Former Microsoft Exec Joins BizNet Engineering Team

A former senior group program manager for Microsoft Office Business Applications has joined Dallas-based BizNet Software, a provider of a real-time financial reporting and analysis solutions that integrate with Microsoft Excel. Demetrius Austin was appointed as BizNet's director of software engineering, according to a BizNet statement released yesterday.

Austin was part of the FRx team working to deliver the Integration Designer and Management Reporter solutions for Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007. FRx Software Corporation is a Microsoft company. He also worked on a project to integrate Dynamics AX with those applications.

Austin is the second Microsoft FRx team member to join BizNet this year. In March, Chris Scherpenseel, former president of FRx, joined BizNet as part of its strategic business advisory council.

Austin will implement "best practices in product development, testing and support" at BizNet, according to the company's statement. He will work on BizExcelerator, BizNet's flagship product, which provides real-time links to databases for producing Excel spread-sheet reports.

"[I] wanted to be a part of the development of an international software company and BizExcelerator has the supporting architecture to scale and perform across multiple markets," Austin explained, in a prepared statement.

In his 20-year career, Austin has served in numerous roles including software developer/engineer, senior technical consultant, and director of software engineering for business reporting and analytics domains. He joined Microsoft in 2002.

Since 2005, he has been a proponent of the Scrum software development methodology and, according to a Scrum Alliance bio, "improved on already highly successful delivery of products/solutions with 200-plus data integration components and software applications released into the market place."


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Partnering with Peer Groups: P2P Power, Version 2.0

Earlier this year, veteran channel executive Arlin Sorensen told RCP he hoped to see his network of partner peer groups more than double in size -- eventually.

After all, it took six years for that network to grow from its initial group of five Iowa-based IT businesses to a loose confederation of 10 groups with members from 100-plus partner companies throughout the United States and Canada (see "P2P Power," April 2008).

But based on demand, it looks like "eventually" now means by the end of next year. "We have announced a growth plan to go to 20 groups, with about 240 partners, in 2009," says Sorensen, who founded that first group to solicit his peers' advice as his Harlan, Iowa-based Gold Certified Partner company, now known as Heartland Technology Solutions Inc., went through some lean times back in 2001.

Since then, Sorensen and his staff have helped launch one new peer organization after another, with each Heartland Tech Group (HTG) consisting of executives from up to 12 non-competing companies. The resulting network, which cooperates with but is officially independent of Microsoft, is widely viewed as a premiere example of effective partner-to-partner (P2P) collaboration -- so much so that, earlier this year, 40 companies were wait-listed for participation.

Now, Sorensen says, it's time for the P2P network to move to the next level -- or, as he calls it, "HTG 2.0." Beyond that demand-driven increase in the number of partner groups, the biggest change is that the peer community will now run itself, coordinated by a leadership committee of peer-group executives. That transition is just fine with Sorensen, whose company had been running the network: "We've exceeded our capacity for doing it ourselves," he says. "Now we have 15 people stepping up to help lead. They've got fresh ideas. There's a lot of buy-in, a lot of skin in the game."

Other changes include:

Centralized gatherings. Previously, each HTG scheduled its own two-day meeting each quarter in a different city, typically a member's hometown. Now all HTG quarterly meetings will be held simultaneously in one location, beginning with a January gathering in Dallas, Texas. "All the groups will be meeting separately, but we'll all be in the same venue," Sorensen explains. Co-location makes it easier to attract vendors and speakers and encourages companies to "cross-pollinate," he says.

Membership dues. Starting in January, members will pay $100 per month to help pay group facilitators, a role previously held by Sorensen and his managers.

Vendor partnerships. The network has launched a formal program for selected vendors interested in engaging with HTG members. Currently, HTG has eight vendor partners; plans call for expanding to 20 or 25.

International participation. The first Canadian HTG peer group launched in June; plans call for launching the first group in the United Kingdom in October. Says Sorensen: "Australia will probably be our next target."

Virtual groups. This new option, co-sponsored by Microsoft, is designed for Microsoft Small Business Specialists who may not yet have the money or time to attend regular HTG meetings. The online program, which covers the same content as regular HTG sessions, costs $50 per month; participants can attend a "graduation ceremony" at next year's Worldwide Partner Conference. After that, they'll be able to continue in a second-year program-or step up to a face-to-face group.

One thing that hasn't changed: the requirement that each HTG group protect its members' confidential information. "That's really important when we're sharing financials," Sorensen says. "That has to be in a controlled environment."

At the same time, HTG 2.0 will continue to emphasize camaraderie and collaboration. Bottom line, Sorensen says: "We're really not competing. There's not a shortage of customers. And there's more to be gained by working together than there is to worry about."


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Windows Security Update Targets Elevation of Privilege Attacks

Microsoft this week is continuing its ongoing investigation into what it calls "new public reports" of a vulnerability that could allow hackers to gain superuser privileges through LocalSystem in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Redmond late last week issued a Security Advisory adding Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 to the list of affected software. The advisory provides IT pros with some guidance and workarounds to help avoid a vulnerability that may allow elevation-of-privilege attacks.

