Saturday, July 31, 2010

Microsoft Looks to Supreme Court as i4i Patent Confirmed

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) confirmed i4i's patent, sending another blow to Microsoft's legal strategy to deny intellectual property claims surrounding i4i's "custom XML" technology.

Toronto-based i4i announced on Tuesday that the USPTO had "issued a Reexamination Certificate" (PDF). The certificate confirms U.S. Patent No. 5,787,449, which contains i4i's invention claims for an XML-based technology that was used in Microsoft Word. Microsoft has been engaged in a losing legal battle with i4i concerning the technology after a Texas jury found in 2008 that Microsoft had "willfully infringed" i4i's patent.



i4i made a similar claim back in May that the USPTO had confirmed the validity of the "449" patent. However, Loudon Owen, i4i's chairman, clarified what actually happened in a phone interview on Tuesday.

"Earlier, they [USPTO] issued a notice of intent. They said it is our intent to issue a reexamination certificate, which means a patent is reinstated," Owen said. "What happens is when you are put into reexamination, the Patent Office has to put the legal onus back on the patent owner. And the way they do that is through a phrase where they say your patent is declared 'provisionally invalid.' So that puts the onus back on the Patent Office that it is indeed a valid patent.

"What happened in May, is that the Patent Office said that they intended [to issue a] Notice of Intent to Reissue the Certificate (NIRC) and reinstate the patent, but they hadn't actually issued it. And of course there's been a lapse of time from May until now," Owen said. "But this is the definitive statement, based on the information we have as of today from the patent office, and the patent is reinstated."

Microsoft now appears ready to take the battle all of the way to the Supreme Court. On June 8, Microsoft petitioned the Supreme Court to delay its appeal (PDF download), and that delay was granted, according to Owen.

"As far as we know, Microsoft has declared its intention to file with the Supreme Court a petition for cert [ certiorari ]. And they actually obtained the permission of the Supreme Court to file it late," Owen said. "So they asked, and they now have until August 27 to file their petition for cert ."

If Microsoft files with the Supreme Court, i4i will have time to respond, which is typically about 30 days, Owen said. After that time, it's anyone's guess what happens.

"We think their appeal path has been exhausted, but I never say 'never,' and you just don't know what Microsoft will do," Owen said.



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Ballmer Outlines Mobile Strategy at Microsoft Event

Microsoft's business strategies were described at the company's Financial Analyst Meeting on Thursday.

The talks by five Microsoft executives, including Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, came on the heels of the company's positive fourth-quarter earnings. Last week, Microsoft announced revenue of $16 billion for the quarter. Peter Klein, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said at the time that all of Microsoft's business segments showed "double-digit growth," quarter over quarter.



The number-crunching crowd of financial analysts attending Microsoft's annual event may have preferred seeing spreadsheets and graphs. Instead, they got PowerPoint slides illustrating Microsoft's general vision in the enterprise and consumer markets. That vision encompassed Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing platform, Windows operating system success and consumer products.

Ballmer Lays Out Consumer Strategy
During Ballmer's talk, the Windows Phone 7 operating system was demonstrated running on an unidentified prototype device by Augusto Valdez, senior product manager for Windows Phone 7. Valdez showed off the mobile integration of the Microsoft Bing search engine, which provides search and mapping services based on the user's location. He said that the device was capable of running multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts on one phone.

Brad Brooks, CVP for Windows consumer marketing, showed how Windows 7-based PCs and Windows Phone 7 smartphones will be able to tap into a "personal cloud." Data can be shared across those devices using Windows Sync technology and the Windows Live SkyDrive cloud-based storage space. This data-sharing capability will be available "starting this fall," Brooks said.

"And by Q3 a vast majority of all PCs that ship to consumers will have this pre-installed so people will have this personal cloud experience as part of their Windows 7 experience right out of the box, and of course that will come with every Windows Phone 7 as well," Brooks said, according to a transcript.

Ballmer focused his talk on the consumer side of Microsoft's business since it is "very much on the minds of [Microsoft's] shareholders." The company's consumer products include Xbox gaming consoles, Bing search, Microsoft Office, the Windows operating system and Windows Phone.

Microsoft's mobile strategy has received much criticism over the years, particularly with regard to meeting the competition in the smartphone and tablet markets. However, Ballmer said that Microsoft has had Windows 7 on tablets and slate devices "for a number of years." He noted Apple's progress in putting out popular products and suggested that Microsoft would rise to the challenge.

"Just like we had to make things happen on netbooks, we've got to make things happen with Windows 7 on slates," Ballmer said. "And we are in the process of doing that as we speak. We're working with our hardware partners; we're tuning Windows 7 to new slate hardware designs that they're bringing them to market." He later referred to devices from Samsung, HTC and LG that are expected to "come to market this fall," but it wasn't clear whether he was talking about tablets or smartphones (or both).

Microsoft expects to get "a boost" in 2011 when Intel rolls out a low-power processor to market code-named "Oak Trail," Ballmer said. Oak Trail is an Intel Atom-based processor for tablets that's expected to use half the power of an Atom chip. It's designed to work with Windows 7, MeeGo and Google operating systems, according to Intel.

In a Q&A session with the financial analysts, Ballmer would not be pinned down on when Windows phones or tablets would hit the market. "We'll be in the market as soon as we can," he said. He did reveal a bit about Microsoft's thinking on executing its product plans, noting that "there is no way we will let hardware be an impediment." Ballmer revealed that Microsoft had actually designed the hardware for Windows phones for its partners.

Turner Extols Microsoft's Enterprise Strengths
Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, described the company's advantages in the enterprise space. He said that 70 percent of Microsoft's cloud platform wins in its fourth quarter represented new business, with Microsoft gaining customers from IBM (Lotus Notes) and Novell (e-mail). He cited "limitations" to Amazon's cloud service in that it requires the customer to maintain virtual machines. He touted Windows Azure, saying that the capabilities of Google's and Salesforce.com's cloud platforms fall short by comparison. Microsoft has an edge over VMware because "they don't run their own datacenters," Turner said.

The introduction of Windows 7 to the market gave Microsoft a 2.7-point advantage over Apple in terms of laptop attachments in the U.S. market, Turner claimed. Microsoft sells "just under eight copies per second [of Windows 7] since we launched this product in October 22," he said. Turner also claimed that Windows Server has been showing its highest gains over Linux in the last three years.

Microsoft hopes to grab database market share when Oracle launches its Fusion product, which is rumored to happen this fall, Turner said. He touted the "self-service" business intelligence capabilities of SQL Server 2008 R2. In 2011, Microsoft expects to launch the Parallel Data Warehouse version of that product, which will enable "100-terabyte" data warehouses.

On the enterprise collaboration front, Microsoft is challenging Cisco Systems with the Microsoft Office Communications Server product. Turner said that Microsoft's Live Meeting service is offered for "a third of the price of [Cisco's] WebEx" videoconferencing solution.

In addition to Turner and Ballmer's talks, the event featured presentations by Bill Koefoed, general manager of investor relations, Craig Mundie, chief research strategy officer, and Peter Klein, chief financial officer.

Recorded video and print transcripts are available at the Microsoft investor relations Web page here.



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Is Google Going Agile?

A Google program manager last week announced the company was changing its software development methodologies to speed up stable releases of the Chrome Web browser.

"Running under ideal conditions, we will be looking to release a new stable version about once every six weeks, roughly twice as often as we do today," said Anthony Laforge in a post on The Chromium Blog.

The three reasons for the change were listed as:

Shorten the release cycle and still get great features in front of users when they are readyMake the schedule more predictable and easier to scopeReduce the pressure on engineering to "make" a release

While the post hinted at Agile-like practices, the word Agile was never used. Some observers, however, indicated that Agile was in at Google.

"The basic premise behind the Agile software development methodology is to release early and often to increase incremental innovation. It's an approach that Google is now set to fully embrace with open arms for its Chrome Web browser," read an article on Datamation the day after the blog post.

A reader posted a comment on Laforge's blog asking about whether the company was indeed using Agile: "I was wondering: Apparently you guys are using an Agile approach. What are you guys applying? Scrum, TDD, something else?"

His question wasn't addressed by Laforge, but another reader's answer seemed to imply the Chrome development process wasn't really Agile. "Six weeks is still on the long side for Agile and will likely lose some of the benefits," said "Ian." He also commented, "I think a lot of these questions are from lack of exposure to agile," before posting some links so readers could bone up on their understanding of Agile.

