Beyond | IT : Microsoft

Microsoft creates a “Server and Cloud Division”

john.mullinax — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:44:32 GMT

The Windows Server Division weblog announced yesterday that the people who build Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, SQL Azure, Visual Studio and System Center will all now be part of the same organization, Server and Cloud Division (SCD).

This re-org is part of a transition for the Azure cloud business from a set of incubation projects into a mainstream business, and is intended to help Microsoft continue and increase the “bilateral sharing of technology” between the groups.

For customers and partners, bringing Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, SQL Azure, Visual Studio and System Center together in the Server and Cloud Division should – over time – mean increasing the flexibility to:

Choose on-premise, cloud, or third-party hosting deployment architectures
Choose “hybrid” deployment architectures that span across on-premise environments, Windows Azure, and third party hosting partners
Migrate solution components between the Azure cloud, on-premise environments and third-party hosters
Manage applications and app portfolios that span across Windows Azure, on-premise, and hosting partner environments

Of course, these capabilities already exist in some ways… I personally read this re-organization as a positive signal that Microsoft is committed to additional innovation in this direction and is actively working to make these capabilities richer and more robust for our customers and partners.

These capabilities are at the core of what Microsoft means when it talks about “Software-plus-Services”. Ultimately, as computing devices (PCs, phones, TVs, cars, picture frames, industrial equipment, etc.) become more pervasively distributed, and the cloud becomes more mature as a complement to on-premise and hosting environments, we need all of our solutions to work together well – and be flexible, secure, and manageable, too.

One of the best ways to learn more about where Microsoft is going with Windows Server, SQL Server, the Windows Azure Platform, Visual Studio, and System Center is to check out the videos from PDC09 here, and especially the Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia Day 1 Keynote.

In addition to the keynotes, you can see all the individual PDC09 session videos, and even download session PowerPoint files.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,cloud computing,Azure

Notes of the Microsoft-Yahoo analyst call

john.mullinax — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:40:10 GMT

Found some good minute-by-minute summary notes of the Microsoft-Yahoo conference call with analysts on the new partnership here.

Update: You can also go here to see videos of Ballmer and Bartz talking about the deal, as well as sign up for news alerts.

Exciting to finally see the shape of this opportunity! Interesting that there’s no upfront cash after Carol Bartz’ previous comments. Sounds like the partnership will deliver value to the Yahoo bottom line, though, and still reward Yahoo well for bringing queries into the search stream, as well.

Technorati Tags: search,bing,yahoo,microsoft

Thumbtack improving on bookmarks + A Thumbtack collection on Microsoft's Data Centers

john.mullinax — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:08:00 GMT

(NOTE: Removed links as the Thumbtack experiment has ended... the service is no longer available. -JohnM, October 27, 2009).

Thumbtack is a handy little resource for organizing and sharing information you find on the web into collections. Of course, bookmarks already provide a rudimentary way to organize things you find online, and sites like Del.ico.us, favorites.live.com, and others provide a way to share your bookmarks.

Bookmarks and bookmark sharing services are cool, but they are fundamentally limited by the web page paradigm... and increasingly web pages are not the primary boundary for content on the web. Similarly, we have all seen web pages where a snippet of content is especially interesting but the page as a whole isn’t.

So the folks over at LiveLabs are exploring how to move past the page-level boundaries that bookmarks enforce, as well as how to make the sharing of content we discover online even better. They call their experiment "Thumbtack". You can try it out at Thumbtack.livelabs.com.

I just tried it myself yesterday, and I found it takes a little getting used to. But once I acquainted myself with the basic metaphors of the site it's very powerful. As a way to learn about the service I decided to create and publish a collection of information on Microsoft's Data Centers.

This particular collection includes whole web pages (bookmarks), snippets of text, links, and images grabbed from the various sites, and also text that I've directly typed or pasted into "clips". Clips are the organizing metaphor for content in Thumbtack. Each clip that I added directly was originally a separate bullet point in an email of publicly sharable information that I received from a member of the Global Foundation Services team (the people that run Microsoft's data centers). You can tell these clips from the ones I found online because there is no link within the clip.