The software giant said it is considering other actions, including the provision of a "security update" via its monthly Patch Tuesday security rollout.

This latest update involves a highly technical attack vector similar in scope to a patch released in last April's slate, where a local privilege-escalation vulnerability affected the Windows kernel due to improper validation of user-mode input. In the same manner, with this advisory, an attacker who has gained local access can change user parameters and exploit this issue to execute code with elevated permissions.

Microsoft said in its advisory that administrators that allow customized code to "run in an authenticated context, such as within Internet Information Services (IIS) and SQL Server," should take a look at the advisory.

Off-site server hosting providers running Windows programs may also face increased risk, Microsoft added.

Potential workarounds include log-in and process monitoring specifically in Internet Information Services. Administrators can do this by creating a Worker Process Identity through the ISS manager function in Windows. The same can be done in SQL Server with the database administrator keeping track of users and changes to fields and access privileges.


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IE Share Continues Decline but How Far Will It Go?

It's no secret that enterprise use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer is on the decline. The question is, How far is it falling?

One report, issued last month, suggests that IE could account for less than half of all browsers in use by enterprises within the next year. Park City, Utah-based Janco Associates Inc. last month issued a report saying that IE accounts for just 58 percent of browsers in use by those within enterprises, down from 65 percent a year ago. Firefox meanwhile now accounts for 19 percent, up from 16 percent.

"You're going to continue to see a drop, and I think it will probably level off at 45 percent, said Janco CEO M. Victor Janulaitis, who believes enterprises are shifting more of their desktop users to Firefox and the Google Desktop (the latter is not a browser per se, but he said a number of users cite it as their primary desktop environment).

Whether or not IE will fall that fast will depend on how users react to Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8, which is in beta now and due out shortly. The question this week takes a new twist, with Google's announcement that it is jumping into the fray with its open source browser, called Chrome.

But not everyone sees IE fading so fast. For example, Forrester Research in July found the use of IE in enterprises at a much higher rate -- at 77 percent of all browsers -- with Firefox accounting for nearly 20 percent. Why the disparity?

Forrester analyst Redwan Iqbal said much of it has to do with the respective audiences. "I believe the disparity is because our sample targets large enterprises," Iqbal said in an e-mail. "In our set, Japan and especially China have lower IE adoption than the U.S. China may see IE falling below 50 percent by next year."

Janco says much of its data is pulled on a global basis, notably Asia. Forrester's is concentrated on North America and Europe, explained Forrester analyst Jeffrey Hammond. "I would also expect that our data, which is reflective of our customer set, is more skewed toward larger organizations," Hammond said in an e-mail.

The methodologies also differed. Forrester gathered data from 50,000 users logging into its Web site during the first half of this year -- Janco, a management consulting firm, also used Web analytics at 10 of its subsidiaries and three partners, representing anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 individual logins per day.

Janco's international skew probably explains why Netscape Navigator doesn't show up on Forrester's report, yet it accounts for more than 11 percent of all browsers used as reported in the Janco study. That's especially noteworthy because Time Warner Inc.'s AOL subsidiary discontinued support for it at the beginning of this year.

"They just haven't moved off of it even though there are no updates and support for that product," Janulaitis said. "People in organizations take a long, long time to change."


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Google Plunges Into Browser Market

Just days after Microsoft released the second beta of Internet Explorer 8, Google unexpectedly made what could be its largest assault on Redmond to date -- the release of its own Web browser.

Google today released the first beta of its new browser, which it calls Chrome, and is set to offer preview releases in 100 countries. In so doing, Google hopes to shake up a browser market now dominated by Microsoft's IE, Mozilla Foundation's Firefox and to a lesser extent Apple's Safari.

Chrome takes advantage of WebKit, the open source rendering engine also used in Google's forthcoming Android platform, which the company is rolling out for mobile handsets. Google is also using components of Mozilla Firefox, among other open source components. The company said it will also share its code with the open source community.

Google said WebKit makes more efficient use of system memory than other Web rendering engines. "We believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the Web," said Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president of product management and Linus Upson, the company's engineering director, in a blog posting announcing Chrome.

Google describes Chrome as a browser with a simple interface, in the same model as its search UI. However, the company argues that its open source browser components can run complex Web apps faster and more reliably than others.

Among other things, Google says Chrome isolates each browser tab in its own sandbox, preventing the entire browser from crashing when one page fails, although rivals have taken similar steps to isolate tabs within browsers. Google also says Chrome offers a more powerful JavaScript engine, which it calls V8. According to Google, the V8 JavaScript engine examines the JavaScript source code and instead generates machine code that can run directly on the processor.

Analysts today said Google faces an uphill battle in making a dent in the browser market. "I don't think there will be a big market impact unless there are radical performance differences," said Forrester analyst Redwan Iqbal in an e-mail interview. "There is little pain for Chrome to heal."

That's not to say it won't have some impact, he added. "It's definitely a good show for WebKit and there are some nice ideas for established players to incorporate."

