Information Manager Journal

Declaring blog & book bankruptcy

This is hard to write.

Every day, people declare "blog bankruptcy," stating that they are no longer able to keep up with the blogs they're reading. I'm declaring that today. But there's a bigger declaration in this case.

For six years, I've been laboring to write a book. The research became a monster that took over and choked off my common sense. Rather than trying to limit the scope of the book to a discussion of software development trends back then, I went for a grand vision, trying to sum up three megatrends: what was happening to open up computing to provide more choice, what was happening to try to thwart that, and how security concerns threatened the current and emerging models of computing.

After five years, my book collaborator Howard Pearlmutter, after having tried valiantly to inspire me to finish writing based on some visionary notes of his from 2002, said five years was enough time to finish. He was, of course, right, but I had become obsessed with nitpicking every little assumption Howard had made in his notes about how he saw things playing out. Howard's a great guy and I'm afraid in the process of an argument last year with him, I did an injustice to our friendship by becoming too concerned that this world-renowned programmer and architect would send me a bill for his time. I'm so sorry, Howard. I appreciate all you did for me.

But I compounded my error by deciding to soldier on without him. I recast my book with a new title and three themes, instead of one. It would be a history of this decade's computing: Everybody Has a Share: Myth, Madness and Momentum in the Digital Decade. The last third was titled momentum. Here I made my last error. I assumed that by 2010, there was still a chance for the existing PC and client/server-based computing models -- best represented today not by Microsoft Windows but by Apple's OS X -- would emerge bloodied but viable, more open and more secure, as they faced the challenge from software-as-a-service. My rationale was that the service levels and quality we expect from PCs and servers would never be exceeded by cloud computing -- or at least the differences wouldn't change for a very long time to come -- and that privacy concerns would slow down wholesale migration to keeping all our data and applications on someone else's computers -- some small group of service providers each with massive facilities.

This week I realized I was wrong on all three counts that would make my book an essential read. The current computing model is giving way, slowly but inevitably, to a cloud computing model. Does it exceed the service levels of running apps on your PC? No, not yet, but work is now well underway to fix that. Is your privacy assured? No, but that hasn't stopped millions from adopting Google's applications or a host of other Web 2.0 offerings, and now you can move entire databases and applications to services such as Amazon's EC2 and soon similar services from Microsoft, and ultimately Google. Moreover, with the planet's global warming crisis, it makes ever-more sense to millions to save the planet by shutting down their own energy-wasteful PC servers and data centers and hand over everything to service providers who can squeeze every watt out of computing.

While open source remains a triumph of developer will over commercial greed, it is now being ingested by every aspect of what remains of the software industry. My eternal admiration goes to Richard Stallman, who I thought was kind of kooky when I first heard about GNU at the Hacker's Conference in 1984. If not for him, politics and the law today wouldn't recognize the ability of creators to disseminate their works in the new ways that make Linux and Firefox and so much more possible. Kudos also to all the open source committers and supporters whose actions spoke louder than words and finally created an effective counter to Microsoft's world-dominating ambitions.

Open standards are another thing. They too are being ingested, but in the process, all the old tricks and schemes of software capitalism are being brought to bear. Is CalDAV an open standard? No, because it's being tweaked behind closed doors. But I celebrate the efforts of CalDAV's working group because they will have beneficial interoperability when all is said and done. Most customers still only care about interoperability, not standards, and software companies have been playing the interoperability game as long as there's been software, giving information only when forced to by customers or governments or rivals. And by the time the most important standards reveal themselves to developers, that computing model has morphed enough that it just doesn't matter as much anymore.

Yes, there's a book worth of standards madness to be written, but it's not an essential book looking forward (someone please prove me wrong!) and anyway, the problem of how open proprietary data is isn't going away any time in the indefinite future. Don't believe me? Try to move your Facebook contact list over to some other social network, spam your list to get them to join the new network, and release their personal details to a bunch of strangers on the new social network. Sure, standards make it possible, but they don't make it right.

As for the momentum, that book is now out. It's Nicholas Carr's The Big Switch, and he was willing to say what I wasn't, that cloud computing is all that matters moving forward. Yes, he's a bit early on the adoption, but the trend is inevitable. The most telling quote was this one I read in Information Week:

Q: If companies are starting to use the Internet for data processing, is security a huge problem?

