pack? 64bit Vista backups. Enhanced remote access.

Either way, enough to make me dust off the unplugged WHS and check out what’s new.

Bzzt. Are you sure you want to be that stupid?

Posted: 7:36 pm
July 20, 2008
Shockey Monkey
4 Comments

Ever wonder what happens at intersection of stupidity and far too much spare time?

People always ask me why I named the product Shockey Monkey. To some the title is downright offensive! Truth is, over the course of the workday people forget to read and need to be shocked back into the correct behavior. When I decided to write Shockey Monkey I didn’t just need a tool to streamline operations, I needed a system that fixed stupid with every fiber of its being.

I have a dream.. brothers and sisters.. that one day my staff will read the screen and not need me to sit around and manage them. Until that day, bzzzzt.

So what’s the general problem we have when working on tickets in an unmanaged scenario? We often ask who is working on the ticket. During the day as requests are coming in fast and furious and people are running back and forth across multiple offices/shifts it’s hard for one person to manage the entire operation. In my mind, the support team should work as a “team” and tag the requests as they go along.

That way, you know who is working on what and you don’t double up the effort.

So, welcome the Tag feature to Shockey Monkey. Right on the update ticket header you will see a new Checkbox, AJAX enabled and all. Just hit it if you want to tag the support request or start typing in the box below and it will automatically do it for you!

bzzt1

Here is what it looks like after the support request gets tagged.

bzzt2

Now, let’s say you’re opening a support request, how do you know if anyone is working on it? Well, if the Tag checkbox is there, you’re the first one with the right to take a crack at it. If it’s tagged by someone else you will see the warning, in this case red Alert: Tagged by Vlad Mazek.

bzzt3

This is where the bzzt shock really comes into Shockey Monkey. Let’s say you aren’t reading the screen. The moment you click on the textarea to try and update the support request the giant hand of Vlad reaches down from the sky with a tazer in one hand and shocks you into reading the screen.

bzzt4

Bzzt! You’ve been shocked!

I had even thought of adding a disable string to the action chain but decided against it in case the tag was made by someone who just left for the day or had something far more urgent come up.

Now you may ask…

But Vlad, why not just take away the ability to update the ticket if someone else tagged it?

You don’t work with people, do you?

Here is what happens when you take people’s ability to do something: They keep on clicking on it, refreshing the page, checking the battery in their keyboard, adjusting the wireless keyboard sensor.. everything but reading the damn screen. They might even open up Communicator or email/call and ask about it and then I’d have to rip their f’n head off and beat them to the point that they can only move their hand around enough to read braile encoding that says why don’t you read the f’n screen you idiot politely explain to them how the “tag” feature works.

So Karl, yes you can hire the right people. Yes, you can develop the standard for your people to follow. But if you don’t have a taser to enforce the standards and practices in realtime and fall back to personally standing over their shoulder or obsessively beating down monkeys only after they have made a mistake, buddy, you’re going to run out of people.

Karl’s process and Vlad’s adaptive learning… the new era in IT monkey accountability. Tag it before you work it. Read or be shocked.

Adventures in Packing, Minifying, gzipping and iPhoning

Posted: 12:15 pm
July 20, 2008
Shockey Monkey
4 Comments

I have a few days to kill before we officially start selling Shockey Monkey v2 (waiting on Windows Mobile application to be completely bugless) and I figured I’d sit down and work on Shockey Monkey performance a little.

Good news. No page under Shockey Monkey requires more than 1 second to render, with most actually rendered in under 0.3 seconds.

The network utilization is a whole different story unfortunately. You see, all the pretty AJAX interface and usability functionality comes at a cost. Roughly 400 Kb worth of uncompressed Javascript type of a cost. To give you an idea of why this is a problem: imagine refreshing the support request display give times. You would have downloaded 2 Mb worth of Javascript. Not good at all.

So one of my tasks this weekend was to figure out a way to reduce that burden. The first problem was that of multiple requests. Between my own and third party Javascript I had eight Javascript files, meaning eight requests to the web server. Since IE and Firefox only use a maximum of two requests to the server this meant that the browser would request, load, request, load, request, load… and make you pull your hair as you watched the loading bar bounce around.

I first started with trying to combine my Javascript on the fly which resulted in a learning experience that packed Javascript code cannot be combined. FMR.

I finally ended up uncompressing all of my Javascript and minifying it in a single Javascript file. Here is the before:

packitup

Notice it took nearly a second for the combined request to pull down all my Javascript files. But with minification and a single script:

afterminify

Notice that after minification and consolidation the Javascript library has gone from over 400 uncompressed, to 340 compressed, down to 142 compressed and minified! The total download and render time from nearly a second down to 1/5th of a second! If I put my marketing hat on, that’s 500% improvement!

So a page with 168 support requests, live code and effects including autocomplete and all the other good stuff is yours in 2.38 seconds.

