Ballmers articulates Microsoft DSI strategy which has MS Windows 2003 at the core.

I spend a lot of time talking with Microsoft customers around the world, and one thing I consistently hear is that the growing complexity of today's computing systems is driving up costs and limiting the potential of information technology to work on the toughest business problems. In fact, a study by the consulting firm Accenture reported that IT professionals spend up to 70 percent of their time maintaining existing systems.

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Over the past several years, Microsoft, in partnership with other IT industry leaders, has been making significant investments in an effort we call the Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI). The goal is to build a comprehensive set of solutions for the Windows platform that can help automate the design and management of the increasingly complex and distributed computing systems that customers need today. Doing this will free up valuable IT resources to work on higher-value projects, and make computing simpler and more cost-effective for organizations large and small.

Specifically, DSI is about doing three things really well:

• Building software development tools that help IT managers and software-development teams design computing systems that are inherently simple and inexpensive to manage. We call this "design for operations."

• Enhancing the Windows operating system platform with powerful management technologies suited for complex and constantly-changing IT environments, such as automated deployment, configuration and monitoring.

• Building easy-to-use, scalable solutions that cover every aspect of the management experience, with real-time feedback on system performance and a high level of automation.

Can someone let me know why the "integration" between X1 and Newsgator is such a big deal?  It's not even really integrated…Outlook just provides the environment for both apps to run in.

Is it because it's the first bundled package for searching MS Outlook contents effectively?  Maybe it's just because I'm a techie, but I've been using Lookout from Lookoutsoft.com to do this for months.

The best part is that right now, Lookout is free, sure they will charge you 29.95 once it moves out of BETA and goes live, but the deal from Newsgator/X1 is $99USD.  A combined NewsGator/Lookout solution would still only be $50.  A bit pricey in my book, but hey, until MS gets around to doing a good job of indexing e-mail in Outlook PST files…these are our choices.

In the desktop IM war, Yahoo has fired its most recent salvo against MSN and AOL by releasing a beta of their new IM client.  Coming just as Microsoft has announced that they are getting ready to release version 6.2 of the MSN browser.

As a user of Yahoo's IM as well as a glutton for punishment I downloaded the client yesterday.  Well, I am happy to report that so far things are going rather well. 

The biggest change that I see so far is the tighter integration with Yahoo mail, Avatars beta and other various Yahoo services.  The biggest addition that I have see is the integration with Launchcast, which I promptly disabled and removed from the interface. I'm not a big fan of IM clients with bells and whistles.  Given me what I want…IM.

It looks like Barracuda has taken a new and interesting direction in the enterprise fight against spam, although I'm not so sure that this is such a good thing.  By integrating an Outlook plug-in that can train the Bayesian filter of their spam firewall appliance product, they have given the user more power to decide what is spam and what is not.

Barracuda Networks, the leading provider of enterprise-class spam firewall solutions, today announced the immediate availability of a Microsoft Outlook plug-in that will seamlessly integrate with the Barracuda Spam Firewall 300, 400 and 600 models.

While the announcement does not go into detail as to whether an individual users decision to flag a message as spam applies to all users, I would suspect this to be the case.  For anyone who is interested in implementing such functionality, just recognize that should not be the first and only line of defense for your organization.  

It's clear that once a spam gets to a users desktop, its risk to your organization rises dramatically.  In my opinion, the best policy is "Keep it simple…."  Overall, you're not saving any money by passing this responsibility off to your users and what's worse, once it gets to the user, it's most likely already too late.  Stop it before it gets anywhere near the desktop is always going to be your best policy, this type of solution has the potential to breed laziness on the part of the administrators who should always be on their toes.

Want to help decide the future of mobile computing solutions including PocketPC handhelds, Smartphones and embedded Windows, at Microsoft? Stop by the MS career site and check out these listings. 

Cool…I wish I lived in Redmond.

...Cloudmark Exchange Edition(TM) (CEE), the easy-to-use, server-side, anti-spam solution, specifically for small and medium businesses (SMB). CEE is powered by Cloudmark SpamNet(TM), the most accurate desktop solution as proven by customers and PC Magazine two years in a row, to stop over 97 percent of spam automatically without losing business emails.

By taking advantage of automatic real-time updates from the SpamNet community of more than 900,000 users, CEE delivers instant spam protection with no configuration and no maintenance to meet the needs of SMBs that often operate with little to no IT staff.