Carr: I don't think it's a huge problem. The onus is on the suppliers to prove their reliability and security and earn the trust of the buyers, but my own feeling is that ultimately the utility model will offer greater security than we have today, because today our IT system is incredibly fragmented. Some companies and some individuals are very attuned to security and are very good at it, and others aren't.

Carr is absolutely right. I wasn't a big fan of Carr's first book, because I do think strategic thinking about IT does matter, and makes a huge difference to success or failure of business today. But this security thing will sink any computing trend that smashes into it. That includes email, which all these years later still hasn't solved the spam problem.

None of this means that I think that classic personal computing or client/server computing will just disappear next week. But the writing is on the wall and the trend is accelerating. I personally will continue to guard my own information's privacy more than the average person, but that's me and my generation. The next generation is still concerned about privacy, but is more willing to use cloud computing services despite their concerns. And as far as reliability, or availability, who's lost more data in the past twenty five years -- service providers, or personal computer owners whose flaky hardware and bad backup habits conspire every day to erase millions of files by accident?

To all those who have waited patiently for this book, and cheered me on, my heartfelt thanks. To my family, my message is, tomorrow morning Scott's going to focus on using his abilities to tell stories for money again. Or whatever I end up doing, since that whole landscape looks nothing like it did six years ago. Calendar Swamp will continue on a limited basis, because it represents the community of calendar-sharers like nothing else on the planet. The focus is squarely on interoperability, not open source or open standards, and that's where it will remain.

And to you reading this, keep up the good fight for open, secure and private computing, but remember the words of George Eliot, which still adorn my old domain's home page:

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

When I do have something to say that relates to this blog's past themes, I will say it here, at least for now. I'm definitely a wiser man for all I've tried to achieve, but now I need to get back to work.

Bott: Blame the crapware, not Vista SP1

The original release of Windows Vista was certainly buggy. There were jokes about it even from speakers at this week's Microsoft Office Developers Conference. But as Vista Service Pack 1 comes out, could poor performance be laid at the feet of the "crapware" -- trial programs and advertising, also known as "craplets" by sources such as Wikipedia -- pre-loaded on PCs by their manufacturers? Ed Bott believes so. A clean install of Vista works wonders for performance, agreed many of his commenters. I think Bott's got a point here. Here's where Apple really shines -- they just don't allow this stuff -- and desktop Linux is vulnerable to the same thing happening as it grows in popularity. Does anyone know of a Web site that rates various PC manufacturers' crapware problems, and how easy it is to do clean Vista installs?

Stretching it thin

Am I the only one amused by this headline at CDW.com?

"Thin client computing: Heavy on features"

Google Calendar: GoogleBase + ?

This makes sense, hoax or not: A general-purpose free database to be hosted by Google, upon which loads of different applications, including calendars, can be built. A big drawback of every Web 2.0 calendar application I've looked at is, the company creating the calendar controls the schema. If Google builds in flexible data export, we can drain a large portion of the swamp and really open up computing.

Technorati tag: GoogleBase

PDC dis-connectivity disease

Many folks who took their PCs to Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference last month found when they returned to the home or the office that their PC's connectivity had been mysteriously crippled. I too was bitten by this bug and only came across the solution today. So far, I haven't seen any comment on any of this from official Microsoft-dom.

Technorati tag: PDC05

Second anniversary

Today marks the second anniversary of Information Manager Journal. By far the most popular post during that time is when I wrote about Infocard, Microsoft's new identity management technology designed by Kim Cameron. Amazingly, that posting is still the top result for the "Infocard" search on Google.

A big thank you to my regular readers as well!

I'm also celebrating the high listener ratings being given to my talk with Asterisk uber-geek Brian Capouch over at IT Conversations.

WinFS may still be Vista-only

While the press at PDC fixates on Microsoft Office "12," the most interesting thing I've heard so far is Microsoft's Shishir Mehrotra revealing that Microsoft still doesn't know if the final version of WinFS will run on Windows XP or only Windows Vista. Ironically, the first beta of WinFS, being distributed to developers here, runs only on Windows XP, not on the Windows Vista beta also distributed here.