I have two items remaining in the to do list. First, enable gzip compression on the server even more. Second, find out why Javascript is not being cached. Currently I am trying to cache Javascript code at 1 month:

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript “access plus 1 month”
</IfModule>

But not making it very far with that one, yes the module is loaded and available.

As far as the iPhone is concerned – app works flawlessly over Safari even the visual effects are all there. As for release, any day now folks…

Between a rock and a cloud place

Posted: 3:49 pm
July 18, 2008
Microsoft
3 Comments

It’s Friday… time for something lighter.

There comes a time in every businesses lifecycle when it has to realize that it has been surpassed. That is the challenge of running a technology company. You try to lead and run with one leg but the other leg is dragging you back with all your relationships, legal woes, criminal behavior and the blood of enemies. In such times you have to figure out what is the best thing for you to do. Stand still and make the best out of your circumstances or try to run and hope that nobody digs too deep and sees beyond the marketing.

Earlier today Sarah and I chatted for quite some time about the challenges Microsoft sees today in the marketplace. Sarah was on SBS Show #20 (hey, we should do one of those together again!) and has a very popular blog, is a writer for RWW.. she is by no means perfect: she carries a Blackberry and is a huge fan of Mesh. And as some of you are aware, my opinion of Mesh is:

Microsoft Mess: Translucent blue theme for FolderShare combined with a rather crippled version of logmein.com functionality, sprinkled with missing features, beta tags and overall admission by Microsoft that it cannot compete in Web 2.0

Sarah feels that this is a double standard.

Of course it is!

I don’t know about you, but I tend to hold a $60 billion a year software company to a higher standard than a Silicon Valley startup with three dudes and a gfx d00d in the basement. But that’s just me.

Is it fair that people distrust Microsoft while completely falling head first in love with everything that Google does? Of course it isn’t fair, people should not be distrusted just because they are convicted felons with lawsuits over anticompetitive behavior across every continent except Antartica.

Is it fair that Microsoft is being slammed for their S+S move and going more direct? Of course it isn’t fair, but the people complaining are the ones that played a major part of that $60 billion dollar a year business.

So what can Microsoft do?

That advice is going to cost a few million dollars.

But I’ll tell you how Microsoft is going to continue to fail in its efforts until it can look in the mirror.

Microsoft wants to compete in the new world with the old tools.

It wants to find friends in the new places but it’s new friends don’t want to hang out with its partner base.

That’s the darn truth.

Microsoft wants to be relevant in the Web 2.0 world but it wants to bring over all the baggage of its current tools and systems that the Web 2.0 generation rejects.

Microsoft wants to compete with Gmail with Exchange. That doesn’t work. Exchange is too cheap (for partners to resell at a wage that sustains their business) and too expensive for people that want a free solution.

The consumer and business isn’t wrong. They have options for free and while most cannot hold a candle to Microsoft in terms of feature set, they may be good enough to get the company up and running.

But surely after company grows enough it will need Microsoft tools, right? Right? They will need a server, they will want to invest money, they will try to clean up and.. right? Well, let’s look at Microsoft’s main competitor to Vista. Is it Linux? LOL. Is it Mac OS X? Oh, it’s Windows XP? You mean to tell me people will just take something that works over the latest and greatest that doesn’t even though its several generations ahead of everything else on the market in terms of security?

That is the part that Microsoft is scared about.

Microsoft knows that when a company chooses a platform it takes a lot of effort to get them off it. Why do you think they constantly gloat about how many Notes deployments they took over? Why do you think they keep on harping on Oracle so desperately? Because they want the platform.

Google either doesn’t make or loses remarkable amounts of money in its many properties simply designed to get you to click on ads. They are an ad company.

Apple, in their own right, is now the king of mobile computing. iPhone gives them a platform for applications that no other company has.

So where is Microsoft? They are not a consumer favorite. They are not a bleeding edge favorite. They are not a very stylish or cool company. They are a business solution.

As far as business solutions go, they are the best.

But Microsoft’s failure, and ultimate undoing, is that it is at its core a company that wants to dominate everything. It cannot settle for being second best. It cannot settle not to own the defacto standard and concede that to PDF, it cannot accept Flash everywhere so it must come up with Silverlight, it just cannot tolerate one ounce of competition.

And now Microsoft finds itself at the crossroads.

We are the defacto leader in the commercial software space.

But our client’s don’t want that.

And in its effort to be the biggest, best, first and only solution everyone should ever consider for anything, Microsoft finds itself making more enemies and less and less friends.

That is not a company or a climate that I would bet on.

Microsoft can continue to exist as the best and biggest software company that makes business solutions. Microsoft can even design the online application suite that works and draws users to them slowly.

But Microsoft shareholders are not patient.

Microsoft management is not patient.

Microsoft made $60 billion in revenues last year. Google just cracked $5 billion yesterday. Microsoft is jeopardizing its $60 billion company to curb the dominance and rise of the $5 billion company that only exists to sell ads and systems to support those ads.