Interestingly, a similar situation came up in October 2008 in a TechTarget interview with Darin Fisher, a software engineer who worked on developing Chrome. "Some might say certain elements seem like Agile programming, but we didn't specifically say let's use this methodology; we just said we'd do what seems right," Fisher said.

In describing how the team came up with its requirements, he said:

A lot of the process involved brainstorming meetings with the team and we talked about features. We also had an open mail list internally at Google where people said what would be cool. Then a smaller team went through and generated a living document, a beta roadmap, that said here's a set of features we know we've got to do. It included not only requirements for the browser, but a few things that would make it a compelling beta product. We tried to keep the features very focused and minimal. We're adverse to feature creep. Then we shared the list with the whole team, and people would self-select for what they wanted to work on.

About a year later, blogger Todd Hoff reported on a presentation by Glen Murphy, described as Chrome's designer and an engineer on its front-end team. He titled the post: "Google Chrome's Agile Design and Development." However, after a comprehensive account of the presentation, Hoff said, "The word 'agile' wasn't mentioned in the presentation, but they are describing a very agile way of working. Small multi-talented groups working in tight iterations implementing features based on vision and customer feedback. Working code is valued over documentation. The result is a quality product with a very comfortable and natural feel."

It almost appears as if Google is using Agile methodologies but not the word agile, for some reason.

What do you think? Is Google Agile or not? Readers are invited to comment below or mailto:dramel@1105media.com send an e-mail.

 



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Friday, July 30, 2010

Early Windows Phone 7 Previews Mostly Positive

With working prototypes of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 in the hands of developers, and the software now at the technical preview stage, substantive judgments of the phone can be made. Those reviews are starting to come in, and they're largely positive.

For instance, Michael Gartenberg, an influential analyst with Altimeter Group, gave the phone a mostly thumbs-up review. Among his comments:



"The OS ran well even in pre-release form with excellent fluidity and no slowdowns or lags. That's a pretty good sign ... Microsoft's done a very good job with a revamped user experience that's not like anything on the market ... I like what I see so far and it looks like Windows Phone 7 has what it takes to silence many of Microsoft's mobile critics. Windows Phone 7 has the potential to keep Microsoft in the race for relevance in the mobile platform space..."

More praise comes from ZDNet mobile device blogger Matthew Miller, who posted an extremely thorough technical evaluation of Windows Phone 7.

"I ... am much more impressed with the phone and Windows Phone 7 operating system than I thought I would be at this stage of development. The phone NEVER crashed or locked up on me and I did not experience any bugs or other anomalies to report to Microsoft so far ... The user interface is completely different than any other smartphone operating system and is a nice, refreshing change."

Engadget also weighed in with a thorough review:

"Windows Phone 7 is easily the most unique UI in the smartphone race right now ... We were extremely surprised and impressed by the software's touch responsiveness and speed ... Let's just put this up front: the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good ... we've got to say that Web browsing on Windows Phone 7 is actually a really pleasant experience ..."

Gizmodo summed its feelings succinctly: "Windows Phone 7 is good. Really good. It has the raw components needed to build a great smartphone."

All the reviews also pointed out the phone's weaknesses, including a lack of polish throughout much of the OS (which may be understandable, given that it's an early preview), and missing features like copy and paste, and multitasking for third-party apps.

And perhaps the biggest challenge facing Microsoft was spelled out by Engadget: "It's starting a generation behind Android and iPhone, which now have tens of millions devices." In fact, it could be argued that Windows Phone 7 is starting more than one generation behind, since Android is now on version 2.2, and iPhone is on release 4.

Still, if Microsoft's new smartphone was getting hammered by reviewers early on, it would face even more formidable odds; and not just by potential customers, but by the developers that will be crucial going forward. If a sizeable ecosystem of apps doesn't spring up almost immediately, Windows Phone 7 could slide into irrelevance before the public has a chance to vote on the phone with its pocketbook -- similar to what happened with its Kin phone. With the positive reviews coming in, those developers may be more willing to take a chance on Windows Phone 7.



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Microsoft To Release Updated EMET Security Tool

Microsoft announced today that it is planning to release a new version of its security mitigation tool for ISVs and Windows users.

Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) 2.0, when released in "upcoming weeks," will contain six mitigation protections, according to Microsoft's announcement. The mitigations block general techniques used by hackers that try to exploit vulnerabilities commonly found in software. Version 2.0 will be an update to the Enhanced Mitigation Evaluation Toolkit 1.0.2, which was announced in October.



For this new upcoming release, Microsoft plans to change the name of the tool slightly, dropping the word "evaluation" in the older toolkit name for "experience" in the new one.

The reason for the name change, according to the announcement, is that Microsoft has reoriented the goals for the tool. The new aims are to help prevent active exploits, protect older applications and add centralized management control over applications. To that end, EMET 2.0 will sport a new graphical user interface (GUI), instead of the earlier released console control with a command-line user interface. The GUI lets software developers and IT pros easily turn EMET on or off for various applications, and they can also easily check that status using the GUI.

Anyone can use EMET, but it's primarily designed for users of applications at high risk for attack, such as browser-based apps or line-of business apps, particularly older ones based on Windows XP. EMET brings together some mitigations that were first introduced with Windows Vista and Windows 7, enabling those protections for Windows XP-based apps.

The two new mitigations in EMET 2.0 will be Export Address Table Access Filtering and Mandatory Address Space Layout Randomization, according to Microsoft's announcement. The first mitigation makes it harder for exploits using shell code to locate Windows APIs. The second one makes it more difficult for attackers to locate modules by randomizing the addresses of the modules. Module addresses are randomized every time Windows is rebooted according to a Microsoft video explaining EMET 2.0.

The other mitigations to be included in EMET 2.0 were previously available in version 1.0.2. They are Dynamic Data Execution Prevention, Structure Exception Handler Overwrite Protection, Null Page Allocation and Heap Spray Allocation.

According to Microsoft's video, the majority of Internet Explorer exploits tap into heap spray techniques. The techniques are used to ensure that an exploit can run by placing "copies of shellcode at as many memory locations as possible," Microsoft's announcement explains.



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Novell Ships Mono Tools for Visual Studio 2.0

Novell today announced that it is shipping the release version of Mono Tools for Visual Studio 2.0, the add-in module for Microsoft's Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE) that enables developers to write cross-platform .NET applications.

Mono Tools 2.0 advances the cross-platform appeal of the tooling, adding full support for development of .NET applications bound for the Mac OS X operating system. The new version also features an improved debugger that provides feature parity across all targeted OSes. In Mono Tools 1.0, applications targeting anything other than an x86-based Linux machine were unable to use the native debugger. A new debugger now extends full debug support to other platforms and targets, says Joseph Hill, product manager for Mono at Novell.



"That engine runs anywhere that Mono runs. Now we were able to turn around and add that to our Visual Studio product," Hill said. "Our message is you get Mono Tools for Visual Studio, get Mono on Windows, and do application work from there. Then you don't have to ask a Windows guy to worry about any other operating system."

Hill said Mono Tools 2.0 also provides faster deployment, using compression and uploading only changed files at build time. MonoTouch 2.0 also adds a profile manager that helps eliminate repetitive configuration tasks. "When you go to deploy debugging now, it's easier and it's faster," Hill said.

Mono Tools Professional Edition costs $99 and is targeted to individual developers, while Mono Tools Enterprise Edition costs $249 per seat. An Ultimate Edition, which costs $2499, bundles five enterprise developer licenses and provides limited commercial license to redistribute Mono. A 30 day trial version of Mono Tools 2.0 is also available for download here.



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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Google Going After Gov Market With Apps Certification

After a year of working on securityВ steps to comply with federal government regulations, Google today launched Google Apps for Government.

Google Apps for Government is the first suite of cloud-computing applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. government, said David Mihalchik, Google's federal business development executive. The Google Apps platform consists of Google Docs, Gmail, spreadsheets, a video tool and Google Sites.

The General Services Administration has reviewed the documentation of the company's security controls and last ThursdayВ issued an authorization to operate, Mihalchik said.

The move will almost certainly intensify the competition between Google and Microsoft to provide cloud-based e-mail service and productivity applications to the federal community, industry observers said.

"The federal government is the golden nugget everyone is chasing,” said David Linthicum, chief technology officer and founder of Blue Mountain Labs.

“FISMA is always being brought up as a hindrance to the government moving to the cloud,” Linthicum said. Google is basically saying that Google Apps is ready to go, he said.“FISMA was a top priority for us," Mihalchik said. The certification was a very detail process that involved Google meeting 200 National Institute of Standards and Technology security controls, testing by an independent organization and a GSA review, he said. The review makes it easier for federal agencies to compare Google security features to those of their existing systems, Mihalchik said.