To make grabbing content into clips easy, Thumbtack provides an easy to use bookmarklet and IE8 accelerator. The bookmarklet works best to include a full web page in a clip. To add only a piece of content from a web page into a clip, simply highlight the content you want in your clip and select “Collect with Thumbtack” from the Accelerator list and you’re done. This works with both text and images, and also preserves any links associated with the selected content.

In addition to clips, you can add gadgets to a Thumbtack collection. These are little bundles of functionality that pertain to your clips. For example, if you have addresses in your collection of clips, adding a mapping gadget will automatically show the addresses on a Virtual Earth map in a special area on the side of your screen. There are also gadgets for different clip layouts, editing the properties of clips, and even for automatically plotting data contained within clips into a chart. Cool!

The sharing feature is also notable. Of course, sending a link to a collection by email is one option. But there’s also a handy embed option. Here’s a direct link to my Thumbtack collection at the Thumbtack site, and I’ve also embedded the collection below. If you’d like to try thumbtack yourself, check it out at http://thumbtack.livelabs.com/ .

And enjoy the Thumbtack collection on Microsoft’s Data Centers!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Live Labs,Thumbtack,innovation

The Next Next Next Big Thing

john.mullinax — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:02:45 GMT

Stephen Elop is an interesting guy. He’s President of Microsoft’s Business Division, but he’s also been a leader at Juniper, Lotus, Macromedia, and Adobe. He spoke recently to Wharton students about the future of business technology.

Most of his presentation was organized around an “envisioning video”. First, he sets the stage for the video with some context on demographic and economic trends, and how Microsoft thinks about R&D investment during the current period of economic uncertainty (hint: now more than ever).

Then he shows the video – itself only about 5 minutes. Now, I’ve seen this particular envisioning video in the past, as well as others like it. It’s fun to notice bits and pieces of the imagined future experiences, and try to connect them back to some of today’s technologies.

But Stephen did something in his Wharton presentation that I hadn’t seen before: he spends 15 minutes or so walking through each of the scenes from the video – which appear very futuristic and far away – discussing some specific, very real technologies people are working on today to bring the vision in the video to life.

Definitely worth a look. If you want to skip the context setting and jump straight to the video, it starts about the 14:00 minute mark.

Technorati Tags: future,microsoft,technology

So bad, it’s good?

john.mullinax — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:46:00 GMT

Ok, so you may or may not have been a fan of the Bill and Jerry ads. Either way, Jon and Neil point to something surely far worse – so bad, in fact, it’s absurdly funny! Don’t believe me? Think boy band singing about computers – and not in a Bill Gates kind of way, but in a Ron Burgundy kind of way.

Take a look.

“Let me use directory D: to unlock your GPU!” ?!?

Technorati Tags: PDC,Microsoft,Windows 7,advertising

The purpose of Chrome, and how it may be good for Microsoft

john.mullinax — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:43:00 GMT

Started this as a comment on Larry Digan's blog here, but it ended up so darn long I decided to make it a post on its own right here. A few more thoughts on Chrome. Just my 2 cents. -John

...

More than anything else, Chrome strikes me as a "trojan horse" of sorts to get Google Gears installed on people's computers. Mozilla is already out there for users... the most notable thing about Chrome is that the download forces an install of the Google Gears software alongside the ~~Mozilla/Gecko~~ Webkit rendering engine.

Why would Google do this? Because they realize that marrying installed desktop software and internet content could help them create new kinds of experiences to drive additional usage for their apps by consumers and possibly businesses. Ultimately, the goal is more revenue.

What I find interesting is that this is a very similar to Adobe's vision for computing experiences, as AIR illustrates. At a high level, it's also similar to Microsoft's "Software-plus-Services vision" for computing, that basically says that the web platform and all the other software platforms should work well together.

As a side note, it's interesting that Google is not just copying Microsoft's (and Adobe's) basic strategy here, they are actually copying specific IE features for Chrome... e.g., separate tabs in seperate processes, private browsing (Chrome is limited here -- no cookie blocking, I believe), phishing protection, etc. were released first as IE 8 features (or IE7 in the case of phishing protection).

