Gartner: Enterprises Are Getting More 'SaaS-y'

Enterprises are starting to appreciate software as a service (SaaS) and plan to maintain or grow their SaaS use, according to a survey conducted by Gartner, tapping 258 respondents.

"Nearly 90 percent" of organizations "expect to maintain or grow" their SaaS use, Gartner found. The survey polled individuals responsible for implementing enterprise software in organizations. It was conducted across eight countries in June and July.

The results indicated that SaaS is increasingly seen as a way to offload on-premises software systems to save money and drive change within corporate environments. While that sounds positive, SaaS is "not good for all things," said study author Sharon Mertz, a research director at Gartner.

SaaS is not the appropriate choice for organizations with security policies prohibiting off-site access, she explained.

"It's also not appropriate for all applications," Mertz said. "If you have a very complicated business process that is tightly integrated with on-premises systems or other back-end applications, it may not be sensible to try to extract a piece of that and use it as software as a service."

Increasingly, though, SaaS, unlike its ASP predecessor, seems to be arriving at the right place at the right time. Greater access to broadband connections worldwide is helping the case for SaaS delivery. Also, SaaS vendors have been carving out niches for themselves by delivering customized software to meet specific corporate needs.

"It's becoming a more accepted way to handle your computing requirements," Mertz said. "There is less concern than there was in the past with uptime [and] less concern with security."

There's also less resistance to SaaS from IT departments, she added, since "we found in the survey that a lot of the decisions on SaaS were joint decisions between the business and IT."

Size matters when it comes to SaaS. Small-to-medium businesses lacking IT resources may consider using such services. It's also gaining some traction with larger enterprises that traditionally have run computing resources at their own premises.

For SaaS adopters, a big decision is which platform to use. Providers include Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Force.com and others, Mertz said. Microsoft sells its hosted solutions directly while also relying on its partner network to deliver customized solutions.

Some critical computing applications probably will never leave the corporate confines. For those considering SaaS, the key is accepting that not every software application will require on-premises hands-on attention, Mertz said.

"You don't want your IT guys to be doing things that can be more cost effectively handled by a service like SaaS," she concluded.

Among the North American survey respondents, 62 percent expected to see "slight increases" in new SaaS investments and 15 percent expected to see "significant increases." Those numbers were 49 percent and 15 percent in Europe, and 55 percent and five percent in the Asia-Pacific region, respectively.

The survey also found that 37 percent of the respondents were transitioning from an on-premises solution to SaaS.

SaaS growth will depend mostly on future improvements in SaaS technology platforms.

"It's not just something like expense reporting, which has been available as a service for years," Mertz said. "It's something that's more germane to the business process and they're going to need to have it integrated with their backend systems and they're probably going to want more functionality. That is one of the things that the survey validated."



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Linux-Based VDI a Reality

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), also known as desktop virtualization or hosted desktop, is typically used to move Windows desktop environments into a datacenter, where they reside on a server and are "pushed" out to end users.

It's not just for Windows desktop environments anymore, however. Today, IBM unveiled a partnership with two other providers that will allow the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu to be used in a desktop virtualization architecture.

IBM is working with Virtual Bridges and Canonical to produce a complete VDI solution that it believes can compete directly with Windows-based offerings from companies like VMware, with VMware View, and Citrix with XenDesktop.

Ubuntu is generally perceived to be the most user-friendly Linux desktop version, and is offered as an alternative to Windows by some OEMs, including Dell. Canonical maintains and supports Ubuntu.

Virtual Bridges is responsible for the VERDE platform, which manages the hosted desktop environment. It uses the KVM hypervisor for virtualization. KVM is analogous to Microsoft's Hyper-V and VMware's ESX hypervisor, except that it's a "Type 2" hypervisor; Type 2 hypervisors run inside another operating system, in this case Linux, rather than on bare metal, like Hyper-V, ESX and XenServer from Citrix.

IBM's part in the triumvirate is to provide applications that are similar in functionality to Microsoft Office. Included are programs for e-mail, calendaring, word processing, spreadsheets and more. They will be based on IBM Lotus Notes 8 and IBM Lotus Symphony. Inna Kuznetsova, director of IBM Linux Strategy, said the applications are based on open standards and should have strong interoperability with their Microsoft counterparts like Word, PowerPoint and Exchange.

Pricing is variable, starting at $59 per desktop, and peaks at $288 per desktop, depending on how many features and applications are included, and required levels of service and support. For instance, the IBM suite of products could be deleted entirely, instead relying on the open source software suite from OpenOffice.org that competes with Microsoft Office.

The price point may appeal to many IT shops, especially in a struggling economic environment, Kuznetsova says. "Customers want to focus on saving costs in this environment. Using Linux, they save considerably [over] using Windows- and Office- based solutions," as much as 50 percent, Kuznetsova estimates.