Microsoft says it is close to obtaining the same certification for a Web-based version of Exchange, a widely used program for managing e-mail that most organizations run on their own server systems, according to a Wall Street Journal article. Google and Microsoft are competing to provide e-mail to GSA.

The government defines cloud computing as an on-demand model for network access, allowing users to tap into a shared pool of configurable computing resources, such as applications, networks, servers, storage and services, that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service-provider interaction.

Google Apps for Government is hosted in a multi-tenant cloud that conforms toВ NIST's definition of a community cloud, Mihalchik said.

GoogleВ  will store Gmail and Calendar data in a segregated system located in the continental United States, exclusively for government customers. Other applications will follow in the near future, Mihalchik said.

The Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory starting deploying Google Apps for its 5,000 users early this year. Berkeley Labs is using Gmail, Docs, Sites and Calendar, with full deployment scheduled by the end of the year.

The Berkeley lab did its own security accreditation of Google Apps and reviewed Google's documentation before the company had completed its FISMA compliance, Mihalchik noted. The labВ is expected to save $1.5 million to $2 million over five years by using Google Apps for Government, he said.

Google also announced that InRelief.org, a humanitarian relief organization funded by the U.S. Navy, is also using Google Apps for Government to provide users with more real-time collaboration capabilities during disasters.

Government movement to the cloud will continue to be an evolutionary process -- agency by agency, division by division, Linthicum said. The offering of e-mail services, which falls into the software-as-a service cloud delivery model, is a logical place for many agencies to start, industry experts have observed.

FISMA compliance for infrastructure-as-a service and platform-as-a-service will be the next step for cloud providers, Linthicum said. FISMA compliance for these cloud delivery models will be more complex, Linthicum noted.





Microsoft Issues Security Guidelines for Windows Azure

Microsoft Revises Policy on Reporting Security Flaws

Microsoft has adopted a variant of its "responsible disclosure" policy for reporting security flaws in its software, the company announced last week.

The new approach is called "coordinated vulnerability disclosure" (CVD). However, the policy is not too different from responsible disclosure, which depended on keeping reports by security researchers private until a fix or workaround was available from the software vendor. Microsoft had been an advocate of responsible disclosure because it conceived of secrecy about software flaws as the best way to protect its customers, company officials have explained.



A separate philosophy, at odds with responsible disclosure, is the "full disclosure" camp. Full disclosure advocates believe that rapid public disclosure of software vulnerabilities will spur researchers and software companies into action to fix the flaws.

The ongoing debate between the two views became highlighted in an ugly fashion last month when Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher who works for Google, disclosed a Windows XP help function flaw after giving Microsoft a four-day advance notice. Ormandy defended his action as enabling collaboration on the issue, while Microsoft contended that it just empowered hackers to spread malware more quickly.

In announcing Microsoft's new CVD policy, Matt Thomlinson, general manager for Microsoft's trustworthy computing security, admitted that CVD "does not represent a huge departure from the current definition of 'responsible disclosure.'" The main difference centers on whether the active attacks are happening or not. If they are, public disclosure should happen, but within limits, В В  he contended.

"Only in the event of active attacks is public disclosure, focused on mitigations and workarounds, likely the best course of action -- and even then it should be coordinated as closely as possible," Thomlinson stated in a blog post.

The point was reiterated in a detailed description of Microsoft's CVD policy by Katie Moussouris, senior security strategist at Microsoft.

"Make no mistake about it, CVD is basically founded on the initial premise of Responsible Disclosure, but with a coordinated public disclosure strategy if attacks begin in the wild," she wrote in her blog entry. With its policy change, Microsoft's main emphasis is on coordination. It's dropping the "responsible" term as too loaded with implications, Moussouris explained.

However, the main complaint by full disclosure advocates -- that software companies take too long to fix vulnerabilities, allowing hackers a chance to quietly exploit them -- seems to be a sticking point. Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, said that the complexity and widespread use of Microsoft's products requires testing to ensure that a fix is not issued that causes greater problems for Microsoft's customers. In some cases, that means that Microsoft may require a year or more to produced a fix.

"And there have also been cases that are such deep architectural changes that they can take multiple years to fully resolve or may not be able to be resolved in some of our older products," Reavey stated in an MSRC blog post.

Such a time period seems at odds with policy descriptions by Google, which suggest that critical vulnerabilities should remain undisclosed for no more than 60 days. Google's view is that software vendors have abused the responsible disclosure approach to simply ignore fixing their software.

"We've seen an increase in vendors invoking the principles of 'responsible' disclosure to delay fixing vulnerabilities indefinitely, sometimes for years; in that timeframe, these flaws are often rediscovered and used by rogue parties using the same tools and methodologies used by ethical researchers," a Google security blog stated. 

Microsoft, in contrast, has not stated how long a vulnerability should remain under wraps under its new CVD policy.

"Under CVD, just the same as in RD [responsible disclosure], finders and vendors should try to agree to a timeframe for fixing the issue," Moussouris explained. "Complex cases may take longer to fix, and Microsoft will be as transparent about our investigation with finders as we can be, to let them know where we are in the investigation and resolution process."

Moussouris promised that Microsoft would issue "timely updates and target dates for resolution so that a finder is aware of the case status." She also described security advisories as the mechanism of response for software vendors when "a vendor may be unwilling or unable to respond to a vulnerability report."

The Microsoft Security Response Center now provides a description for researchers or individuals to report a software flaw under its "coordinated vulnerability and acknowledgment policy for Security Bulletins." The steps on how to proceed are described here.



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Study: Windows 7 Adoption Among Top IT Trends

An annual survey of IT organizations found rising trends toward deploying Windows 7, desktop virtualization and unified communications solutions.

Computer Economics surveyed more than 200 IT organizations in the United States and Canada from January to April of this year. Despite a conservative spending outlook with the current economic downturn, IT organizations were willing to invest in some software technologies. Those technologies included existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions and "legacy system renewal," according to the "Technology Trends 2010/2011" study by the Irvine, Calif.-based research organization.



This year, IT organizations seemed "willing to open the purse strings for investments deemed necessary, such as ERP systems and desktop upgrades, despite the prospect for limited returns," according to a released statement by Computer Economics.

About two thirds of the IT organizations surveyed had ERP systems. Half of the respondents planned to invest further in those systems or buy new ERP systems for the first time. ERP investments appear to be getting some renewal after stagnating during the recession, the report noted.

Windows 7 adoption is expected to make the biggest splash in terms of IT trends, according to Computer Economics. The report found that only three percent of IT organizations had Windows 7 installed at the start of the year. However, 31 percent of IT organizations have the funds this year to migrate to Windows 7. So, about a third of the IT organizations surveyed have moved, or plan to move, to Windows 7.

Disappointment with Windows Vista has done a lot to drive IT organization toward Windows 7, according to Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics.

"I think a lot of IT organizations have found themselves pretty far behind current technology from Microsoft," Scavo said in a telephone interview. "Probably, they're at the position of needing to do either a complete or partial desktop refresh, and it's getting a little bit long in the tooth to continue to implement XP. Windows 7 has had good uptake and response from the early adopters -- it's a rock-solid operating system. I think IT organizations are comfortable about going ahead and standardizing on Windows 7."

Windows Server continues to be the predominant server operating system among datacenters of all sizes, according to the study.

"Among small companies, 77 percent of the [datacenter] processing workload runs across Windows," Scavo said. "Among large organizations, it's still by far the dominant operating system -- 50 percent of the processing workload runs across Windows on average. There are virtually no datacenters among our 210 respondents that are not running Windows."

Adoption of desktop virtualization represents another rising trend among IT organizations, according to Computer Economics. The study found desktop virtualization in use by 15 percent of those surveyed. However, 29 percent of respondents said that they had invested in using the technology.

Computer Economics defined desktop virtualization as follows: "Hosting and centrally managing desktop instances which are deployed to individual users or running multiple instances of desktop environments on a single machine," Scavo explained.

The survey found that 27 percent of respondents had invested in unified communications technologies. Still, 40 percent of respondents planned to invest in unified communications solutions during their current fiscal year.

Computer Economics has conducted its "Technology Trends" study annually since 1990. The technologies surveyed by Computer Economics change every year, Scavo said. This year, Computer Economics measured the use of 19 IT technologies and surveyed IT spending strategies. Study participants were about equally divided among small, midsize and large organizations. Participating organizations needed to have "at least $50 million in annual revenue" to participate in the study.