There are differences, of course, as Google and Microsoft are approaching a similar vision from very different places. Google has been a strong search provider, but may still be learning how to be a software company, with on-premise software products and a software ecosystem to support. Google's ability to execute their flavor of the deployed software + internet services strategy requires getting new apps built to meet all the various computing needs out there with a browser/Gears-based solution. A tall order that will take time - particularly if you think about the business computing market that Google hopes to break into.

For it's part, Microsoft has a great deal of software deployed in the ecosystem, as well a a raft of internet services -- some strong and well-established, some still emerging. For example, think of Mesh and the Windows Live stuff like Messenger, identity, email, contacts, video streaming, etc.). Also, think of new rich, internet-connected smart client capabilities in .NET that lets businesses and partners create superior new experiences, and think of how Office suite itself has become an internet aware platform (one example: FedEx QuickShip lets you ship over the internet from Outlook). Finally, think about how Microsoft is providing choice of deployment models in some of it's "traditional"... software -- letting people choose on premise or cloud hosting (e.g, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, CRM Online, for mid-market and larger businesses and Office Live for small businesses and individuals). So that's a lot of stuff... and that's the point: in its offerings for both consumers and businesses, Microsoft is combining the power of the internet with the capabilities of software, and doing it across many devices... and in some cases even across platforms.

And very importantly, Microsoft is going down this path with an industry-leading respect for privacy that puts users in control of their data.

So given the similarities in high level strategies, the interesting question isn't who's got the "right" uber-strategy, it's who can most effectively empower users across a broad range of computing needs (that today includes a range of legacy computing environments) with better experiences?

For this reason, I think Chrome may actually help Microsoft. Although multiple companies share a vision for computing that includes the internet and deployed software working well together, it is a change in mindset for consumers and businesses alike. Google's efforts with Chrome should help educate the marketplace about the value of supplementing browser-only experiences with internet-connected software.
That's good for Microsoft, because I believe their flavor of the "Software-plus-Services vision is simultaneously the broadest and the also the most pragmatic/approachable for users who want better experiences.

Technorati Tags: Software-plus-Services,Chrome,Google,Microsoft,strategy,future

Tech Tracks | Microsoft launching Windows ad campaign at 5:15 p.m. with spot on NFL season opener tonight

john.mullinax — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:00:01 GMT

Here's the ad, courtesy of a Seattle Times. So what do you think?

Tech Tracks | Microsoft launching Windows ad campaign at 5:15 p.m. with spot on NFL season opener tonight | Seattle Times Newspaper Blog

Technorati Tags: Advertising,Microsoft

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats

john.mullinax — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:38:39 GMT

In case you missed it, ISO has approved Open XML as a standard. Brian Jones has more here. What does this mean? Well, among other things it means that the next version of Office ("Office 14" is the inspiring code name) will use an ISO standard as it's native file format. And going forward, the evolution of the format will be managed through ISO. Office file formats have not always been open, but have been a defacto standard for years. Opening the file formats and making Open XML an official document format standard shifts control to Microsoft customers and the national standards bodies that make up ISO.

Microsoft has long supported partners building on Office as a platform, and this continues to be true. Hopefully, making the format specification open and independently managed will give customers and third party solution providers an even greater level of confidence and certainty when directly implementing the standard themselves -- for example by programmatically creating, reading, and manipulating Open XML documents.

Similar in spirit, you might also be interested in Microsoft's "Open Specification Promise".

On a personal note, as I travel around and meet with customers and partners, people often say things to me like "Microsoft has changed in the last few years -- you guys are more open, humbler, and better at listening to customers and partners." I love hearing this, and hope that things like supporting ISO standardization for OXML, OSP, our collaboration with Novell/SuSE and Miguel de Icaza around Mono, the WS-* work, implementing part of the CLR on multiple platforms for Silverlight, etc, will help us keep moving in the right direction. :-)

Technorati Tags: Office XML,ISO,OSP,Microsoft

Microsoft to give out development tools to students | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

john.mullinax — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:02:45 GMT

Historically, Microsoft's free development tool software program for students has been controlled by computer science departments. This has probably been one of multiple reasons that comp sci students have disproportionately taken advantage of Microsoft's previous free software program for students. Now, there's a new program, called DreamSpark, that seems like it will reduce the administrative burden for schools and students while also effectively extending the opportunity to get free development software to students in all types of college and university programs (something that was already allowed, but didn't get used as much as you might expect).