My favorite spam fighting company Cloudmark has finally entered the Enterprise arena with their new Exchange integrated server side product.  The new solution called Cloudmark Exchange Edition (CEE) leverages their existing community of users to flag spam. 

My concern, while I haven't seen the architecture but can infer how this would work, is that I don't see to many companies opening up their mail servers to allow real time access to such a feed.  Take anti-virus signature update feeds for instance.  Most companies don't setup a server to just go out and download virus signatures and then automatically distribute them.  Things just aren't done that way.  Most companies have someone assigned to the task of anti-virus signature file testing and distribution. 

I see the same model evolving here. 

I love this.  Microsoft was represented on a panel alongside SUN, HP and Novell at the recent LinuxExpo.  When asked about competition from Linux in the laptop space the Microsoft representative replied…

"I think there is a couple of really interesting things to come out of this. Firstly is, we don't sell laptops so what these companies choose to do with their products is up to them. Despite what you may think, there is no restriction in the licensing terms with either of these companies that says they can't provide naked machines—they can absolutely do that. If you look at the DOJ agreement from some time ago now, one of things we are restricted from doing by law is putting in clauses that would do that sort of thing. It may have happened in the past, it certainly doesn't happen anymore. So don't blame us." <—-emphasis mine

In a move to bolster the ad-hoc reporting capabilities of SQL Server 2000 and beyond, Microsoft has acquired ActiveViews of Provo, Utah.  The acquisition, while small, fills a big gap in the MS SQL Reporting Services.  The recently released add-on to SQL Server 2000, SQL Reporting Services, excels at providing access to pre-defined reports from a wide array of back end data sources, but falls way short in providing the flexibilty the end user popluation requires for creating queries on the fly.  ActiveView will provide this missing piece.

"There is a significant amount of data out there and an increasing need for every employee to have access to that data to make decisions. By incorporating the technology provided by ActiveViews, SQL Server Reporting Services will help users access information more quickly and efficiently," said Bill Baker, general manager for business intelligence at Microsoft.

"Based on feedback from customers and industry experts, we believe that by incorporating this functionality within the business intelligence capabilities of SQL Server, Microsoft will provide a more complete BI solution than has been offered in the industry before."

After being barraged by spam and 419 scams from Rima-TDE and telefonica.es [translated], the AHBL has announced that all of Spain's national ISP's e-mail will be blocked by their blacklisting service. One has to ask though, is blocking an entire country like this the future of spamfighting, or has something gone horribly wrong?"

According to this post on /. it looks like the AHBL has placed the mail servers of Telefonica De Espana on their abuse list, having the effect of blocking the outgoing e-mail of ALL users of Spains largest ISP.  What!??!?  You would think that a site such as SlashDot with the power to influence that they yield would have at least explained a bit more about the AHBL before allowing this post to reach the front page.

But, since they didn't…I will.   Before freaking out and assuming that these users are blocked from sending e-mail to anyone on the Internet, we ought to keep in mind that the AHBL's lists are only used by organizations who point their spam blocking software (such as Spam Assassin) or spam blocking appliances at the list.  In other words, you subscribe to the list which is free.  While the list of subscribers may be a large list of ISP's including some of the worlds largest, possibly including the likes of those such as Yahoo and MSN, it is NOT blocking an ENTIRE country as the author suggests.

Regardless, we're on a slippery slope when one organization intends to block e-mail from thousands of people because one or two bad apples spoiled the pie.  If this is the future of Spam, we have lots to worry about.  This could have just as easily been my private ISP.  I can guarentee that they would never do this to the likes of Yahoo or MSN because the AHBL would have lawyers crawling up their behind so fast that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. 

But I digress.

Notice To All Telefonica De Espana Users The AHBL is blocking nearly all of Telefonica De Espana IP space currently. This is because of the ever increasing amount of spam and illegal 419 coming from rima-tde.net IP space. (TDE is the govt run ISP of Spain Note from BB - I've been getting mails from users indicating that TDE is now privately owned, I will be attempting to confirm this ASAP) TDE does not seem to care one way or another about the abuse and illegal activities coming from their network, and has not responded to any abuse or spam complaints, nor have they seem to have dealt with any of their customers. In order for TDE netspace to be delisted, the following must occour: * TDE must contact admins@2mbit.com and inform us of how they plan to clean up their network, and how they are currently cleaning up their network. If you are an end user, DO NOT CONTACT US. We are only interested in hearing from TDE themselves at this point. * TDE must terminate their users which are sending spam and 419 scams and not just move them to another netblock to avoid the blocking. * TDE must agree to continue to police their networks and deal with abuse in a timely fashion (72 hours or less). Once TDE has compiled with the above, TDE netspace will be delisted.  However, should it become known that TDE is ignoring complaints, or playing games with the spam fighting community, their netspace will be relisted and not removed for a minimum of 6 months.