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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Microsoft Charts Long-Term Mobile Strategy With ARM Deal

Microsoft has licensed the architecture for ARM Holdings' mobile microprocessor platform, but the move does not appear likely to have an impact on devices in the near-term pipeline.

ARM, whose processors are widely used in mobile devices, notably Apple's iPhone and iPad, said Microsoft is the first software vendor to say it is taking on an architectural license. The move lets Microsoft customize ARM's family of mobile microprocessors rather than just work off the implementation guidelines.

Microsoft and ARM, which have had licensing agreements since 1997, announced the architectural license on Friday, July 23. The companies are sharing few details other than to suggest that Microsoft will build a larger number of devices using its Windows Embedded and its forthcoming Windows Phone 7 platforms.



"With closer access to the ARM technology we will be able to enhance our research and development activities for ARM-based products," said K.D. Hallman, general manager for Microsoft's strategic software/silicon architectures team, in a statement. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company is not elaborating on the announcement but reports have speculated that the ARM platform could be key to partners building smartphones and slate PCs that would compete with Apple's iPad.

Hardware vendors Infineon Technologies, Marvell Technology Group and Qualcomm have licensed the ARM architecture, but Microsoft is the first software company to announce such a relationship, according to Antonio Viana, ARM executive board member. Infineon's deal is specifically for security-based devices.

"There are very few architectural licenses," Viana said in an interview. "This gives Microsoft the ability to create custom implementations on the ARM architecture." Viana declined to speculate how Microsoft might customize the architecture, but he did suggest that it is unlikely it would result in near-term deliverables.

"Creating your implementations and then creating SOC's [system on chips] based on those implementations, that's not something that happens overnight. That requires a great deal of investment and a great deal of effort," he said. "There's a fair deal of work involved."



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Monday, July 26, 2010

Report: Tablets To Grab Market Share Over Netbooks

Tablet handheld computers will begin to outsell netbooks in two years in the U.S. market, according to Forrester Research.

The Massachusetts-based research firm classifies tablets as a "form of personal computer," even though the definition is sometimes considered up for debate by the industry. By 2014, consumers predominantly will use tablets over netbooks. In 2015, Forrester predicts that tablets will constitute 23 percent of PC unit sales.

According to Forrester's report, "The US Consumer PC Market In 2015," published last month, PC sales will reach nearly 500 million units in the United States between 2010 and 2015. Forrester lumps PCs into four categories, including traditional desktops, netbooks, notebooks and tablets. However, tablets represent the fastest growing category, according to the report. Tablet sales will grow from 3.5 million units in 2010 to more than 20 million units in 2015.



In 2015, Forester projects that notebooks will have 42 percent of the market, while tablets will have 23 percent, followed by desktops at 18 percent and netbooks at 17 percent.

Forrester's announcement notes that vendors will need to capitalize on this trend with "chipsets, displays, accessories and content that anticipate the growth of tablets and the continued relevance of traditional PCs." Forrester doesn't see desktops disappearing soon.

"I wouldn't characterize it as a move away from desktops," said Sarah Rotman Epps, author of the report and research analyst at Forrester, in an e-mail. "It's true that in 2015, U.S. consumers will buy fewer desktops than they do today (15.7M in 2015 vs. 18.7 in 2010), but more consumers will own desktops (158M) than any other form factor. Slowing sales of desktops can be attributed to market saturation rather than lack of interest."

In a blog post this week, Epps said that interested parties ("even those not in direct competition with Apple") should keep a close eye on the adoption of Apple's iPad. She says Apple is claiming that 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies around the world are "deploying or piloting" the iPad. She noted in an e-mail that they are probably doing it on a small scale for CEOs, board members and execs.

Consumers were not looking for iPad features before the device was introduced into the market, Epps notes in her report. The top features that consumers value in a PC are a complete mismatch with iPad offerings.

"Top [consumer] features included webcam, CD drive and burner, and DVD drive and burner," said Epps in an e-mail. "Through advertising and devoting in-store real estate to a hands-on iPad experience, Apple has successfully educated consumers about this new product."

One of the reasons why tablet sales will expand over netbook sales is that netbooks aren't able to "synchronize data across services like iPad does," Epps said.

Apple continues to describe healthy sales results with the iPad. In an earnings announcement this week, Apple said it sold 3.7 million iPads in the quarter ending June 26. The company estimated it would ship about 270,000 units per week in this quarter. Apple's numbers, according to Epps, are global, representing about 19 countries worldwide and include both consumer and enterprise deployments.

Epps said that there's still an opportunity to market desktops in the consumer market as complementary to tablets for the multi-PC consumer because consumers will still need the processing power of a desktop to power the multimedia lifestyle.

"We'll see continued interest in space-saving all-in-ones, special-purpose PCs like the Mac Mini for the living room stereo stack, and new uses for desktops like 3D PCs for gaming and 3D photo and video editing," Epps said.

She notes in her blog that this initial forecast was conservative, and that an update will be published later this year.



Report: PC Sales To Grow 20 Percent This Year

New IBM Mainframe a 'Data Center In-a-Box'; Can Manage 100K Virtual Machines Simultaneously

IBM has launched what it describes its most significant advance in data center infrastructure over the last two decades. The new zEnterprise is a mainframe that not only is noteworthy for its increased processing capacity, but because it is the first to provide integration with its Power7 blade infrastructure and x86-based blade racks.

Big Blue launched the new zEnterprise Thursday in New York. IBM said the new mainframe is 60 percent faster and equally more efficient from a power utilization perspective than the model it replaces, the z10.



The mainframe has a 5.2 Gigahertz processor with up to 96 cores, houses 3 Terabytes of RAM and can process 50  billion instructions per second (BIPS). In addition to the boost in capacity, it allows the x86 and Power7 processor-based systems to run as a common virtualized platform, sharing network, storage and power components.

"This is the most powerful announcement we have ever made in the history of the IBM company in terms of customer economics," said Steve Mills, senior vice president of IBM's software and hardware divisions. "We have never in our history done anything that has put more money back in the hands of the customer than this announcement. We have solved a massive business problem that almost any business of reasonable size has today, and that's bringing down that cost of IT operation."

Mills, who called this new system a "data center in a box," extolled its new integrated platform for its shared infrastructure across various processors. The system can manage 100,000 virtual machines simultaneously, a threshold Mills said will be hard to duplicate. "During this decade, nobody will deliver deeper, more profound, fully mobile, fully portable virtualization the way this system provides full virtualization for workloads," Mills said.

At the core of this new virtualized capability is the combination of IBM's new zEnterprise Blade Center Extension (xBX) and the zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager, which allow for the sharing of workloads between the core mainframe and IBM's Power7 and x86 processor blades.

The Universal Resource Manager is made up of software and embedded hardware, said IBM Distinguished Engineer Donna Dillenberger, in an interview at launch event. "It's on both sides. It's on the mainframe side and the blade side, so you can get a coherent view of what's running and you can get a coherent management actions between both, and it comes with zEnterprise," Dillenberger said.

In the past IBM had individual technologies that managed various clusters, but the Universal Resource Manager provides a much tighter association, added David Gelardi, IBM's vice president of sales, support and education. "It's a very broad pipe between the blade environment and the mainframe environment," Gelardi said in an interview. "That is very important from an application perspective, that's where the integration comes from."

While IBM talked up its ability to run Linux-based x86 blades, it talked down its ability to run Windows workloads. It's "about lack of visibility into source code, not wanting to support an OS that 'drag[s] in primitives from DOS,'  and generally not being able to shape Windows to the management IBM would want," noted Redmonk analyst Michael Cote in a blog posting.

But Gelardi said organizations still could opt to run Windows workloads. "There's no reason you can't use it to run Windows, because Tivoli's provisioning capabilities is operating systems agnostic," he said. "Windows would run on an outboard blade and ultimately would run on an xBlade inside zBX."

 



Business Case for Windows Phone 7 Outlined‘Tron Legacy’ Stars Get Comic-Con Crowd Involved In The Movie

Microsoft's New TFS 2010 Template Is Pure Scrum

Microsoft released a Scrum process template for Team Foundation Server 2010 at its Tech Ed North America conference in New Orleans this week. The new template, which is in beta, moves beyond the existing Microsoft Solutions Framework/Agile iterative development process template, and fully embraces standard Scrum terminology and processes.

Brian Harry, a Microsoft technical fellow and the product unit manager for TFS, discussed the announcement in his blog on Monday:

"Over the past couple of years, Scrum has evolved as an extremely popular iterative development process and we’ve been getting feedback that our Agile template feels unnatural for teams trying to do Scrum. For example, it uses different terminology like Iteration rather than Sprint, User Story rather than "Product Backlog item", etc."

