InformationWeek Stories by Dave Methvin

InformationWeek Stories by Dave Methvinhttp://www.informationweek.comInformationWeeken-usCopyright 2012, UBM LLC.2011-06-01T08:00:00ZMicrosoft Hindered By Retailer FailuresThe company would be wise to take a page from Apple to overcome its reputation for poor customer service delivered by its point-of-sale partners.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229700181?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomIn the past month, a couple of incidents showed me what a tough situation Microsoft is in when it comes to growing its business. They demonstrated a phenomenon that should make Steve Ballmer fear for both his job and for the future of Microsoft: It will not matter how good Microsoft products are if consumers don't have a positive overall experience in buying and owning the product. The first incident happened to my son, whose Macbook Pro developed a problem with the screen. Unfortunately, it was several months out of warranty, and his local Apple Store said that a repair would probably be $1,200. However, the associate at the store had the ability to make exceptions. Perhaps he took pity on a poor college student, but no matter the reason; he said Apple would cover the cost. That is the kind of service that creates <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/229503438?queryText=claburn">customer and brand loyalty</a>, and it's not an isolated incident. Others have <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/159990/2011/05/gartenberg_lessons_in_apple_retail.html">noticed</a> the quality of Apple's customer service as well, and put it on par with other legendary customer-focused companies such as Nordstrom. Now for the dark side. A few weeks later, my daughter went to get a case and screen protector for her iPhone. Our local Apple Store (a different one) didn't have the one she wanted in stock, so she went to Best Buy. The next day she noticed that the edges of the screen protector were starting to peel, so she went back to the Best Buy. The sales associate there said that it was a "warranty issue" and she would need to take it up with the manufacturer through its website. Perhaps he figured he could put one over on a poor college student, but it outraged my wife, who went over there and set them straight. Instead of asking them to simply reapply the screen protector, which is all my daughter wanted, she got a full refund. Then she waited for the Apple Store to get the product back in stock. I know we are not alone here. Go to Yelp and search for just about any city. You'll find that the comments for Best Buy generally are <a href="http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=best+buy&find_loc=chicago%2C+il">negative</a> and Apple reviews are generally <a href="http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=apple+store&find_loc=chicago%2C+il">positive</a>. The same goes for sites like PissedConsumer; the Best Buy comments <a href="http://best-buy.pissedconsumer.com/">live up</a> to the site's name, but the Apple comments are <a href="http://apple.pissedconsumer.com/">pretty tame</a>. Many of the Apple complaints were about crowded stores and products that were in such high demand that they were out of stock. I'm sure you have a similar kind of stories, ones that make you love or hate a company forever. Fair or not, consumers and small businesses do hold a grudge, especially when they feel they were treated unfairly. My father hated Ford cars and refused to buy them for most of his life because of a serious problem he had in the 1960s with a Ford. Even when Ford improved its quality significantly, it had to try and overcome the reputation it had created over several decades. Ad campaigns with slogans like "Have you driven a Ford lately?" were intended to woo back the doubters like my father, but it never worked. Such is the power of a negative experience.I can't say that I've been impressed by any brick-and-mortar PC purchase experience over the years. The sales people who assist you on a purchase at Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot, or any of the other retail outlets aren't usually anywhere near experts on the computers they sell. That I could almost overlook, but not the often high-pressure tactics and deception used to pack on extended warranties and outrageously priced accessories. A six-foot USB cable for $30 is highway robbery. As far as Best Buy goes, I've had my share of poor-to-mediocre experiences with them too many times. Even when the staff want to help, they often don't have enough knowledge about the products to provide meaningful assistance. I had an <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/blog/229207128">episode</a> like that a couple of years ago when buying an uninterruptible power supply. One Yelp reviewer of a Chicago Best Buy location summed it up nicely: "You need to do your research ahead of time for the products you want or know exactly what you want when purchasing from the store because you won't get much help from the employees. Also you would have to need that item that day because there is no reason to pay some of the high prices they have for their products." Still, even in this era of online commerce, many people are willing to pay a premium for the immediacy of a brick-and-mortar purchase. If my experiences are any indication, kids growing up in the age of the Apple Store will simply think that is the place to buy electronics whenever possible--and they'll be right. It's a powerful advantage for Apple's own products, and for the manufacturers of the accessories and software the stores carry. That's why I've become convinced that Microsoft needs to take control over more of the process by expanding its own store initiative. By showcasing a quality set of hardware without the trial-version junk that many PC makers insist on bundling, Microsoft can provide both a good product and a good purchase experience. Of course, there is much more to the product experience than just sales, service, and support. Historically, Windows has taken hits for being more susceptible to viruses and spyware. However, the signs are that Apple is <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385">catching up</a> on malware thanks to its rising market share. Apple's support response to these new threats hasn't been very Apple-like, and it will be very interesting to see how the company addresses a problem that Windows users have lived with for more than a decade.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/229700153">Microsoft's Android Revenue Exceeds Windows Phone 7</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229700128">Windows 8 Tablets Not Doomed To Fail</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/229625536">Microsoft Hopes Mango Will Keep WP7 Momentum Alive</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229625362">Microsoft Should Pursue ARM Acquisition Next</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/229503438">Apple's Retail Lesson</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/management/229502418">Microsoft, Cisco Partner On Data Warehouses, Virtualization</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>   Attend Enterprise 2.0 Boston to see the latest social business tools and technologies. Register with code CPBJEB03 and save $100 off conference passes or for a free expo pass. It happens June 20-23. <a href="http://www.e2conf.com/boston">Find out more</a>. 2011-05-25T08:00:00ZHow Microsoft And Google Could Change SmartphonesVoice calls are dumb; maybe Microsoft bought Skype to make them smarter.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229625524?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomIn my last column I delved into a few <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/voice/229500681">boneheaded moves</a> that Microsoft could make with its Skype acquisition that would almost ensure failure. That seems to be the mindset of many observers, who can't figure out what the $8.5 billion purchase of Skype could possibly do for Microsoft. Yet there are some things Microsoft's Skype could do that would make using a smartphone much more awesome. It's long overdue for smartphone voice communication to be integrated with all the other details that smartphones know about us: our location, our activities, and our contacts. A Microsoft-based Skype client could make that happen. It's not a one-horse race though; Google's got plenty of similar infrastructure with their <a href="http://google.com/voice">Google Voice</a> product and the Android platform to show it off. Apple has their <a href="http://www.apple.com/mac/facetime/">FaceTime</a> app as well, so you have to figure they won't let Google or Microsoft take over voice and video calls without a fight. Voice communication with smartphones is not much different than it was with landlines twenty years ago. You call the number of a person, and they answer (rarely) or you roll to the dreaded voice mail. That scenario is just fine with the carriers, as they charge you by the minute. By the time you've listened through the voicemail instructions that you know by heart anyway ("Joe Blow is not available. Please leave a message after the tone. When you are finished recording, you can hang up or press one for more options. BEEP") you've already burned at least one of those minutes. Yet you haven't accomplished anything but wasting time. Compare that prehistoric voice experience with the higher standard we've grown accustomed to with software like Skype or instant messaging clients such as <a href="http://www.pidgin.im/">Pidgin</a>. Before making a call or sending a message, you can see if the person is available, and whether they are currently active on their computer. If that person doesn't want to receive calls, they can "go invisible" or set "do not disturb" so you won't bother them. Conversely, if you see that they are busy you can set a "buddy pounce" to alert you when they go online or exit do-not-disturb mode. It's a more civilized and less time-consuming form of communication than phone tag, that's for sure. Google Voice has several additional features that I already use regularly. You can have any call to your Google Voice number ring through to multiple numbers simultaneously, and have those numbers be different depending on the time of day. For example, you might have it ring both your office landline and your cell phone during business hours. If you answer on your cell and reception isn't good, you can transfer back to your landline without ending the call. And of course, it's handy to get the automated speech-to-text transcriptions of voice mail messages. Even when they're not completely accurate, there's plenty of humor in the transcription errors. The reason why Skype or Google Voice can do so much is that they are integrated with the other information you have about your contacts, and they update that information nearly in real time via the network. The dumb voice calls offered by the carriers still follow a tired (but profitable) model, and they're far from being interesting technology at the consumer level. Microsoft and Google could still manage to integrate quite a bit of information that would help you decide whether to make a voice call regardless of wireless carriers' cooperation. For example, when you pulled up a contact, the phone might show you that they'll be going into a meeting in five minutes based on the information in a calendar they have shared with you. Now imagine that you pull up a contact, ready to make a voice call. The phone might show you that they are already on a voice call, and suggest that you send a text or instant message instead if the communication is urgent. Does that sound too invasive? Well of course, you would be able to set that sort of shared information on a contact-by-contact basis. If there are people you don't want to let see into your activities that deeply, they simply will communicate with you the old fashioned way with blind calls and voice mails. With Wi-Fi becoming pervasive, there are many opportunities for voice and data integration. Both Skype and Google Voice have the ability to make outgoing calls via a Wi-Fi connection, saving carrier minutes for the times when you actually need to use them. Even better, Wi-Fi connections can thrive where cell signals are low, such as inside large buildings or underground. For example, I can never get a cell signal inside my local grocery store, absolute zero bars. If they had Wi-Fi, though, it would finally be possible for me to call home to ask whether we needed bread. While it isn't all here yet, nearly everything I've mentioned up to this point could be done just with apps on the phone. What most Wi-Fi calling systems can't do yet is hand off calls to a cellular network, or receives calls when only on Wi-Fi. Those are places where the functionality can't just be bolted onto the phone via an app; it takes cooperation with the cellular carrier to do it. But it doesn't seem like most of the carriers are in a hurry to make that move. Perhaps it's because they need to find a way to justify raising their rates in the transition. A carrier like T-Mobile might be in the best position to take advantage of a hybrid Wi-Fi-mobile approach. The company is already <a href="http://support.t-mobile.com/doc/tm24195.xml">encouraging</a> the use of Wi-Fi on some of their phones, even selling some Android phones with Wi-Fi calling apps installed. That makes sense because as one of the smaller players, they can expand their range and eliminate dead spots through Wi-Fi--without the expense of installing new towers. If they could partner with a company like Microsoft or Google to get both incoming and outgoing calls and seamless handoffs, it could save a lot of money. That would allow them to price aggressively. None of this may happen, of course, if AT&T's impending <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/ATT-Acquires-T-Mobile/index.jhtml">absorption</a> of T-Mobile goes through.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/voice/229500681">Skype: Three Ways Microsoft Can Blow It</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229403202">Why Microsoft Plus Skype Is An Enterprising Idea</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/voip/229500756">Skype Deal To Cost Enterprise IT</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/229400059">Google Voice Integrated With Sprint</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/smart_phones/225701023">How To Use Google Voice On iPhone 4</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229403154">Microsoft To Buy Skype For $8.5 Billion</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>   InformationWeek Analytics is conducting a survey to determine the satisfaction with mobile operating systems vendors. Respond to the survey and be eligible to win an iPad. <a href="http://informationweek.mobileOSvendoreval.sgizmo.com">Take the survey now</a>. Survey ends May 27. 2011-05-17T08:00:00ZSkype: Three Ways Microsoft Can Blow ItMicrosoft's massive acquisition of Skype will end in failure if they try any of these strategies. http://www.informationweek.com/news/229500681?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomMicrosoft's stunning $8.5 billion <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229403154">offer</a> for Skype has the industry talking. Just as they got out from under the <a href="http://wmpoweruser.com/microsofts-anti-trust-consent-decree-expires-12th-maywill-the-gloves-come-off-with-the-shackles-also/">consent decree</a> imposed by the U.S. Department of Justice as a settlement for antitrust practices, Microsoft made its biggest acquisition play ever. Microsoft has no shortage of cash at the moment, so perhaps this will be the beginning of a huge buying spree in Redmond. The Microsoft of a decade ago dominated the industry, but today's Microsoft has been playing catch-up to companies like Apple and Google that are flying high, particularly in the mobile market. Developing new products from scratch takes time, and time isn't on Microsoft's side. Yet buying your way into a market isn't a sure path to success either, and it can be expensive. Considering that eBay sold Skype to an investment company back in 2009 for less than $2 billion, Microsoft's offer is quite a return on its investment. Microsoft should have bought Skype back in 2009, eh? Skype's investors may have the DOJ restrictions to thank for their multi-billion-dollar windfall. Despite the high price tag, there's no guarantee that this deal will be good for Microsoft. In the business world, the story plays out again and again: When a big fish swallows a little fish, the big fish gets heartburn. Microsoft's offer for VOIP-leader Skype has much of the industry wondering exactly what the company is planning to do with its fresh catch. Clearly Microsoft must have some grand plans for Skype that justify a stratospheric price tag like that. Let's face it though, a lot of the speculation revolves around how this will be the death of Skype. Who knows, perhaps those speculators are right, but if so, exactly what will go wrong? I can think of a few things that Microsoft could do that would almost guarantee failure. Bonehead strategy 1: Abandon the other mobile Skype clients. No doubt, Microsoft will want to have a great Windows Phone 7 Skype client. That doesn't change the fact that today, the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry dominate the mobile world. So if Microsoft wants to remain relevant in today's mobile market, they need to make a competitive Skype client for those platforms. It's the same reason that Willie Sutton <a href="http://www.snopes.com/quotes/sutton.asp">supposedly</a> robbed banks: "Because that's where the money is." It's not as if Skype has great mobile clients at the moment, either, at least on Android. When I installed the Skype client on my Android phone, it caused several quirky behaviors and seemed to drain battery life faster as well. It also wasn't a good sign that Skype was the largest application installed on the phone by a factor of two. Clearly Skype (or Microsoft) has a lot of work to do in improving the quality of its software. Bonehead strategy 2: Make Skype work only in the Microsoft world: This is the carried-to-extremes extension of Strategy 1 outlined above. Microsoft's own statement said: "Skype will support Microsoft devices like Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone, and a wide array of Windows devices, and Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live, and other communities. Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms." It makes perfect sense to integrate Skype functionality into those Microsoft products, particularly since Skype provides connections into the existing telephone network that Microsoft lacks with its existing voice offerings such as Messenger and Lync. But if Microsoft kills the Skype client and makes everyone use Windows Phone, Messenger, and Xbox for voice, it will be the death of what we know as Skype. It's one thing to make the software work best on Windows, but it's another thing entirely to deny support to other platforms. Not everyone believes Microsoft when it comes to supporting non-Microsoft platforms, <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/legal/229500049">including</a> InformationWeek's own Paul McDougall, and it's hard to blame them. But there are past cases, such as Microsoft's support of Office on the Apple platform, that could give an optimist hope. Bonehead strategy 3: Bend to the will of cellphone carriers. With its ability to provide both voice and messaging, Skype is a threat to the profits of cellphone carriers. A Microsoft-owned Skype has a different set of priorities. For one, Microsoft is a player against Apple and Google in the phone market. The carriers may "ask" Microsoft to change or cripple the product in order to preserve their own profits in voice, messaging, or data. Microsoft may be inclined to comply if it can get more favorable marketing for Windows Phone products by the carriers. None of that would be good for consumers, and I would say it could be just as disastrous for Skype's future as well. Skype's lead could evaporate quickly if Microsoft makes the wrong moves. The heat source is most likely to be Microsoft's familiar nemesis, Google. Although some analysts <a href="http://www.cringely.com/2011/05/why-microsoft-bought-skype/">say</a> that Microsoft bought Skype to keep it out of Google's hands, I tend to agree with <a href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/why-google-does-not-own-skype/">others</a> that there was no good reason for Google to want Skype. Especially at these prices. Google already has its own Google Voice service, based off its acquisition of GrandCentral back in 2009. In addition to the PC-based VOIP service, it integrates with both cellphones and landlines and offers features like simultaneous ring and voice transcription to SMS or email. Google Voice already offers more services than Skype and is a very well-built offering, but it doesn't have Skype's large user base. If Microsoft follows one or more of the strategies outlined above, they can solve that problem for Google.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229500629">Microsoft Set To Unveil Windows Phone 'Mango' Update</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/software/229500599">Cloud Outages Plague Google, Microsoft</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/legal/229500049">Skype Buy First Of Many For DOJ-Free Microsoft</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229403202">Why Microsoft Plus Skype Is An Enterprising Idea</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/229403144">Skype Deal: Collaboration Is Microsoft's Game To Lose</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/229402660">Microsoft Upstages RIM At BlackBerry World</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>   Attend Enterprise 2.0 Boston to see the latest social business tools and technologies. Register with code CPBJEB03 and save $100 off conference passes or for a free expo pass. It happens June 20-23. <a href="http://www.e2conf.com/boston">Find out more</a>. 