The AHBL will not tolerate abuse from any network. 

This block would not be necessary if TDE actually made even the slightest effort to clean up their network - which they have yet to do.

In a follow up, the AHBL qualifies their position by saying.

Update - April 26th, 2004
(Note from BB: I neglected to mention that these discussions took place nearly a month ago, and that TDE has made no further attempts to contact us in regards to the issue)

TDE contacted us by e-mail and we were told by them that the cause of all of the 419 scams and spam was from the scammers operating out of Internet Cafe locations, and that they were working with the police to try and stop the problem.

However, when asked why TDE does not just block outgoing port 25 on their dynamic clients, we received no reply.  We also asked that TDE provide us with details on exactly what their dynamic ranges are, so that we could better tune our blocks, and they have yet to get back to us on that either.

The only reason why we have resorted to this broad of a block is because TDE has not shown any effort to work with us to isolate the problem, and we continue to receive thousands of 419/spam attempts daily by Rima-TDE netspace to our own mail servers and other mail servers we monitor or run.

Apparently on the offensive again, this time Microsoft has lashed out at the EU claiming that their sanctions are based on "new law" and that in fact it can hurt the tech industry at large. 

The timing of its attack steals the EU's thunder ahead of the publication of the full report on the software behemoth expected today. A seven-page paper, posted late Wednesday on Microsoft's website, is a cross between a treatise and a legal brief, citing both the potential damage of the ruling as well as alleged legal shortcomings of the decision.

"The Commission is seeking to make new law that will have an adverse impact on intellectual property rights and the ability of dominant firms to innovate," Microsoft said. "This adverse impact will not be confined to the software industry or to Europe."

Let us not be disillusioned enough to think that Microsoft actually has the welfare of the entire EU…no…world tech community in their best interests in writing this paper.  Folks…I hate to be a cynic, but lets face it, Microsoft is a corporate citizen and if they are nothing else, they are media savvy.  Those folks up in Redmond know how to work the media machine. 

In my humble opinion this paper is nothing if it is not intellectually dishonest.  Nothing more and nothing less.  If Microsoft was listening, I would tell them not to fight this battle in the court of public opinion, because frankly, no one out here believes what they say anyway, particularly when it is so obviously self serving.

The once mighty American Online is said to be preparing an announcement that they will allow customers access to their AOL e-mail via 3rd party e-mail clients.  Is this a signal that things are getting rough over at AOL?

Called Open Mail Access, the feature can be used on any e-mail software that supports Internet Message Access Protocol, which lets applications access e-mail off other servers. The launch of the tool, expected Thursday, is the latest step in AOL's attempts to ramp up its service in the face of dial-up subscriber losses and an uncertain future for its broadband product.

But, my personal favorite part of this piece is the line below…

AOL hopes that added offerings will make its service more appealing to existing subscribers and potential new ones.

They hope that this will make its services more appealing huh?  Here's a newsflash for ya AOL.  You're a portal just like all the rest.  Google, MSN, Yahoo….Nothing more and nothing less.  What AOL has failed (or maybe they're just hoping it's just a phase ) to recognize is that while they were trapping users and advertisers in the AOL walled garden, the Internet was springing up all around them and there users were becoming more saavy all the while.  Now that the users realize that there is a forest beyond the first line of trees AOL has little if any chance of being able to stem the tide.  Open e-mail or not, maybe its the power user in me, but I just don't can't see where they go from here.

Oh…and thanks for the collection of really cool CD's that I use as disposable coasters.

After breaking a story on an early stage release of Windows Media Player 10, Neowin, under apparent pressure from Microsoft, has had to take down the images. 