The state transition models, terminology and reporting metrics are different in the new Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta to match the Scrum process, according to Harry. The template includes work-items, three report types (Release Burndown, Velocity and Sprint Burndown) and a SharePoint project portal. Process guidance will be made available when version 1.0 is released.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System, Microsoft's first version of its ALM suite of tools with Team Foundation Server on the back end, shipped with two Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) process templates, MSF for CMMI and MSF/Agile 3.0.

With Team Foundation Server 2010, released in April, Agile project management is greatly improved in the existing MSF/Agile 5.0 process template, according to early adopters, who point to the new Excel planning workbooks, and hierarchical work items, among other features.

The new Scrum process template supports hierarchical work items so it is not compatible with TFS 2008/2005. It does not work with the Excel planning workbooks.



In response to a question, Harry explained that decision on his blog:

"We're in the process of designing some new Scrum sprint planning/execution tools and decided to bypass updating the workbooks unless people really felt that it was critical to have. We'll be taking feedback on priorities over the next couple of months."

Microsoft is considering developing a Task Board for TFS, according to Harry. The Conchango Task Board (now EMC Consulting) is popular among TFS developers. EMC, which acquired Conchango in 2008, has updated the process template Scrum for Team System v3.0 to support TFS 2010. Task Board v3.0 is not part of Scrum for Team System v3.0. It is now a component of a new project utility application called Scrum Masters Workbench.

The release of TFS 2010 also marked the start of the first Professional Scrum Developer Program, a training course developed by Accentient President Richard Hundhausen and co-creator of Scrum, Ken Schwaber. PSD is endorsed by Microsoft and instructor certifications are available to those that receive a 90 percent on the PSD assessment through Scrum.org, Schwaber's new company. Schwaber broke ties with the Scrum Alliance last fall.

Microsoft MVP and Certified ScrumMaster Lei Xu of ALM Networks offered a walk-through of his first experience with the new Scrum process template in his blog and overall he liked what he saw:

"Still, I don't expect too much from every v1 from Microsoft, but this Scrum Process Template is really good as it covers most of tooling requirements of scrum and it even helps you to understand many concepts of Scrum which is confusing at the beginning, e.g. where should I put my bug?"

Download the Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta here.



Microsoft’s New TFS 2010 Template Is Pure Scrum‘Thor’ Star Chris Hemsworth Talks About His Title Role

Microsoft's New TFS 2010 Template Is Pure Scrum

Microsoft released a Scrum process template for Team Foundation Server 2010 at its Tech Ed North America conference in New Orleans this week. The new template, which is in beta, moves beyond the existing Microsoft Solutions Framework/Agile iterative development process template, and fully embraces standard Scrum terminology and processes.

Brian Harry, a Microsoft technical fellow and the product unit manager for TFS, discussed the announcement in his blog on Monday:

"Over the past couple of years, Scrum has evolved as an extremely popular iterative development process and we’ve been getting feedback that our Agile template feels unnatural for teams trying to do Scrum. For example, it uses different terminology like Iteration rather than Sprint, User Story rather than "Product Backlog item", etc."

The state transition models, terminology and reporting metrics are different in the new Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta to match the Scrum process, according to Harry. The template includes work-items, three report types (Release Burndown, Velocity and Sprint Burndown) and a SharePoint project portal. Process guidance will be made available when version 1.0 is released.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System, Microsoft's first version of its ALM suite of tools with Team Foundation Server on the back end, shipped with two Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) process templates, MSF for CMMI and MSF/Agile 3.0.

With Team Foundation Server 2010, released in April, Agile project management is greatly improved in the existing MSF/Agile 5.0 process template, according to early adopters, who point to the new Excel planning workbooks, and hierarchical work items, among other features.

The new Scrum process template supports hierarchical work items so it is not compatible with TFS 2008/2005. It does not work with the Excel planning workbooks.



In response to a question, Harry explained that decision on his blog:

"We're in the process of designing some new Scrum sprint planning/execution tools and decided to bypass updating the workbooks unless people really felt that it was critical to have. We'll be taking feedback on priorities over the next couple of months."

Microsoft is considering developing a Task Board for TFS, according to Harry. The Conchango Task Board (now EMC Consulting) is popular among TFS developers. EMC, which acquired Conchango in 2008, has updated the process template Scrum for Team System v3.0 to support TFS 2010. Task Board v3.0 is not part of Scrum for Team System v3.0. It is now a component of a new project utility application called Scrum Masters Workbench.

The release of TFS 2010 also marked the start of the first Professional Scrum Developer Program, a training course developed by Accentient President Richard Hundhausen and co-creator of Scrum, Ken Schwaber. PSD is endorsed by Microsoft and instructor certifications are available to those that receive a 90 percent on the PSD assessment through Scrum.org, Schwaber's new company. Schwaber broke ties with the Scrum Alliance last fall.

Microsoft MVP and Certified ScrumMaster Lei Xu of ALM Networks offered a walk-through of his first experience with the new Scrum process template in his blog and overall he liked what he saw:

"Still, I don't expect too much from every v1 from Microsoft, but this Scrum Process Template is really good as it covers most of tooling requirements of scrum and it even helps you to understand many concepts of Scrum which is confusing at the beginning, e.g. where should I put my bug?"

Download the Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta here.



‘Thor’ Star Chris Hemsworth Talks About His Title RoleMicrosoft’s New TFS 2010 Template Is Pure Scrum

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Microsoft's New TFS 2010 Template Is Pure Scrum

Microsoft released a Scrum process template for Team Foundation Server 2010 at its Tech Ed North America conference in New Orleans this week. The new template, which is in beta, moves beyond the existing Microsoft Solutions Framework/Agile iterative development process template, and fully embraces standard Scrum terminology and processes.

Brian Harry, a Microsoft technical fellow and the product unit manager for TFS, discussed the announcement in his blog on Monday:

"Over the past couple of years, Scrum has evolved as an extremely popular iterative development process and we’ve been getting feedback that our Agile template feels unnatural for teams trying to do Scrum. For example, it uses different terminology like Iteration rather than Sprint, User Story rather than "Product Backlog item", etc."

The state transition models, terminology and reporting metrics are different in the new Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta to match the Scrum process, according to Harry. The template includes work-items, three report types (Release Burndown, Velocity and Sprint Burndown) and a SharePoint project portal. Process guidance will be made available when version 1.0 is released.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System, Microsoft's first version of its ALM suite of tools with Team Foundation Server on the back end, shipped with two Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) process templates, MSF for CMMI and MSF/Agile 3.0.

With Team Foundation Server 2010, released in April, Agile project management is greatly improved in the existing MSF/Agile 5.0 process template, according to early adopters, who point to the new Excel planning workbooks, and hierarchical work items, among other features.

The new Scrum process template supports hierarchical work items so it is not compatible with TFS 2008/2005. It does not work with the Excel planning workbooks.



In response to a question, Harry explained that decision on his blog:

"We're in the process of designing some new Scrum sprint planning/execution tools and decided to bypass updating the workbooks unless people really felt that it was critical to have. We'll be taking feedback on priorities over the next couple of months."

Microsoft is considering developing a Task Board for TFS, according to Harry. The Conchango Task Board (now EMC Consulting) is popular among TFS developers. EMC, which acquired Conchango in 2008, has updated the process template Scrum for Team System v3.0 to support TFS 2010. Task Board v3.0 is not part of Scrum for Team System v3.0. It is now a component of a new project utility application called Scrum Masters Workbench.

The release of TFS 2010 also marked the start of the first Professional Scrum Developer Program, a training course developed by Accentient President Richard Hundhausen and co-creator of Scrum, Ken Schwaber. PSD is endorsed by Microsoft and instructor certifications are available to those that receive a 90 percent on the PSD assessment through Scrum.org, Schwaber's new company. Schwaber broke ties with the Scrum Alliance last fall.

Microsoft MVP and Certified ScrumMaster Lei Xu of ALM Networks offered a walk-through of his first experience with the new Scrum process template in his blog and overall he liked what he saw:

"Still, I don't expect too much from every v1 from Microsoft, but this Scrum Process Template is really good as it covers most of tooling requirements of scrum and it even helps you to understand many concepts of Scrum which is confusing at the beginning, e.g. where should I put my bug?"

Download the Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta here.



