Updated: 25/08/2004; 00:55:38

 26 May 2004

Microsoft: Linux isn't cheaper

Yet another Linux isn't cheaper story from Microsoft.  I don't get the focus on cost all of the time.  To me cost is a small part of the story.  The Linux/Microsoft debate needs to consider the following in this order, (client side):

  1. The application portfolio that needs to be delivered to the client device.  In most enterprises there will be hundreds of client applications, many of these won't be deliverable on Linux even using emulation.
  2. Whether you believe in Microsoft's value proposition.  Only Microsoft has the 'integrated innovation' value proposition that links client, office tools, infrastructure services and application services.  If you buy into that value proposition then you are probably going to continue to use office and Windows.  My view right now is that MS is doing a pretty poor job of telling us what that value proposition is in their next generation products,  I think because they are still figuring out how to move forward when they are dragging such a legacy behind them
  3. Whether the user-base can be segmented.  Its likely in every enterprise that some users will be best suited to Windows Portables, some Windows Desktops, some Linux and some thin client technologies or one sort or another.  If the user-base can be easily segmented, and ideally if different types of users occupy different types of building real-estate and if enterprise wide applications can all be cost effectively delivered thin to all desktop types, then and only then, is it likely to be cost effective to segment the user-base in terms of client technology.
  4. Training, conversion and lost productivity.  If your business would be impacted by small scale disruption across large numbers of people, (which is what you should expect for 3-6 months), then its probably not cost effective to change.  However if like many businesses you believe that these small scale disruptions have no effect on your bottom line because they just consume time that would otherwise be frittered away browsing the web etc then this is probably not an important factor for you.
  5. What do your users use at home.  Uniquely Microsoft has its users homes as a training ground.  Many people play more at home 'honing' their productivity than they do formal training at work.  Home use is useful, and changing their environment at work could cause resentment.  Right now Linux is nowhere in the home market, although its growing its a long term trend and is unlikely to effect decisions in the next couple of years.

The decision on office suite, needs to be factored in here, and it is in point 2, however whilst linked different but similar criteria apply.

- Posted by Steve Richards - 11:00:40 PM - comment []

Information Bridge Framework

My first thought when I cam across IBF, (who could miss it!), was that it was another Microsoft thick client solution.  I am still not sure but it looks like it might be a bit more creative than that for the following reasons:

  1. I have always been a big advocate of standardizing the infrastructure capability layer and integrating it with the line of business layer.  That way an enterprise has its infrastructure in common, regardless of which process or division of the company you work in.  IBF looks like it addresses that need pretty well
  2. I have also felt that the ad-hoc processes and information and collaborative processes are under emphasized in businesses that have a lot of formal mega processes that they like to optimize.  I talked about this in another blog entry.  IBF allows you to integrate ad-hoc and formal business processes.
  3. It seems that a lot of thought has gone into making the maintenance of the IBF client environment as 'thin' as possible.  It still requires a client component to get started though.  I need to look into this more to be sure but it looks hopeful.
  4. Its all about consuming web services, caching them at the client, and rendering them in a standard way.  This seems to be to be a major part of what WinFS, and the Longhorn Shell are all about so its good to see some early thinking in this area.  I have talked about this a little here and here
  5. Although its being hyped Microsoft seem to be doing a good job of positioning it appropriately
  6. In a way its a bit like gmail,  parsing email content for example and providing link to web services that might be appropriate, (in gmails case adverts but its easy to see the similarity), so it will be interesting to see how server side equivalents of the IBF idea take off now that Microsoft have given people the idea.
- Posted by Steve Richards - 7:32:10 PM - comment []

It just works!

Great little piece of writing by Scott about the fact that some stuff just does not work easily enough and how people will seek out maybe pretty complex ways of doing things just to be confident that it will work first time every time.  This is right up my street, I really like things that 'Just work' and MS and the Linux community need to really focus on that effortless simplicity.  For inspiration I look at the Nokia phone UI, (6310i in my case), and the Blackberry which I think is inspirational from a UI design standpoint and reliability standpoint.  How much of what we use in IT every day from any supplier would pass the test, effortless, reliable, intuitive etc and to what extent are these attributes sacrificed for fancy features, customizability etc.

One of the most impressive things about Scott's post?  He wrote it all on his Tablet PC using the new input panel in SP2, his experience 'it just worked', that was my experience to with the alpha, except in Lotus Notes which kept crashing, so I had to uninstall it!!

- Posted by Steve Richards - 7:14:21 PM - comment []

WS-Federation and other Web Services, an area where MS seem to be getting things right?

 

PC World talks a bit about Web Services for identity management.  The list of vendors demonstrating interoperability, (Netegrity, Oblix, RSA Security, OpenNetwork Technologies, and Ping Identity), as well as MS and IBM is pretty impressive. 

Web Services seems to be one of the few areas where MS seems to be getting its story straight, if my impression is correct:

 

1.     Very involved in the standards process

2.     Perhaps to the point of dominance of the standard process?

3.     Building great tools and middleware in VS and Indigo, so that their platform is the best way to implement the standards

4.     Building an innovative client environment for the caching and presentation of web services, WinFS and Avalon/WinFS Shell

5.     Integrating Office and Collaboration processes with line of business processes, Information Bridge and InfoPath

 

That’s not to say that there are no problems in these products.  But the story looks fairly coherent at least.  Have a look at this MS document if you want more details.