2011-05-10T08:00:00ZThe Mobile Phone Update ConundrumApple's tightly controlled environment makes iOS updates a snap; it's a sharp contrast to the Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms, which are at the mercy of wireless carriers.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229403083?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomImagine if Microsoft needed to deliver a critical security update for Windows 7, but they couldn't do it unless they get the approval of your Internet service provider. The way things work today, it would seem silly that Comcast, Verizon, or Time Warner could veto Microsoft updating its operating system on your PC. But lo and behold, that's not too far from the way it works for mobile phones. We've gotten used to having our desktop operating systems and applications updated by their makers over the Internet, whenever it's needed. It doesn't seem to work that way for a lot of mobile devices, however. That Android phone or Windows Phone 7 device you bought less than a year ago may never see a major update, quickening the day when you decide that it's obsolete. Yet the hardware may still have plenty of life in it. Apple's iPhone, of course, is the exemplar for how mobile updates should be delivered. TechCrunch <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/iphone-location-update-android-update/">gushed</a> over how quickly Apple patched their PR-disaster location tracking problem, where the iPhone was <a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/04/apple-location-tracking.html">remembering</a> everywhere the phone had been in exquisite detail. Yet Apple is also the exception to the rule, because it's the least open and most vertically integrated smartphone environment around today. That closed system helps them to move quickly. Carriers have historically called all the shots in their relationships with phone equipment makers. That extends to a ridiculous degree, even to the point where they would demand phone makers disable useful features. For example, about five years ago it was typical for Verizon to disable the ability for their phones to install ringtones via the USB connection. That was done so that you had to download them via wireless, preferably from Verizon's overpriced ringtone store. Those limits clearly had nothing to do with preserving network quality, they were a profit grab pure and simple. When Apple did its initial deal with AT&T in 2007, the most remarkable thing about it was how much control Apple got over a phone sold by AT&T. Apple ran the store, both literally and figuratively. AT&T seems to have had no input on the product design, and thankfully didn't get to fill the phone with their own AT&T-specific special apps that are nothing more than ads that can't be removed. That control is one reason why Apple is so agile at pushing out updates, but it's not the only reason. After all, Apple controls not only the operating system software, but also the hardware. It makes their job a lot easier that there are so few platforms to worry about. Go ahead and consider AT&T devices different from Verizon, it still is a very manageable handful of devices, all under the Apple umbrella. The software guys have a short list of hardware they know they need to test against. Now think about what Google and Microsoft have to go through, it's not the utopia that Apple lives in. Google creates the Android operating system, but it's used on dozens of different hardware configurations. The hardware makers have the ability to modify Android not only to match their hardware, but to add whatever features they'd like. When the time comes for Google to issue an update, it's possible that the changes made by the hardware maker may actually conflict in some way with the changes made by Google. The differences can be reconciled, of course, but it takes time. Lately it seems that Google is becoming torn by their desire for quick progress versus the level of polish required for others to use their work. Again, this is a problem that Apple's tightly-controlled environment doesn't have. Google, on the other hand, wanted to release Android 3 to serve tablets but <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2011/tc20110324_269784.htm">doesn't yet feel</a> that the code is ready for others to use. So even though Android is open source, Google isn't planning to release Android 3 until they can put a little more finish into it.Things aren't much better in Windows Phone 7 land. Microsoft has underlined the "fragmentation" that Android suffers, but at the same time they have been <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/basics/update-history.aspx">slow to push out updates</a> for their own mobile platform. Even simple updates have had hiccups that caused problems for some phones. This is despite an architecture that only allows the hardware makers to customize a few specific points in the OS. Theoretically, that should let Microsoft update Windows Phone at a pace faster than Android can manage, but that hasn't happened. Now back to the role of the carriers. Most Android or Windows Phone users bought the phone from the carrier, and when it doesn't work they're likely to head back to the carrier to get it fixed. The carrier and the phone maker were already paid for the phone; they don't really care if it has the latest software. In fact, they'd prefer that nothing changed on that phone because if it breaks it will increase their costs. If the customer has to buy another phone, well, that means more money for them. Is it any wonder that Android and Windows Phone devices don't update quickly, when the carrier and phone maker can't see an upside in delivering updates? That's where Apple's control and vertical integration comes handy again. They have the upper hand with both AT&T and Verizon. Because Apple delivers hardware, software, and support for the iPhone through their own stores, they don't have the same "leave sleeping dogs lie" attitude that plagues the others. If there is any bright spot for Microsoft, it's that they might be able to offer the same sort of vertical integration in their own <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/218900086">Microsoft Stores</a>. But where does that leave Google with Android? With all the good things that you might say about Apple and its lightning-quick updates, there is a bit of irony in that the hapless third-party software makers in the App Store don't have the same ability. Apple has to examine and approve every app, and that can take some time. How much time they won't say, and it seems to <a href="http://www.buildingiphoneapps.com/2011/02/apples-app-store-approval-time.html">vary widely</a> from app to app. App makers have sometimes had bug-fix updates waiting weeks in the approval queue, while the app's reputation was being hurt by users experiencing the same old now-fixed bugs. As Apple's financial and sales numbers show, the company's model of a tightly controlled walled garden has served them well and made it so they can move quickly. Yet those quick OS updates come at a price. Android and WP7 might be a bit more chaotic than Apple's ecosystem, but they also offer more choice. If you prefer order at the expense of freedom from choice, then Apple is the way to go.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/229403040">Google I/O: What Android Needs</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/smart_phones/229402959">Nokia Drops To Number Two Across Europe</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/229402844">Android Market Share 35%, Windows Phone 2.5%</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/229402600">RIM Adds iPhone, Android Support</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/news/mobile/229300384/three-mobility-trends-that-will-change-your-business">Three Mobility Trends That Will Change Your Business</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/development/mobility/229402315">Windows Phone, Blackberry App Development Lags</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-05-03T08:00:00ZAmazon Meltdown Required Reading At Fail UniversityWe're starting to learn more about what happened during the Great AWS Outage last month. Perhaps the fault lies not in our servers, but in ourselves.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229402590?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomAfter more than a week of post-mortem analysis, Amazon Web Services issued a <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/">detailed description</a> of what was behind last month's meltdown that affected hundreds of their customers. I would like to welcome the incoming class of Amazon Fail University (AFU). It's a continuing education program, because Internet technology changes quickly. Last year's lesson isn't enough to make you an expert at this year's Internet. Here is an example. More than a decade ago, I worked at a company that maintained its own website. Nobody was all that serious about the Web at the time, and we were no different. The server sat in the corner of the office, and was connected by a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. (Hey, at least it was plugged into a UPS!) At first the office shared the line for Internet access, but we quickly ran out of bandwidth and got the Web server its own T1. But the writing was on the wall; we knew we needed more bandwidth for our growing website. Since it was expensive to get big bandwidth to our offices, we moved the servers to a colocation site near the offices that had a 45-Mbps shared T3 line. It solved the bandwidth bottleneck to be sure, but now our server admin had to jump into the car with a box of spare parts whenever there was a problem that couldn't be solved by the colocation's onsite staff (essentially, anything more complex than rebooting the box). As the website grew, we decided that it didn't make sense to buy and maintain more hardware ourselves. So we moved to managed hosting, where we simply leased the hardware and the provider took care of the hardware and network maintenance. They even took care of monitoring the systems and applying our Windows security patches. This seemed like Nirvana, and worked really well--until <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Slammer">SQL Slammer</a> hit in January 2003. Unlike the small disruption of Amazon's outage, SQL Slammer was an Internet-wide disaster that took many websites offline for more than a day. The problem was caused by a security problem in Microsoft SQL Server, one that Microsoft had patched more than six months earlier. Yet many sites hadn't bothered to install the patch yet. Some had even told our managed hosting company to not install the patch, because they didn't want to take the downtime of a reboot. As a result, our hosting company had to disconnect itself from the Internet and take the offending servers offline one at a time to stop the packet storm. That 2003 incident was like AFU 101, and the course material was tough. SQL Slammer showed us that the actions (or inactions) of our neighbors could seriously affect us, even if we're not sharing a server with them. There is just too much interdependent infrastructure--not just hardware, but network connectivity and software as well. After the SQL Slammer incident, many companies changed their attitudes about patching and started asking more questions about how their servers were configured and connected to the Internet. Managed hosting companies started to be more diligent and insistent about installing patches for their customers as well.But now the course material has switched to cloud computing, and AFU has come along to deliver a tough lesson for anyone who didn't study hard before moving their data and services to the cloud. It's a <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/">lot of reading</a> and full of AWS-specific terms, but most IT professionals will get something out of reading the technical post-mortem closely. The Cliff Notes version is that Amazon's Elastic Block Store (EBS) service failed in one data center because of a mistake made by the staff during a service upgrade. That caused cascading failures as servers recognized the failure and attempted to switch data off the failed EBS instances. It was a classic congestive failure. The most important take-away lesson from Amazon's latest AFU class is this: There is no better way to find a single point of failure than to have it fail. Some customers have learned this lesson. In <a href="http://informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/229402259">last week's column</a> I mentioned that Netflix is a big AWS customer but seemed relatively unscathed by this problem. Netflix did their own <a href="http://techblog.netflix.com/2011/04/lessons-netflix-learned-from-aws-outage.html">post-mortem</a> describing how they fared. If you're looking to copy someone's class notes on cloud failures, I'd recommend theirs. One key secret that allowed Netflix to weather a cloud failure is that they actually design with failure in mind. But doesn't everyone say they do that? Yes, but Netflix uses a <a href="http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/5-lessons-weve-learned-using-aws.html">"chaos monkey"</a> to randomly kill services, which makes sure that they can actually survive and have enough capacity to deal with passing storms. Still, this most recent mass-failure was a kind not anticipated by Netflix, and they're using the lessons from it to fine-tune their cloud tactics. They're even considering a "chaos gorilla" to test the effects of more widespread failures. None of this is meant to excuse Amazon's role in this mess. AWS should deliver the most reliable service possible to their customers, and they certainly bear some responsibility for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-lost-data-2011-4?op=1">lost data</a> and downtime. That's especially true in this case, since their own staff actions started the cascade of failures. Their post-mortem acknowledges that they are working on specific procedures and measures to address some of the causes. Like most catastrophic scenarios, it's unlikely we'll see this specific problem happen again. But you can bet this wont' be the last lesson taught by a big cloud failure, if we're willing to learn. Stay in school, kids.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/229402534">Post Mortem: When Amazon's Cloud Turned On Itself</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/229402520">Amazon Web Services Apologizes, Explains Outage</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/WAN_optimization/229402515">IBM, Akamai Partner To Speed Cloud Apps</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/229402454">GSA Prepares $2.5 Billion Cloud Procurement</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/229402385">Amazon Cloud Outage Proves Importance Of Failover Planning</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/news/social_crm/229402299/how-hootsuite-recovered-from-amazons-cloud-outage">How HootSuite Recovered From Amazon's Cloud Outage</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-04-27T08:00:00ZGo Cloud Or Go HomeCloud computing can be diluted into uselessness when mixed with immature technologies and poor practices.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229402259?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomAt first glance, this past week was a disaster for cloud computing PR. A problem--make that a meltdown--in an East Coast Amazon Web Services data center caused hundreds of websites to be down for at least a full day, and sometimes more. It wasn't exactly a "Yay, cloud!" moment. Although we won't know all the details until Amazon Web Services gets out of crisis mode and has an opportunity to publish a post-mortem, it seems that the problem started with a service called <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/">Elastic Block Storage</a> (EBS). Amazon's description is that "Amazon Elastic Block Store provides highly available, highly reliable storage volumes that can be attached to a running Amazon EC2 [Elastic Compute Cloud] instance and exposed as a device within the instance. Amazon EBS is particularly suited for applications that require a database, file system, or access to raw block level storage." In essence, EBS lets you attach a "portable" hard disk to your virtual server without needing to have it physically attached to that server. Initially, it might appear that this could be a classic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_point_of_failure">Single Point of Failure</a> (SPoF) where EBS was the culprit. One of the problems with cloud computing today is that mere mortals have a hard time knowing all the places where a SPoF can occur in the cloud. From the outside it may appear that you've covered all the bases as far as redundancy is concerned, but it often isn't that easy. The more virtual and indirect the environment, the worse the problem gets. Let me give you an example. Years ago when I did software development in the telecommunications business, a customer came to our company looking for a backup data connection for their options trading firm. We were glad to provide one, and things went well for several months as they rarely used the capacity for anything more than testing. Then one day the customer's primary connection on AT&T went down when a backhoe ripped through the fiber-optic cable, so they switched over to us. But our connection was down too. It turns out that we had bought capacity from AT&T -- their supposedly redundant line was going through the very same fiber as their main connection! But that wasn't visible to the customer. Although the Amazon problem indeed seems to have started with a failure of just the EBS service in one data center, early information seems to be that this resulted a cascading widespread failure in Amazon's data centers, caused by <a href="http://joyeur.com/2011/04/22/on-cascading-failures-and-amazons-elastic-block-store/">congestive collapse</a>. As Amazon customers noticed that their servers were failing, they were in the dark about exactly why the failures were occurring. So they tried starting new instances, moving their data to other zones in Amazon's network, and all kinds of activity that only added to the congestion in the network. So now the problem was not just EBS, but the traffic jam caused by people trying to get around EBS failures. Despite this turbulent April shower in the cloud last week, the industry can't give up on cloud computing. As the largest provider of cloud services, Amazon was the most likely to fall victim to a problem like this. Perhaps it's an architectural problem with EBS; if so I'd expect that Amazon will determine that in the post-mortem and come up with changes or procedures to make sure the problem doesn't happen again. It doesn't make sense for most companies to be in the business of running data centers and managing PCs full of precious data that must be backed up to prevent catastrophe. Companies should be able to focus on their own lines of business and manage information, not computers. Cloud computing can help companies do that.This incident isn't even necessarily an indictment of Amazon Web Services as a whole. Large Amazon customers such as Netflix had apparently <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/adrianco/netflix-in-the-cloud-2011">architected</a> their use of AWS in a way that made them largely immune to any visible service disruption. You can bet, however, that Netflix has engineers on board with an understanding of AWS to a degree that 90% of the other customers couldn't start to approach. And for the benefit of the future of AWS, it is in Amazon's interest to figure out ways that mortal-level customers don't need to know Amazon's internal architecture the way Netflix does. One of the reasons we're in this situation is that most companies have one foot in the cloud and one in the traditional data-center-and-local-device world. The more that a company controls its own infrastructure, the more it can see the dangers and bottlenecks. Moving servers, services, and data to the cloud can put the dangers out of sight and out of mind, especially when things seem to be going right for months. Yet when things go wrong, we all realize how little we know and understand about the massive cloud data centers that hold our data, and how even the experts are hard-pressed to keep up. The result is incredibly silly statements like <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/technology/23cloud.