Potential savings are based on three key factors, according to an IBM press release:

License fees for Microsoft Office and WindowsHardware requirements, which are lower for Ubuntu than Windows XP and Windows VistaSavings on power and cooling costs, since a Linux-based VDI solution can run on less powerful hardware.

The fourth cost-saving factor IBM considers is PC support reductions, but those are harder to quantify, since there is a much greater supply available of Windows administrators and IT support staff than there is for Linux. According to the Virtual Bridges Website, only Linux and Sun Solaris servers can be used as backend platforms for VERDE.

Linux-based VDI faces other significant hurdles. One of the largest is that Linux desktops are still perceived as less user-friendly than Windows, and users have a significant comfort level with Windows and Office from years of usage.

Kuznetsova believes that the cheaper price point can overcome those obstacles, and points to the interoperability between the open source office suites and Microsofts' as reasons that administrators may be willing to give Linux VDI a tryout on their networks.



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SP2 Beta Available for Vista and Windows Server 2008

A Service Pack 2 beta for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 is available today for subscribers to MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) and Microsoft TechNet, according to an announcement issued on Tuesday by Microsoft.

In addition, the general public will be able to test SP2 beta for Vista clients as part of Microsoft's Customer Preview Program starting on December 4th, 2008. The software will be available at Microsoft's TechNet site here.

Previously, SP2 had been available only to private beta testers in Microsoft's Technology Adoption Program, who started testing it on Oct. 29. By broadening its release, Microsoft seeks additional feedback to finalize changes before the product shipping date. Microsoft estimates that the SP2 product will be available "in the first half of 2009."

The TechARP.com Web site, which has floated accurate (although unofficial) predictions of Microsoft Windows releases in the past, stated that the Release Candidate version of Vista SP2 will be available in February of 2009. TechARP predicted a Release to Manufacturing date for Vista SP2 in April of that year.

Even thought the beta release of SP2 will be generally available this Thursday, it's intended more for enthusiasts and the technical community.

"For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack," said Mike Nash, Microsoft's corporate vice president, Windows product management, in the announcement.

A noteworthy aspect to this release is that Microsoft provides a single standalone installer that delivers SP2 for both Vista and Windows Server 2008.

The single installer reflects a policy change by Microsoft. With Vista Service Pack 1, Microsoft moved to a "single service model." Under this model, Vista and Windows Server 2008 share the same code base. Previously, with Windows XP, Microsoft had allowed the code base to fork between the client and server operating systems.

A prerequisite to adding SP2 is having Vista SP1 installed beforehand. For those who can't remember that, Microsoft added a fail-safe measure. The SP2 installer features "the ability to detect an incompatible driver and block service pack installation or warn users of any potential loss of functionality," according to Microsoft's notable changes Web page on TechNet.

SP2 includes all previous security updates since the release of Vista SP1 in March. It also has hardware support for the wireless Bluetooth 2.1 standard and Blu-ray disk media, as well as an improved Wi-Fi wireless setup. A summary of SP2's highlights is described at Microsoft's Springboard blog here.

Some have claimed that Microsoft is rushing the release of SP2, but a blog by ZDNet writer Ed Bott claims Microsoft is just staying on schedule. Bott provides graphs showing that Microsoft had more trouble getting XP service packs out the door than those for Vista.



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Malware Targets U.S. Military Computers

Pentagon officials acknowledged that the malware known as Agent.btz recently affected some Defense Department systems. Although it has been in circulation for several months, the malware had not yet been known to penetrate military networks.

The incident has left DOD officials scrambling to clean infected systems, institute new policy and security measures to thwart future incidents, and perform forensics to discover the source of the attack.

The issue was serious enough to prompt Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to brief President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week on the incident.

DOD has not provided many details on the extent of the incident or whether the malware could have harmed systems that are critical to national security. Reports have indicated that the malware infected Central Command computers used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to one report, nearly three-quarters of the computers at the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan were affected. Other computers and networks were apparently affected as well.

Pentagon officials responded by implementing a policy that prohibits the use of most types of portable data-storage media on government computers, particularly USB-based thumb or flash drives, memory sticks, and camera flash memory cards. Malware, viruses and other attack software can propagate via the thumb drives from one machine to another.

Although warranted, the policy creates a hardship for warfighters in the field, who often carry critical data on flash drives in areas in which conditions do not allow for reliable wireless computer communications. The new policy makes it more difficult to share information within a war theater.

Implementing such a policy requires a combination of technical measures and education. Whether state-sponsored or otherwise, hackers who use malware, viruses and other methods to shut down computers, compromise data or steal information frequently target military computers and networks.