Technorati tag: PDC05

Microsoft PDC online calendar: ugh

After JavaOne and OSCON, I'm spoiled by conferences that provide their agendas, including descriptions of breakout sessions, in downloadable calendar format. Microsoft's PDC Web site has a clunky old-style session list in HTML or (ugh) Excel format. I emailed Robert Scoble on Tuesday. "Turns out we don't have an Outlook/iCal schedule," he replied. "We'll see if we can make one. Sorry about that." With four days until the conference starts, I'm not holding my breath.

The PDC attendee list in OPML format is cool though. (Note: PDC is sold out.)

UPDATE: To Robert's credit, he pointed me to this page, where it's possible to build a calendar and apparently export it to Outlook. It's klunkier than being able to view all the sessions at once within Outlook. I think I know why they did it this way, however. The system requires a login, and saves the calendar on Microsoft servers, so PDC organizers can get an idea of how many people might attend a session. So that's the tradeoff: Harder to find the session you want, easier to find a seat once you get there, if Microsoft moves sessions around to the appropriate-sized room in response to advance interest.

UPDATE #2: Sessions you pick have to be added to Outlook ONE AT A TIME. It's nearly as slow as cut-and-paste.

Technorati tag: PDC05

Blogger? Journalist? It's all about who gets the press passes

I don't begrudge any hard-working journalist who earns a press pass to a conference. I've seen lots of them practically begging to be admitted to some show or other. But to me the debate over who's a blogger and who's a journalist boils down to who's going to get those press passes. I've worked hard to maintain such credentials. You have to have a continuing, credible body of work to point to, and I believe that I do. Also, I don't own any tech stocks or take money from PR outfits. Recently I was approached to write something "on spec" and receive money from such a PR agency, then get it published somewhere. I never got as far as finding out if I would have to disclose to the "somewhere" that I wrote it for pay. I walked away. That's not my style. But perhaps I'm being old-fashioned? Consider Peter DeLorenzo, the Motor City blogger who's the subject of a two-page star treatment in Business Week. He sometimes admits he gets hired by the companies he writes about. Then he even appears to turn on them when they stop paying him. But with 65,000 readers of his blog, I'm sure he has no problem getting press passes to auto shows. It's true there's always been some wiggle room where it concerns who gets a press badge and who doesn't, but here's an extreme case of someone who stretches the public's trust in writers to its limit. Ultimately, DeLorenzo's ethics, or lack of them, erode the trust placed in anyone who wears a press badge.

The best quotes from AlwaysOn

Willaim Luciw compiled a list of the best quotes from AlwaysOn 2005 last week. My favorite was Jerry Brown's: "I've learned never to answer a question before it's asked."

A mighty choir, Sunday in San Francisco

A brief personal note. If you're in San Francisco this coming Sunday, I'll be singing in a 1,000-voice gospel choir as part of the closing ceremonies of the United Nations' World Environment Day. Rev. Edwin Hawkins composed a special anthem for this and is conducting the choir. The two rehearsals I've attended have been excellent. You might remember Hawkins' breakout gospel hit, Oh Happy Day, from 1969.

Microsoft MVP earned honor at 14 years old

In 1981, I wrote a story about two 11-year-old programmers who started a software company. The story was my first "1A" (top story) in InfoWorld. Well, youth still makes a similar impact in computing. Benjamin Johnstone-Anderson is a Microsoft MVP (Most Valued Professional) who earned that honor at age 14, "specifically for work on breaking virus news at the McAfeeHelp Forums."

Indigo: Web services panacea or not?

Eric Rudder, a top Microsoft executive who keynoted at VS Live this morning, claims Microsoft's forthcoming Indigo software won't be a panacea for all IT shops creating Web services for Windows (specifically, those using .Net Remoting might want to avoid Indigo for now). But at least one top  developer/trainer (Magenic Technologies principal technology evangelist Rockford Lhotka, a Microsoft MVP) says otherwise. Either way, IT shops still have to consider some interesting tradeoffs.

It used to be that corporations were merely at risk if they put buggy software systems up on the Web. Now, in the age of Web services, they also have to consider the increasing risks of creating mis-architected software systems, a risk partially heightened by the increasingly crufty Microsoft product line.

Motorola Ojo video phone: What's inside?

