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...
Nic, points out in a comment on this post titled The decline of enterprise influence over IT that CSC Research Services have recently published a report on Consumerization, which I have just read and must say makes very good reading, especially the first few pages. One of the authors is currently thinking through some of the related personal responsibility issues. This topic has sparked my interest and I have been talking through some of the implications with network, storage and infrastructure services architects. It took a while for them to get it until I used the Internet Access analogy which we all lived through:
1. When the internet was first established enterprises saw individual Internet access it as an activity of little interest, undertaken by enthusiasts only, with niche needs.
2. Then they saw it as a threat as they noticed people with networked PC’s who also had active modem connections to the internet, they started to create policies to control it
3. Then they saw it as a need, but only to be provided to the select few and only then in very controlled conditions
4. Then the saw it as obvious …
Given all of the negative talk about the delay to WinFS I just wanted to say that I have thought since I first glimpsed it that Microsoft are really onto something with WinFS, I have discussed it before but its timely to give my top five reasons again: 1. It’s...
IT is becoming more accessible and more personal in many ways. The combination has many implications.
1. If I can get at the services others provide for me from anywhere
2. If I can customise the access to these services in a way that suits me
3. If I can aggregate the information that flows to and from these services in a way that suits me
and if I can do all of this from any device, and over any network then the power that corporate IT held over me declines and IT just becomes more like the rest of the world I live in, for example:
1. Most companies don’t specify which car a salesman has to use they just provide the money to buy it.
2. They don’t specify or fund the suit he wears, just the standards he has to comply with
3. They often don’t specify the pen I use, or the type of diary
As standards mature, security becomes more pervasive and applied to content, rather than container, (e.g. the content of the document is protected, rather than the directory it resides in), IT will go in this direction. …
Joe Beda has some very interesting comments on his blog about the impact of the changes in the Longhorn roadmap on Avalon. The most interesting snip for me was: Terminal Services and Remote Desktop. We were planning on remoting Avalon at a completely different layer. It is unclear how we...
My company currently uses Plumtree and I must confess that I have not been a great fan of its portal. However I did like this posting which described the most successful application types that have been built using their Portal, and probably any other as well. Expert location/knowledge management workspaces...
Greg has just written one of the few posts that starts to discuss RSS and its impact behind the firewall. That is in a corporate environment. greg hughes – dot – net – More on RSS and how it can change the way we work and live I wrote extensively...
In an email message to all full-time employees on, Microsoft group vice president Jim Allchin said that the company’s customers “love our vision” but just wanted parts of it to be delivered sooner. He said that Microsoft will deliver the following in 2006:
“Our commitment to broad availability of the Longhorn client in 2006 and broadening the API set underscores our long-term vision for the Windows platform, and our desire to deliver high-quality innovations that our customers and developers are asking for in a timely …
Summary: The reaction to the news on Longhorn seems mainly positive
There is an enormous amount of debate on Microsoft’s decision to change the content and timing of Longhorn. I discussed it in brief yesterday. Since then there has been some very well informed discussions and links to these can be found on Robert Scobles blog. However Robert just provides a very long list with little opinion so here is my take. In a bit more detail.
By far the best place to start in understanding this debate is this interview with Bill Gates by CNet. It’s a fascinating piece with lots of snippets, a few of which I quote below:
We realized that we could do a lot of rich search capabilities in the OS without the full database, taking some of our text technology that’s been used by Office, and actually, MSN is doing some nearer-term local-search things, building on that same technology. So that’s why MS bought LookOut!
Then we have other groups, like WinFS, where we’re way out in front, and there’s nobody to compare ourselves to. Making sure that they see how we’re committed …
Richard draws simillar conclusions to me
Myself I am ecstatic that Avalon and Indigo are going to be available to both Windows XP and Longhorn clients. Why? Because this might signify the resurgence of the thick client applications and also make the deployment of those applications simpler with the subsequent release of one click deployment. No longer will I be shackled to the confines of a web browser but rather I will be freed to create a rich user experience like the “good old days” and thereby increase the number of available features to each application I create. The fact that Avalon is going to be released to a wider audience means applications that were once awkward to deploy over the web will now be easy. Forget the marketing hype this is a great leap forward for the smart client developers