The Agent.btz malware is a variation of a worm that surfaced in 2005, but the latest iteration appears to have been designed specifically to target military networks.



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The View: VMware Launches Key Piece of VDI Puzzle

VMware rolled out the centerpiece of its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) strategy today, with the release of VMware View 3.

VDI, also known as desktop virtualization and hosted desktop, involves delivering a user's desktop and applications remotely from a server, rather than the traditional method in which all the software resides on the user's computer.

VMware View 3 has a number of technologies that Palo Alto, CA-based VMware hopes will entice companies to consider VDI, including:

Composer. Composer is a provisioning technology that creates a master image and then clones end user desktops from that image. VMware claims that Composer uses up to 70 percent less storage space and eases patching and updating of desktops, since only the master image needs to be updated or patched; the fix is then applied to all desktops made from the master.ThinApp. ThinApp is VMware's application virtualization product, which isolates applications from the underlying operating system and hardware, allowing multiple applications to run on a single server. ThinApp was the result of VMware's purchase of Thinstall last January. Virtual printing. The main advantage of virtual printing is that it allows users to print to local or network printers without having to download drivers. This is done through technology incorporated from virtualization printing vendor ThinPrint. Offline Desktop. VMware is calling this an "experimental" feature. Offline desktop is meant to overcome one of the major challenges of VDI: the need for some users to have applications and functionality when not connected to the network.

View 3 has two editions: Enterprise, at $150 per concurrent connection, includes VMware View Manager 3, for controlling the creation and management of View 3; and Premiere, a $250 per concurrent connection. The chief differences are that Premiere contains both Composer and ThinApp.

The VDI space has been much-discussed lately, and was a centerpiece of VMware announcements at last September's VMWorld conference. Despite all the coverage, however, desktop virtualization still remains largely a niche technology. It is still in its infancy, although aspects of it have been around for years with Citrix' Presentation Server (now known as XenApp) and Microsoft's Terminal Services delivering server-based applications to users. VDI is significantly more complex, and VMware's announcement is an indication that companies see the potential profitability.

The other major competitor in this space comes from Citrix, with XenDesktop. Microsoft is working on a VDI solution, but still steers customers to XenDesktop. Prominent blogger Brian Madden, who specializes in application and desktop virtualization, writes that both VMware and Citrix are battling for supremacy, and says that some features missing from View 3 have given Citrix an opening:

"...today, VMware has announced more than Citrix about their future VDI plans. But since they [VMware] just rev'ed their product and these features are missing, it's probably going to be awhile before we see this stuff from them. That's plenty of time for Citrix to announce their plans and start shipping game-changing features too."

A free trial of VMware View 3 is available from the VMware Website.



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Heavy Patch Tuesday Expected Next Week

The last "Patch Tuesday" of 2008 will be a busy one, with Microsoft planning to release eight fixes next week, including six "critical" and two "important" items in its December security rollout, the company announced on Thursday.

All but one the planned fixes in the December slate will be related to remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities found in Microsoft software. In addition, the company is indicating that all critical items in the patch will be RCE related. On top of that, there will be one elevation-of-privilege fix that Microsoft considers important.

Critical Fixes
Two of the critical fixes in the patch will apply to various Windows operating systems. One will affect Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP, Windows Vista and both 2003 and 2008 editions Windows Server. A second critical OS fix will just cover Vista and Windows Server 2003 and 2008.

Critical item No. 3 appears to be yet another cumulative hotfix for Internet Explorer, affecting versions ranging from IE5.1 to IE6, as well as IE7.

The fourth critical item will patch Visual Basic applications affecting Microsoft Office FrontPage and Microsoft Office Project. The apps covered in this bulletin are Office FrontPage 2002 SP3, Office Project 2003 SP3, Office Project 2007 and Office Project 2007 SP1.

The last two critical items will be cumulative fixes for Microsoft Word and Excel.

Word 2000 SP3, Word 2002 SP3 and Word 2007 releases are affected. Other applications to get the critical fix include Word 2004 and 2008 for the Mac, Office Word Viewer, PowerPoint 2007 and Word for Microsoft Works 8.5.

Meanwhile, the critical fix for Excel touches on these versions: Excel 2000 SP3, Excel 2002 SP3 and 2003 SP3, plus Excel 2007. Additionally, Excel 2004 and 2008 for Mac and Excel Viewer are on the slate to be patched.

Important Fixes
The first fix among the important bulletins will be a cumulative update for SharePoint Server 2007 programs. This fix addresses an elevation-of-privilege vulnerability associated with this version of SharePoint. If left unpatched, an attacker could change a system's access parameters and possibly gain further entry.