Microsoft’s New TFS 2010 Template Is Pure Scrum

Agile Product Watch 7/22: Continuous Delivery, Refactoring and Microsoft Goes Scrum

Here's a look at some of the newest Agile-related products hitting the market:

ThoughtWorks Studios this week announced an Agile release management platform called Go, designed "to incrementally automate the entire build, test and deployment process." Go is a upgrade from the company's continuous integration tool called Cruise and joins project management and testing products to form a software suite called ThoughtWorks Studios Adaptive ALM, designed to manage the entire Agile development process. Go, which also comes in a free community edition, is "a single system of record for managing and tracing each application's lifecycle from check-in to release, thus providing visibility into the production readiness of the entire software portfolio," the company said.

Codice Software has released Plastic SCM 3.0, its latest software change and configuration management tool. It features the new XMerge/XDiff 2.0 integrated toolset, which the company said was "the first on the market to help software developers effectively manage the traditionally error-prone and time-consuming task of code refactoring." Also new,В  Codice said, is its integrated code review functionality, Explorer file management and data importers designed to help move from legacy SCM systems. It's available as a 30-day trial, limited to five users.

Microsoft this week announced Visual Studio Scrum 1.0, a process template "built from the ground up specifically for Scrum teams." The company said it's offering the template -- even though it has promoted MSF Agile 5.0 for Agile development -- because "we have many customers that want a very prescriptive Scrum template that matches strictly to the Scrum literature." Changes from the beta, which was called Team Foundation Server Scrum, include four new reports and process guidance, among others. Read Kathleen Richards' RDN Express blog for more details.



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Adobe Reader To Get Microsoft Sandbox Security

As Adobe Systems applications face increasing security threats, Microsoft is stepping up to lend a helping hand.

Microsoft is providing some of its sandboxing security technology, developed for Microsoft Office, to its partners, including Adobe, according to David LeBlanc, a Microsoft senior technologist for network security, in a blog post. One of the first such product collaborations involves Adobe Reader, a plug-in utility for reading PDF files.

"Office and Adobe compete on many fronts, but we put all that aside when it comes to helping protect customers from security issues," LeBlanc wrote.



Sandboxing is a security methodology that allows developers to separate running applications. The Microsoft-Adobe sandbox program provides a set of commands and technical resources designed to allow Adobe Reader to run securely during a Windows session. Adobe modeled the program after Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing technique, which is "similar to the Google Chrome sandbox and Microsoft Office 2010 Protected Viewing Mode," according to Adobe spokesperson Brad Arkin.

The next release of Adobe Reader will have a protected mode that will sandbox all "write" calls on Adobe Reader PDF documents opened during Windows sessions. It will work with Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003, Arkin explained.

Arkin added that "even if an exploitable security vulnerability is found by an attacker, Adobe Reader Protected Mode will help prevent the attacker from writing files, changing registry keys or installing malware on potential victims' computers."

Security experts welcomed the collaboration and believe that where security is concerned competition must take a backseat, especially in cases where programs and systems are interoperable.

"Microsoft and Adobe have an extremely large user base. This is evident by the number of attackers exploiting vulnerabilities on their software," said Jason Miller, data and security team manager at Shavlik Technologies. "Although sandboxing Adobe Reader should help mitigate a great deal of vulnerabilities, there is still the potential of future vulnerabilities with the product."

This new collaboration may represent a continuation of other initiatives that began earlier in the year, such as security patch cooperation between Adobe and Microsoft. Such alliances should lead to better communication and better overall protection for customers.

"I think this is an indication of something we need to see," said Tyler Reguly, senior security researcher at nCircle. "All big vendors should be working together to better ensure the security of their systems and to protect their end users. These vendors share customers, so working together to provide a better end product is really just common sense."



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Microsoft's New TFS 2010 Template Is Pure Scrum

Microsoft released a Scrum process template for Team Foundation Server 2010 at its Tech Ed North America conference in New Orleans this week. The new template, which is in beta, moves beyond the existing Microsoft Solutions Framework/Agile iterative development process template, and fully embraces standard Scrum terminology and processes.

Brian Harry, a Microsoft technical fellow and the product unit manager for TFS, discussed the announcement in his blog on Monday:

"Over the past couple of years, Scrum has evolved as an extremely popular iterative development process and we’ve been getting feedback that our Agile template feels unnatural for teams trying to do Scrum. For example, it uses different terminology like Iteration rather than Sprint, User Story rather than "Product Backlog item", etc."

The state transition models, terminology and reporting metrics are different in the new Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta to match the Scrum process, according to Harry. The template includes work-items, three report types (Release Burndown, Velocity and Sprint Burndown) and a SharePoint project portal. Process guidance will be made available when version 1.0 is released.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System, Microsoft's first version of its ALM suite of tools with Team Foundation Server on the back end, shipped with two Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) process templates, MSF for CMMI and MSF/Agile 3.0.

With Team Foundation Server 2010, released in April, Agile project management is greatly improved in the existing MSF/Agile 5.0 process template, according to early adopters, who point to the new Excel planning workbooks, and hierarchical work items, among other features.

The new Scrum process template supports hierarchical work items so it is not compatible with TFS 2008/2005. It does not work with the Excel planning workbooks.



In response to a question, Harry explained that decision on his blog:

"We're in the process of designing some new Scrum sprint planning/execution tools and decided to bypass updating the workbooks unless people really felt that it was critical to have. We'll be taking feedback on priorities over the next couple of months."

Microsoft is considering developing a Task Board for TFS, according to Harry. The Conchango Task Board (now EMC Consulting) is popular among TFS developers. EMC, which acquired Conchango in 2008, has updated the process template Scrum for Team System v3.0 to support TFS 2010. Task Board v3.0 is not part of Scrum for Team System v3.0. It is now a component of a new project utility application called Scrum Masters Workbench.

The release of TFS 2010 also marked the start of the first Professional Scrum Developer Program, a training course developed by Accentient President Richard Hundhausen and co-creator of Scrum, Ken Schwaber. PSD is endorsed by Microsoft and instructor certifications are available to those that receive a 90 percent on the PSD assessment through Scrum.org, Schwaber's new company. Schwaber broke ties with the Scrum Alliance last fall.

Microsoft MVP and Certified ScrumMaster Lei Xu of ALM Networks offered a walk-through of his first experience with the new Scrum process template in his blog and overall he liked what he saw:

"Still, I don't expect too much from every v1 from Microsoft, but this Scrum Process Template is really good as it covers most of tooling requirements of scrum and it even helps you to understand many concepts of Scrum which is confusing at the beginning, e.g. where should I put my bug?"

Download the Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 Beta here.



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Microsoft Beats 4Q Consensus With $16B Revenue

Microsoft's had record earnings in its fourth quarter, according to the company's financial report issued today.

The fourth quarter, which ended on June 30, 2010 for Microsoft, brought revenue of $16 billion into the company's coffers, representing a 22% increase from the same period last year. That figure beat the general Wall Street consensus, which expected Microsoft to bring in around $15 billion in revenue for the quarter.

Net revenue for the quarter was $4.5 billion, up 48% compared with last's year's fourth-quarter result. Year over year, Microsoft is a $62 billion revenue company.



Financial results for the quarter were positive across all of Microsoft's five divisions. Peter Klein, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said that "every business had double-digit growth." He cited a "tremendous market response" to Windows 7, which launched in October of 2009 and now runs "15 percent of PCs worldwide." Microsoft has sold "more than 175 million licenses" of Windows 7 since its launch.

Klein expected Windows 7 sales to be tied with PC shipments. Microsoft estimates that total worldwide PC shipments grew quarter over quarter at about 22% to 24%. Klein was less specific about enterprise adoption of Windows 7, saying that the corporate PC refresh cycle is ongoing and expected to continue though 2011.

Consumers apparently are snapping up Office 2010, which launched to retail markets last month. According to Microsoft's 4Q financial report, "consumer revenue increased $357 million or 51% due to sales of the 2010 Microsoft Office system and growth in the PC market." The revenue increase was 8% from business users of Office 2010 in the fourth quarter.

The leading division in terms of revenue was the Microsoft Business Division, garnering $5.2 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, compared with $4.6 billion in the previous year's fourth quarter. Next up was the Windows and Windows Live Division, which brought in $4.5 billion this quarter, compared with $3.2 billion in the previous year's fourth quarter. Server and Tools placed third, with $4 billion fourth-quarter revenue vs. $3.5 billion in the same period last year.

Office was the cash cow for the Microsoft Business Division. It brought in more than 90% of the division's revenue, according to Microsoft's report.