If you've read my posts on computing as a liberal art, you can guess I think this is a great thing! :-)

As a coincidence, I happen to sit right next to one of the guys on Microsoft's "academic team" who is intimate with this program. We've chatted about it a couple of times over the course of the last few months, and one of the challenges he's mentioned to me revolves around the student verification process -- that is, how to verify who is a student eligible for the free software. As with any ambitious program there may be some hiccups in the beginning -- especially around the student verification process since there's no real repository of "all students" -- but for most folks, the process should "just work". Just in case, consider packing an extra helping of patience if you're planning to go get your software today. :-)

Also, you can see BillG talk about DreamSpark in this video here.

Technorati Tags: Computing is a liberal art,education,Microsoft,software development,billg

S+S Example #1: Ford Work Solutions

john.mullinax — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:01:00 GMT

Computers and software can do lots of interesting things, and more every day. While I love websites -- I don't want to be completely constrained to them. For example, i like having things like Zune, my smartphone, Windows Live Writer, etc. as part of my life even though (actually, because) the experiences are not completely contained within a browser. The Tao of S+S is that all platforms should work together.

One of the most recent examples of how this S+S ethos can transform users expectations and experiences comes from Ford Motor Company, the folks who brought you the Ford SYNC, and is called "Ford Work Solutions". More here, including this video:

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Aside: did Ford hire the away Microsoft's naming strategy people!? Name aside, Ford Work Solutions is pretty cool -- claiming 4 industry firsts:

An in-dash, center stack computer with built-in broadband wireless from Sprint, based on the Microsoft Auto software platform (Windows CE-based). Hardware includes 2 GB memory, an SD card slot, USB port, Bluetooth, SYNC-like features for hands-free calling and texting, 6.5 inch touch screen. It has GPS and navigation system augmented by real time traffic, points of interest, AND gas prices. You also get a keyboard, mouse, stylus and a Ford-certified bluetooth inkjet printer. There is of course a web browser. No word yet on .NET Compact Framework. Built by Magneti Marelli.
An RFID tool tracking system developed with DEWALT and ThingMagic so you can tag your tools and your in dash computer can tell you if you have everything you need for a job when you head out, and also tell you if you're taking all your tools home when you're done. Uses a scanner in the bed of the truck to light up the passive RFID tags.
Crew Chief - a telematics and diagnostics system for small fleets to dispatch workers, manage vehicle fleets, and ease maintenance tracking. In this scenario, the Ford Work Solutions delivers a software application in the vehicle and also is a data source for a more "conventional" SaaS application, too -- with fleet managers able to manage their vehicle fleets based on data sent from the truck up to Ford.
Cable Lock system, developed with Master Lock to help you lock tools securely in an open truck bed. Ok -- this one's not even computer-related. Still, quite handy!

Adding it up, this solution provides a software platform (Microsoft Auto), local RFID, texting, and hands-free phone services, is a data source for conventional SaaS application (e.g., the diagnostic and location data for fleet management), and is a consumer for cloud services (e.g., the gas prices and real time traffic)! Nice! Can't wait to try it. :-) BTW, might be "interesting sport" to compare the Ford Work Solutions offering with my "free advice" here. :-)

This one is hot off the presses -- I'll post additional details as they surface.

Technorati Tags: Ford,in-vehicle softare,Ford Work Solutions,Microsoft Auto,SYNC,S+S

Filling the Boomer Gap in Automotive, post-SYNC what comes next?

john.mullinax — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 20:11:00 GMT

Ed Wallace has a great article in Business Week about the impact of mass demographics on the auto industry -- fun to read, and insightful. Years ago, I remember walking through Ford WHQ and seeing a distinct focus on Gen Y. Gen X isn't big enough to offset the void the boomers will leave. The auto industry has 2 great hopes to fill the Boomer Gap -- good healthcare to keep boomers driving longer, and Gen Y.