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss">this one</a> in the New York Times: "Industry analysts said the troubles would prompt many companies to reconsider relying on remote computers beyond their control." So, do these industry analysts recommend that everyone run their own servers in their own geographically distributed buildings, served by multiple redundant high-capacity Internet connections? Perhaps that makes sense for Google or Microsoft, but not for the majority of companies. Lack of visibility and control in cloud failures is one of the things Amazon needs to address with its customers, in the postmortem, in its documentation, <a href="http://status.aws.amazon.com/">in status reporting</a>, and in monitoring tools. If they don't, the customers are likely to make the problems worse with their efforts, causing further degradation and increasing the time it takes to recover. That appears to be what happened in this case. Perhaps at least part of this problem is due to the AWS philosophy of Infrastructure as a Service. Amazon has provided many useful services but still leaves it to the customer to decide how to provision the processors and storage. Yet without the tools to optimize their infrastructure, customers may be shooting in the dark. Maybe the solution is to continue the trek to Platform as a Service similar to Microsoft Azure. Yes, it requires a scary leap of faith to move even more control to the provider of cloud services, especially now. But it gives the platform provider better control over the behavior of the entire platform in extreme or failure cases like this. And as we saw last week, when things go bad they can go very, very bad indeed.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/229402189">Air Force To Build Intelligence Sharing Cloud</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/229402174">Amazon Cloud Outage Didn't Stop Recovery.gov</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/229402134">Global CIO: How The Cloud Changes What IT Pros Do</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/229402117">Cloud Takes A Hit: Amazon Must Fix EC2</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/229402054">Amazon EC2 Outage Hobbles Websites</a></li> <li><a href=" http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/training/229401760">Creating Functional Teams In A Cloudy, Virtualized World</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-04-20T08:06:00ZThe Hidden Internet Explorer TaxIt's easy to tally the costs of upgrading Internet Explorer, but the costs of not upgrading are harder to see.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229401795?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomMany companies justify their reluctance to upgrade from Windows XP and/or Internet Explorer 6 by pointing to the high costs of buying new systems or upgrading old ones. These are the costs that are easy to see, since they end up as a line item in the IT budget. When management asks the question, "Is this really necessary?" it can be hard to make the case for spending that money when faced with other priorities. Yet there are hard costs associated with not upgrading, and they can be significant. This past weekend I was at the jQuery Conference in Mountain View, Calif. Yahoo's Nicholas Zakas presented <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/nzakas/progressive-enhancement-20">data</a> showing that although IE6 and IE7 only comprise about 20% of browser market share, they require as much as 40% of the development time for large Web projects. Several Web development companies at the conference confirmed that basic estimate. One developer put it this way: "We're very up-front with our clients about supporting older versions of IE. It usually takes about 30% more work to support them. Our company bills by the hour so it's the client's choice, but even then we'd prefer not to support them. It's tedious work and never seems to come out to anyone's satisfaction." The differences can be enormous. On Internet Explorer before version 9, the CSS-related features like rounded corners, drop shadows, gradients, and transitions don't come for free just by mentioning them in a style sheet; transparency for PNG graphics doesn't work in IE6 either. Scripting features like geolocation, cross-domain AJAX, client-side storage and caching, and canvas are missing as well. Instead, the developer must include special code or images to make any of it work in a minimally-crippled fashion when the user has an older version of IE. It is nearly a completely different code path and has to be tested extensively to make sure it works within the limitations of these workarounds, which cannot do exactly what the native functionality can do. Zakas made a <a href="http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com">short but elegant argument</a> about whether Web sites need to look exactly the same in every browser. In essence, your site should look different in every browser, because it provides the incentive to upgrade. The trap we have fallen into is thinking that just because it is sometimes possible to make IE6 work using an expensive Herculean effort, that it is a good idea to do so. When the CEO of the company is using IE6 on their own computer, the demonstration of the latest internal Web app will look like something from 2001. When it's running in IE9 or Firefox 4, it will be good looking and responsive. Is that a bad thing? Perhaps not, as long as it works to some extent, doesn't throw errors, and reminds the CEO that their corporate priorities are what made the app look that way in the first place. So there you have the hidden tax of staying with the older versions put into some hard numbers with some concrete justifications. It is somewhere between 30% and 40% more expensive (and time consuming) to develop for the older IE browsers that hang around on XP. This isn't a one-time tax, either. Every project a company develops will have to pay the price, and every third-party service will fall prey to it as well. One reason why developing for older IE is so expensive comes from something that Zakas calls a faulty development model of Web pages. He says that although we often try to compare a Web site to a book, a Web page is not a printed page. Instead, a better model is that a Web site is like a television channel, and the Web browser is like a TV set. Clearly, the channel will only look as good as the TV it is being shown on. To Zakas' analogy, IE6 is like an old black-and-white tube set whereas the newer browsers are like 3-D flat-screen sets. We are unfairly expecting developers to deliver a flat-screen 3-D experience on a black-and-white TV set. It is possible to use the "shims and polyfills" technique to coerce older browsers into running some new features, but inevitably those Web apps will end up being slower, harder to debug, and longer to develop than when the browser supports them natively. There are some encouraging signs that users and companies are upgrading their PCs. Just this month there was a <a href="http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/04/08/windows-7-just-overtook-xp-in-the-united-states/">report</a> that Windows 7 has surpassed XP in the United States. This milestone has already been reached in several other countries, particularly in Europe. Internet Explorer 6 and 7 usage in particular continues to <a href="http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2">drop</a> along with the Windows upgrades, further strengthening the argument that older browsers should not be a focus of--or impediment to--Web-based development. Microsoft has given XP users a difficult choice when it comes to browsers. Since IE9 doesn't work on XP, companies that want to stay with XP for a few more years can't go any further than IE8 if they want to stay with Internet Explorer. They can, however, move to <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/229400258">Firefox</a> or Chrome, which do support Web standards well and run on XP, so the lack of IE9 on XP is not a reason in itself to avoid the old-IE development tax. Transitioning to a new browser may not be completely painless in cost or time, but staying with an ancient browser will hold back your Web development efforts and cost money as well.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229401459">Microsoft Offers IE10 Sneak Peak</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/development/web/229400620">Microsoft's IE9 Unlocks HTML5</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/229400780">Review: Firefox 4 Improves Interface, Performance, Privacy Controls</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/229301308">Review: IE 9 Is Microsoft's Best Browser Yet</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/229301089">Review: Google Adds Faster Engine To Chrome 10</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/229219585">Review: Chrome Personal Blocklist Thwarts Bad Search Results</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-04-13T08:00:00ZMicrosoft Store Success Requires Bolder MovesRedmond has been copying Apple by opening glitzy stores, but the company will need to change its offerings to succeed in retail.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229401433?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomIf imitation is really the sincerest form of flattery, Microsoft has been tossing compliments at Apple left and right with its new Microsoft retail stores. Not only are Microsoft stores taking up positions near Apple stores, but they have adopted much of the Apple feel. Yet beneath the surface, the two stores are as different as the products they sell. The first Microsoft retail store opened in 2009, just about the time Windows 7 was released. Microsoft hasn't gone crazy with expansion though. After eighteen months, the company has <a href="http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Locations/home">only nine stores</a> including one in the Mall of America in Minneapolis, three in California, and one near the company's home turf in Bellevue Wash. There are no stores at all in the northeast United States; it seems odd that Microsoft wouldn't yet have a presence in New York City for example. There are <a href="http://www.winrumors.com/rumor-microsoft-planning-new-york-houston-and-orlando-retail-stores-in-2011/">rumors</a> that one may be coming this year. I haven't been fortunate enough to visit one of these stores, but the people I've talked to who have been to them say there's something not quite right when compared to the Apple stores. They have a similar look and feel, but just don't quite capture the same essence. One person described the difference as "Apple stores have a minimalist Zen feeling to them, with just a simple and small placard next to each item to tell you its specs and price. Microsoft stores still seem more like a Best Buy." Have any of you been to one of the stores? What did you think? There seems to be some <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-debates-whether-to-open-more-stores-2011-4?op=1">internal debate</a> at Microsoft about whether expanding the retail stores is a smart idea. I think it should, because today Microsoft is letting everyone else in the industry tell consumers about Microsoft. It's time that Microsoft said a few things about itself, unfiltered by its partners. Here's what I mean: Having been to the big-box stores like Best Buy, I am convinced that much of the problem with Windows isn't Microsoft. It's the way Windows is being deployed by the hardware makers. Let's just look at a few examples. First consider the purchase process. There is certainly a lot of variety in Best Buy as far as models and configurations of Windows-based PCs and notebooks are concerned. There are more models and options available there than in an Apple store. However, it isn't clear whether the hardware variety at Best Buy benefits the consumer that much, because they all share common flaws. Just about every model is slathered with poorly written "trial versions" of utilities that are designed to suck more money out of consumers once they get the hardware home. The reason that junk gets onto the computer in the first place is that the hardware maker sees an opportunity for a few more dollars as well. Instead of simply making the money from the initial sale, or from repeat sales to satisfied customers, they can load dozens of little trialware or special offers onto the drive that create a horrible initial experience for the buyer. Instead of being able to use their computer successfully right out of the box, they're hacking through a bunch of popups and registration screens hawking some "indispensable" utility or service.And you know what? This load-it-with-junk business model often succeeds, because it creates exactly the sort of unreliable and cryptic environment that makes people feel helpless around computers. The big retail stores are even taking advantage of this and now want you to pay to <a href="http://consumerist.com/2010/01/consumerist-investigation-best-buy-optimization-is-a-big-stupid-annoying-waste-of-money.html">clean off</a> much of this trialware even before it leaves the store. It's the ultimate protection racket. It's not just software that causes the annoyance, though. Intel pays the hardware makers to put little "Intel Inside" stickers on the hardware that prove to everyone that you made a decision that got Intel some money and let it put a sticker on the box so you wouldn't forget about it. If you prefer to not have those ugly stickers on your box, though, you'll find out how hard they are to remove without scratching your brand-new PC, and they leave adhesive behind. None of that miserable experience benefits Microsoft. Consumers come away from the big-box stores feeling confused, <a href="http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Buy">screwed</a>, or both, but there's nothing Microsoft can do about it. These aren't really Microsoft's customers, they're "owned" by HP or Sony and "serviced" by Best Buy. Yet when they boot the computer and the Windows logo comes up on the screen, you can bet some of that miserable experience rubs off on Microsoft. So if I was in charge of Microsoft Retail Stores, the first thing I'd do is create about a half-dozen of the best darn Windows hardware and configurations on the face of the planet. They wouldn't be available anywhere else but those stores. There would be no trialware or other junk on these setups. The out-of-box experience should be quick and make people happy they bought from the Microsoft store and not from some big-box discount place. When people buy from the Microsoft store, they should feel like they bought the product from Microsoft. If hardware makers don't want to cooperate, I don't think it's out of the question that Microsoft could create its own brand-name computers. It needs to do whatever it takes to ensure the customer gets a good experience. Clearly it's not a good idea for Microsoft to open dozens of stores yet; that should wait until it gets the formula down and determines what these stores really want to be. But in the meantime, Apple will enjoy success with its 300-plus stores and move into new markets like <a href="http://www.ifoapplestore.com/db/2011/04/06/apple-pushing-eastward-has-plans-for-moscow-store/">Moscow</a>. Microsoft needs to stop letting other people sell its products poorly, and show that it can sell its own products well.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229401337">Gartner: Microsoft MIA In Tablets Through 2015</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/development/web/229400620">Microsoft's IE9 Unlocks HTML5</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229401188">Microsoft Could Lose More Than Consumer Market To Tablets</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229400796">Windows 8 May Feature Tablet-Friendly UI</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229400752">Microsoft Needs Tech, Not Torts, To Beat Google</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/security/229400430">Microsoft Wins A Botnet Battle</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-04-05T08:00:00ZCan Tablets Succeed In Business?Apple ignited the tablet market with the iPad, and it's hard to argue with millions of consumers, but tablets have yet to find a place in the enterprise.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229400833?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomBeing wrong is one of the perils of prognostication. Early last year I wondered what was so special about the iPad, given its price and features. It is supposed to fit in the gap between mobile phones and notebook PCs, but to me there's not much of a gap to fill there. A phone is small and the ultimate in portability, but inconvenient for data input or high fidelity display. A notebook (or even a netbook) is a pain to lug around, but is much more flexible on the input and display side. A tablet like the iPad has a slightly larger screen, but essentially inherits all the other drawbacks of an iPhone. My <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2010/01/the_ipad_i_dont.html">pessimism</a> didn't stop the iPad from becoming wildly successful, though. In my defense, just about everyone underestimated its popularity and potential. Take a look at <a href="http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/18/claim-chowder-ipad-sales-2010">these numbers</a> for projections and actual sales in 2010. They sold almost 15 million units! Perhaps at least some of those sales have come at the expense of dedicated devices like portable DVD players, Kindles, or GameBoys. Still, that kind of popularity is starting to <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/14/idc-and-gartner-us-pc-sales-drop-as-tablets-shake-things-up/">cut into</a> PC sales, even though PCs far outsell tablets. Although plenty of people underestimated the tablet, there was one industry visionary who clearly saw the rise of the tablet <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/nov01/11-11comdex2001keynotepr.mspx">a decade ago</a>. No, not Steve Jobs, but Bill Gates, who said this at Comdex in 2001: "The PC took computing out of the back office and into everyone's office," said Gates. "The Tablet takes cutting-edge PC technology and makes it available wherever you want it, which is why I'm already using a Tablet as my everyday computer. It's a PC that is virtually without limits -- and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America." Although his tablet timeline was a bit optimistic, Gates turned out to be spot-on about the popularity of the tablet. Problem is, it wasn't running Microsoft software. Tablets still aren't running Microsoft software today. The iPad essentially has a lock on the actually-shipping-and-available tablet market. Some Android devices are here and more are arriving soon, pushing Microsoft further to the back of the line. Meanwhile, Microsoft expects to have its "real" tablet solution ready with <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/28/microsoft-to-demo-windows-8-tablet-interface-in-june/">Windows 8</a>, whenever that ships. Not everyone at Microsoft seems to agree with Bill Gates that tablets are the future. For example, Craig Mundie, global chief research and strategy officer, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/tablets/tablets-might-be-a-flash-in-the-pan-microsoft-global-chief-strategy-officer-20110330-1cfv2.html">isn't that optimistic</a> about tablets; he actually sounds a lot like my "what is it good for" of a year ago: "I think there's an important distinction -- and frankly one we didn't jump on at Microsoft fast enough -- between mobile and portable. Mobile is something that you want to use while you're moving, and portable is something that you move and then use. These are going to bump into one another a little bit and so today you can see tablets and pads and other things that are starting to live in the space in between. Personally I don't know whether that space will be a persistent one or not."For another insight into tablets and the mobile market from Microsoft's perspective, take a look at <a href="http://d8.allthingsd.com/speakers/steve-ballmer/full-session-video/">this video</a> from the D8: All Things Digital conference in June 2010. Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie were interviewed by Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg. Ballmer made some dismissive comments about the Apple and Google strategies, and used his oft-repeated line that it's early and Microsoft has time to catch up in to the current leaders. By the way, if you want to get some insight into why Ray Ozzie <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2010/10/does_ray_ozzies.html">left Microsoft</a>, watch the segment about three-quarters of the way into the video where Ozzie gives a refreshingly honest answer about why Google is developing Chrome OS: "On Android versus Chrome, if you look at the architecture of what's going on in iPad, iPhone, and Android from an app model perspective, Chrome OS is a bet on the future. When you install an app on [iPhone, Android, Windows, or Mac], you're targeting the device. Chrome is a bet on a cloud-centric future, where you go to a site and an app happens to cache itself on a device." Unfortunately, that response came right after Steve Ballmer says he doesn't understand Google's dual-OS (Android and Chrome) strategy. It certainly gave the impression that Microsoft's CEO isn't quite sure how a major competitor's strategy works. The sad part is that Ray Ozzie, the guy who did clearly understand the strategy, is leaving the company. Regardless of the operating system used on a tablet, what exactly makes them popular? It's interesting that there is <a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/ipad-usage/">no killer app category</a> for the iPad, unlike the PC where Lotus 1-2-3 launched its popularity and Microsoft Office kept things going strong over the past two decades. Scanning that list, you'd have to say the majority of iPad users are using it for leisure and not for business. The two are far from mutually exclusive today, of course, but it's hard to find a compelling business reason to get a tablet based on what it can do today. In short, we've yet to see the kind of apps that justify businesses investing in tablets. I suppose Microsoft is hoping that a tablet based on Windows, one that can run the business apps that people use today, will attract businesses. After seeing the way that tablets are used, I'm not so sure. Legacy Windows business apps aren't built for tablets and touch, so Microsoft's advantage in Windows business apps can't really be pushed into tablets the way it moved off of the desktop and onto notebooks. So, although nobody can argue with the fact that tablets have been a consumer success, I still have doubts about its future as a business tool.