Microsoft continues to show operating-income losses for its Online Services Division, which represents the Bing search and online advertising business, online offerings and MSN Web portals. The operating income loss for this quarter was $696 million vs. $585 million in the same period last year. Some of the cost derives from Microsoft's search-advertising deal with Yahoo in which Microsoft is working to integrate its Bing search technology into Yahoo's portals. Microsoft is partnering with Yahoo to challenge Google's No. 1 search-advertising position.

Still, Klein touted Bing's success, saying in a conference call that this month marks its 13th consecutive month of growth. Bing is up four percentage points from its initial launch, he said. He expected that the integration with Yahoo would happen by "this holiday season."

Also happening around the holiday season, in November, will be the launch of Microsoft Kinect-based games, Klein said. Kinect is a natural user interface that allows users to interact with Xbox 360 games using body movements.

Year over year, Microsoft cut its headcount by "four percent," Klein said. Microsoft had already decreased its number of employees by the start of fiscal-year 2010 by 5,300 positions.

Microsoft's 4Q report and a recording of the earnings presentation can be accessed at the Microsoft investor relations page here.



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SP1 Coming Next Year for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2

Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be released "within the first half of calendar year 2011," Microsoft announced this week.

The service pack is currently available as a beta for test purposes, having been released earlier this month. However, this week, Microsoft published a FAQ on the SP1 beta, which disclosed the approximate product release date for the service pack, perhaps for the first time.



The first service pack release date is sometimes considered important for IT pros. "Common wisdom" has it that IT organizations should begin deploying any new Microsoft product only after the release of SP1, but not before its release. However, Microsoft's FAQ takes this notion to task. In this case, the FAQ argues, SP1 mostly consists of routine rollup changes that are delivered via Windows Update anyway. The service pack actually contains few new features.

"Dynamic Memory" and "RemoteFX" are the only major new features offered in the service pack. However, they represent virtualization performance improvements that may be rather specialized for many IT departments. Dynamic Memory improves workloads on server farms, while RemoteFX helps push out three-dimensional video and bandwidth-heavy applications to thin client devices.

Microsoft is emphasizing that the beta of SP1 should not be deployed on production machines. Moreover, when the SP1 product is finally released, users will have to either uninstall the beta or perform a clean installation of Windows. They can't simply upgrade the installed beta.

The beta is scheduled to stop working on June 30, 2011. However, users will start getting warnings about its expiration on March 30, 2011, according to the FAQ.

The beta will work with evaluation versions of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, which last for 90 days. However, the beta will only install with the "release-to-manufacturing" version of those operating systems, otherwise identified as "build 7600."

Consumer Windows users don't really have to worry about SP1. It will be delivered automatically if they enabled automatic updates on their PCs through the Windows Update feature.



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Nexus One Phone Rides Into Sunset

Google's flagship Android platform phone, the Nexus One, will soon be off the market in the U.S. But developers, Google promises, will still be able to get hold of one for app development.

Google announced the closing of its online store, the chief sales channel for the Nexus One, earlier this year. Now it says it received its last shipment of Nexus One phones, and once they're gone, they're gone. They'll still be available through partners in overseas markets like Korea and Europe, and possibly other locations, Google states without giving specifics.

Realizing that this is bad news for developers, Google also emphasized that they'll still be able to get the Nexus One. "To ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS, Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers," Google states in the blog entry. Getting a Nexus One is as easy as logging into the Android Market Publisher site and ordering one, the company states.

In a May posting, Google explained its rationale for shutting down the Nexus One:

"But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the Web store has not. It's remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it's clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from."

The Nexus One was well-regarded in the industry, but never met sales expectations. There are also many Android phones on the market, and some analysts have theorized that Google may not have wanted to compete with its partners.





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Rally Buys Agile iPhone App, Makes It Free

Rally Software last week announced it purchased an iPhone app that lets users manage Agile development projects remotely and has reduced its price from $15 to free.

Rally for the iPhone "allows users to check project status and health, re-rank stories or defects within iterations and backlogs, as well as edit work and create new work items," the company said of the app formerly known as ScrumAway, purchased from Blue Hole Software. It connects to Rally's Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) software to view Agile artifacts such as iterations, releases, backlogs, stories, defects and tasks, the company said.



The tool, freely available on Apple's App Store, features a Home page project status indicator that displays the health of projects via progress bars that show "accepted stories and task burndown versus remaining work." A navigation bar lets users search and select projects or access assigned tasks with a single tap, Rally said. Bar graphs monitor accepted and to-do lists, and users can also access lists of scheduled stories and defects and edit them or add new ones, manage requirements with a drag-and-drop UI and view and edit tasks such as descriptions and estimates.

Rally for the iPhone's mobile capability "enables developers, ScrumMasters and product managers to effectively prioritize work, communicate release status to the rest of the organization and prioritize product backlogs to ensure that development teams are focusing on features that are the most valuable to customers," the company said.

The app has a three-star customer rating with nine reviews on the App Store, which states it requires iOS 3.0 or later to run on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. Customer comments range from "virtually useless" to "just what I need."



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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Does Android's Open Platform Hurt Developers?

A developer of applications for the iPhone and iPad feels that Google's Android platform is too open, making it difficult for developers to write apps. The clear choice going forward, he says, is Apple's mobile development environment.

Dan Burcaw, founder and CEO of Double Encore, predicts on the Cult of Mac Web site that "...a year from now, developers and consumers alike are going to find the Android platform really disappointing."

Burcaw compares Android development to the downside of Linux development: "heavy on philosophy and egalitarianism, but quality control? Not so much."



He goes on to point out what he considers Android's biggest flaw for developers: too much freedom. There are too many variations of hardware (i.e. phones), and with Google exercising almost no control over what's published in its Android Market, development is much more time-consuming and expensive. For example, writes Burcaw, developer tools are immature:

"Android also shows its youth in the tools offered to Android developers. Consider the numerous devices problem: one would expect a set of tools that would help developers navigate the wilderness of multiple Android devices with varying screen sizes, resolution and even CPU speed. The Android emulator expects that you, the developer, configure profiles for each device you want to support. And I do mean configure. Every aspect of the hardware must be defined; there are no ready-made profiles for the current devices on the market."

He compares these drawbacks to Apple's iOS platform:

"Apple's an established consumer company; and it has an established developer platform that's been refined over the years -- along with a set of tools and clearly defined guidelines by which developers must abide if they want to participate...Apple's tools are very mature from a capabilities perspective, and this is a clear result of the platforms having been refined over its lifetime."

While Burcaw does acknowledge the tight control Apple keeps on app development, he sees it as a positive: "I can count on the quality. I don't have to worry about the apps I write not working from one handset to another. I can't say that about Android."

He concludes: "If Google doesn't fix its consistency and quality soon, it will find its Android marketplace deteriorating and the brand as a whole will suffer from confusion."

Of course, not everyone agrees, and a number of comments below the article challenge Burcaw's assertions. "Bob" says more development tools, which the Android platform provides, are better: "Over on the Android side, there are more tools (if you hate Eclipse) and the default language is one all developers know anyways (Java)."

He also points out that if Apple rejects an app, it means wasted time and resources for the developers: "Then there's the arbitrary gatekeeping of the app store. You could invest tens of thousands and try to create a company on your app, only for some wiener at Apple to decide your app looks too much like a desktop three months after approving it. Developers need stability, and they just don't have that on iPhone."

Randy Magruder makes a similar point, saying there's no consistency in Apple's decisions to accept or reject an app:

"They are there because the user base is there, not because Apple is so awesome. Many horror stories have gone public about companies investing in a technology only to find that Apple took an interest in that space and slapped their apps right off the market. You want a password-protected podcast downloader? Can't have one."

"Max" also prefers to develop on Android: "I know both worlds (iOS + Android) very well and have to say that Android has some very powerful concepts which I miss on iOS. And the development environments of both worlds are equal."

Not according to Burcaw. "So, Google and Android: learn the lessons of Linux -- a little less freedom, a little more quality and consistency? That's where you should be headed."



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Microsoft Releasing Windows Phone 7 to Developers

Microsoft's Windows Phone engineering team announced yesterday that Windows Phone 7 (WP7) Series has reached the technical preview stage.

Achieving that milestone means that developers will start receiving WP7 prototypes from Microsoft's hardware partners in the "next few weeks," according to Terry Myerson, CVP for Microsoft's Windows Phone engineering team, in a blog post. He said that Microsoft now is on a path to "create a different take on mobile phone software, an experience we think many people will find fun and refreshing …."



