Get the Desktop You Pay For

During my recent interview with Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, I was struck by his assertion that if you don't need--and aren't getting--bulletproof uptime from your desktop operating system, then it doesn't make sense to be paying for it.

He has a good point.

The fundamental job of an operating system is running applications and managing hardware. There are both free and for-a-fee operating system options, which, given requisite hardware and application maker support, perform their core go-between task similarly well. If this is the case, and you're paying for a particular client desktop, are you getting your money's worth?

Microsoft Must Address Windows' Pains

Last week in this space, I criticized Microsoft for continuing to burn cycles on superficial add-ons, such as multi-touch support in Windows Seven, while more significant pain points for Windows customers remain under-addressed.

As I see it, Microsoft is busying itself tacking up fanciful moldings around its flagship product while the Windows through which millions of paying customers access their hardware devices and software applications remain smudged and, in some places, cracked.

The best example of this misplaced focus relates to the undisputed No. 1 reason why organizations and individuals continue to choose Windows above all other platforms: access to Windows' massive software catalog...

Microsoft: Scratch the Surface

If you asked a thousand people what Microsoft could do to Windows to improve the product, would even one of them describe a yearning to use his or her fingers to move objects around on a Windows desktop?

And yet, as demonstrated at the recent D6 conference, Microsoft has chosen this feature, multitouch support for the Windows shell, as the seed from which excitement about the forthcoming Windows Seven is supposed to grow. In the near future, Windows users will be able to use multiple fingers to move items around on their desktops, spin their family photos and play an on-screen piano. Super.

Rather than train all of its attention on chasing Steve Jobs and churning out dim shadows of Apple's products (the same goes for the pursuit of Google online), Microsoft must refocus on the reasons why millions continue to choose Windows, and set about honing that value proposition.

Things like printer drivers may not be as sexy as multitouch (depending, I suppose, on what you're printing), but no one is buying Windows for sexiness. We're over here trying to get some work done. I suggest that Microsoft leave the candy coatings to the aftermarket, and get back to business...

Move Over, Vista: XP SP3 Lives

Now that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has enjoyed a few weeks in the limelight in which to entice the "wait-for-SP1" IT shops to jump to Microsoft's latest and greatest client operating system, it's time to introduce the OS upgrade we've all been waiting for: Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Windows XP SP3.

XP SP3 is a rather modest upgrade, one that falls much more in line with XP's first service pack than with the security feature-packed SP2 release, but the new service pack stands as an important reminder that while XP will soon leave the retail channel, the operating system on which most organizations have come to depend is still very much supported by its maker.

Toward a More Perfectly Modular Windows

Gartner made news April 9 by contending that Windows is in danger of collapsing under its own weight. According to Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald, radical changes to Windows are required. Their prescription: a more modular Windows.

Windows is a massive piece of software, and even though it's not presented as such externally, the operating system is made up of many separate parts. Making the seams between those parts more obvious and providing a way for components to be swapped in or out with ease would make for a more flexible and manageable Windows.

Microsoft agrees with this assessment--and, in fact, Microsoft has been agreeing for the last 10 years or so.

Exchange Interop for the Rest of Us

Apple's announcement yesterday that it plans to add support for Microsoft's Exchange groupware server on iPhone and iPod Touch devices has gotten me thinking about Exchange support (or lack thereof) on other platforms, such as Linux and, strangely enough, Apple's own OS X. It's possible now to link up pretty much any mail client on any platform with Exchange via IMAP, but in order to access all the non-mail data that makes Exchange worthwhile, you need to find another route.

Microsoft's Interop Forecast Is Partly Cloudy

Today Microsoft laid out a major new interoperability initiative that's meant to "increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors."

During the press conference that Microsoft executives Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, Bob Muglia and Brad Smith held this morning, much was made about the pains Microsoft is taking to include the open-source software community in the new interop initiative.

However, the legal environment surrounding interoperability between Microsoft's products and the open-source applications that have sprung up to rival Redmond's proprietary wares is scarcely less murky today than it was yesterday.

Windows Server, Hourly Edition

For the past several months, anyone who's asked me about the latest big new thing in IT has gotten an earful about Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2. Building out a Windows Compute Cloud (WC2) service would give Microsoft the opportunity to demonstrate its new server's chops while better serving Windows-reliant customers and channel partners.

Vista vs. XP Showdown

Microsoft's release of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista is nigh, which means that it's nearly time for organizations sold on a "better SP1 than sorry" approach toward deploying Microsoft's latest client operating system to start polishing off their imaging tools.

However, based on the conversations I have had with readers and with eWEEK's Corporate Partners, it seems that many IT managers are viewing Vista's SP1 not as a green light for deployments, but as something like a pop-up reminder to schedule some time to think about maybe deploying the new OS...

A Head Full of Windows Server 2008

Last week I attended a technical workshop on Windows Server 2008 at Microsoft's Redmond campus, where I, alongside a gaggle of other tech journalists from all over the world, spent three days having my head stuffed with details about Microsoft's forthcoming server products, including its new solution for mid-sized companies.

Microsoft's newly-minted Windows Essential Business Server offers a very compelling answer to the question, "How can a mid-sized business consume all the same sorts of Microsoft core server products that a large enterprise might consume?" Here's the rub: It seems to me that the new server is an excellent answer to the wrong question.

Microsoft is on the right track here, but they have to start thinking outside the shrink-wrapped box.