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/tablets/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229400697">Where Are All the Honeycomb Apps?</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/tablets/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229400625">Why Dell Is Wrong About The iPad</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/messaging/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229400560">FuzeBox Brings iPad 2, Android 3.0 Tablets Into Video Meetings</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229400348">Tablets, Web Apps Lead 'Consumerization' Of IT</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/hardware_software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229400338">SMB Tablet Adoption To Grow 1000% By 2015</a></li> <li><a href=" http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/tablets/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229400155"> Tablets Overshadow Smartphones</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-03-29T08:00:00ZMicrosoft Wins A Botnet BattleThe Rustok botnet was estimated to be one million PCs strong, underlining the dangers that malware can cause to businesses and consumers.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229400430?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomIf you noticed a decrease in spam recently, there could be a good reason. This month, Microsoft <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301278">took down</a> the Rustok botnet. Microsoft's Digital Crime Unit reported that its "research shows there may be close to one million computers infected with Rustock malware, all under the control of the person or people operating the network like a remote army, usually without the computer's owner even aware that his computer has been hijacked. Bot-herders infect computers with malware in a number of ways, such as when a computer owner visits a Web site booby-trapped with malware and clicks on a malicious advertisement or opens an infected e-mail attachment. Bot-herders do this so discretely that owners often never suspect their PC is living a double life." These botnets aren't just the toy of young hackers who like causing mischief. They aren't trying to crash or disable the computer; in fact it's just the opposite. That stealth aspect to the bot infection is key to its success. The user has no reason to think they need to get their PC fixed, because a good botnet infection doesn't raise suspicion. That is the key to the botnet's survival. A botnet is a huge money-making tool for its creators. When bot-herders take over a PC, they have many ways to turn a profit. One way is to grab information they find on the PC, or can extract by monitoring the user's keystrokes. This can give them access to bank accounts, credit cards, and login information to sites such as eBay or PayPal. Before the user can do anything to stop it, the botnet operator can transfer the PayPal money to another account. Or they can purchase expensive items with the user's eBay account and get the seller to send it to an address where the botnet operator can pick it up. Perhaps the most valuable thing a botnet provides its handler is a large pool of "innocent-looking" IP addresses. In the case of the Rustok botnet, that's one million IPs. If the bot-controlled PC appears to visit a Web site, click on a Google Adwords ad, or send a few dozen emails, it's not possible to block that action based merely on the IP address. So Rustok's botnet could send 10 million spam messages by having each PC send just 10 emails, and nothing looks suspicious. Click fraud is another endless source of money for botnet operators. By setting up some shallow content sites with Google Adwords or other ad networks, the bot-herder can have the bots visit those sites and click on the ads to generate revenue. The bot-herder can also use click fraud to attack competitors, clicking on their ads in order to drain their ad budgets. This type of fraud can be extremely difficult for the ad networks to spot if the botnet operator keeps the fraud at a low level and doesn't get too greedy. When botnets started to emerge a decade ago, the creators of the botnets often used them directly and managed all the money-making schemes themselves. Now, many bot-herders rent out their botnet to other groups that have specific goals in mind, such as spam, click fraud, or targeted attacks. Underground message boards let bot-herders communicate with their customers to "sell time" on the botnet.Botnets are a threat not only to businesses and consumers, but to governments as well. A botnet can be used as a huge army in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare">cyberwarfare</a>, effectively disabling communication channels by clogging critical Internet paths or Web sites. Unlike many weapons programs, a botnet can be self-funding and doesn't require technology that's embargoed by major nations like the United States. The commercial crime not only brings in money, but provides a "cover story" for why the botnet was created in the first place. At any point, however, the botnet can become a weapon of war if it is controlled by a country. Microsoft has its own take on how to combat botnets: "It's like a gang setting up a drug den in someone's home while they're on vacation and coming back to do so every time the owner leaves the house, without the owner ever knowing anything is happening. Homeowners can better protect themselves with good locks on their doors and security systems for their homes. Similarly, computer owners can be better protected from malware if they run up-to-date software -- including up-to-date antivirus and anti-malware software -- on their computers. Although anti-malware software can help, its effectiveness is far from perfect. The botnet creators are constantly working on ways to mask their infection vectors, and are often successful. Combine that with the gullibility of many users and some simple social engineering techniques ("free porn, don't worry about the antivirus warning, it's a known bug") and many PCs that are technically protected still become infected. Once it's established on the PC, the botnet software often disables any antivirus software, and may even turn off Windows Updates to prevent programs like the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool from running. Large enterprises can be a prime source of raw PC material for botnets, but they also have tools that consumers don't have for detecting and fixing botnet infections. The most important of these are network monitoring. Botnets have to communicate with a "controller" on the Internet in order to receive their marching orders. By analyzing the Internet traffic traveling through the corporate firewall, the network admins may be able to find suspicious patterns. Botnet operators are often opportunistic in their attacks. If they happen to find that they have taken over a PC in an enterprise, they may sell the control of that PC to someone who would like to make a targeted attack on that company. At that point it's no longer just a case of your company's PCs being used for bad things. Your company's PCs have become a vector being used to attack the company itself. The potential for losses of both money and information are almost unlimited. That risk alone is the best justification for your company to actively monitor and combat its PCs being turned into botnet fodder.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301278">Microsoft, Feds Knock Rustock Botnet Offline</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301355">Microsoft Should Bet On Web Apps</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300955">Microsoft Needs Mobile Money</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300512">Microsoft: Make IE9 The Last Release</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219500">Will Windows XP Really Die On Cue?</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219028">Microsoft's Drops The Curtain On AutoPlay</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229218569">Nokia Makes Last Stand With Microsoft</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-03-22T08:00:00ZMicrosoft Should Bet On Web AppsAs the mobile environment becomes more fragmented, developers will be tempted to focus their efforts on the platforms with large market share. Microsoft needs a way to attract those developers.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229301355?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomMicrosoft's late start with Windows Phone makes it a dark horse in the mobile market. Apple, Google, and RIM have already managed to take huge existing market share, with millions of customers currently using their products. That attracts the attention of developers who want to reach those millions of users through app stores. Microsoft needs something that will turn developer attention to the Windows Phone platform, despite the fact that there aren't currently a lot of users to buy whatever is created. It's a classic chicken-and-egg problem. If there's one thing Microsoft sees as a strength, it's developer relations (To quote CEO Steve Ballmer: "Developers, developers, developers, developers!"). To their credit, the company has created a set of developer tools for Windows Phone that seems to be very well designed. Those tools take advantage of technologies that many Microsoft shops will already have and know how to use, such as Visual Studio, Silverlight, and the .NET Framework. So although Windows Phone is relatively new, it's not a miserable learning curve for someone already familiar with the Microsoft world. Yet most current mobile developers aren't necessarily familiar with the Microsoft world, and that's another problem for Microsoft. Each platform has its own unique set of tools for developing native applications, which means developers have to learn a new set of tools for each platform they want to target. That is a huge startup cost. If you're a developer looking at the current mobile landscape, Windows Phone is way down the list of platforms you might target for native app development given its meager market share. However, there is a way for Microsoft to essentially level the playing field. Instead of encouraging developers to write native apps with the Microsoft development tools, they can evangelize the development of "Web apps" that use HTML and Javascript instead. In the simplest case, this just means having a true Web page that users visit in the browser. That can be a single page or multiple pages, and the actual pages can either be hosted out on the Internet or actually be local files on the user's mobile device. Not everyone agrees that Web apps are the way to go. Some feel <a href="http://www.seancoleman.net/post/3052050668/why-37signals-is-falling-into-obsolescence">native apps are superior</a> because they can take better advantage of all the performance or features of the platform. And, of course, a native app will generally look and act more consistent with the platform it is on compared to a Web app that is trying to split the difference between several different platforms with slightly different user interfaces. Often, however, mobile apps are simple enough that the platform differences don't matter. The other major complaint about a Web app in a browser page is that users have to launch their browser to get to it. It doesn't feel natural to users who are accustomed to starting an app by tapping its icon on their home page. Plus, there is no reason to show the address/url bar at any time for a Web app, and that can be an issue with mobile screen space at a premium. Finally, there are things a browser will not let a plain old Web page do for security reasons, such as get access to the phone's camera or GPS readings.An open-source app named Phonegap helps to make Web apps based on HTML and Javascript look and feel a lot more like native apps. Instead of running the HTML/Javascript in a browser, Phonegap hosts its own embedded browser using the platform's native browser engine. For most user interface work, the Web app simply modifies the page using standard HTML and Javascript code. When the app needs to access platform functionality that it normally couldn't in a browser, it simply calls a Phonegap interface. The Phonegap "application" can have an icon and launch just like a native application, so to most users a well-written Web app will be nearly indistinguishable from a native app. Microsoft pioneered the concept of an embeddable browser, and Windows desktop applications have been able to use the HTML/Javascript engines in the form of the WebBrowser Control for more than a decade. Now, Microsoft needs to take this technology to its mobile platform and push it hard. That way, developers don't need to go out of their way to support Microsoft. They can get it by just writing an app that will work on all platforms, including Windows Phone. To execute on this strategy, Microsoft should do one thing as soon as possible: deliver Internet Explorer 9 to Windows Phone. Most of the other mobile platforms, including Apple's iPhone, Google's Android, and RIM's BlackBerry are already shipping a standards-compliant browser. Even better for developers, they are all variants of WebKit so they have very similar behavior. That makes Windows Phone the odd man out. Microsoft has been <a href="http://www.neowin.net/news/internet-explorer-9-for-windows-phone-7-shown-off-at-sxsw">showing IE9</a> at various trade shows, and says it will ship with the update code-named "Mango." The question is, when will Mango ship? In February, Steve Ballmer said it would ship in 2011. Now, however, sources are saying that it <a href="http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/First-Windows-Phone-7-Software-Update-on-Tap.aspx">may not ship</a> this year. The current Windows Phone browser is based on the ancient Internet Explorer 7, and it doesn't offer very good performance or compliance with standards. In fact, it does not support modern standards like HTML5 or CSS3 at all. As a result, Windows Phone is at a disadvantage when it comes to Web-based applications. But Internet Explorer 9 has just shipped for the desktop. If Microsoft can just get it to their mobile platform they'll achieve parity with the market leaders in this race, and offer developers an attractive way to offer Windows Phone support.   <a name="recommended"></a> <center> <div id="recommendedReadingPromo"> <div class="recommendedReadingPromoHeader">Recommended Reading:</div> <ul class="normalUL"> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300955">Microsoft Needs Mobile Money</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300512">Microsoft: Make IE9 The Last Release</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301275">How The Xbox Can Save Microsoft</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301282">IE9 Hits 2.3 Million Downloads In 24 Hours</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301209">Microsoft Adds 'Do Not Track' To IE9</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300931">Google Issues Microsoft IE Warning</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/productivity_apps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300772">Microsoft Exec Says Cloud Strategy Is Right On Track</a></li> <li class="last-li"><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=6080">See more by Dave Methvin</a></li> </ul> </div> </center>  2011-03-15T08:00:00ZMicrosoft Needs Mobile MoneyIt's not enough for mobile to be hot; eventually Microsoft has to find a way to make it profitable too.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229300955?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomThere are a lot of ways to make money off the shift to mobile computing. Some companies have found several ways to profit from mobile, but Microsoft in particular seems to be in a tough spot due to its late start in mobile, a very small market share, lack of leverage with the all-powerful carriers, and a revenue model based on licensing the operating system. When it comes to making money off mobile computing, the expert is Apple. How do they profit? Let us count the ways. First, they sell iPhones and iPads directly from their stores. Second, they sell accessories for those devices in their stores. Third, they get a kickback for devices the carriers sell at their stores. Fourth, they take a cut of every app purchased through the App Store. Fifth, they take a cut of any in-app sale or subscription. Sixth, they run the iAd network for displaying in-app advertisements and receive revenue from advertisers. Whew. Did I miss any? It's not just a case of having many channels to make money, but also a question of how much money you can squeeze out of each one. Apple's yearly release cadence for the iPhone is an example of how the company maximizes profits. There is an artificial scarcity created by Apple's insistence on just one current model of the phone. You want a physical keyboard? Too bad. But you can be sure that there will be a new model out every summer with a few nice new touches, and it will be improved enough to make you want to trade in your previous iPhone. Accessories are another opportunity for astronomical profit margins. If you buy a low-end iPad 2 (Wi-Fi only and 16 GB of memory) it will "only" cost you $500. Yet you don't want to risk scratching or breaking the glass on that baby, so of course you'll want some sort of cover. Apple answered with the <a href="http://www.apple.com/ipad/smart-cover/">Smart Cover</a>, a $40 assemblage of magnets and plastic (sorry, polyurethane) that covers the screen. If plastic is not chic enough for your iPad, an Italian leather version is available for $70. There's no standard video output port, so you will have to lay out $40 for an HDMI dongle if you want to show video on a TV screen. Need a cable to show your iPod video on a VGA display? No problem if you have another $40 for yet another dongle. Give Apple their props, they basically reinvented the smartphone category when they released the original iPhone in 2007. Because of that, AT&T was willing to pay Apple a pretty decent kickback for exclusivity in the U.S. market. Although that exclusivity has expired now that Verizon has the iPhone as well, it no doubt piled some serious dollars onto Apple's bottom line during those years. Regardless, Apple still gets its share of revenue from every iPhone or iPad that either AT&T or Verizon sell. So let's turn our attention to the software and services side. The only way a non-rooted phone can get apps is to use the App Store, controlled by Apple. The company uses a heavy hand to control what appears in the App Store. The Internet is full of sad stories from developers who have had their apps rejected by Apple for reasons that were vague, arbitrary, or non-existent. Yet that is just one more way that Apple controls their iPhone and iPad ecosystem, creating a walled garden that has served their business pretty well to this point. Apple's monopoly on the iPhone and iPad ecosystem has raised plenty of controversy, but up to this point the user-opposition has offered a lot more words than action. Things have turned ugly in the past month with Apple's insistence that they get a 30% cut of any subscription revenue generated by apps. Yet it's not clear that app and content developers can vote with their feet as long as users are enamored with Apple's products, even if the "Apple tax" is incredibly high.Google has taken a different road to mobile profits, but one that seems to be working for them. Some analysts have said that Google stands to make <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-will-make-10-per-android-user-in-2012-report-64181">$10 per user</a> of the Android platform. If that is truly the case, it is not bad considering that Google is not a hardware maker, doesn't have carrier kickbacks to lean on, and has no "walled garden" to prevent Android users from using other sources of apps. What Google does have, however, is volume. The Android platform has by some measures <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20040598-251.html">passed the iPhone</a> in installed base. Android users reportedly aren't as likely to pay for apps as iPhone users, which limits Google's profits from the Android Market. But the most capable apps on the platform are Google's own apps, and those often include Google's own advertising. Since Google's AdWords is the largest ad market for desktop advertising, they are successfully using that network to leverage mobile profits. Google can afford to give away Android in order to make money off ads. That brings us to Microsoft. With a few exceptions like XBox and Zune, Microsoft has made its money from licensing fees on its software. With Apple providing its own OS for iPhone and Google giving away Android for free to any phone maker who wants it, this is a tough model to sell to OEMs. It actually made some sense for Nokia, which was investing large amounts of money in its own software, to switch to Windows Phone. That decision was made easier when Microsoft reportedly offered a $1 billion financial package to Nokia. Yet those are profits headed in the wrong direction, at least in the long term. Microsoft either needs to convince its OEMs to license Windows Phone or find some other revenue source. Apple got the benefit of being first with a truly innovative smartphone design, and locked in AT&T as an exclusive partner to increase profits. Since there are plenty of mobile players already in the market, Microsoft doesn't have that same ability to lock into a single carrier. The size of the iPhone and Android markets make Windows Phone a comparatively tiny player; Microsoft's mobile market share in the fourth quarter of 2010 actually <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20040598-251.html">shrank</a>, despite the introduction of Windows Phone 7. The small size of the Windows Phone ecosystem presents serious challenges to profitability. Since the OEMs make the actual hardware, they are going to be the ones to benefit from innovative hardware or accessories and Microsoft won't share in that. Apple is squeezing its App Store developers hard for money, but Microsoft is unlikely to be able to do the same. Instead, they will need to make the Windows Phone platform as welcoming and profitable as possible, despite its small size. Finally, Microsoft doesn't have a large ad network like Google; there isn't a way to leverage an existing advertiser audience for mobile applications. Microsoft might be tempted to narrow its focus with Windows Phone and try to address just the corporate market, since that's where Windows Mobile 6.5 had its strength. If it was five years ago I think that strategy might work, but even the corporate mobile market leaders like RIM have decided to go broad with their newer product offerings. There isn't a well-defined line between consumer and corporate in the mobile market anymore. It's time for Microsoft to drop the conservative approach and try an all-out attack on the mobile market. The Nokia deal shows they are willing to try. Now the company needs to create demand for Windows Phone. Letting its employees write Windows Phone apps and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/business/27novel.html">keep the money</a> from spare-time Windows Phone projects is another aggressive move. Perhaps it will create some unique apps that aren't available on iPhone or Android, and that could get consumers to switch. If Microsoft wants to have a functional Windows Phone ecosystem, they pretty much have to have an app store and ad network. For now they have to give just about everything away (and even pay companies like Nokia to join the party) in order to build a non-trivial market share. If they're lucky they can charge real money for Windows Phone licenses at some point, but it's going to be a long haul. See More: <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300512">Microsoft: Make IE9 The Last Release</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219500">Will Windows XP Really Die On Cue?