That said, if Google is able to upset the status quo, it could have a significant impact on Google's effort to take control of the desktop, added Iqbal's colleague at Forrester, Jeffrey Hammond.

"If they do gain significant share they have a great opportunity to drive forward with a WebTop that unifies the client computing experience inside a browser, as opposed to a desktop," Hammond said in the e-mail discussion.

Google took the unconventional approach of describing how Chrome works in an online comic strip, accessible here.

"We want browsers to find that sweet spot between too many features and too few with a clean, simple, and efficient user interface," the comic strip said.

The strip also illustrates the issue related to asynchronous APIs that rely on single threaded JavaScript sessions, which lock up browsers until the session is complete. Rather than develop a multithreaded browser, Google said it developed Chrome to employ multiple processes, each with its own memory. "We are applying the same kind of process isolation you find in modern operating systems," Google software engineer Arnaud Weber is portrayed as saying in the comic strip.

It remains to be seen what impact Chrome will have, but Hammond said at the very least he would expect others to borrow from its best ideas.

If Google wants to make a dent in the market with Chrome, it will have to improve its responsiveness to customers, said M. Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Park City, Utah-based Janco Associates Inc., which last month released a study showing a shifting browser market.

Janulaitis said customers cannot get adequate resolutions to problems from Google. "The quality of their interaction with their customers today is poor at best," he said.


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Microsoft Announces SP-1 for Forefront Client Security

As Microsoft continues to navigate the ever-bumpy road of security, the software giant this week released its first service pack for Forefront Client Security, a member of its Forefront family of security products.

The Client Security app helps protect against nasty bugs that can come from the Internet or various client attachments.

"Forefront Client Security helps organizations better protect users against malware and spyware across multiple Microsoft platforms -- from small businesses to large enterprises," Microsoft explained in a press release. The app uses a single console to help IT administrators manage the security of "enterprise deployments of more than 10,000 clients," it added.

Service Pack 1 helps address client protection across the following network elements, according to Microsoft's Forefront team blog:

"Agent protection on Windows Server 2008 -- Server and CoreServer role support and protection for Windows Server 2008 (except Core, which is Client only)Agent protection and server roles on Hyper-VAgent protection on cluster serversAgent protection on Home editions of Windows Vista or later, Windows XP SP2 or later, Windows 2000 SP4, and Windows Server 2003 SP1 or laterNAP Integration"

Forefront Client Security was first released in May of 2007. As agent software, it runs on PCs, laptops and various other client devices. It features anti-virus and anti-spyware solutions that can run in real time or on a schedule.

In addition, Forefront Client Security scans the security posture of managed devices to determine if they need to be reconfigured or need a patch. It is deployed from a single management console for reporting and alerts and to manage policies for client security.

Microsoft offers a trial evaluation copy of Forefront Client Security that will automatically prompt the user to install Service Pack 1. The evaluation copy can be accessed here.

The Forefront family of tools includes as many as 10 products, all of which work exclusively within the Microsoft environment and integrate with Microsoft's operating systems and software.

The Forefront family of products is poised to make another splash with the anticipated release next year of an integrated security solution code-named "Stirling." The new suite will integrate multiple levels of security -- client, server, network, and edge -- using next-generation Forefront security products.


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Microsoft Unveils More Mojave Details for Skeptics

Some people think Microsoft's Mojave Experiment, revealed in July, was rigged marketing exercise, but Microsoft begs to differ, according to a Tuesday blog post. In the experiment, a retail salesperson demonstrated a so-called "new" operating system, although it was really Vista.

This week, Microsoft provided a few more details about the experiment that generated a reported 89 percent "satisfaction" rating for Vista among the 120 consumers surveyed. The new details are available at the Mojave Experiment Web site, but you have to sift through multiple floating videos to hear them.

Some have questioned the hardware used in the experiment. It turns out that the computers used to demonstrate Mojave (really Vista) were one-year-old HP dv2000 laptops with Intel Core Duo CPUs and two gigabytes of RAM running Vista Ultimate, according to Microsoft.

The hardware issue is important for those using Windows XP, who may face a hardware upgrade in order to use Vista. It's a sticking point that has caused some upgrade resistance, at least in the budget-strapped enterprise. There also have been complaints about the lower end Windows Vista Home Basic consumer-grade OS being a less-than-adequate upgrade from XP, and that it lacks the fancy Aero graphical user interface.

The Mojave demo showed these Vista features:

Gadgets running on Vista, such as an analog clock or a display of local weather information; An Apple OS X-like flip through of currently running programs;Ways to restrict your kids' computer time, and check their Web-browsing history, giving new meaning to spyware;Windows Media Center, where you can record live TV to your computer; andA photo-stitching demo showing how to take four adjacent photos and make a single panoramic view.

Despite Microsoft's greater transparency on the project, the Mojave Experiment had the makings more of a focus group than a research experiment. The sample size of 120 people was just too small to be statistically significant.

In addition, some have pointed out that it was just a demo conducted by a sales person. People may have formed different opinions if they had actually tried to use the operating system themselves in a day-to-day setting.


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