Steve's Seaside Life

Tagged: Desktop

All Posts

InfoPath gives insights into the future

I have always looked upon InfoPath as a example of a product that needs to be part of the infrastructure of the Longhorn platform.  At its simplest it’s a product to render forms defined in XML, allow them to be completed offline, validated, and then submitted them to web services. 

 

If you think of WinFS as effectively an XML store, which manages sometimes connected interactions with server side data sources (especially web services) then InfoPath type capabilities are a natural part of the WinFS shell.  So I was interested to see this MSDN paper on Submitting forms in InfoPath 2003 because of the potential implications on how Microsoft is thinking about WinFS and Synchronisation and sometimes connected operation.  These new adaptors allow:

 

  1. Submitting to a Web Service

  2. Submitting to a SharePoint Site

  3. Submitting through E-Mail

  4. Submitting to a Database

 

These new capabilities are interesting but the ability to complete the form off-line and then, when connected, send it to the server is still way to clunky (but likely to be a key area the Longhorn team will need to make slick).  

 

I was also disappointed that they did not include submitting via email …

All Posts

Help me understand how Microsoft might respond to Linux!

I have been asking myself the following question:

 

If Linux begins to capture significant desktop market share what options are open to Microsoft? 

 

In this article I have listed my initial ideas, and it would be great to get some feedback on the technical feasibility (some of them maybe plain crazy) and political acceptability of the options within Microsoft.  It might also be interesting to get feedback on how the Open Source and business communities might respond.

 

Here is my headline list, with each option described in more detail later:

 

  • “bet the company” on strategies to retain the consumer market

  • Make Windows a better host for Linux applications

  • Make Windows a better server for Linux Desktops

  • Make Linux a better host for Windows Applications

  • Make .NET the most attractive Linux Development Platform

  • Make Windows a better client to Linux Servers

  • Make Windows appeal to Open Source developers

  • Win the TCO and Security debate

  • Reduce the cost of Windows and Office

 

Retain the consumer market

 

  1. I have already blogged on this here

Make Windows a better host for Linux applications

 

  1. Purchase an existing X Server product to integrate into Windows Services For Unix…

All Posts

BlackBerry Enterprise Software v4.0

A new version of the BES has just been announced.  Loads of great features, my favorite being finally getting rid of desktop sync, which never worked reliably for me.  Worst feature no improvements in task management, and wireless task and address book management.  More details follow: BlackBerry Enterprise Software v4.0...

All Posts

The future of OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.Org have published their marketting plan.  ZDNet UK has a good article on the topic.  The full plan can be found online here.  I particularly liked the following quote:

“Microsoft, our major competitor, has a marketing budget of five to 10 billion US dollars, while we have 25 cents in a PayPal account,” said McCreesh.

OpenOffice.org have identified the following target markets:

According to the OpenOffice marketing plan, the main markets for the office suite are government offices; education establishments; public libraries; small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); not-for-profit organisations (NFPs); own equipment manufacturers (OEMs) building PCs with pre-installed software; and Linux distributions looking for an office suite to bundle.

Although StarOffice has more ambitious target markets.  Overall the plan targets OOo having a market share of apprximately 50% by 2010.

All Posts

VMware ACE, I like it and use it

VMware have just announced ACE, this is how they describe it:

VMware ACE is an enterprise solution for IT desktop managers who want to rapidly provision standardized and secure PC environments throughout the extended enterprise. VMware ACE installs easily, improving the manageability, security and cost-effectiveness of any industry standard PC. VMware ACE enables IT desktop managers to apply enterprise IT policies to a virtual machine containing an operating system, enterprise applications, and data to create an isolated PC environment known as an “assured computing environment”. VMware assured computing environments are self-policing, protect enterprise data, and enable safe access to enterprise resources.

I like the idea, I have been using VMWare myself for exactly this requirement.  On one of my home servers that sits on my home network I have a Windows XP VM, configured with corporate firewall, AV products, locked down configuration and VPN client.  I use this VM to connect to the company network. 

This has two advantages, The company network is pretty well isolated from my home network and I am well isolated from it, (since its pretty big and represents a fairly large threat).  I would prefer to be able to just fire up a Windows Terminal …

All Posts

Great roundup of Windows Terminal Server products

For years, Citrix has been the only choice for software to power server-based computing environments. Sure, Microsoft’s Terminal Server products were out there, but their features paled in comparison to those of Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server. However, as Terminal Server continues to gain ground as a standalone solution, many people...

All Posts

Don Box, like me, finally tells it like it is

It’s nice to see that even Don Box, who has grown up on Object orientation, application integration and database middleware gets it: For better or worse, a significant amount of the world’s data is stored outside of relational DBMSs, specifically in Microsoft Word and Excel files. As these files move...

All Posts

Migrating from Notes to Microsoft

I am always very wary when I see anything from Microsoft about how easy or desirable it is to migrate any non trivial application from Lotus Notes to any Microsoft Technology.  This stems from my painful experiences with Microsoft’s claimed Notes killing technology WebStore, now renamed the Exchange Storage System,...

All Posts

So You Think You Want a Tablet PC

Links and references to get you started with the concept: (also see Welcome! New Tablet PC User) Tablet PC Home Page @ Microsoft Tablet PC How-To Articles Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition: An Overview1 Narrated Tablet PC Presentation Resources for the Tablet PC Developer The MSDN site for Tablet...

All Posts

Some good news about Longhorn

In this article, InfoWorld talks to Greg Sullivan, lead product manager at Microsoft, about Longhorn and reports: Although it is too early for specifics, Sullivan said Longhorn should be a better performing, more stable, and more secure operating system because it will be based on the Windows Server 2003 SP1 (Service...