Alain's Globosphere

That's THE decision of the year for me...

alainler — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 12:10:00 GMT

Hi all, I just wanted to share my joy with you all. On Saturday, I'll get married! :-D

I have spent almost 10 years of my life with my soon-to-be wife so I figured out that she deserved it. You know what it is, right? Living with an IT specialist is not always easy. She keeps claiming that there's "something" in my life (as opposed to "someone"): my computer(s) ! ;-)

For those in Belgium who want to have a drink with me, just drop me a mail and I'll let you know how to come and join me!

You'll now notice a little slowdown in my postings: it simply is because I'll spend some quality time with my wife forgetting a little bit about computers (assuming it's possible :-S). It's gonna be back to normal on Sept. 11th. And, just to give you a little hint, there will be some postings on "Search"...

Now, for Saturday and beyond, let's hope for the best...

Boeing leaves Connexion behind ...

alainler — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:15:00 GMT

A couple of years ago, I was mentioning in one post how pleasant it was to work in a plane while wirelessly connected to the Internet. This service was delivered by "Connexion by Boeing".

Boeing's CEO, Jim McNerney, has decided to stop delivering that service despite the very high potential that most of the analyst are talking about.

The reason is, it seems, that the American airlines never really adopted this technology despite the fact that this has been approved in mai 2002.

I must admit I'm quite disappointed. There's no known candidate to acquire "Connexion by Boing" so far. Oh, maybe you?

Microsoft's home page for Software as a Service (SaaS)

alainler — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:07:00 GMT

My readers know my interest to the "Software as a Service" concept. Microsoft has just released a complete subsite on MSDN Architecture led by our friends Gianpaolo and Fred.

Here's where you can find it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/saas/

Heathrow ... Time to encrypt your data

alainler — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:13:00 GMT

With the latest news about terrorism and the extra-security in the airports, you know that laptops no longer are allowed in planes. Neither are PDAs and Mobile phone.

Can you imagine how much sentive data is stored in your machines? What if they "disappear". Because, nowadays, you're not allowed to close your luggage anymore and you now MUST put your laptop in your luggage... quite easy to "loose" them, right?

There are quite easy ways to protect your data with Encrypted File System, Right Management Services, Microsoft Baseline Security Analyser, etc

Now, think about it... and make use of Windows to help securing your business-sensitive data.

Tim O'Reilley: "one of the motivations to share -- the necessity of giving a copy of your source code (...) -- is truly gone"

alainler — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 02:02:00 GMT

Tim O'Reilley comes back to some interesting facts about Open Source software, software distribution and Web 2.0 considerations.

He's saying: "one of the motivations to share -- the necessity of giving a copy of the source in order to let someone run your program -- is truly gone. Not only is it no longer required, in the case of the largest applications, it's no longer possible."

He also presents three new ways to "Open Source" software in the new IT world:

Keep the application proprietary but Open Source the framework used to build it.
Figure out what "Open Services" means (pointing out the idea of Mashups that are coming now)
Adopt the "Cloneable application" model pioneered by Ning.

The final conclusion being: "It's a very interesting time to be in Open Source. Open source zealots need to realize that open source needs to be reinvented for the new platform architecture (...)"

This is blog post really is worth the reading time. Of course, if you like the conclusions or not is another story.

Improving Web Search Ranking by Incorporating User Behavior Information

alainler — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:25:00 GMT

Did I tell you that Microsoft Research really is essential to the future of the company. Go read this document that has been created (among many others) for this year's SIGIR conference.

There's been a press pass about that as well.

The size of a typical IT staff

alainler — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 23:10:00 GMT

I'm seeking for information on the number of IT Staff per employee in a typical corporation. Corporations can be divided in categories and yes, I know there's no definite answer ... but here, rule of thumbs can help. IMHO, I have perceived this to be roughly at 3%, that is 3 IT staff per 100 employees. Is it your experience?

Justine Nguyen, Director of Desktop Support at CNET, in a video, she explains that a typical rule of thumb for the ratio employees to technicians is 60:1 but depending on a number of factors, this can be between 45:1 to 125:1. However, this video talks about the ratio between support technicians to employees. What I'm more interested in is the ratio between the IT staff to employees.