The second important item will address plug-in vulnerabilities in most Windows Media Center applications. The roster of affected apps includes Windows 2000 Server, Windows Media Player 6.4 for Windows 2000 Server, Windows Media Format Runtime 7.1 and 9.0 versions, and Windows Media Services 4.1. For those using Windows XP, the affected apps include Windows Media Player 6.4 along with Windows Media Format Runtime versions 9.0, 9.5 and 11.

For those using Windows Server 2003, the Windows Media Center components on the slate to be patched include Windows Media Player 6.4 and Windows Media Format Runtime 9.5.

Rounding out this vast list of important fixes, users of Vista and Windows Server 2008 will be patching Windows Media Format Runtime 11.

Five of the updates will require restarts.

Microsoft also provides information on general updates and other nonsecurity content in this knowledgebase article. It describes what to expect when getting updates via Microsoft Update, Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services.

The December patch release will be a relatively hefty one, if all holds up. The advance notification is usually a good indication of what's to come.



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Windows 7 Beta Available in January 2009

Microsoft executive Bill Veghte answered a few questions on Wednesday about Microsoft's business strategies for the Windows product line at the Credit Suisse Annual Technology Conference.

Veghte, who is Microsoft's senior vice president for Windows business, notably described when Windows 7, Microsoft's latest operating system under development, will be released.

"Our public comments have been to have general to release-to-manufacturing of Windows 7 product by next January, and we're on track for that," Veghte said at the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based event.

Windows 7 will be available first as a beta, followed by the release candidate version and then release to manufacturing. Veghte didn't exactly specify when the beta would be released, but a Web page advertising Microsoft's MSDN Developer Conference gave an indication. It explains that attendees at the January 2009 MSDN event will be handed the "Windows 7 Beta 1 DVD."

Developers reacted to the pre-beta of Windows 7, which was publicly released at the Professional Developers Conference in October, saying it was "the highest quality" Windows release they've seen, Veghte said. The APIs were complete with that release, he noted.

Microsoft expects that the Windows 7 beta will be compatible with existing systems running Vista. Microsoft made fundamental changes in security and graphics when it first released Windows Vista, which tripped up some of the vendors writing drivers for the OS. However, with the release of Windows 7, "we don't have to change graphics drivers," Veghte explained.

Microsoft has spent "more than 250 structured hours of conversation" with its OEM partners on Windows 7, Veghte said. It has gathered feedback from both hardware and software providers for the beta release.

Phil Winslow, Credit Suisse analyst, asked Veghte about Microsoft's up-selling strategy and how it will structure its premium offerings with Windows 7. Veghte didn't provide the details except to say that Microsoft would base pricing on its past Windows release experiences.

In that context, the elephant in the room that went unmentioned during the talk was the "Vista Capable" lawsuit in which plaintiffs have accused Microsoft of false advertising. Microsoft offered a Vista Basic edition of the operating system that couldn't run prominent features, such as its Aero graphics experience. It apparently caused customer confusion at the low-end of the price scale when customers expected Aero to be part of the Vista Basic experience.

Winslow asked about the market prospects of netbooks, which are low-cost, low-tech laptops that typically can run Windows XP, but not Vista. Veghte said that the netbooks market is meaningful in terms of the number of units that can be sold, although he said it was "too early to tell" what the market share might be. "It's significant enough that we are going to participate," he said.

Veghte said that netbooks would "cannibalize" Microsoft's existing OS market share to some degree. Microsoft is also concerned that customers will choose Windows for netbooks rather than a Linux OS alternative. Veghte said that "more than 70 percent" of netbook vendors are onboard with offering Windows-based machines.

Veghte was asked about how virtualization would affect Microsoft's hold over its component products. He didn't really give an answer except to say that virtualization on the server side will help consolidate unused capacity for customers, while on the client side, Microsoft has an opportunity to help drive down deployment costs for organizations.

Winslow asked about how Microsoft expects to continue pushing out margins in a recessionary environment. Veghte didn't really answer, but he pointed to Microsoft's R&D accomplishments in rolling out the forthcoming Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 products. Microsoft is also extending the Windows experience to the Web via its Live offerings, he added.

Veghte talked a lot about Microsoft's marketing campaigns as a way of having a conversation with the customer. Windows has "almost 80 percent positive reception…and yet we need to have a conversation about what Windows uniquely offers," he said. People remember the ads from Microsoft's latest ad launches, he said.

An audience participant asked if Windows 7 will be harmed or helped by the contention that it is just the "Service Pack 2 release of Vista." Veghte didn't really answer, except to emphasize Windows 7's compatibility with Vista.

Veghte did point to two notable features in Windows 7. One feature, called "direct access," is a more convenient way to connect with the office than current VPN (virtual private network)-type connections. Another is the ability to differentiate device use between work and home by specifying groups in Windows 7.

An audio recording of Veghte's talk can be accessed at the Microsoft Investor Relations Web page here.



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