InformationWeek Stories by Larry Press

InformationWeek Stories by Larry Presshttp://www.informationweek.comInformationWeeken-usCopyright 2012, UBM LLC.2012-07-03T17:48:00ZResearch: Accountable Care Organizations and Health IThttp://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/105/8752/Healthcare/research-accountable-care-organizations-and-health-it.html?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors2011-09-17T15:08:00ZWindows 8: Betting the Farm and Throwing In Grandma, Too?BYTE Special Report on Windows 8http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/231601631?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors In this BYTE Special Report, BYTE tech pros Todd Ogasawara, Chris Spera and Larry Press take a long, hard look at Microsoft's newly available Windows 8 Developer Preview. <script type="text/javascript" src="http://player.wizzard.tv/player/o/j/x/131629174029/config/k-f86f7b00a54c8ac4/uuid/root/height/325/width/325/episode/k-81f7dfd20b27a402.m4v"></script> Larry, who attended the show for BYTE, said the Microsoft refrain to attendees was "Metro, metro, metro." While its new interface might turn off tech pros, "it will make a lot of sense to the vast majority of human beings," said Todd, who has been testing the system since it became publicly available as a pre-beta release to developers on Tuesday. It had better make sense. Microsoft, said Chris, is betting the farm -- and throwing grandma in the back of the truck, too -- that Windows 8 will take off. Really? If you're interested in Windows 8 and where Microsoft is headed with it, tech commentary doesn't get any juicier than this. Take a listen. Based in Honolulu, Todd Ogasawara is a senior contributor at BYTE and a full-time IT pro in Hawaii. He covers deep IT tech for BYTE. Follow him @ToddOgasawara or email at ToddO@BYTE.com. Based in Chicago, Chris Spera is an IT consultant and is managing editor of reviews at BYTE. Follow him @chrisspera or email at chris@BYTE.com. Based in Los Angeles, Larry Press is a senior BYTE contributor and professor of Information Systems at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Email Larry at lpress@csudh.edu.2011-09-14T07:30:00ZWindows 8: Is Microsoft Scared Into Acting Like a Startup?win 7 -- why ask whyhttp://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/231601369?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors Is Windows 8 aiming to be a must-have upgrade along the lines of Windows 7? After BYTE's first day at Microsoft's BUILD 2011 developer’s conference, we say no. On news analysis, this clearly is a long term play for a whole new generation of devices and the fight of Microsoft’s life. Execs at MS BUILD 2011 revealed so much to the developers and even journalists present. That is not the Microsoft we know, with its NDAs and top secret plans. As for the keynote, it is an opus. Analysts told me they are having to watch the epic length </a href="http://www.buildwindows.com/">two-hour plus keynote</a> over and over -- just to get their heads around it. Execs didn't even mention a release date or time frame or discuss how many iterations it would arrive in for enterprise, home and so on. With stakes this high, Microsoft can't again risk the humiliation it suffered when its Longhorn (aka the clunker Vista) took years to hit the market. It needs to act lean and move quickly again. And by all indications at BUILD, that’s the makeover Microsoft is trying for. Business folks know that totally redesigned products are risky on first release. Microsoft's own record shows it often takes it three revs to get something right. So now Microsoft is making its revs in public -- not just privately for developers but in a way anyone can download with just a link -- and starting early with a pre-Beta product. It's an edgy thing to do. Other signs point to a corporate reinvention. Microsoft risks irrelevance in the rapid-fire tablet market dominated by rivals Apple and Google. To immediately release an alpha level product to developers and not bar others is new behavior. <img src="http://i.techweb.com/infoweek/byte/news/prevwin8.png"</a> This is a startup mentality Microsoft hasn't exhibited in decades. And growing competition for marketshare, developers and talent seems to be scaring Microsoft into regaining that mentality. At BUILD, execs emphasized long-term thinking without cease. Within a couple years, they said, all displays (regular computer monitors and tablets alike) will be touch-enabled. From watching the execs and the fervor with which they preached the Windows 8 gospel, it is clear there is a lot on the line here. Microsoft can't miss the next revolution and remain king. <iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RATIzpVQPU0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Execs talked and talked about tablets all day during BUILD day one. It was