Can Microsoft and it’s shareholders be happy with the $60 billion a year? How quickly will we see a call for the change of management at Microsoft as they keep on losing the share of their cash cow and become less and less relevant in the Web 2.0 ad cloud?

michaeldouglaswallstreetcolor

Microsoft lacks leadership and Microsoft Mess proves that – instead of something new and fresh at the core it’s same old Microsoft – crippled acquisition, feature and functionality incomplete until Version 3.0, poorly integrated across the range of current applications but a big promise of SDKs and a plea for someone to please pay attention to it.

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, the greed – for lack of a better word – is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, greed for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

It also served the upward surge of Microsoft and got it to $60 billion a year.

But will Microsoft realize that it now needs to change…. because as motivating as the quote above is, the guy who said it ended up in jail and lost it all. Will Microsoft?

Making the world a safer place $20 at a time

Posted: 5:26 pm
July 17, 2008
OwnWebNow
Comments Off on Making the world a safer place $20 at a time

We’re now up to the fifth podcast in the OWN Partner Call series and joining me today is Dana Epp, CEO of Scorpion Software. Dana has been on our SBS Show before and as the Microsoft MVP in Security he is no stranger when it comes to the podcasts, blogging and SMB Conferencing in general.

So why should you bother to listen to the nearly 50 minute long discussion over TFA/OTP?

Because we sat around and had a security sales conversation. Learn how to intelligently discuss the security without fear mongering your clients, establish it as a point of differentiation and give your clients the flexibility of adding the extra level of security one user at a time. With customers always being reserved towards arming their entire staff with the latest and greatest gadgets, security does not have to fall into that category – Dana and I partnered up to bring a fully managed AuthAnvil solution at $20/month per employee.

Yes, $20.

Think you can make money offering that?

Now think about my spin on this – I’m now the only one able to offer cloud services with two factor authentication forever ending the paranoia of “But if it’s on the Internet anyone can look at it, right?”

Oh, and its being built into Shockey Monkey. Quick, does your PSA have integrated two factor security? So that thing you keep your passwords, customer credit cards, remote VNC access to the clients portals.. anyone that can sniff your password has access to it?

Year in the making folks, we’re here to kick some booty, stop playing around and pour some jet fuel onto your marketing. What in your offering makes you any different than the 200 other indianinabucket.com resellers in your city? I’ve got a whole stack of things, are you interested? AIDA!

Download it, listen to it, think about it…

Time to build your own bridge

Posted: 3:38 pm
July 16, 2008
Microsoft
20 Comments

Folks, I have done as much as I possibly can for you to communicate your concerns to Microsoft. We’ll see what happens. However, I have a job to do and I don’t have much more time to spend on this so I’m going to give you some leads and let you communicate your pains directly to Microsoft.

You should first start by getting in touch with Steve Ballmer (CEO), Kevin Turner (Chief of Operations) and Allison Watson (Partner Program)

If you are an SBSC or Small Business Server focused contact the two ladies below:

Andrea Russell
Small Business Specialist Community
Andrea.Russell@microsoft.com

Aanal Bhatt
SBS/EBS Parner Marketing
aanalb@microsoft.com

If you have feedback specifically about how the SBS/EBS product group can help you ask Kevin:

Kevin Beares
SBS Community Manager
kbeares@exchange.microsoft.com

If you’d rather talk to a partner and you’re scared to talk to Microsoft directly:

Partner Area Leads
https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40011087
Mark Crall, USA
Vijay Riyait, UK
Travis Hilton, AU

And to see if any of your feedback is making any change in direction keep an eye on this blog, Steve is the go-to guy for S+S:

Steve Clayton
Microsoft S+S Evangelist
http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/
Twitter: @stevecla

Here is where we stand right now:

Microsoft has decided that this is the direction they are going, partners be damned (or however you interpret 6% commission for handing over your clients to them) there is more money in fighting with Google than working with partners on a premium solution.

For the partners side, you guys are angry, dismayed, betrayed and aren’t going to take it anymore. One of the people I respect a whole lot in this space said it the best: “I am not going to mention or allow any solution that takes my customers away from me.” So partners will build a wall from Microsoft.

As for me, I have done all I can even though it isn’t my job. I have not received a Cease & Desist letter from Microsoft and since a pr0n scene with a Microsoft logo is about as low as I can go I don’t have much more to add.

I’ve done my best to eloquently voice the pain that you have expressed to me, I have been told that it is what it is and it’s as good as it gets (masked with some mocking and patronizing) so if you have the time to pursue it further for the greater good of our community please follow the contacts above.

I have summed up why I think this stalemate is bad for us all, but at the end of the day I have a job to do and it’s not fixing Microsoft and it’s partners. I’ve done all I can for you folks, try the shrimp and tell them Vlad sent ya.