Gen Y didn't grow up loving cars the way the boomers did. And what reason did they have? Not a lot of great cars were made during their formative years. Today, cars are much better. Maybe even better than ever. But that by itself that's not enough by itself to attract Gen Y. Gen Y has a lot of other stuff -- a lot of other toys that they've wrapped their hearts and identities around.

Of course, people still like cars, and want their cars to continue getting better on many dimensions. One of those dimensions that is especially relevant to Gen Y is that they want their cars and other their toys to "just work together". IMO, this explains the energy around Ford Sync - simple in concept, simple in use. At some point down the road, every OEM will have something like Ford Sync. A question to consider: what then will differentiate the OEMs?

Imagining the future a bit... I think there are two answers to this question. The first centers around Sync itself -- if an OEM can turn something like Sync into a true platform that others (even owners) can innovate on top of, they will move far ahead of those who do not. In one way, this is simply another dimension to the already big business of vehicle personalization. BTW, this is also the platform business model that fuels so much of Microsoft's success.

The second answer continues to be Design, (with a Capital D, as my colleague Chris Bernard might say). Post-Sync, I think the mental model of designers, and the subsequent designs, will extend to the complete vehicle ownership experience in totality - beyond what is strictly in the car. How you select, finance, purchase, service, dispose, and replace your vehicle. Today these things happen -- but certainly not as part of a cohesive design. Design will thoughtfully embrace not just how we use our cars, but why we use or cars across the full vehicle ownership lifecycle.

This won't seem unnatural, it's what Gen Y (and later generations) will expect as the physical and virtual worlds become more fully integrated in all parts of our life. More over, they'll expect very personal experiences and significant control in defining their own experiences (see the first answer about being a platform). More than bringing our digital life into our cars, this kind of "Design thinking" will bring our cars into our digital life.

This will require OEMs to think differently about how they serve consumers, and how to be more relevant in more parts of a consumer's life. But I'm hopeful it will happen. Learning lessons from OnStar, ATX, and the Lincoln RESCU service that proceeded them, and especially from the failed Wingcast JV with Qualcomm, Ford and Microsoft have broken the ice with the SYNC implementation of Windows Automotive. Ford SYNC is just the first volley in a revolution that may take many years to play out, and for which the outcome is uncertain, but make no mistake, the revolution has begun.

Technorati Tags: Automotive,Design,Ford,Innovation,In-vehicle software,SYNC,Microsoft

High quality music streaming over the Internet to your car stereo

john.mullinax — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:57:00 GMT

You may have heard that Ford SYNC (based on Microsoft's Windows Automotive) will play music from your mp3 player, or even from a USB drive, as the video here shows. Turns out you can also stream music from either a phone or a laptop via a mobile phone Internet connection and Bluetooth using the A2DP profile. If you're like me, you may have wondered how good the music would sound streaming over first a cell phone connection and then Bluetooth.

TheRadio.com conducted an experiment to answer this and other questions about the real world experience of streaming music to Ford SYNC. A few excerpts:

"It's hard to believe we were listening to Internet streams of this quality."

"I am quite pleased at how seamless the handoffs were from one cell tower to the next, added Laramie Guest. Not once did the data session fail to be properly handed off to the next tower."

Read about the test setup and get the entire results here.

Technorati Tags: Ford SYNC,Microsoft,Windows Automotive,streaming music,internet radio

Miss your chance to see BillG keynote CES? See him keynote the Office Developers Conference 2008!

john.mullinax — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:01:13 GMT

The Office Developers Conference (ODC) is coming up quick, starting 10-Feb-2008 in San Jose this year. Should be an awesome event! Office 2007 is by far the best Office yet to build solutions on, and now that it's got a year on the market under it's belt I can't wait to see what everyone is showing off!

As an added bonus, Bill Gates will keynote the event to kick things off -- his last ODC Keynote as a full-time Microsoft employee. So if you missed him at CES, don't miss him here! After that, you can look forward to a few great days getting inspired and learning how to put that inspiration into practice.