We've managed to snag an early copy of WMP10 for Windows XP. There are various new features with WMP10 including the following:

*New Skins

*Photo Devices

*Support Schedule media description updates

The UI is slightly different from WMP9 and it looks a little cleaner. The build is listed as 9.00.00.3409 but the installer says Windows Media Player 10 so we're assuming it's at a really early stage. We're still playing with the build so if we notice anything new we'll update the post. For those interested WMP10 is part of the Windows Media Center Edition 2004 Update beta (MCE 2005) that has been shipped to Media Center testers this week. Screenshots below.

Update: We've had to remove the screenshots at the request of Microsoft

Come on Microsoft, give us a break…we need our fix.  Actually, I'm a liar because I much prefer WinAmp or MusicMatch.  Always have.

While this piece of information from Canalys may stun you EMEA Palm users, it comes as no surprise to those of us who are satisfied PocketPC owners.  PocketPC sales are blowing the doors off of those of Palm devices sold in Europe. 

Microsoft showed stunning growth in the first quarter of 2004 versus 2003 in both voice and data centric devices. PalmOne remained virtually flat in data centric devices and was up 19% in the voice centric category, though their share in voice centric devices is actually dropping going from 1.6% of the market in Q1 2003 to 1.0% in Q1 2004.

Note that all PalmOne figures have been restated to include Handspring numbers. What about the Treo 600 though? "Most of Microsoft's smart phone shipments so far have been tied to the Orange network, but with the MPx200 becoming available on other operators' networks and with more models appearing over the coming months, we would expect shipments to increase substantially. PalmOne's Treo 600 hasn't done as well in EMEA as elsewhere; it needs more models and broader operator coverage to become a contender in the smart phone space."

The one thing that this chart does not point out is that the Symbian share considers their penetration into the mobile phone market where Microsoft has made little if any headway thus far.  Even with that and with all the handhelds built on Palm, including the Handspring treo line of PDA phones, Microsoft is eating up the competition.  I love it.

"Having Motorola on board is a big help for Microsoft," said analyst Rachel Lashford, "Most of Microsoft's smart phone shipments so far have been tied to the Orange network, but with the MPx200 becoming available on other operators' networks and with more models appearing over the coming months, we would expect shipments to increase substantially. PalmOne's Treo 600 hasn't done as well in EMEA as elsewhere; it needs more models and broader operator coverage to become a contender in the smart phone space. The momentum in this segment, however, remains with the Symbian-based vendors."

In the interest of full disclosure, my own personal device is an HP IPAQ 4155 (builtin WiFi, Bluetooth, SD slot).  I love that device.  It's small, light, sturdy, sleak and it screams, even with all the crap I put on it.  Bottom line…It looks like Microsoft has finally produced a mobile operating system in WME 2003 that device makers can take to market with compelling and reliable solutions.

SUN and Sophos have teamed up to provide Spam, AntiVirus and other messaging protection by integrating the Sophos PureMessage and the Java System Messaging Server.  This marks a big achievement for SUN who has been stumbling a bit lately and represents the creation of a new check box on the eval sheet for customers comparing Microsoft .Net to SUNs J2EE.

Large organizations must address email-borne security without introducing another layer of management complexity or a new communication bottleneck to their network. The integrated Sophos and Sun solution enables the Java Enterprise System to communicate directly with PureMessage via channel architecture in the Java System Messaging Server.

This provides customers with high performance message processing and consolidated protection, through a seamless administrative experience, without requiring a third-party Message Transfer Agent to broker the communication. Organizations can get up-to-date protection against messaging threats using one of the fastest, most comprehensive and easy-to-deploy solutions on the market.

VMware has announced support for 64bit virtual servers in their product line.  What isn't initially clear is if an organization will need to support separate VMWare instances to run 32 and 64 bit hosts because concurrent VM's of different architectures will not be supported.  My guess is that they will not.  According to VMWare, concurrent 32/64bit VM support will be phased in over the next 18 months starting with an update to VMWare workstation 4.5. 

The inference here is that the ESX and GSX product lines will follow thereafter.  As a result it is likely that ESX/GSX users will not see the functionality for at least six maybe twelve months.  The announcement does little to clarify the overall timelines.

VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for x86-based systems, today announced support for 64-bit extended x86 platforms, including AMD64 and the Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T). VMware software will support systems with terabytes of physical and virtual memory, enabling the virtualization of the next-generation memory-intensive applications such as data-mining and managing large databases.

Interestingly Microsoft has been silent on the issue of how they will handle 64bit support in their Virtual Server product line and in future interations that are integrated into the OS as is expected.