</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219028">Microsoft's Drops The Curtain On AutoPlay</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229218569">Nokia Makes Last Stand With Microsoft</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/3G/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229202513">Carriers Sending Mixed Signals On Mobile Bandwidth</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200144">Microsoft Needs More Kinect, Less Kin</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100167">Microsoft's CES Misdirection Depends On Developers To Succeed</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000800">Windows Phone 7, Collateral Damage Edition</a>2011-03-08T08:00:00ZMicrosoft: Make IE9 The Last ReleaseThe big-bang theory of software releases doesn't work well in the age of the Internet, a lesson Microsoft hasn't learned yet.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229300512?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomAbout a month ago, I upgraded from Google Chrome version 8 to version 9. Funny thing is, I didn't really notice much of a change. The browser told me there was an update, I installed it, and things just kept working. That's the way most Chrome versions seem to arrive. Google just makes the browser better with these updates, but doesn't change things to the extent that it's jarring or disruptive. It's time for Microsoft to follow this model. The fact that Google Chrome is up to version 9 also says something about its pace of development. Certainly version numbers can be fudged, but they do provide some idea of update frequency. Internet Explorer first saw the light of day in 1995, and is about to make its way to version 9. The first beta of Chrome was released in September 2008 and it's now at version 9. What about Mozilla Firefox, then? It's the second-most-popular browser, yet the number 2 browser hasn't yet even made its way to version 4 yet. Firefox has sometimes added significant feature changes in point-upgrades that browsers like IE save for a major version change, but even so the pace of Firefox changes hasn't been nearly as fast as Chrome. Signs point to an <a href="http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/365602/mozilla-firefox-4-will-be-our-last-big-release">quickened pace</a> for Firefox once version 4 makes its way out the door. Jay Sullivan, vice president of product development at Mozilla, indicates Mozilla has decided the Chrome model is a good one to follow. "What we want to do is get the power into users' hands more quickly. For example, the video tag was shippable in June -- we should have shipped it," he said. "Meanwhile, we're waiting for this whole package. Why wouldn't we ship the video tag when it's ready?" That, in a nutshell, is the problem with waiting for big releases. Functionality that goes into those releases is warehoused for months or years, unavailable to anyone but beta testers, until the big release happens. Firefox has experienced it, and so has Microsoft. Former Microsoftie Mark Lucovsky wrote <a href="http://mark-lucovsky.blogspot.com/2005/02/shipping-software.html">a blog entry</a> back in 2005 that contemplates the problems of a schedule oriented towards a big-bang theory of software releases: "When a Microsoft engineer fixes a minor defect, makes something faster or better, makes an API more functional and complete, how do they "ship" that software to me? I know the answer and so do you. . . . The software sits in a source code control system for a minimum of two years (significantly longer for some of the early Longhorn code). At some point, the product that the fix is a part of will "ship" meaning that CD's will be pressed and delivered to customers and OEM's. In best case scenarios, the software will reach end users a few months after the Release To Manufacturing (RTM) date. In many cases, particularly for users working in large corporations, they won't see the software for a year or more post RTM." Microsoft's general policy is that nothing is updated in a slipstream fix unless it's a security or stability issue. In short, "Read My Lips: No New Features." That can be a pretty restrictive rule, however. It often means that serious deficiencies go unfixed for years until the next release. In fact, Internet Explorer 9 is the first version of IE that has not been released in unison with a new version of Windows. That alone is a good sign for IE's viability, but it's not enough.A "No New Features" edict made a lot of sense when software was hard to deliver. The cost of burning CDs alone meant that when it came time to make changes, anything that wasn't absolutely needed was a risk not worth taking. Plus, when users are expected to pony up more money for a new version, there isn't a lot of incentive to add features to the old one. That whole equation changes when software is free or being paid for by subscription. Users often want improvements, but don't want radically different improvements that complicate upgrades. Adding complex or radically different features also hampers slipstreamed updates. It would be hard to imagine slipstreaming Office 2003 to Office 2007 in a medium-to-large size organization. The application just morphed in too many ways -- file formats, user interface, menus, developer features -- to think about such a change. In situations like that, it can make sense to plan carefully. But the resistance that customers gave to Office 2007 showed that an incremental approach without radical new features might have gotten a better reception. The days of those feature-driven new releases, designed to entice users to pay for an upgrade, may be fading. Software as a service isn't just "running things on the server" or "writing apps in HTML and Javascript" or "pay for a subscription." A good service should be like water, electricity, or Internet connectivity. It should be reliable, available, predictable, and compatible with the things connected to it. Nobody would accept a new water service for their house or business that required tearing out the existing plumbing. That's the kind of upheaval caused by new software versions with big-bang feature changes. Internet Explorer 9 provides an opportunity for Microsoft to change its approach to versioning. With version 9, IE has reached a plateau that is solid and standards-compliant enough to implement the kind of quick-release cycle that Google Chrome is already using and that Mozilla Firefox expects to adopt this year. The phrase "shipping is a feature" has been used in the halls of Redmond for ages. With IE's two major competitors shipping at a breakneck pace, it's a competitive disadvantage if IE waits for years between major additions. To make this kind of approach work, users and businesses need to feel confident that slipstreamed updates won't break existing applications and Web sites. Those updates also can't make changes to user interfaces that cause confusion or reduce productivity. My experience with Chrome and most Web-based services show that it can be done. The key is to make changes incremental and focus on small improvements. Over time, the little things add up. See More <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219500">Will Windows XP Really Die On Cue?</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219028">Microsoft's Drops The Curtain On AutoPlay</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229218569">Nokia Makes Last Stand With Microsoft</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/3G/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229202513">Carriers Sending Mixed Signals On Mobile Bandwidth</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200144">Microsoft Needs More Kinect, Less Kin</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100167">Microsoft's CES Misdirection Depends On Developers To Succeed</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000800">Windows Phone 7, Collateral Damage Edition</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000177">13 Technology Predictions For 2011</a>2011-03-01T07:00:00ZWill Windows XP Really Die On Cue?Microsoft says Windows XP support ends in 2014, but can they stick to their guns?http://www.informationweek.com/news/229219500?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomI've been happily using Windows 7 as my primary operating system ever since its release in 2009; it's a great step up from Vista -- especially Vista -- or XP. A recent experience, however, makes me wonder if Microsoft can really drop support for Windows XP in <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-gb&C2=1173">August 2014</a> as it says it will. A friend was starting a work-at-home contract job for a large organization. The company doesn't provide PCs, but for security reasons has strict rules about the kind of software that can be used on the PC that the contractor provides. For example, no peer-communication software such as IRC or Skype can be installed and the company's monitoring package will not allow it to be present. As a result, she needed a completely different PC that she could use for doing this work that was totally separate from her main computer. Over the past six or seven years I have collected quite a few computers and parts, some of them from PCs retired as I've upgraded systems for family members. With all that hardware hanging around, it seemed that I could do her a favor and put together a PC that she could use. How hard could it be? Well, darned near impossible as it turns out. In the end, the computer I gave her was the best PC that 2005 had to offer. The first thing I thought about doing was using one of the old PCs with Windows 7. After all, why not give a friend the latest and greatest that Microsoft has to offer? So I took one of the relatively recent PCs and installed Windows 7. It almost kinda sorta worked, but there was a problem with the video card that caused it to generate all kinds of video artifacts whenever the system went to sleep. I tried different video driver versions but no matter what it would not work. No problem, though, I had several different video cards. However, none of them were good enough for Windows 7, which requires DirectX 9.0 support. So I tried a few different circa-2006 motherboards that had built-in video. Nope, they weren't up to snuff either. And by the way, this is easier to say than it was to do. With a pile of parts there's no easy way to know if they are good enough to run Windows 7 or not. It may take a couple of hours to set up the hardware, try an install, and find out that it's not going to work. Perhaps this kind of Windows 7 upgrade pain wouldn't be so much of a problem in companies that keep a good inventory of the hardware they are running, or run a large number of similarly-configured PCs. Just having a working PC in the first place would have made it possible to run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to find out whether the PC was up to snuff. Yet based on this experience, I suspect that there are plenty of PCs in companies still running XP that don't have the ability to upgrade to Windows 7.In October 2001, the same month Windows XP was released, I bought a new car. Today I am still driving that car and have no intentions of selling it any time soon. My PCs haven't lasted quite as long, but a good PC can definitely put in five years or more of solid service. Computers aren't becoming obsolete as quickly as they did back in the 1990s, especially as more applications become based on a browser rather than requiring lots of desktop horsepower and disk space. With Windows 7 now totally out of the question, I considered trying Vista but didn't have any licenses available for it. That's because I tend to live by the saying, "Friends don't let friends use Vista." However, I do have quite a few Windows XP licenses from decommissioned PCs and there is no question that all of this hardware supports it. That hardware still has plenty of life left in it -- as long as it's using XP. So with my available hardware dictating Windows XP, I checked with my friend to see if using such an "ancient" operating system might cause trouble with the company's software. This is where the software side of XP's lease on life becomes apparent. It turns out that their mission-critical line-of-business software can support Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP but not Vista or Windows 7. Here I was concerned about installing an old XP operating system, but I'd be hard pressed to find a Windows 98 PC in 2011. So with a mere three years to go before Microsoft is supposed to drop support for XP, this company does not even support the five-year-old Vista. I suspect a lot of companies are like this one: Stuck with old hardware that can't handle Windows 7 even if they could upgrade, not wanting to buy new PCs when the old ones still work, and saddled with line-of-business applications that don't support Windows 7. Windows XP is a dam holding back a pile of hardware and software issues, and the dam is supposed to break in 3 years. If XP really does ride off into the sunset in just three years, the good news is that the technology industry is going to see a boom of activity in the near future. Companies like this one will need to change not only their operating system, but also all of their crusty old applications. That would be great news for PC sales, Windows licenses, and applications developers. The tech industry is going to be rich, I tell you, rich! Realistically, though, I can tell you that if push comes to shove, there is no way this large organization (and many others) can be pushed to spend a fortune on new PCs, operating systems, and applications in the next three years. XP isn't the greatest anymore, but it is working well enough for them. As far as priorities go, it seems like the company would need to deal with the problem that it can't run its line-of-business apps on Windows 7 as the first step. Given the lead times in large organizations like this, it leads me to think that there is no way Microsoft will be able to retire XP support in 2014. See More <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219028">Microsoft's Drops The Curtain On AutoPlay</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229218569">Nokia Makes Last Stand With Microsoft</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/3G/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229202513">Carriers Sending Mixed Signals On Mobile Bandwidth</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200144">Microsoft Needs More Kinect, Less Kin</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100167">Microsoft's CES Misdirection Depends On Developers To Succeed</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000800">Windows Phone 7, Collateral Damage Edition</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000177">13 Technology Predictions For 2011</a>2011-02-23T08:00:00ZMicrosoft's Drops The Curtain On AutoPlayBorn during The Age of Auto Everything, the Windows AutoPlay functionality was anything but a home run. So Microsoft finally lays it to rest.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229219028?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomThis month marks the final demise of AutoPlay on Windows XP. AutoPlay has always been turned off by default in Windows 7, but for compatibility reasons Microsoft had hesitated to reach back into the past and make the change for Vista and XP. On this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971029">took the plunge</a> and disabled it. It's still possible to re-enable it for all versions of Windows, of course, but any time Microsoft turns off a feature you should take it as a strong suggestion to keep it turned off. The late 1990s marked a time that Microsoft turned into the Age of Auto Everything. It was based on a decent and reasonable-sounding idea: The computer should try to anticipate your needs rather than wait for you to tell the computer what to do. The Age of Auto Everything started rather innocently and unobtrusively, with features like AutoCorrect in Office 95. Those little red squiggles under words pointed out possible spelling problems without you having to do an explicit spell check, but didn't get in your way or pop up annoying dialogs. Other Office Autos didn't sit that well with me, like AutoFormat -- which tried to convert things like a row of dashes into a solid line, or a line starting with an asterisk into a bulleted list. The AutoCorrect feature also did its share of damage by converting two consecutive dashes into an em-dash, or regular quotation marks into typographical "smart quotes", which often don't render correctly when displayed, for example, on a Web page. It's not all bad though; AutoCorrect fixes common typos like "teh" to "the" as well. Despite Microsoft's best intentions, the anticipatory goodness of the AutoCorrect and AutoFormat is often outweighed by the annoyance when it guesses the wrong way. For the past 15 years I've learned how to turn off or tone down these features as I've migrated through all the versions of Office. The penalty for forgetting to do that is an email from an annoyed editor saying, "Turn off smart quotes!" It doesn't help that the settings are buried deep within the menus in complex dialogs, which means that users often just live with (and swear at) the defaults. Windows AutoPlay went beyond annoyance, though, and became a threat. It comes in <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc301341.aspx">two flavors</a>. The basic AutoRun functionality allows any removable media with an AutoRun.inf file in the root directory to start a program immediately without any user interaction. Back in the Windows 95 days, this was convenient for product setup CDs, since there was no need for users to know anything more than how to drop the CD into their drive. (Remember, it was the golden age of the AOL dialup user; even dropping a CD into a drive was pretty technical.) The other flavor of AutoPlay is more subtle than AutoRun. Windows will scan the content of the removable media and try to offer a set of options that make sense for the type of files it finds. So if you insert a USB flash drive full of MP3 files, Windows will offer to let you play them using whatever music players are registered for AutoPlay. It's not exactly unobtrusive, though, because it always pops up a dialog asking you what you want to do with the files unless you select "Always do this" in the dialog for each different content type.The most annoying part about AutoPlay V2, as it's called, is that can take Windows a while to scan the removable media for files and decide what to do. But it's also a potential security risk if you've told Windows to take automatic action based on the content type. For example, someone could create a corrupted music file that exploited a vulnerability in Windows Media Player, and it would run without the user having to approve running the file. So this provides another way to automatically run malicious code even when basic AutoRun is not being used. AutoRun functionality has been abused in the past, which has led to Microsoft's decision to disable it. The most notorious example was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal">Sony Rootkit</a> of 2005. In an attempt to keep the music-copying genie in the bottle, Sony issued audio CDs that included a small data partition with an AutoPlay file. When users put the CD into their computer to play music, it installed a very invasive piece of software that disabled copying of audio CDs. Beyond that, however, bugs in the software caused system instability and left an opening for other malicious software to take advantage of the rootkit's ability to hide files. Sony misusing AutoRun this way set a pretty horrific standard, a behavioral bar so low that nearly anything goes. The rise of removable media that is writable, such as USB flash drives and portable hard drives, makes AutoPlay even more dangerous. For example, an attacker who wants to break into a specific company could sprinkle a handful of AutoPlay-infected inexpensive USB drives in the company's parking lot. Odds are good that at least one of them will find its way into an employee's computer at work or at home, and from there the attacker can find his way into the company's secrets. These kind of attacks can be very effective because they are often able to circumvent even tight network controls intended to prevent infiltration. In the continuing battle between convenience and security, the convenience of AutoPlay has been beaten back to square one by the security issues it raises. We're all used to the additional security problems caused by ubiquitous Internet access, but this one is different. It's a feature that hearkens back to the old floppy boot sector viruses, resurrected for abuse in an era of cheap USB drives. If Microsoft was designing AutoPlay today ... well, I doubt a feature like that would make it at all. The Age of Auto Everything has ended. See More <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229218569">Nokia Makes Last Stand With Microsoft</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/3G/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229202513">Carriers Sending Mixed Signals On Mobile Bandwidth</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200144">Microsoft Needs More Kinect, Less Kin</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100167">Microsoft's CES Misdirection Depends On Developers To Succeed</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000800">Windows Phone 7, Collateral Damage Edition</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000177">13 Technology Predictions For 2011</a>2011-02-15T08:00:00ZNokia Makes Last Stand With MicrosoftFormer Redmond exec Stephen Elop has firmly hitched Nokia's fortunes to Windows Phone 7 in a do-or-die move to ensure the handset maker's survival in the smartphone market.