all tablets all the time. They talked a lot about the new tablet-ready features to support Metro apps. One exec said the new Visual Studio features were designed with Metro in mind. Microsoft trotted out old ARM mobile devices to show that Windows 8 is rapid when coupled with display hardware that Windows 8 will enhance and support. That's a sign graphics acceleration is in the works, and Microsoft even repeated the term "proprietary display hardware" the way radio stations once overplayed Hotel California. Or Freebird. Continually. Microsoft can’t risk low performance. It might have one shot here -- not the three, per usual. Moving people from today's Windows 7 apps (and they run natively on Windows 8, according to Microsoft) to Metro interface apps isn't going to be easy. Microsoft usually takes the easy route. Typically, Microsoft just watched the competition make mistakes and then buys or builds its way into a fairly mature market. It can't do that and win this war. One more thing, execs repeated the word Metro as if it's a common word everyone knows. But it didn't seem to have a consistent word for traditional Windows apps. Though Microsoft is still Microsoft for sure -- it used Google Chrome as a running joke at BUILD and always pejoratively – it won’t be able to make fun of competitors' current Windows apps via name-calling until it replaces its popular Windows apps with Metro versions. Microsoft plus Samsung or other tablets would be viable not just to tech pros - but to consumers who've only heard of Microsoft and never the words Android or iOS. Name recognition will get it loyalty from business users and the great unwashed alike -- and the ultimate win for a company who wants to keep its mantra of "Windows everywhere." It's been years since Microsoft -- grown so confident and corporate and slow-- could act anything like a startup. But it is. It no longer can slow the industry it "owns" to whatever pace it's comfortable with, that's for sure. This is what Larry Press and I determined after our first day at BUILD 2011. Were you there? We’d love to hear from you and engage in some back and forth. Comment below. Just takes a few seconds to register to do it. We want to talk to you folks directly. What do you think? Based in San Francisco, Gina Smith is editor-in-chief at BYTE. Email her at Gina@BYTE.com. Larry Press is a BYTE senior contributor in Southern California and a university professor. Email him at Larry.Press@BYTE.com. 2011-09-13T17:50:00ZWindows 8: First ImpressionsWindows 8 Build Conferencehttp://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/231601353?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors I arrived at the BUILD event here in Anaheim, California, at about 8 a.m., an hour before the event. Already there was a mile-long line of developers crowding in front of 10 doors leading to the area where the first keynote would begin. Extreme. And reminiscent of the craziness surrounding the Windows 95 launch back in the day. The guy at the very front of the line--he was Cooper Power's Phil LaBar--told me he got there at 5 a.m. <iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RATIzpVQPU0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> By lunch, Microsoft senior vice-president of Windows Steve Sinofksy and other execs had shown us a slew of new features, which I detail <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/">here</a>. Here are some of my early impressions. Boot time is rapid--the demo showed a cold boot at eight seconds. And I loved the start screen in the new Metro UI. <img src="http://i.techweb.com/infoweek/byte/news/metro.png"> To me, one of the biggest deals here is Windows 8 support for all of Microsoft's cloud-based services--Hotmail, Windows Live, and so on. Another major advancement is Windows 8 support for touch and mobile devices -- most notably, tablets that don't have Intel inside. Execs showed three tablets running the developer preview version, launched today, of Windows 8. One was a prototype i5-based Samsung tablet. The other two tablets were based on Qualcomm's processor and the upcoming NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. Microsoft launched the Windows 8 Developer Preview today. Download it<a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/"> here</a> in both 32 & 64-bit versions. This is just part of what will be in Windows 8 on release. I'll be updating this piece. Stay tuned! Larry Press is a senior contributor for BYTE. Email him at larry.press@BYTE.com. 2011-09-13T15:12:00ZWindows 8 New Features: Microsoft Opens The KimonoMicrosoft demos a range of new features for its OS code-named Windows 8, including support for non-Intel processors and support for NVIDIA's upcoming quad-core chipset.http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/231601350?