- Posted by Steve Richards - 5:03:06 PM - comment []

Exchange Futures

Infoworld talks to David Thompson, a Microsoft corporate vice president who has been in charge of the Exchange Server group since early this year.   It maybe just me but I get the distinct impression that the Exchange Group is in a bit of a state.  They don't seem to really know where storage is going because of the flux around Longhorn server, and they don't seem to know where to take Public Folders and other Document management like capabilities because they are dropping the old store and because of 'competition' from SharePoint services.  Core email does not have much growth potential in it, so all that seems to be left to work on is Edge Servers!  Not a very exiting roadmap!!

Last year I thought that the 'big thinking' that must be going on in Microsoft was starting to pay off in terms of well architected products that did not overlap and were being rebuilt from the ground up.  Now I am not so sure,  I see the delays in the foundation layers, ie SQL Server and Longhorn Server, triggering panic in the Office tools and Collaboration space, who are probably starting to think more short term about customer driven next versions, rather than strategic re-architecting of products.

- Posted by Steve Richards - 4:46:11 PM - comment []

Longhorn Search

 

Chris Sherman at SearchEngineWatch talks a bit about Longhorn search and links to a Channel 9 video clip where you get some glimpses of how search is going to be implemented in Longhorn.  What’s clear right now is that they are:

 

1.     Planning for a search experience that operates at multiple levels, local, intranet, internet etc

2.     That at the local level integration and meta data is going to be key.  The example sited on the video goes something like this:  "find me all of the PowerPoint presentations, attached to meeting invites that I attended in the last month attended by someone from Shell". This links together a lot of WinFS metadata.

3.     Interestingly almost every WinFS search scenario is based on integration of other things with Outlook, for example, "Where I was at a particular time", information or contact information or email context.

4.     The next version of Outlook and its integration with WinFS and some sort of super journal in WinFS are going to be key

 

In my case, for now at least, I have settled on X1 for the following reasons:

  1. I like to search in scopes, ie emails, files
  2. The type down experience is great
  3. The ability to filter based on the content of fields is ace
  4. The preview window, Inside Out viewers, at the killer feature for me
  5. They are planning to support Lotus Notes in the next version
- Posted by Steve Richards - 4:33:33 PM - comment []

More integration of Microsoft Products?

Microsoft Watch describes the trend at Microsoft towards more integration of Microsoft Server products.  Although the areas of integrations described don't seem that great to me:

  • Management packs for all Windows Server System products that will allow them to be managed by Microsoft Operations Manager 2005;
  • Windows Installer and Windows Update support for all Windows Server System products; and
  • Consistent methodologies and prescriptive guidance support for all members of the Windows Server System family

There's more on this topic here:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3359261

However whilst the Architect in me likes the idea of integrated products, built in a layered infrastructure fashion, with each layer isolated by standards, I don't see this happening with Microsoft.  What I see is ever tighter integration between products, locking the products into a set that all need to be purchased from MS, and all upgraded together to get real business advantage.  At enterprise scale linked upgrades of products always spells trouble, (making the business case, getting the agreement, managing the disruption, risk), and the assumption of everything from Microsoft is equally troubling, unless their is a REALLY compelling value proposition, and that’s definitely not evident today. 

Loosely integrated products by contrast, ie those that rely on stable and open standards, IMAP, POP, LDAP, RSS?  etc seem to provide for good integration and great flexibility and innovation.  Of course the areas that Microsoft is integrating are not well served by standards, and even if they were the standards are probably not very mature and stable, however the principle still applies.  Loose integration wins in my book over tight integration.  Microsoft always goes for tight.

Microsoft Monitor also discusses the integration point at some length, although you have to talk to an analyst to get the real detail

- Posted by Steve Richards - 4:22:54 PM - comment []

RSS and its role in Information Management

I have written a short article on the subject of,  RSS and its role in Information Management, where I describe a conceptual concept of operations, involving the following processes:

Recently however with the advent of RSS, we now have an Open and Simple way for applications to publish, for users to locate and  subscribe and for subscribed content to be accessed, processed and ultimately scanned and consumed, discussed, archived and subsequently retrieved

and show how RSS contributes to making them more effective.  In a later article I will describe how I have applied RSS and associated tools to my own real information management process.

 

- Posted by Steve Richards - 3:44:09 PM - comment []

The Dalai Lama's book of transformation

I carry this little book around with me.  It fits perfectly in the side pocket of my combats, so I can read it whenever I have a spare moment.  I find its great to have something to do when you would ordinarily be waiting around in a queue for example, and the best thing is that when you are waiting around you tend to be fairly receptive to thinking through the ideas and concepts in this powerful little book.
- Posted by Steve Richards - 2:46:24 PM - comment []

Genius - Richard Feynman and Modern Physics

Just started this book, although I have had it for a while.  Looks like its going to be a good read so far
- Posted by Steve Richards - 2:40:53 PM - comment []

FLOW

An interesting book that takes 300 plus pages to describe what it probably could do in 20.  The basic idea, you are happiest when you are involved or imersed in what you are doing.  It then gives loads of examples of how this can happen in sports, music, work etc.  Not the most practical book on the subject of happiness and it seems to neglect lots of things in pursuit of the FLOW concept.  For example it does not talk at all about the effect on happiness of advertising, too much choice, not living in the moment etc.
- Posted by Steve Richards - 10:42:23 AM - comment []