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229218569?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomWhen Nokia and Microsoft <a href="http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/02/11/open-letter-from-ceo-stephen-elop-nokia-and-ceo-steve-ballmer-microsoft/">announced</a> their alliance last week, it was a big win for Microsoft and the beginning of a serious corporate change for Nokia and its employees. There is no doubt at all that Nokia needed to do something; the debate centers on whether this is the best something that could be done. Nokia has dominated the non-smartphone industry and is still the biggest player in much of the world, but it has been seriously eclipsed in smartphones -- first by by RIM, later by Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. In the United States, go to your carrier's local store and just try to find a Nokia phone; the company doesn't have a credible presence in the American market anymore. Even online, pickings are slim. Verizon and Sprint don't offer Nokia phones. AT&T has just one, the 6350 feature phone. T-Mobile has two smartphones (E73 and 5230) plus the extremely basic 2330. The ironic thing about such a poor selection in the United States is that Nokia makes the largest and most confusing menagerie of phones in the world. Go to the U.K. Web site for Nokia and you'll find <a href="http://www.nokia.co.uk/find-products/all-phones">more than 100 models</a>. No, that isn't the selection offered by one carrier, that's more than 100 phones from one manufacturer. Whatever Nokia does to streamline the software side of their business, it won't make much of a difference unless they also trim their massive and undistinguished phone portfolio. They need to focus on a few sexy smartphones so they can effectively advertise them, because advertising just the Nokia brand will get nowhere around these parts. We don't know the specifics of the deal Nokia CEO Stephen Elop cut with Microsoft, although Elop <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9209259/Microsoft_to_pay_out_billions_as_part_of_Nokia_deal">hinted</a> Microsoft is paying the company north of $1 billion. Even so, I don't see a lot of downside for Microsoft no matter how it plays out. Microsoft needs some positive buzz and support for its Windows Phone platform; landing Nokia ensures a major phone maker will be evangelizing it. The deal also provides a strong partner for understanding and penetrating the European market. Will Nokia participate with Windows Phone in some special way, or will they be on equal footing with the other phone makers? I wouldn't expect Nokia to be committing a large staff to WP7 development, since cutting those costs is one of the reasons they decided on WP7 in the first place. That is also probably good for Microsoft, though. Just because this deal is delicious for Microsoft doesn't make it unsavory for Nokia -- the status quo was just unacceptable, and Nokia knew it. As a result of the Microsoft deal, Nokia has the opportunity to considerably shrink their software team and costs. But this move definitely changes the Nokia corporate image, and companies often have problems dealing with being knocked down a notch. It's hard to understate what a fundamental change of direction this downsizing represents for Nokia. This is a company that thought highly of itself, taking on the challenges of supporting not just one but several different mobile software platforms across hundreds of phone models. The result was confusing and unproductive, not something worthy of being called a strategy. Nokia is not a company known for its software design or development prowess, yet it invested deeply in software. Now they are basically relegating themselves to the level of a phone OEM, like Samsung, LG, Motorola, or HTC. Perhaps they will have a bit more leverage with Microsoft on some issues, but given Nokia's sorry smartphone history it would be folly for Microsoft to leave the direction of Windows Phone 7 in Nokia's hands.During the announcement of this deal, Elop was quoted as saying that the smartphone market is a "three-horse race" (Apple, Google, and Microsoft), and that part is mostly true if you assume RIM is on the way down. The problem for Nokia is that Microsoft's horse just arrived at the track and the other two horses are already out of the gate. Google's Android has already proven itself in the market, so it would appear to have been a safer bet to go with Android. The problem with Elop's analogy, of course, is that in this race there is no finish line. If there were, his choice would be irresponsible given the competition's head start. Instead, it's merely a perilous Hail Mary attempt. Sometimes those plays can work. There are several reasons why Elop may have decided to go with Microsoft, skipping the comparatively safe choice of Android. Perhaps it was the fact that Elop was formerly a Microsoftie, so his roots with the company (and perhaps a dislike of Google) may have affected the decision. Some point to the fact that Elop still owns a lot of Microsoft stock, valued at more than $3 million currently. No doubt these issues may have swayed the decision, but I don't think they would have stopped Elop from going with Android if all other factors were equal. I think the biggest reason why Elop chose Microsoft was to salvage Nokia's corporate pride. Realistically, Nokia couldn't continue to shoulder the burden of supporting so many software platforms for its phones. The company had a choice between Google and Microsoft, and it's not like going with Android was going to save any of Nokia's expensive projects or prevent its software staff from getting the boot. However, if Nokia does succeed with the Windows Phone strategy, the company can legitimately claim to have been an important part of Microsoft's success in the mobile market. Plus, Microsoft is essentially willing to fund Nokia's transition. A lot of these benefits in costs savings assume Nokia doesn't lose its nerve or meet too much resistance from its employees, former partners, or governments. Late last year the European Union <a href="http://blog.symbian.org/2010/11/01/euromillions-for-the-symbian-ecosystem-e22m-committed-to-next-generation-technologies-for-symbian/">contributed $31 million</a> to the Symbian project, calling it "a vital focus for European-centric software development." Does Nokia have any restrictions in phasing out its Symbian involvement as a result? Nokia is turning its back on their existing developer infrastructure, which included Meego, Symbian, and the Qt developer framework. Anyone that hitched their company's wagon to that is going to be livid. How quickly can Nokia disengage from those projects without damaging its reputation? Regardless, the new Windows Phone strategy marks the beginning of a do-or-die moment for Nokia's survival in the smartphone market. Windows Phone needs to succeed in Nokia's European stronghold for the both companies to see quick success. There isn't a way to hedge this bet, at least now that Elop has made it clear that the previous platforms like Symbian and Meego are history. If Windows Phone fails for Nokia they would have only one viable choice, and that is to start all over again with Android. Perhaps even that last-chance bridge to Google is burned now. Vic Gundotra, a fifteen-year veteran of Microsoft who is now VP of Engineering at Google, <a href="http://twitter.com/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664">tweeted</a> a comment that Nokia CEO Steven Elop made a few years ago when commenting on another industry merger: "Two turkeys don't make an eagle." Elop <a href="http://twitter.com/selop/status/35997651073769472">replied</a>, "Two bicycle makers from Dayton Ohio, one day decided to fly." If that is the analogy Microsoft and Nokia want to use, my advice to them both would be to pedal really hard.2011-02-08T08:00:00ZCarriers Sending Mixed Signals On Mobile BandwidthThe hype over incredible 4G network speeds is undermined by the elimination of "unlimited" data plans and bandwidth limits on heavy users.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229202513?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomThere have been some confusing messages coming from the mobile carriers lately. On television commercials, they all seem to be boasting about incredible 4G networks that let you watch videos of your favorite shows and sports events. Yet at the same time, they are taking away "unlimited access" plans (that were never really unlimited anyway), threatening to speed-limit some users, and playing damage-control with complaints about performance issues and dropped calls. iPhone users have had a love-hate relationship with their phones for years. They mostly love the phone and apps they can use, but mostly hate the AT&T network. Or at least, most people tended to blame the problem on AT&T's network. Now that Verizon is getting the iPhone, we'll have a better idea of where the problems lie. But even before Verizon has the iPhone, they are taking <a href="http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/03/verizon-wireless-to-begin-throttling-data-speeds-of-heaviest-users-optimizing-content-starts-today"/a>preemptive measures</a>, limiting the top five percent of bandwidth consumers to ensure that users don't get too jiggy with bandwidth. The company still offers an unlimited data plan, but of course it isn't that useful if you end up being throttled. This, of course, comes shortly after Verizon boasted that they didn't expect the iPhone to cause any problems on the company's network. AT&T had already taken some measures to control smartphone data usage last year. They eliminated their unlimited data plan and instead now offer a 200-MB ($15/month) and a 2-GB ($25/month) plan with per-MB overage charges. The prices are somewhat lower than the original $30/month unlimited plan, so consistent light data users can actually come out ahead. If you need more than 2GB, though, you'll be paying $10 per extra GB. Users on the 200-MB plan get clobbered with $15 per extra 200MB, so it hurts to be wrong about your data usage. All this assumes, of course, that you can get any signal at all. My own experience with the carriers in the Baltimore-Washington area has been disappointing. My home neighborhood is one giant Verizon dead zone, zero bars. Walk one block and the signal isn't bad, but that doesn't help when you want to receive calls in the house. For that reason I am on T-Mobile, which has good signal at the house plus reasonable prices and great customer service. But T-Mobile also has several dead spots at my daughter's college just outside Washington DC, so she is on AT&T. So much for family plan discounts. On one hand, you can see the carrier's justification for tiered pricing on bandwidth. After all, there are many people who use their phones lightly, and it seems unfair to have the very heavy users pay the same price as those light users. But the distinction of light and heavy user is difficult to draw when so many new and innovative applications are being created that may need to communicate over the air. It's especially galling to see the ads show high-bandwidth services like video; a heavy video user could easily burn through their bandwidth. All the carriers need to be upgrading their networks to improve service and eliminate dead spots, but it seems like they're spending at least as much to advertise service and performance levels they're struggling to provide. They should stop advertising 4G networks until those networks actually exist. If mobile applications continue to increase their bandwidth usage, as they most likely will, the carriers will either raise prices on users or simply limit their bandwidth once they reach a certain level. That signals to me that the carriers either want to simply increase their profits with no additional investment or mask the inadequacies of their networks by throttling the users who need the bandwidth the most. I wouldn't expect the pricing story on data to end any more fairly than it did for pricing on voice minutes or text messages, both of which are engineered to provide an ostensible choice to customers but don't offer any true low-end option. At least with those services the demand isn't skyrocketing the way it is with data.Then there is the question of how bandwidth is going to be used. If I am paying for bandwidth by the byte, I want to have a lot of say over what is using those precious and expensive bytes. Take advertising for example. When browsing a typical Web page that has huge banner ads or Flash, I want those ads to be blocked so they aren't downloaded at all. Why should I download those ads? Often they are several times larger than the content I actually want on the web page, which is simple text. If the mobile carrier is going to put me on the meter for those bytes, I have no reason to download them. Mobile phones currently don't provide much control or visibility on what is using up the mobile data. An incredible example just played out in Windows Phone 7, showing that users are often helpless to gauge or control bandwidth usage. Last November, some users of Microsoft's newly released phone <a href="http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1686776-Excessive-Data-Usage-WP7?p=14148809#post14148809">noticed</a> that they were using huge amounts of data, but they couldn't easily tell why. In late December -- a month later -- Microsoft said they thought they had identified the culprit but didn't provide any more information. Another month goes by and an independent investigator does network traces to <a href="http://www.withinwindows.com/2011/01/31/yahoo-confirmed-culprit-in-windows-phone-data-usage-overages/">confirm</a> that Yahoo Mail was the problem, using about 25 times the data that it should. It wasn't until last week that Yahoo and Microsoft issued a <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2504628">workaround</a> (not a complete fix, mind you) to reduce the amount of data being sent. Yes, that is two months for a workaround, while users pay for the bandwidth. I want phones or tablets to tell me how much bandwidth each app is using, and for apps to give me more control over when and how they use bandwidth. And of course, when they use bandwidth at all it should be for MY benefit, not to deliver unwanted content or report back information that doesn't help me. It's not enough to just know that I have used 36% of my monthly bandwidth allocation even though it's just the fourth day of the billing cycle. I need to know what is using all the bandwidth. I haven't found an iPhone app that can do more than just monitor the overall bandwidth on the system -- do you know of any? For the Nexus One, I've found a free app in the Android Market that is great for tracking bandwidth usage. It's called <a href="http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.yhlee694.prj.netcalc/Network-Usage">Network Usage</a> by yhlee, and should work with any Android phone. The display shows a complete list of applications and the amount of data they've used, broken down by send and receive bandwidth. Already it's opened my eyes to a couple of problems. For example, it's easy to accidentally configure both the email app and the Gmail app to monitor mail, and when you do that you're downloading all messages twice. By removing Gmail I saved quite a bit of bandwidth. Ultimately, if carriers are going to nickel and dime us for bandwidth, then apps need to get much smarter about how they use bandwidth. I would like apps to be able to switch their behavior based on whether they're on Wi-Fi or mobile data. When I'm in range of a registered Wi-Fi network such as at home, I want Google Voice to automatically switch to using Wi-Fi for making and receiving calls. I want email to check every 10 minutes when I'm on Wi-Fi, but only every hour otherwise. Right now apps don't do this, and as a result we're all using a lot more of that precious and expensive bandwidth. SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/portable/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000833">Sprint Boosts Price Of Unlimited Data Plan</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228300127">Verizon's LTE Pricing To Launch Dumb Pipe Era</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/WAN_file_services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227900327">Verizon Wireless To Announce Tiered Data Plan</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/traffic_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227001078">Wireless Firms Weigh Metered Pricing</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228900152">Top 11 Mobile Predictions For 2011</a>2011-02-01T07:00:00ZMicrosoft Needs More Kinect, Less KinThe Xbox Kinect shows that Microsoft is still capable of shipping innovative products -- why can't they do the same in other business groups?http://www.informationweek.com/news/229200144?