This seems to be a hot topic. Actually, Computer Economics as just released the results of a study they have done in June 2006. They, however, charge $45 per report and I don't have that money to invest... sadly enough.

There's also a nice thread that has begun on TechRepublic about a few months ago. There's no definite answer I'm afraid.

I also heard that Gartner issued a report about that but I can't put my hand on it.

Does any of you guys have access to some resources for me to look at? Thanks.

Dell's One2One becomes Direct2Dell

alainler — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 11:53:00 GMT

Some time ago, Dell did launch their blog site called "One2One". Of course, very naturally, everyone of us did try the web site with the corresponding URL and ended up on an adult site... Not too good for Dell of course.

After many complaints, they finally decided to move their blog to Direct2Dell at www.direct2dell.com.

You'll have some interesting news over there... even though the content is not really where it should be for such a corporation.

Get ready to upgrade to Windows Visa

alainler — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:39:00 GMT

As most of you know already, Windows Vista is knocking at the door and should normally be on the market early next year. There are many things you can do to get ready to this upgrade.

If you're part of the Customer Preview Program then you do have access to the installation files. If you're not part of it, the MSDN kit will make Vista available. If you're neither in the Customer Preview Program nor an MSDN Subscriber, you'll have to wait until RC1 to get the bits.

It's also recommended you test if your machine will be able to run Vista at its best. There is a small test application called the Windows Vista Upgrade Adivsor Beta that you can download and run. This will tell you how safe (or unsafe) it is to run Vista on your existing machine.

For the software upgrade itself, there are some restictions on the type of software upgrade you can do. Some transitions will require a clean install, and some others will support in-place upgrade. There's a table that helps you identifying all the possible combinations. Of course, if you need to do a clean install, there's a tool you can use to transfer your settings from your old to your new machine. This tool is the User State Migration Tool or the Files and Setting Transfer Wizard. This tool starts up automatically as you install Vista.

For more information, go and visit the Windows Vista site or the Vista Developer site.

Office System and Architecture concerns

alainler — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:24:00 GMT

It's this time in the year where plenty of things have to be talked about with the managers.

It's my responsability to inform, train, help and lead Architects and Architect thoughts in Belgium. So, while organizing next year, my manager came to me and wondered if 2007 Office System potentially could have some impact on the work Architects are doing in their corporation.

Well, I can tell that this IS important, so important that there is a special web site on MSDN called Microsoft Office System for Architects.

Let me suggest a visit...

Windows Live new companion

alainler — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:57:00 GMT

Windows Live has now one new companion: the Windows Live Toolbar.

This toolbar adds significant integration to your browser with the Windows Live platform offering.

It integrates very rich funcationality such as:
- Desktop Search
- Local Live location based on one address
- One Care advisor for more greater confidence
- RSS Feed one-click subscription
- ... and many others.

Here's a list of features of this unique and integration-rich toolbar.

Microsoft Research - It does pay off!

alainler — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:58:00 GMT

You know that Microsoft's stock has been quite flat those last five years. Consequently, people start asking questions about some of the biggest expense bucket of Microsoft that is: Microsoft Research.

Yes, Microsoft spends billions of Dollars in Researches and one may worry how those researches contribute to the revenue stream of the Company. Let me tell you how I do feel about that...

First and foremost, when you know that the company did register no less than 3,000 patents this last year alone, this is quite an impressive number. Not all patents will actually generate immediate revenue but as you may know, patents can be ... sold, shared or embedded into products and technologies. You'd be surprised about how many times companies agree on patent sharing for the best of the industry (so like "I give you free usage of my patented technology and you give me free usage of yours"). Money concerns apart, this provides great value to all of us as techno users and allows a world full of innovation.

Now, you see Microsoft research in very many areas and on hundreds of projects. I do feel good about that. That shows also how our technology pipeline looks and this is somehow the one asset of the company.

Research can show up at unexpected places like, for example, gaming! Simply look at the details of PGR: the lighting, the movements of the car, the dynamics of your driving skills, etc.

