James Moody: Geek in Paradise

I came home this evening to this dandy gem sitting in my inbox.

Improving the Windows Vista experience for you and your customers

Microsoft is constantly looking for ways to improve our programs and products to help Partners sustain business profitability for long-term success.
Guided by the valuable suggestions and feedback from our partners, we have been working hard to improve Microsoft Windows Vista, culminating in the upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). We’ve also heard concerns about how we have supported Partners with Windows Vista and have identified ways to improve the Partner experience.
Here’s what you can expect from us over the next few months:

• Delivery of Microsoft Windows Vista Business with SP1 via a Special Action Pack shipment to Partners worldwide soon after SP1 RTM. The kit will include full-install licence keys (not upgrade) in regions where Partners have not already received them, to make it easier for you to deploy the final release of Windows Vista Business SP1 for internal use.

• One full-install licence key for Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1 for internal use, so you can learn more about this product’s benefits and features for customers who need a single PC to fulfil their work, travel and entertainment needs. We plan for this software to be delivered in your regular Action Pack quarterly update (April/May 2008).

• A comprehensive set of readiness resources to enable you to sell and support Windows Vista solutions for your small or mid-sized business customers as Windows Vista momentum builds with the release of SP1.

• Exciting incentives and promotions that reward you for learning, using and selling Windows Vista.

This change to the Action Pack is something that Action Pack subscribers have been wanting for the past year when Vista Business Upgrade was included in the Action Pack. This will cut the installation time in half by giving us a full version OS versus the Upgrade, which required us to install, then upgrade that installation to be able to activate with the Key provided. Having SP1 integrated within the DVD will be another welcome addition.

I, for one, will be happy to finally be able to install Ultimate on my laptop for the added security of Bitlocker.

Are you looking forward to the Action Pack changes as well?

Tags: Microsoft Microsoft Partner Action Pack Vista Vista SP1 Vista Business

Robert McLaws at Windows-Now has taken Engadget to task over their horrible and obviously biased comparison of a base Dell XPSOne and their (Product) Red offering.

As Robert covers in the article, the base XPSOne sells for $1299, which includes a $200 rebate, Microsoft Works and Vista Home Premium. The Red offering comes with Office 2007 Home & Student, Vista Ultimate and the Red branding (Custom paint, Desktop background and Gadgets). If you were to configure the base XPSOne the same, you would end up with the same price as the Red (sans rebate). The catch is, you can’t get Ultimate on a base XPSOne, so if you wanted to get Ultimate on an XPSOne, you would have to purchase the Ultimate upgrade alone and do it yourself. Once you throw in the $80 contribution to Red, you’ll find that Dell isn’t turning as big a profit as it could have. Ripoff indeed!

Engadget completely failed to do thorough fact checking and jumped on the story in an attempt to whip it’s Apple fanbase into a frenzy (they did succeed in that manner) by discrediting Dell’s and Microsoft’s contribution to the Red project. I guess this is keeping in line with Apple’s marketing agenda of creating FUD towards Microsoft products in an attempt to drive sales, so kudos to Engadget for staying inline with the Mothership’s directives.

This new Red XPSOne could also be an in for small businesses wanting the XPSOne, but couldn’t before due to no Domain Join capabilities. Get a snazzy unit, join it to your domain, and contribute to Red all at the same time. From the article:

It’s not like this all-in-one desktop will ever step foot inside of an enterprise cubicle.

Hint: There are other business classes than Enterprise.

We’ll see if they post a retraction, but I seriously doubt it as the author of the article, Thomas Ricker, is on a crusade to discredit this new offering.

Update: Anne Camden from Dell responded on the Engadget post, Comments page 3

Tags: Microsoft Dell Engadget Windows-Now Robert McLaws Red XPSOne Agenda

The Goods

Microsoft Corp. today announced second quarter records for revenue, operating income and diluted earnings per share of $16.37 billion, $6.48 billion and $0.50, respectively. Compared to the year ago period, these figures represent growth of 30%, 87% and 92% for revenue, operating income and diluted earnings per share, respectively.

With companies starting to evaluate the switch to Vista in expectations of SP1 hitting the tubes, and Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 just around the corner, things are looking good for Microsoft overall. Not too shabby for a company that was supposedly on the skids per some Internet communities when Vista uptake didn’t skyrocket on release.

Predictions for the 3rd quarter and FY07 follow:

Microsoft management offers the following guidance for the quarter ending March 31, 2008:

• Revenue is expected to be in the range of $14.3 billion to $14.6 billion.

• Operating income is expected to be in the range of $5.6 billion to $5.7 billion.

• Diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $0.43 to $0.45.

Management offers the following guidance for the full fiscal year ending June 30, 2008:

• Revenue is expected to be in the range of $59.9 billion to $60.5 billion.

• Operating income is expected to be in the range of $24.2 billion to $24.4 billion.

• Diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $1.85 to $1.88.

Tags: Microsoft 2nd Quarter Vista Server 2008 Visual Basic 2008 SQL Server 2008 Record

Jeff Jones has released his Vista 1 Year Vulnerability Report to the masses now that Vista has been on the market for a full calendar year.

For those that have been following his releases, he has also performed these analyses at 90 days and 6 months. I hadn’t started this blog for the 90 day report, but you can find the 6-month take here.

Once again, Jeff has covered the numbers of each corresponding OS regarding patches, vulnerabilities, patch cycles, etc. in this report as he did previously. For those that are quick to jump on his title of Security Strategy Director in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, take this into account.

Is there anything in this analysis which will prove one piece of software is “more secure” than another? No, that is not my intention. This report is a vulnerability analysis, which may provide some elements that could be part of a broader security analysis. I fundamentally believe that security and non-security features need to be built upon a foundation of good engineering and solid security quality if they are to perform as we expect and not be misused to the detriment of security.

As you can see from the graphs below, taken from his report which is downloadable on his blog post, Vista has had an excellent track record compared to it’s predecessor, Windows XP, as well as competing products RHEL 4 (RHEL 5 has not been on the market for 1 year), OS X 10.4 (Leopard again, less than 1 year), and Ubuntu 6.06.

Now, before anyone jumps on the fact that the Linux variants install components not related to the OS security itself (Open Office, dev tools, etc.) which open up other security risks, Jeff has taken those out of his analysis.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that Microsoft has taken their Security model to a whole different level than previous incarnations of their OS, and any security expert, regardless of OS preference should be happy with the reduced threats in Vista.

Of course, some Apple supporters have now subscribed to the mindset that Vista isn’t widely used and therefore subjected to less attacks. Hypocritical much?

Several of my clients, all Small Businesses, have started to inquire when they would be able to move to Vista now that they have been using it at home for a few months and are wanting to budget in upgrade costs for the OS move. Unfortunately, most run LOB apps that aren’t compatible with Vista just yet, and one that has moved to online versions of their LOB app has moved to Vista. Eventually, 3rd part vendors will get there! This lends support to the notion that SMB’s are deploying Vista faster than their big brethren. Once SP1 is released, and the verdict is out, we should be seeing Vista numbers start to rise yet again, making things more secure overall.

Thoughts?!

Tags: Microsoft Vista Security 1 Year Vulnerability Report XP Ubuntu Red Hat Patch Vulnerability Linux Apple