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomThere was some really great news for the Xbox group in Microsoft's just-announced quarterly results. The company sold more than 8 million units of its new controller-free Kinect peripheral that lets users control the Xbox simply by moving their bodies. That fueled a revenue increase of more than 50% for Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, by far the best year-over-year improvement by any Microsoft division this time around. How this happened is a combination of persistence and a bit of a lucky break. Let's talk about Microsoft's persistence first. This was a market where Microsoft had no presence, no brand affinity, and a strong competitor in the Sony PlayStation when XBox was launched in 2001. It was a complete departure for a company that thrived on its third-party hardware and software developers. Although the software was derived from Windows, the platform itself was closed like most other game consoles and the hardware was manufactured for Microsoft. It took seven years and a $2 billion investment before the Xbox turned a consistent profit. Once it got that foothold, though, it's been a consistent and growing money maker. The lucky break is that Microsoft got their hands on Kinect at all. Cultofmac.com <a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/how-apple-almost-got-microsofts-kinect-game-controller/67951">reported</a> that the creators of Kinect actually shopped the idea to Apple first, thinking it would be a natural fit for their innovative products and interfaces. But another thing that Apple is known for is its secrecy, and that seems to have been its undoing as far as Kinect was concerned. According to the Kinect inventors, Apple insisted on lengthy legal documents and non-disclosure agreements before talking at all. So the inventors gave up on Apple and shopped the technology elsewhere, and Microsoft shipped what Apple spurned. Microsoft hasn't historically been a company to find success through outside ideas. Looking at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft">list of acquisitions</a> from the past decade, there aren't many that appear in Microsoft's current product offerings in recognizable form. Most of the ones you might be able to recognize have been failures. Consider the 2007 acquisition of Jellyfish.com, which relaunched as Windows Live Cashback in 2008, changed its name to Bing Cashback in 2009, and was shut down in 2010. Or look at Microsoft's 2008 buyout of Danger, maker of the Sidekick phone, for $500 million. More than two years later Microsoft finally released the Danger-inspired Kin phone, which lasted all of 48 days before they abruptly pulled the plug. With that kind of history dogging the company, let's give Microsoft's Xbox group the credit they deserve. Sure, they saw the potential in Kinect when Apple's rejection dropped it in their lap. More importantly, they were able to do something that seems rare with Microsoft: take an outside idea and turn it into a successful shipping product. Perhaps it was easier for Microsoft to see Kinect applications for the Xbox than for Apple to see a use within its current product lines; by that measure the idea ended up exactly where it should have been all along. How does Microsoft do less Kin and more Kinect? If the Kinect is a model, then the lesson might be to emphasize building successful products over crafting a master company strategy. Kinect had the advantage of needing no "input" from the other business units at Microsoft.If it had been a product with the potential to affect any of the cash cows such as Windows or Office, no doubt the leaders of those groups would have felt the need to delay or distort the product to ensure that their sub-empires were adequately protected. These were the kind of tactics that have impaired Microsoft's ability to deliver an online version of Office for almost a decade. Make no mistake, engineering a master company strategy is more expensive and prone to failure than crafting a single product success. Take Microsoft's Online division. As Business Insider <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-online-operating-income-2011-1">points out</a>, Microsoft has invested/lost more than $2.5 billion in its online operations in just the past year, and more than $7 billion since the division last saw a meager profit in 2005. That's mind-blowingly deeper than the hole Xbox dug before it started to turn a profit. The big difference between Xbox and online is that, despite its massive investment, Microsoft doesn't seem to have any clear path to online profitability in the foreseeable future. Whether profit is possible or not, they seem to think they'll find success by going toe-to-toe with Google on just about every type of service: search, chat, email, maps, webmaster tools, advertising, documents, and mobile devices, plus corresponding developer APIs for all of the above. Microsoft is swinging for the fences with this strategy; very little of it can succeed unless all of it succeeds because it is so interrelated and interdependent. Yet none of the individual products or services seem that exciting or innovative. I doubt that Microsoft will abandon its boil-the-ocean strategy any time soon, but it would have an easier job with its reputation by getting a few more high-profile wins that don't depend on the success of a complex strategy. Perhaps they could take advantage of Kinect's cool factor in PowerPoint by using it to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/sotouchagency#p/u/2/SZv-ic0ISOQ">control a presentation</a> using Kinect-style gestures while onstage. Maybe they could make something like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OfQdYrHRs">Word Lens</a> a standard feature on all Windows Phones. These are things that users want, are incredibly sexy to demonstrate, give Microsoft positive buzz, and increase demand for the entire stack of Microsoft services. Finally, Microsoft shouldn't forget that consumer successes can be turned into enterprise business successes if they're played right. Sure, enterprise businesses are conservative, and aren't willing to throw out their technologies every year to get the latest thing. Yet Apple has been able to get many businesses to use iPhones and iPads for example; every time that happens it moves one more user further out of Microsoft's sphere of influence. If Microsoft can focus on making a few successful products and ignore their complex strategy for a moment, they might be able to make some progress. SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/antivirus/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000038">7 Ways To Save Microsoft In 2011</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100396">Microsoft Beats Estimates, Reports Record Sales</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100298">Microsoft Earnings Preview: Kinect Up, Windows Down</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/operating_systems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100008">Microsoft Prepping Kinect For Windows 7 PCs?</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229100083">What's Driving Apple's 10 Billion App Success</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000366">Kinect Technology Headed To PCs, TVs</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/operating_systems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800578">Top 10 Microsoft Stories Of 2010</a>2011-01-25T08:00:00ZMicrosoft's CES Misdirection Depends On Developers To SucceedThe version of Windows running on the ARM platform that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed at Consumer Electronics Show, only hinted at Redmond's four-point plan for the future of its flagship operating system.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229100167?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomThe most exciting thing that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed at CES was a version of Windows running on the ARM platform. Microsoft and Intel have been betrothed exclusively to each other since the inception of Windows, but the low-power ARM platform is the one favored by most mobile device players, including Apple. The fact that Windows can run on non-Intel hardware isn't shocking; most of Windows is written in C and should be portable once recompiled for the ARM architecture. The DEC Alpha and Intel Itanium versions of Windows Server showed it is quite possible for the Windows core operating system to run on other CPUs. However, desktop Windows has been defined not by source code compatibility, but binary compatibility. The entire ecosystem -- applications, utilities, services, third-party development tools, browser add-ons, and drivers -- assumes a single binary CPU architecture: x86. There is 25 years worth of history and code that basically ensures it would be difficult and confusing to everyone if Microsoft created a binary-incompatible version of Windows for the desktop. That can't be what Microsoft has in mind. Instead, I suspect they plan to salvage as much as they can from their flagship desktop empire to use in a mobile platform, but continue to brand it as Windows. Yet whatever this new ARM Windows borrows from the existing Windows 7, the user interface will be very different. This cannot simply be a gussied-up Windows 7 on a new type of CPU. Instead, this new UI needs to be optimized for mobile hardware; the entire Windows 7 UI (including Explorer and all the Windows accessories) is not a good fit there. As for what the actual UI looks like, it's more likely to be something simple but configurable like Microsoft's design for Windows Phone 7. And although the details of the new UI will be important to its success, I don't think those details will affect Microsoft's strategy. Reading between the lines of what Ballmer showed at CES, I can see a possible strategy the company could follow. The four-point plan is one that Ballmer has enthusiastically expressed before: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE">Developers, developers, developers, developers</a>. These four sets of developers hold the key to Microsoft's success. The first set of developers targeted by ARM Windows is device makers. The CES demo showed ARM Windows using a standard (but recompiled) Windows printer driver, implying that it wouldn't be that hard for printers, scanners, video, network devices, and other hardware to work on the new platform. For hardware makers, the idea that their existing investment in a Windows driver could provide access to the tablet or even phone market is very attractive, at least in theory.Next on the list come corporate developers. Microsoft has been pushing .NET development for most of the past decade, so companies living in this world may find that their investments in learning and using .NET technologies are going to pay off. Since .NET applications compile to a Common Language Runtime (CLR) instead of native x86 code, they should run on an ARM processor with little or no work. Yet the limitations of mobile devices will require developers to relearn how to build user interfaces. You can't bring over the mouse-centric thinking, for example the idea that the pointing device has the ability to click over a small number of pixels. Even the skinniest fingers are fat compared to a mouse pointer. Expect to see Microsoft create wizards and tools that make it easier for .NET developers with desktop experience to build mobile apps. The third set of developers are the desktop Windows application software companies. They generally write low-level code that uses the direct Win32 or COM programming interfaces of Windows, so they will definitely need to recompile their code, at minimum. Practically, though, the limitations of smaller screens and touch interfaces will prevent existing Windows applications from simply being ported over. Does it make sense to simply port an application like Photoshop to a tablet or handheld device, or should the UI be rethought? Most of the big names in Windows desktop applications don't have much of a presence in the mobile world, and I am not convinced that ARM Windows will change that. Finally come the system software and utility developers. This group will have the hardest time of all with a non-Intel version of Windows, because their world will change the most. Like application developers, they usually deal with the low-level interfaces like Win32 or COM to get their jobs done. It's not even clear whether a category like antivirus software is even needed here, for example. The x86 viruses won't work on ARM, and if .NET managed code is the primary way of developing for ARM Windows it seems a lot less likely for infection to occur in the first place. Even if it is needed, there doesn't seem to be a lot of leverage from having an x86 version as a starting point.I wonder if this strategy of letting Windows desktop developers use both what they have and what they know might invoke a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome">Stockholm-syndrome</a> response in those who trust their livelihoods to Microsoft's world. If Microsoft and its business strategy is cornered by the cash cow of desktop Windows, these third-party developers are just as much a captive. Microsoft is saying to its developers, "We can give you a nearly pain-free path to ease into the mobile world; you don't have to throw away all your code or relearn everything you know." Best of all for Microsoft, it preserves their investment in existing technologies like .NET, doesn't actively cannibalize the profitable desktop or server businesses, and fits in with Ballmer's promise at CES: "Whatever device you use, Windows will be there." Developers already engaged in mobile app development on Android and Apple platforms will not find this argument convincing, though. Microsoft has almost no presence in the mobile world today. With Microsoft so far behind, it won't make sense for ARM Windows to be the tail that wags the dog as far as choice of mobile development environment goes. To play all the mobile-platform bases it is safer to develop an app in HTML and Javascript; that will run on iPhone, iPad, Android, and ARM Windows as well. Wrappers like PhoneGap can let an HTML application get access to platform features, and no doubt there will be a version for ARM Windows when the time comes. So although this four-developer strategy makes sense for Microsoft, it might not make sense for the market. One thing that seems to be missing from this strategy is consumers. Microsoft is hoping that if they can create an environment where consumers can use at least some of their existing devices and software with Microsoft mobile operating systems, they will be more likely to go with Windows. I am not so sure about this "Build it and they will come" approach. Consumers already have plenty of non-Microsoft options like the iPad with sexy hardware and a decent selection of apps. Microsoft's odds may be better in corporate environments, where in-house familiarity with .NET may possibly drive the decision to use Windows-based tablets and phones. SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/antivirus/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000038">7 Ways To Save Microsoft In 2011 </a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800579">Tablet Tipping Point Means The End Of Microsoft (As We Know It)</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000256">Windows 8 Too Late For Slates?</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000183">CES: Microsoft CEO Highlights Winning Bets</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800543">Microsoft To Launch 'iPad Killer' Tablets At CES</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/operating_systems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800578">Top 10 Microsoft Stories Of 2010</a>2011-01-18T16:00:00ZWindows Phone 7, Collateral Damage EditionVerizon getting the iPhone is cruelly timed torture for Microsoft and Windows Phone 7, already facing an uphill battle against Android and other smartphones. http://www.informationweek.com/news/229000800?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomAlthough we don't know the exact sales figures for Windows Phone 7, some of the phone makers have said they were disappointed with Microsoft's inaugural push into the market. Verizon's announcement of an iPhone and the already-robust Android market will prevent an effective second push in 2011. There's no doubt that Verizon will sell a lot of iPhones out of the gate. What we don't yet know is whether those sales will come from existing Verizon customers or from disgruntled AT&T customers who have been yearning for another network to satisfy their iPhone desires. Right now, only AT&T is The Official iPhone Carrier. That has given other carriers the opportunity to fill an anti-AT&T niche, using BlackBerry, Android, and yes, Windows Phone 7. A Verizon iPhone changes all that, especially since Verizon is the country's largest carrier. As for who is hurt by a Verizon iPhone, most people are focusing on Google's Android. Together, the two iPhone carriers hold more than 60% of subscriber share, more than doubling the iPhone's potential reach from when it was at AT&T alone. Since Verizon was not selling the iPhone before, it's a near-certainty that some of the iPhone's success on Verizon will come at the expense of other smartphone makers. But at least BlackBerry and Android are already well-established in the overall market and offered by all the carriers, not just Verizon and AT&T. Microsoft doesn't have that luxury. Analysts are haggling over how much Verizon's iPhone sales will be due to a larger smartphone pie over time, how much results from AT&T defections, and how much comes at the expense of competitors who currently have Verizon customers comfortably to themselves. If this <a href="http://chitika.com/research/2011/why-the-verizon-iphone-is-the-ultimate-threat-to-android/">graph</a> of Android ad impressions is credible, it seems like the iPhone has basically sucked the oxygen out of the room for any other smartphone on AT&T. That should have Microsoft very concerned, because they're in an even weaker position than Android. But let's not forget that iPhone had a multi-year start on AT&T's network; it basically defined the modern smartphone category when it was released in 2007. At Newsweek.com, Dan Lyons argues that the Verizon iPhone is <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/12/the-verizon-iphone-is-too-late.html">too late</a>, and perhaps it is -- if Apple's goal was to prevent Android from gaining a competitive foothold. But Android has established itself whether Apple likes it or not; millions of users have Android phones and multi-year contracts that ensure they'll be staying with Android for a while. When it comes time to choose a new phone, their familiarity with Android and its Google-centric services may be a strong factor in their choice. But again, there's no silver lining here for Microsoft, since they have almost no market share to provide momentum against the iPhone's braking force. When Microsoft announced the carriers that would have Windows Phone 7 at launch, there were only two: AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon was notably absent. Now it makes sense why Verizon decided to skip the coming-out party. Sure, it's possible that the taste of <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228200805">Kin</a> hadn't yet left their mouth, but that seems like a petty reason. Most likely they didn't want to overshadow their iPhone launch in any way.Microsoft says that Verizon (and Sprint) will have Windows Phone 7 devices by <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/2013865334_ces_2011_verizon_and_spring_will_carry_windows_pho.html">June 30</a> this year, but that is a long way off. It's an eternity when Windows Phone 7 will be dead to more than one-third of mobile subscribers in the United States, while the next six months bring continued growth for competitors. Since many average consumers don't even know Windows Phone 7 exists, Microsoft has been trying to build buzz by setting up kiosks in shopping malls. I had a first-hand experience at my local mall in Maryland, and it provides some insight into how difficult a job Microsoft has. Our family stopped by the Windows Phone 7 kiosk one night and looked at the phones. The staff there was very knowledgeable about the phones they had available for demo. Microsoft is definitely trying hard to make the public aware of their products. Microsoft's booth had a promotion where you could win a phone instantly by scanning a ticket. In a stroke of apparent luck, my son won that day's prize phone. It was the AT&T version of the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/buy/7/phones.aspx?id=1537&id=1537#detail=1537">LG Quantum</a>, a handsome horizontal-slider phone with a very usable keyboard that retails for $400. That's a mighty nice thing to win, right? Well, not so fast. The phone only costs $100 with a two-year contract, and of course you'll need to activate an AT&T account and pay at least $55 a month for service. That price assumes you can live with a measly 200-MB per month data plan. AT&T doesn't offer a penny of discount for customers who bring their own equipment (T-Mobile <a href="http://www.t-mobile.com/templates/generic.aspx?PAsset=Pro_Pro_InStoreOffers">does</a>, for example), so a "free phone" doesn't sweeten the deal very much. Then there is the software side of the equation. Windows Phone 7 is pretty and seems quite functional, although I think the folding tile animations are annoying and make the phones seem slower than they really are. But for many users, the cost of switching from their current phone's ecosystem to a Microsoft ecosystem will be more than they can bear. iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry users already know how to use the apps on their phones. The Windows Phone integration only works smoothly if you buy into all the Microsoft cloud services that underpin it: Hotmail, Bing, SkyDrive, etc. Users who've already put their heads in an Apple or Google cloud won't want to face the anguish of moving their data. The undisputed financial winner in the Phone Wars, at least in the near term, is Apple. AT&T users can't just switch to Verizon and keep their old iPhone; they have to buy a new iPhone that works on Verizon's CDMA network. That's money in Apple's pocket. Perhaps we'll see a glut of used GSM-based AT&T iPhones being sold on secondary markets like eBay, but Apple is no doubt working on an iPhone 5 to make those old phones look unattractive to Apple fans. I don't think there is any sort of intentional ploy by Apple, Google, or any of the carriers and device makers to pull a "cut off their air supply" on Windows Phone 7, because frankly it's not a big enough concern for the other players to worry about right now. Instead, Microsoft just got caught in an unfortunate crossfire. Between the fall of iPhone exclusivity and the rise of Android, they just can't get the kind of traction they need to make a dent in this market. I don't see that changing in 2011, no matter how much money Microsoft plows into it.2011-01-06T07:00:00Z13 Technology Predictions For 2011From Android tablets to "Windows 8," SSDs to Google Checkout, our columnist gazes ahead to the coming year and forecasts a baker's dozen of major developments.http://www.informationweek.com/news/229000177?