Motorola's Ed Zander won't be able to deliver his CES keynote this afternoon as scheduled, due to the death of his 94-year-old mother. My condolences to Ed. Motorola's Ron Garriques will speak instead, but the company's also making waves with its new Ojo video phone. This lovely gadget typifies the reason I came to CES -- to play that new consumer electronics journalist game: What OS is Inside That Gadget? Windows? Linux? Symbian? Something home-grown? What a fun time to walk the CES show floor. Why should IT folks care? Because any non-Microsoft-powered gadget that breaks out into widespread usage, and exhibits less downtime than similar Microsoft-powered gadgets, could tip widespread industry adoption of non-Microsoft technologies in various product categories. Gadgets rule. UPDATE: Someone at Intel's booth, who happened to be showing the phone and chatting with a Motorola official, told me the Ojo runs Linux. The Motorola guy also said the videophone is capable of displaying 30 frames per second while only sipping 110Kbps of Net bandwidth. Sweet!

Opening Move

IT Conversations now has a page where all my "podcasts" have been collected under the title Opening Move. As with all IT Conversations audio these days, there are three different RSS feeds available -- with MP3 enclosures, with AAC (iPod/iTunes) enclosures, and without enclosures.

The weather guy with my name

During my final morning in Denver during Digital ID World, I had the odd sensation of seeing my name on the TV screen as a weather forecaster spoke. Of course, it was another Scott Mace, the meteorologist. He even did a sizable stint on the tube in California. Of all the conferences I've attended during my career, how odd to have this experience during my first conference all about identity. As far as I know, we're not closely related.

Yahoo ticker no longer available

Yahoo used to provide a My Yahoo Ticker, but this page says it's no longer available.

Feedster has something going on today to cover the election, but the link doesn't work right now, and I'm guessing it's not a ticker.

UPDATE: In January 2005, Yahoo reintroduced its Ticker.

IMJ one year later

Information Manager Journal turned one year old on October 9, 2004. As I noted last month, I've been blogging a lot longer. IMJ traffic is now higher than SPJ traffic, and I've just improved both sites by adding a Google search box to the site, restricted to scottmace.typepad.com. It was a good suggestion I found in this IT Conversation recorded at Gnomedex.

DotNetRocks blaming Java for NASA Genesis crash?

DotNetRocks audio show #80 begins with the implication that Java was to blame for the crash of the NASA Genesis spacecraft. But I haven't read any such thing anywhere. When Microsoft pays the bandwidth bill, the jokes come at Java's expense, whatever the truth of the matter.

SMiLE: Final movement is breathtaking

The final movement of Brian Wilson's SMiLE project is online this morning, one week before the CD goes on sale. It's a breathtaking completion and realization of Wilson's dream of 38 years ago. The most mysterious unheard segment, "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," is an absolute masterwork of sound. Imagine the Beatles' Revolution 9 was more of a musical statement than a sound collage, and you've just about got it. But the recording ends on a much happier note, the sort of healing music the world needs right now. SMiLE is arriving right on time.

Longhorn: The big rug unravels

I haven't written about Longhorn since last year. I sensed the industry was being taken for a big PR and FUD ride, especially on the "uncertainty" portion of what FUD Longhorn was trying to inject into an industry captivated by Linux and open source. In spite of the thousands of words and video images out of Microsoft and its communities since then, my instincts were right. The Longhorn release of Windows is unraveling into shards, as Microsoft's Cairo did in the last decade; both failed to deliver on ways to overlay relational and object technology on Windows' old hierarchical folder structure. By the time Microsoft finishes building WINFS, it will face much stronger competition all around. It's my guess that at that point, Microsoft may have to take a much more open standards or open source approach to this whole area of technology. Of course, Microsoft will also weave another future-release rug in which to stuff users' wishes, and continue the FUD games.

Visualizing the news

Scott Delap points to two fascinating Web applications, one written in Java, the other written in Flash, which give you a whole new way to view the breaking news of the day.

Don't be shocked: Here's a new Microsoft feature I like!

I'm not a Microsoft hater (or a Scoble hater - hi Robert!) But I realize that I hardly ever have anything good to say about Microsoft's products. So here's a crumb: Windows Media Player 9 added the cool ability to place a mini-player to the taskbar at the bottom of the Windows XP screen. It's a cool feature, and it was also appropriate for the player to pop up enough suggestions to try it for me to turn it on. I like it, since there's so much audio, such as IT Conversations, that I still listen to from within Windows XP.