Microsoft has released a beta of Windows Phone developer tools and described some of the changes coming with the beta. New dev tool features include the integration of Expression Blend 4, new APIs, framework consolidation and updated Silverlight control templates. It takes more than an hour to install the toolkit, according to a Microsoft blog.

During this technical preview stage, Microsoft has been managing the distribution of the WP7 devices to developers. Brandon Watson, who has been on the WP7 team for three months, explained how Microsoft prioritizes distribution. Partners get top priority, followed by ISVs and companies using Windows Mobile 6.x apps, according to Watson. Last on the list are other WP7 developer groups.

"Finally, we are prioritizing for those committed developers who are building apps for Windows Phone 7 and sharing their knowledge about Silverlight, XNA and Windows Phone 7," Watson explained in a blog post concerning this latter category of developer. The blog provides tips on how these developers can get Microsoft's attention and possibly receive a WP7 device.

A few product reviews by media outlets have emerged. Microsoft has not actually disclosed when WP7 products will appear on the market but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hinted at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference last week that it could happen in the "next several months," at least for Windows 7-based slate devices.

An early review in InfoWorld panned the device. Galen Gruman and others at InfoWorld described WP7 as a "disaster" and "a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with."

Microsoft lately has been making sharp changes regarding its mobile businesses. In May, the company announced the exit of two long-time senior executives in the Entertainment and Devices Division. By July, Microsoft had killed its Kin phone, which was loosely said to be part of the WP7 Series effort, although based on technology from Microsoft's Danger acquisition.



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Microsoft Stands Firm on MPN Changes for Now

Microsoft's decision last week to offer Gold and Silver tiers to its new partner network has done little to console those who will effectively be demoted due to new certification requirements of the new program.

During a heated session at last week's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C., some vocal partners said that if they are forced into Silver designations where they are now Gold, it could hurt their business prospects moving forward.

As reported last week, Microsoft is renaming its competency and advanced competency designations Gold and Silver. But many partners, particularly small and mid-sized ones, could find that they have to make choices between being certified silver or gold in certain competencies.



That's because engineers can no longer double-dip and take on multiple certifications, according to the new Microsoft Partner Network requirements. While that is aimed at eliminating thousands of partners who now game the system, it also is hurting those who believe they legitimately can better serve their clients by allowing engineers to take on multiple certifications.

Take Margaret Johnson, managing director of St. Louis-based Oakwood Systems Group. Oakwood has about 85 people with several different practices including SharePoint, business intelligence and security.

"I have to pick now, do I want a BI competency or do I want a SQL competency, and we look like SQL is less than BI, I think it's ugly," Johnson said during the WPC session. "This really is the ugly part. Differentiation is good but not at the expense of your credibility."

That's not the case, said Janice Crosswell of Microsoft Canada's Corporate Assurance Group. "Silver is better than [the current] Gold," Crosswell said during the session. "When you're talking about some of the math, and I am saying 'I am just Silver,' you are actually rank higher than the [current] gold. There are some more requirements."

That didn't sit very well with much of the crowd: "Customers are never going to know that Silver is now better than Gold used to be," a partner in the session replied. "They see Gold and that's what they see. Many years ago Avis made a great campaign about being number two. We can't prove that number two is better than number one. If it's not Gold, it's not Gold."

Some partners would like to see the effort stopped in its tracks. In an online survey by Redmond Channel Partner, about 30 percent of the 109 respondents wanted Microsoft to proceed as planned with the MPN's full launch in October. Some 27 percent wanted a temporary review, 16 percent wanted a full-scale delay with reworked details and 16 percent wanted Microsoft to start over.

A do-over is not in the cards, Microsoft's new channel chief Jonathan Roskill said in an interview last week. "I haven't heard anything yet that makes me feel like I should stop any trains that are rolling right now," said Roskill, now corporate VP of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Program. "If I was going to, I would have done it before the conference."

Added Julie Bennani, general manager for partner programs at Microsoft in an interview: "It's full speed ahead. We are still going on with those requirements and landing those in October."

Several tweaks were introduced at WPC, and Roskill said he's already considering modifications down the road. "If we said, 'If you could get Gold in three of the five in Core IO, we could give you a Core IO competency. That's one thing that's interesting to think about."

Howard Cohen, Northeast Regional Chair of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners, said, "I think there is a good chance they will ultimately budge. If you look to [Microsoft Partner Network General Manager] Bennani's WPC presentation, she showed six groups of competencies," he said.

"Looking at them, they each constitute a platform group, and I think the first thing they may actually do is to relax that rule so you that can use the same person for competencies within a platform. I think they are more concerned about the platform groups than they are about the individual competencies. Its not that they want to drive up body counts, they just want to make sure the focus is there. The focus there on the platform group is pretty much the whole deal, it doesn't have to be the individual competencies themselves."

Timing is an issue. Roskill indicated he has some latitude to fix it. "Based on what we've heard here, I want to think about tuning things. I don't think we want to change anything before October. Like the solution possibility, that's something we could phase in later if we want," Roskill said.

Cohen contended the issue is more urgent among IAMCP members. "The challenge will still remain for companies that do [things like] infrastructure and messaging. Those two go together but they aren't on the same platform. Relaxing it would be a huge deal; it would get a lot of people breathing again. The panic is still well spread. A lot of people are screaming but I think they are screaming in private," he said.

Beyond the thorny specifics of the competency changes and their timing, Roskill hinted that partners should also expect a fundamental simplification of MPN resources for partners overall.

"I think we need to step back and look at some of the stuff we're putting out and just say how much is this collective ecosystem ready to absorb? What we tend to do is throw more stuff at it, and what then happens is they selectively filter on what they want. What we need to do is step back, go to the customer, and figure out what the right thing is for the customer and then go back and say this is what the customers want. Let's get stuff from the marketing teams that's going to work on that space."

Microsoft wouldn't have to step back, had the company let partners weigh in on the competency changes up front, Oakwood's Johnson suggested. "Why didn't they ask us before they made this change, that's what I want to know," she said. "They make the change and ask us how we feel about it, that's BS."



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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Adobe Reader and Microsoft IE Top Security Concerns

The majority of Internet security threats come from unpatched vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat/Reader and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, according to an industry study.

Those two programs topped a list of the "15 most observed vulnerabilities" on the Web, according to M86 Security's "Security Labs Report: January-June 2010 Recap," released this week. The vulnerabilities persist even though Adobe and Microsoft have issued fixes for the flaws. Some users apparently haven't applied the patches, which date back to 2006 in one case.

Topping the list of commonly unpatched vulnerabilities is the Adobe Acrobat/Reader "CollectEmailInfo" flaw, for which a patch was issued in 2008. Next is the "deleted object event handling process" flaw in Internet Explorer, which had a patch issued this year. An "RDS ActiveX" flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer ranks third on the list, even though a patch was issued in 2006.



All told, according to report, Microsoft Internet Explorer constituted five of the top 15 vulnerabilities, while Adobe Reader represented four of the top 15 vulnerabilities. M86 Security's complete list of vulnerabilities can be found in the report here (PDF download).

The report, which covers the first half of this year, highlighted some trends to watch. One "worrisome development" is the rise of "advanced persistent threat" attacks that infamously targeted Google, Adobe, Juniper Networks and other companies. The Google attack is typically known as "operation aurora" and attributed to Chinese hackers using an Internet Explorer 6 flaw.

According to M86 Security's report, advanced persistent threat attacks involve a number of steps. First, the attacker searches out employee IDs to infiltrate a company's social network. Next, URLs leading to malicious Web sites are sent through the social network. When a user clicks on the link, it redirects the person's browser to a malicious Web site housing an exploit that can spread malware.

Another rising threat is a technique of code obfuscation using Adobe Flash, according to the report. The attack avoids detection by combining "JavaScript with Adobe's ActionScript scripting language." ActionScript can work with JavaScript on the parent Web page to enable two-way communications, which makes it difficult to detect the exploits.

Java-based exploits also represent a rising trend, the study found. Typically, these attacks take place when "an iFrame or JavaScript is injected into a Web page of a legitimate site that redirects the browser to a malicious Web page."

Most malicious code on the Web is hosted on compromised existing Web sites, rather than sites devised by criminals, according to the report. The United States leads as the No. 1 host country for malware at 43 percent, followed by China (14 percent) and Russia (four percent).

Spam is on the rise, despite the demise of the McColo hosting provider and botnets. Spam represents 88 percent of all inbound e-mail and has shown a 14 percent upward trend since January. Spam is mostly used to push pharmaceutical sales, particularly the "Canadian Pharmacy" brand, according to the report.



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