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomTo celebrate the New Year, I've put together some thoughts and prognostications for the next 12 months. Things actually look pretty cheery all around, with just a few dark clouds that could spoil our technology fun. 1. Microsoft will enjoy a profitable 2011. It won't be due to any recent genius strategy or new products by the company, but instead thanks to Windows 7 and Office upgraders. Most big companies just aren't ready to move to the cloud yet, and the non-Microsoft solutions seem too traumatic for many of their customers to contemplate. Google Docs will make some inroads against Office, but the new Office 365 will be appealing enough to prevent mass defections -- at least in the near term -- as people figure they might as well give Microsoft's cloud solution a spin. 2. The me-too strategy will work better than expected for Microsoft. They will continue to open new retail stores, and perhaps even an app store for PC products. Certainly they are blatantly copying Apple with the concept and execution, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Compare the experience of buying an Apple computer to that of buying a Windows PC at a big-box retail store like Best Buy. When the salescritter at a retail store wants to charge $30 extra for a "PC Tuneup" package that removes the crapware installed by the computer's own maker, you know that Windows is in trouble. With their own stores, Microsoft has the ability to instead provide an Apple-like experience and showcase the best of Windows. 3. "Windows 8" will be revealed, but it won't look that attractive without the kimono. Microsoft will doggedly try to stick to its one-OS-core-fits-all design just one last time as it upgrades Windows 7, but they'll add various trimmings in the hopes it might fit onto platforms like tablets. At the same time, the company will be working on an upsized version of Windows Phone 7, running on ARM processors, to be their true answer for tablets like the iPad. They didn't <a href="http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4204863/Microsoft-takes-ARM-license">license the rights</a> to ARM architecture for nothing. 4. Tablets will hurt netbooks a lot more than notebooks. People who want a "real" computer with a keyboard will still opt for a full-sized notebook, running Windows 7. The netbook market will suffer at the hands of the tablet; an on-screen keyboard isn't that much worse than a cramped chiclet one, and besides the browse-to-type ratio is high on either device. This isn't a bad outcome for Microsoft, which couldn't sell real Windows 7 on low-end netbooks anyway and would prefer to deliver an ARM-based Windows for tablets that can be priced independently of Windows 7. They just need to deliver that solution ASAP.5. IE6 will finally die, but IE9 may not be a great success. As XP declines in preparation for its final burial in 2014, usage of Internet Explorer 6 will drop to levels that finally justify major Internet sites treating it as a pariah. Although IE9 is a significantly good browser and will be released in 2011, it will be the first release of Internet Explorer that doesn't coincide with a new version of Windows. IE8's market share has been helped by the adoption of Windows 7, but IE9 won't get that automatic boost. To compensate, Microsoft will try an aggressive upgrade push but many users will hold back. Windows Mobile 7 will have its browser upgraded from the IE7-ish variant it currently runs to IE9, finally bringing that platform into feature parity with the Webkit-based browsers used by all the other major players. 6. Solid-state drives (SSDs) become standard on nearly all notebooks and tablets. With so much user data being stored in the cloud, there's not as much of a need for large drives. This transition will be a bit of a finesse for PC makers, since they generally like to upsell larger drives at outrageous prices. Expect to see notebook makers de-emphasize storage size and instead tout the better battery life you'll get by using SSDs. And of course, you can still get a really large SSD, it will just cost you an arm and a leg -- especially if it's the manufacturer's upgrade price. 7. Hand-wringing will far outpace action on Net Neutrality. Mobile carriers in particular will step far beyond the role of a bit pipe, justifying traffic discrimination and bandwidth limits by saying their networks are unable to handle the growing smartphone data deluge. Some content providers will announce deals to play ball with carriers and slip them a bribe; others will loudly fight the seeming inequity of these deals. The government will "study" this intently during 2011 but let most of the deals stand. 8. Mobile development moves towards the browser. Android, Apple, RIM, and Windows Phone 7 all have different native development environments, which means it's expensive to develop an app that serves them all. But they all support a browser, and except for Windows Phone it's a Webkit-based browser. Browser-based apps can be much more portable, and much less costly to develop since they require less platform-specific knowledge.9. Android will continue to gain on Apple. Thanks to a wide spectrum of inexpensive new handsets and tablets, Android will offer strong competition to iPhone and iPad. Verizon's long-rumored iPhone will provide a boost to iPhone sales if it happens, but it will be short-lived since any true Apple fan willing to move already has. The Android-Apple dynamic duo will deplete BlackBerry share, scare HP into giving up a serious WebOS relaunch, and ensure that Windows Phone 7 has a hard time growing. Microsoft won't give up in 2011, though; they'll keep on plugging like they have with Zune and not pull the plug quickly like they did with Kin. 10. The moribund Google Checkout product will resurrect itself as a mobile app. Google's new Nexus S phone is one of the first to include a Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology that allows the phone to be used as a "digital wallet" to make payments. By the end of the year just about every smartphone will have NFC, and Google will be positioning itself as the conduit for making those payments. NFC-based payments could experience incredible growth rates, especially if the economy continues to improve this year. Oh, and be extra careful not to lose your phone in 2011. 11. Augmented reality will target businesses. The first practical augmented reality apps such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OfQdYrHRs">Word Lens</a> do awesome things like translate signs in-place and in real time, but they have been oriented towards consumers. In 2011, we'll see some business-to-business applications, maybe in the form of paper presentations that spring to life when you shoot them with your cell phone's camera. Perhaps it's a bit of a gimmick, but the novelty factor will ensure that you get people's attention. 12. Your company will start to use IPv6, and it may be painful. Despite a lot of IPv6 groundwork being laid by the industry over the past ten years, IPv6 is still a tough sell for many organizations. But it's no false alarm that the world is running out of IPv4 addresses, so a serious transition must start to happen this year. This will open up multiple worm cans of security, performance, application, and network management issues. Network administrators will be earning their pay in 2011 for sure. 13. A really major newspaper will stop publishing on paper, and go digital-only. Perhaps this is too apocalyptic, but the next 12 months will tell. The newspaper industry has been shrinking faster than Biggest Loser contestants. Everyone sees it coming, but nobody wants to face the problem. This year, a big newspaper in the class of Washington Post or New York Times will decide to cut their losses and give up on paper. Perhaps they'll keep a Sunday edition around longer, who knows. SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/soa_webservices/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800194">Top 10 Google Predictions For 2011 </a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/trends/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000038">7 Ways To Save Microsoft In 2011</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227900049">Top 5 Reasons Windows Phone 7 Will/Won't Succeed</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/utility_ondemand/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800279">Top 10 Google Stories Of 2010</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227500091">Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta Revealed</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/operating_systems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800578">Top 10 Microsoft Stories Of 2010</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/soa_webservices/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227101752">Best Mobile Apps For Busy Professionals</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/software/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228900096">Top 10 Apple Stories Of 2010</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228900197">Top 10 Mobile Stories Of 2010</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226200202">Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Revealed</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/smart_phones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228500231">Four Steps To BlackBerry Success in 2011</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228900016">Can The Market Support 4 Tablet Operating Systems?</a> <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/systems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800307">Tablets Will Replace One In Three PCs, Study Says</a>2010-12-26T22:33:00ZPhony Phone NumbersHow many Window Phone 7 units has Microsoft sold? For whatever reason, it's difficult for Microsoft to give a straight answer. That, of course, leads to industry speculation that things aren't going so well for Microsoft's new mobile platform.http://www.iweek-interim.com/news/229200354?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomHow many Window Phone 7 units has Microsoft sold? For whatever reason, it's difficult for Microsoft to give a straight answer. That, of course, leads to industry speculation that things aren't going so well for Microsoft's new mobile platform.Why do people always assume the worst when a company doesn't reveal its numbers? Mainly because when a company has a big success, they're more than happy to open up the spreadsheets and crow about what they've done. Microsoft is no different in this respect, bragging that they sold more than 2.5 million Kinect units for their Xbox line of game controllers in less than 30 days last month. Microsoft seems to be making the right moves as far as the logistics of this launch. Working Windows Phone 7 demo units are available at carriers (I saw two at the local mall's AT&T store) and Microsoft even has its own Windows Phone 7 kiosk elsewhere in our mall. In the case of AT&T, the phones are competing with iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. The other carriers have everything but the iPhone. With so many established competing devices on all the major carriers, it wouldn't be unsurprising and forgivable if Microsoft had some tough sledding ahead. The one official data point that we do have is that <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/microsoft-over-1-5-million-windows-phone-7-devices-sold-to-carr/">1.5 million</a> devices have been "sold to carriers" in the six weeks since the Windows Phone 7 launch. As a point of comparison, Apple said that three million iPhone 4 units were sold in its first three weeks. So on first glance it appears Apple had a run rate of about a million units a week, whereas Microsoft's rate was only about 250,000. In reality the gap is likely to be larger, because we're not comparing the same kind of numbers. Apple's "sales" are not the same as the "sales to carriers" Microsoft describes. When Apple sells an iPhone to a user from one of their stores, the user has the unit in hand and has paid for it. When Microsoft sells a phone to a carrier, it's simply "in the channel," either in a warehouse or the back room of a carrier's local store. For all we know, many if not most of those phones are still stacked up waiting for a customer to buy them. It could take several more months of true sales to consumers before those inventories of "sold" Windows Phone 7 units are actually sold. In a catastrophic worst case, the phone inventories might not sell at all if spiffy new models come out and make the current ones obsolete. So who is actually taking that inventory risk? If the phones don't sell, Microsoft may actually have an agreement in place where they have to buy back the phones. You see those kind of contracts for book sales for example; bookstores can pull year-old books off their shelves and return them to the publisher for credit. Given the experience that Verizon had with Kin, it seems unlikely that the carriers didn't think to protect themselves from this possibility. So, that's the worst that can happen? What is really happening? Microsoft knows, but they're not saying.2010-12-20T23:45:00ZTime To Change Web AdvertisingAdvertising on the web as we know it has gone through good times and bad times. Now it may be going through end times. Privacy concerns, security breaches, and perhaps even government regulations will drive changes.http://www.iweek-interim.com/news/229200402?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomAdvertising on the web as we know it has gone through good times and bad times. Now it may be going through end times. Privacy concerns, security breaches, and perhaps even government regulations will drive changes.The core of the problem lies with the way that big ad networks are run. Sites want to run ads that are in big networks such as DoubleClick (now owned by Google) or Google AdWords so that they can take advantage of the largest possible market. Advertisers can place ads on those networks, and the network algorithms will fine-tune the exposure to maximize the clicks across thousands of different sites. On the surface, large markets like this appear to be efficient for both advertisers and publishers, but they have significant drawbacks. Fraud is a particular problem. The ad networks are so big that it's easy to hide all sorts of seedy practices. Advertisers can't be sure that the clicks they were charged for were from real potential customers, or just from a competitor trying to drain their ad budget. The whole process isn't very transparent, so it's not even clear that ads were truly displayed when the ad networks say they are. They're just numbers in a report, unaudited by any trustworthy party. Things are even worse for content publishers who run the web sites where these ads are displayed. Just about every large ad network has had a <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2010/12/researchers_maj.html">major embarrassment</a> of being tricked into delivering malware or other exploits via Javascript ads. Even the New York Times web site has delivered these ads in the past. As a result, both the ad networks and web sites will need to take more responsibility in the ads that are displayed. To ensure that the ads delivered are legitimate, the practice of simply referencing Javascript directly off the advertisers site may need to stop. (Several of the worst ad exploits involved the advertiser submitting an ad to a web site for approval, then switching it out for something scummier and scammier during times when they knew the site's staff wouldn't be looking.) The main problem is one of trust. When a web site puts a script tag onto their site that loads Javascript from an ad network, it's asking you to trust both sites. The big ad networks have shown that they often aren't worthy of that trust. Utilities like AdBlock for Firefox and Chrome have allowed savvy users to selectively or completely block advertising, and this trend will accelerate with Internet Explorer 9 which <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2010/12/ie9_gets_builti.html">includes ad blocking</a> as well. Web sites need to find a way to finance their operations; advertising is still a useful model for that. However, the specific ways we're doing that today, via dangerous script tags served by untrustworthy ad networks, has to change if advertising is going to continue to be successful.2010-12-16T22:58:00ZHey, You Get Offa My CloudWe're coming up on the one-year anniversary of Microsoft Azure, the company's platform-as-a-service (PAAS) offering. Like any big project, it's taking a while for potential customers to find their way around the platform. This week, though, saw the first high-profile defection from Azure.http://www.iweek-interim.com/news/229200393?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomWe're coming up on the one-year anniversary of Microsoft Azure, the company's platform-as-a-service (PAAS) offering. Like any big project, it's taking a while for potential customers to find their way around the platform. This week, though, saw the first high-profile defection from Azure.Jeff Atwood, one of the founders of Stack Overflow, <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/12/re-launching-stack-exchange-data-explorer/">announced</a> that the StackExchange Data Explorer is moving off their (free!) Azure hosting and on to self-hosted servers. Sam Saffron, one of the engineers at StackExchange, provides some details about why they're moving. Most of the reasons revolve around the lack of flexibility that a platform-based offering provides, as compared to controlling the entire server: <blockquote>"When you are using a PAAS you are giving up a lot of control to the service provider. The service provider chooses which applications you can run and imposes a series of restrictions. ... In the long run, we think a self-hosted solution will be much simpler for us to maintain, tune and automate."</blockquote> Now as that blog admits, this is not a problem particular to Azure but more the result of PAAS trying to simplify and streamline the process. For technical staff used to having complete control over their servers, it's tough to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" as they say in the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps there will be a new generation of techs used to PAAS, who gladly delegate away the worries of running boxes in return for being able to focus on their applications. StackExchange might have stayed on Azure had they known Microsoft was planning an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS) offering that offers complete control over the environment and is similar to services like Amazon EC2. Even at that, the Amazon EC2 experience can be culture shock for those moving off dedicated data centers; just <a href="http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/5-lessons-weve-learned-using-aws.html">ask Netflix</a> which recently made the move. If the StackExchange situation is a sign of the challenges that cloud platforms such as Azure face, it may be quite a while before Microsoft can bring that business into the black.2010-12-12T21:59:00ZWill You Patch This Tuesday?The Microsoft security sleigh will be laden with patches this coming Tuesday, a bag full of 17 bulletins patching 40 different vulnerabilities in Windows and Office products. With this being a hectic time of the year for many companies, it can bring up some tough choices. What is your company's policy for applying these patches in December?http://www.iweek-interim.com/news/229200424?cid=SBX_iwk_related_commentary_Business_telecomThe Microsoft security sleigh will be laden with patches this coming Tuesday, a bag full of 17 bulletins patching 40 different vulnerabilities in Windows and Office products. With this being a hectic time of the year for many companies, it can bring up some tough choices. What is your company's policy for applying these patches in December?There are some pretty <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/operating_systems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228800149">serious issues</a> fixed by this batch of patches. Putting off this December batch for a month may not be such a good idea, certainly on desktop PCs. Many companies have a skeleton crew in place over the holidays, so this might be the perfect time for bad guys to stage an outbreak based on one of the patched exploits. And, whether company policy allows it or not, employees may be browsing to recreational and non-business sites while so many of their co-workers have taken time off. Those are the kind of sites that may mean trouble. On the other hand, if your company has significant holiday-driven traffic, for example e-commerce on on web servers, security risks need to be weighed against the risks of downtime or other problems when updating those servers. It's often easier to control server environments or mitigate the risks of these exploits via firewalls and other security measures. A few years back, I worked with a company that put their public-facing web servers into lockdown starting in mid-November. Their concern was that any configuration changes past that date might endanger their post-Thanksgiving traffic and holiday sales, which made up almost half of their annual sales. Nobody wanted to apply a patch that brought down any of their servers for any amount of time. Given all the variables and risks, I'm wondering what policy your company has for managing these upcoming patches -- and whether you think it's reasonable.