Research can also show up in our day to day productivity tools. How do you imagine Microsoft Word has the best grammar and spelling checker in the world? In French, the "Dictée du Balfroid" is known to be one of the most diffcult ... and Ms Word spellchecker did pass with 100% score! Isn't THAT impressive? How do you think Ms Outlook can "guess" an e-mail recipient with just of few keystrokes? How do you think Smarttags can show-up in a context-sensitive way while you type?

Now, research in Digital Imaging can make amazing things. Such as Face Recognition, or the ability to reconstruct a 3D environment with multiple photos, or this PlayAnywhere project by Andrew Wilson that I already talked about and many, many others.

Just see for yourself some of the products that Microsoft Research has contributed to. Also look at what the press is saying about it.

So, in a nutshell, I really consider that the Innovation Microsoft Research is bringing us really makes me love this company. I'm convinced that we should go on an invest the very same way ... in OUR future.

News about Atlas...

alainler — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 03:32:00 GMT

Atlas has been extremely popular since the first public CTP release in October 2005 and the momentum has continued to build. In fact, the March CTP, the first release with a Go-Live license, generated over a million visits on the site in just 3 days.

Obviously Atlas is very popular and more and more people are using it each day on real sites. One question that's asked often as developers get deeper into Atlas is, "When does it ship?"

Officially, Atlas is scheduled for release with Visual Studio Orcas (after Vista). However, based on customer feedback and demand, the product team is working aggressively to pull the ship date in sooner and provide customers with the stability and support they need for deploying Atlas in production environments.

In the interim, continnue experimenting with the CTPs and providing the team with feedback via the Atlas forums on www.asp.net.

New microsoft.com homepage being prepared

alainler — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:30:00 GMT

I've just heard that there's a new microsoft.com home page being prepared. Go see for yourself over here.

Enjoy.

Steve and Kevin on stage: what I'll remember

alainler — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:51:00 GMT

Earlier today, we had the privilege to have both Steve and Kevin in Seattle to meet their technical people. They were, as usual, great speakers. What I'll remember from what I heard is the following:

From Kevin

We've done an amazing year and we are back on a double digit growth which is, for a company our size, a real achievement. During the forthcoming years, we'll work fundamentally on our:

Operational efficiency: Of course, I'd say that if a company is properly run, it reduces the expenses and is more profitable. That sounds quite normal. It's just that it's the first time I hear it loud and clear.
Portfolio: Over the years, the company has built an amazing set of technologies, patents (3,000 patents this year alone!), products and services. It looks to me essential to leverage those assets and take the most out of them.
People: Yes, next to all that, pople are what make the difference between the companies. Their motivation, their enthusiasm is key to their personal success but also to the company's. Microsoft, exactly as what it proposes to customers, will become a people-centric/people-ready business.

From Steve

He has this incredible energy that really flows out of him while he's on stage. I really enjoy each and every of his "shows".

Well, Steve clearly told us ... not to be impatient. Most of the major achievements of the companies have taken years to become really significant but it has paid off. So this time again, Steve asked us to pe patient and to continue the hard work.

He also admitted that 5,5 years between the launch of two major Windows versions will never happen again! (I don't know why but the whold room clapped! ;-) ). He said: "We learn from our mistakes"... I like that!

He also said plenty of things about the competition and how to go after them, but I'll keep that internally. I'm sure you do understand why! :)

Finally, he went through a number of key elements that have made and that will make the success of the company. Here they are:

Innovation: I do agree, innovation is key. We've delivered an amazing set of creative approaches in the past years and the way we move foward, I don't expect anything slower! As I said already, we've registered more than 3000 patents this year alone! Isn't that incredible?
Focus on 4 key quests: Businesses, Productivity, Entertainment, Developers... Well, I guess I don't have to add anything to that as it covers the essential of our business already.
Software services: Ooooohhhh yes! That's THE thing that will make our future as a company. I strongly do believe in that. More specifically when software services will be combined with regular software.

Finally, both Kevin and Steve insisted on one thing:

Make the launch of Vista and 2007 Office System a success.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's notes from Seattle.