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors At Microsoft's BUILD 2011 conference today, Microsoft gave developers a full preview of its upcoming Windows 8, showing a number of features it had yet to reveal at previous events this year. "We reimagined Windows," said Steve Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows Division. To the thousands of developers gathered in Anaheim, Sinofsky said Windows 8 was a complete revamp "without compromise" from the chip level to the UI. <img src="http://i.techweb.com/infoweek/byte/news/prevwin8.png"> Sinofsky and other execs showed Windows 8 running on three tablets, including a prototype i5-based Samsung tablet, a Qualcomm-powered tablet, and a tablet based on NVIDIA's upcoming quad-core Tegra 3 chipset. That is the processor reportedly inside Amazon's so-called movie-streaming "Hollywood" tablet now in the works. Though there are too many new features in Windows 8 to mention here, here is a top line of what Microsoft announced before a mid-day break and where BYTE wants to focus first in our continuing coverage of BUILD 2011. And yes, Ctrl+Alt+Del still works. Note: The following feature list is based on the Microsoft demo and not a hands-on test by BYTE or any attendees. - Faster boot times. The demo showed a system cold boot--in eight seconds. - Syncable settings on any Windows 8 device. - Native support for Windows 7 applications. - Built-in Hyper-V virtualization technology. - Touch support, including the option to use thumbs to navigate on Windows 8 tablets. - SkyDrive storage support to work with Windows Live, Hotmail and all other Microsoft cloud services. - SkyDrive storage support for third-party services including Facebook, Flickr, and LinkedIn. - Multi-monitor support built in, allowing the Windows 8 new Metro UI to operate on one monitor, while the basic Windows desktop UI shows on another. - Enhanced security features, including an improved Windows Defender built into the OS. Sinofsky demonstrated how Windows 8 could not and would not boot from a rootkit-infected USB stick. - Eventual availability of both Win32 apps and Metro apps for Windows 8 via Windows Store. - Support for non-Intel CPUs by the time it ships commercially. That includes ARM, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments. - NFC support allowing tap-to-share among users. - Single-development platform. There is one Windows 8 API on both conventional computers and mobile devices such as tablets. Microsoft launched the Windows 8 Developer Preview today. Download it<a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/"> here</a> in both 32 & 64-bit versions. There are two days left at BUILD and more announcements are planned. What are you hoping to see? What are your impressions so far? Let us know! BYTE's Gina Smith and Brian Burgess also contributed to this article. Based in southern California, Larry Press is a senior contributor at BYTE. Email him Larry.Press@BYTE.com. Email Gina Smith at Gina@BYTE.com and Brian Burgess at Brian@BYTE.com2011-08-26T06:06:06ZSteve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Me: Opportunity LostLarry Press talks about TKhttp://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/231600227?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors I met Steve Jobs once. He and inventor Steve Wozniak were at the now-legendary Homebrew Computer Club meeting in Silicon Valley, where engineers and local wannabe "computing kit" geeks used to meet weekly to discuss how to create or build computer kits for home use. The first true personal computer, the Apple II, was still two years away, remember. So this night was very early on in computer time. It was 1975. Each Homebrew meeting featured a "random access" time, where anyone sitting there could just stand up, ask questions and announce things. I loved that part. Steve Wozniak stood up and offered free copies of the schematic for the computer he built and was planning to start selling with Steve Jobs. <img src="http://i.techweb.com/infoweek/byte/BLOGS/Press_Larry/jobs2.png"> "I was so nervous," Wozniak said to BYTE today about that time. "But I heard it went great. Everyone seemed so excited about the Apple I." <img src="http://i.techweb.com/infoweek/byte/BLOGS/Press_Larry/jobs4.png"> Afterward, I approached Steve Jobs. He was behind one of the tables, showing a hand wire-wrapped Apple I breadboard. <img src="http://i.techweb.com/infoweek/byte/BLOGS/Press_Larry/jobs3.png"> He was talking about the tradeoffs in implementing functions in software or hardware. As an editor of Interface Age, I wanted to know more. Could I have an interview? Only if we dedicated a whole issue to Apple, he said. A whole issue on schematic on a box that hadn't even shipped yet? I was pissed by the kid's arrogance, frankly, and I walked away. How silly of me. I should've asked for a job right then and there. All I cared about was computers, and the