More info below - grabbed from the conference registration site: www.odc2008.com.

I will sure be there, and look forward to seeing many of you there, too! :-)

LIVE DEMOS. REAL CODE. HOT NEW INFO.

The 2008 Microsoft Office System Developer Conference

February 10-13, San Jose California

ODC 2008 is the premier event for Microsoft Office and SharePoint developers, bringing together architects, developers, industry technical experts, Microsoft insiders, and key partners to redefine what it means to build on the Office system.

Opening Keynote by
Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates

We have incredible keynotes by senior Microsoft executives, starting with a special opening keynote by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. We’ll have hot new sessions that bring together diverse topics, from application composition to Software+Services, SharePoint & Silverlight to VOIP & OOXML, and everything in between!
We have 5 technical tracks, and 70+ breakout sessions and hands-on labs. And for the first time ever, we will have an Executive Track where analysts, Microsoft and industry executives will get together to discuss the how and why of Office business applications and their competitive advantages.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Additional Executive Keynotes:

Kurt DelBene - CVP, Office Business Platform Group
Rajesh Jha - CVP, Office Live
Richard McAniff – CVP, Microsoft Office
Gurdeep Singh Pall - CVP, Microsoft Unified Communications Group

Technorati tags: ODC2008, Bill Gates, Microsoft, Office, Conference

A Guide to the BillG Keynote at CES

john.mullinax — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:39:00 GMT

Bill Gates gave the opening keynote at CES the other day. You can see a video of it here. I didn't think the press and blog coverage that I saw this morning did a very good job exposing the ton of cool stuff he covered, so I whipped together this guide to give you a feeling for what he did cover and also to help you skip to the "good parts" -- whatever they may be for you. :-)

A few notes: The times at the end of each bullet are the minutes:seconds into the video. All times are approximate - within 30 seconds. FYI, Bill shares stage time with Robbie Bach and a few others, so some sections will have someone besides Bill on stage -- either with him or in some cases by themselves for a short time (so don't worry if you skip to a section and don't see BillG on stage...).

Bill comes on stage - 5:00
The First and Next Digital Decade: All media and entertainment will be software driven - 7:00
Imagining Bill's Last Day at Microsoft - Hilarious video! (link to high quality version of spoof-only)- 10:00
Second Digital Decade focused on connecting people and user-centric - 18:30
Software + Services (without using the term) - 19:00
High Definition experiences everywhere - 20:30
Service-connected environments pervasive - 21:30
Natural User Interfaces -- beyond keyboard and mouse -- speech (TellMe, Ford SYNC) and multi-touch (Surface, iPhone), gestures recognition, plus more - 23:00
New form factors - 25:30
Windows Live Platform + Windows Vista + Windows Mobile - using all together - 26:30
Microsoft and NBC partner to show Olympics on web with Silverlight at NBCOlympics.com - 35:00
Robbie Bach on "Connected Entertainment" - 39:00
Disney/ABC and MGM bringing TV and movies to XBOX Live - 41:00
HP building MediaCenter Extender into HD TVs - 43:00
DVR Anywhere - record on one TV, play on any TV in household network - 43:30
MediaRoom - 44:00
British Telecom to use XBOX 360 as set top box for video (e.g., "cable") service - 44:30
Zune Social - 47:00
Ford SYNC and Lincoln MKX - 50:00
911 Assist - a Ford SYNC upgrade - Can set option for automatic 911 call if airbag deploys unless you stop it - 52:30
Windows Mobile/SmartPhone voice search with TellMe - 52:30
Visual Recognition and context awareness on Phone - Microsoft Research device - 58:00
Guitar Hero smackdown! - 1:03

Technorati tags: CES, Microsoft, Billg, Keynote, Bill Gates

Microsoft's Software + Services strategy in 10 minutes or less...

john.mullinax — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:00:00 GMT

I got an email recently asking me to present Microsoft's Software + Services strategy at an internal Microsoft meeting recently. The challenge: keep it under 10 minutes. After the session it occurred to me that a lot of folks might get something out of...(read more)