Apple I designs at first glance looked like a huge leap ahead. <img src="http://i.techweb.com/infoweek/byte/BLOGS/Press_Larry/jobs1.png"> Check this <a href="http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/steve-jobs-reshaped-industries/?nl=technology&emc=cta1">column by David Pogue</a>. for more on the industries and products Job's imagined and then created. This isn't engineering. It's art. Check out Steve Jobs' commencement speech and other rare videos of him <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/personal-tech/tablets/231600131">here</a>. Based in Los Angeles, Larry Press is a senior contributor at <a href="http://www.byte.com" target="_blank">BYTE</a>. Follow him @larrypress, or email him at <a href="mailto:larry.press@byte.com">Larry@BYTE.com</a>. 2011-07-14T19:16:00ZGoogle Chromebook Isn't For Power Users -- Yet.Chromebooks aren't for power users yet, but tghey could well be just ahead of their time.http://www.informationweek.com/news/231001231?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_Authors BYTE -- You've heard about the Google Chromebook. This is a system that, unlike a regular desktop, boots right into a web browser. <img align="left" src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/BLOGS/Press_Larry/chromebook.jpg"/>Samsung and Acer are now selling <a href="http://www.google.com/chromebook/">Google Chromebooks</a>. With little local storage, Chromebooks operate with the assumption that you'll keep most of your data and documents online and use net-based applications like Google Docs. Chromebooks cost about the same as low-cost laptops. They turn on quickly and they're always online. Google is pitching them to the education market, as well as to companies, and that makes sense. The closed nature of the Chromebook is ideal for uses <a href="http://campustechnology.com/directory/list/laptops/laptops-sub-500/laptop-sub-500-home.aspx?pc=e251em14&utm_source=webmktg&utm_medium=E-Mail&utm_campaign=e251em14">like these</a>. Google says Chromebooks are for casual users, too. That isn't me. I use my computer as much to create content as I do to consume it. I do 99 percent of my work on a Dell laptop with a flash drive, which I carry between home and office and when I travel. As I write this, I'm running the Google Chrome browser with 45 tabs open, plus an image editor with several images, Camtasia, a DOS command line, an email client, a Wi-Fi sniffer, an FTP client, several file browsers and MS Word and Powerpoint documents open. I also am running various services. The most important one is the Web server. <img src="http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/BLOGS/Press_Larry/chromebook452.png"/> Try this on a Chromebook. Now a Chromebook would let me use the Web, do email, and run Google Docs or Microsoft Life instead of Word. But I need PowerPoint features that are only available on the Desktop version. Plus, network-based audio, video and image editing apps are way too slow for the way I work and what I do. I need my Web server and FTP client to test and transfer new material to my Web site. So I'm not in the market for a Chromebook today. This is no system for power users. But what about tomorrow? Things will change. A future Chromebook with a rapid connection to the Internet, a terabyte of flash storage and more CPU and RAM power isn't hard to envision. That's when a net computer like the Chromebook gets interesting. Eventually, network-based programs will be as fast and powerful as today's installed applications. So unless new desktop software raises the bar significantly, I'd be willing to foresake Windows. The price needs to be right, though. So does the timing. In the late 1990s, as a consultant to Hyundai, I recommended establishing a social network for vehicle owners. Hyundai said no. In retrospect, the execs there were probably right. Back then, there weren't enough Hyundai owners online for a network of Hyundai drivers to achieve critical mass. Plus, sharing information socially was a new idea. Today it is a no-brainer. Hardware timing is critical, too. Often, software comes out before the hardware can take advantage of it. Graphical user interfaces like the Xerox Star, VisiOn, Windows 1.0 and 2.11 and Apple Lisa's software were out long before the appropriate hardware to support them was available at a decent price. The first Macs came out at just barely the right time, if you remember. The Google Chromebook isn't right for me yet. But I could come around. Time will tell whether this first Chromebook is more like the first monochrome, 128K, floppy-disk based Mac or like its doomed predecessor the Lisa. It's up to Google to make the next move. Based in Los Angeles, Larry is a senior contributing editor at BYTE. He's also a professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Follow him @larrypress or send email to lpress@csudh.edu