A tech-news headline scraper site

I wonder how many tech-news headline scraper sites exist, like this one.

Onion: CIA asks Bush to discontinue blog

I got a chuckle out of a satirical faux news story at The Onion: CIA asks Bush to discontinue blog. Yep, when blogs are the subject of such mainstream parody, they've really arrived.

Black eye for large Microsoft solution provider

If I read this story correctly, a prominent Microsoft solution provider recently received a big black eye in Florida. BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting) took hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. Veterans Administration to develop a computer system that doesn't work. Hard to tell how much of the problem was shoddy requirements from the VA, but BearingPoint certainly must share some of the blame for this boondoggle.

Eclipse ED doesn't know origin of group's name

Imagine, if you will for a moment, that the recently-appointed executive director of Eclipse doesn't know how Eclipse came to get its name. Nonsense, you say. But that's just what Mike Milinkovich told me during my interview with him for IT Conversations, which is now online.

Article length slider in Safari RSS support

More than 10 years ago, during an InfoWorld interview I conducted with Ray Lane of Oracle, he predicted a slider bar control that would allow readers to get different length summaries of news articles. It sounded like science fiction to me. Now Apple has apparently done exactly that, using its Safari Web browser and RSS. Truly, savvy audiences are gaining the upper hand with media. (P.S. If Apple tries to patent this concept, maybe Oracle has some prior art?)

JavaOne recap

I'm still mulling over everything I saw and learned at JavaOne, and still watching cached Webcasts of some of the keynotes I didn't attend due to other appointments. Suffice it to say that Java is very much alive, and Sun is doing more than ever to address the FUD coming from Microsoft. Judging from the audience sentiment at JavaOne, don't look for Sun to release Java completely into an open source license any time soon. The Java community is a unique ecosystem that balances the need for a strong compatibility/trademark brand and the need for strong, open conversation and collaboration between vendors and customers. The Java development environment is maturing, and overwhemingly deep and rich to the point of confusion. One of the best BoFs I attended was how and when to have your kids learn Java. One thing that's clear, in the arc of conferences I attended that began with last fall's Microsoft PDC and ended this week with JavaOne, I've completed a broad tour of IT communities laying the groundwork for all my future writing and other media projects.

Windows XP SP2: Beta-tester horror story

InfoWorld has a story today recounting one Houston company's woes with Windows XP SP2, affecting thousands of users' ability to telecommute due to the way SP2's firewall interferes with normal operations.

At JavaOne: What Microsoft detente?

Okay, so Sun and Microsoft reached a "detente" on Java several months ago. You really wouldn't know it here at the JavaOne conference, where I've just heard a panel describe Indigo as "proprietary" technology compared to the Java Business Integration initiative; where this morning's keynote made no mention of the work Microsoft and Sun are supposedly undertaking to further integrate Java and .Net; and where a Sun MC described tomorrow's Scott McNealy speech as containing new anti-Microsoft barbs. In addition, none of the dozens of technical or birds-of-a-feather sessions specifically refers to Windows or .Net. Maybe Sun's trying too hard to show that there were no strings attached to the $2 billion it received in its settlement with Microsoft? Customers don't care. They have both environments and I'm sure they want lots of info on how to make the two work together. For example: How can Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 be used to build front ends for applications delivered by J2EE servers? UPDATE: There will be a BoF about J2EE/.Net interoperability tonight at 9:30. I'll be there.

The automobile kills COMDEX

My thoughts on the who-killed-COMDEX whodunit: The automobile.

Email fans should focus on solutions, not RSS attacks

Something I found at the Inbox Wiki supporting next week's event: 22 Reasons Why Email is Not Dead. I respect Christopher Knight, who wrote this, as an ISP pioneer, but his manifesto never once mentions the need for secure, authenticated email. Rather than try to criticize RSS, Atom and other syndication efforts, I'd rather see him advancing security and authentication so that we could continue using email for those purposes to which it is perfectly suited, provided it doesn't drown in a sea of spam, phishing and virus-laden messages.

A Windows forklift upgrade

I've never heard of a service pack SDK, but apparently the changes going on in Windows XP are so intense, Microsoft's going to release the first one, according to Lockergnome. It appears to be another sign that the Windows community is about to be dragged through what I predict will be its most wrenching forklift upgrade ever. (For those of you who've never heard the expression, "forklift upgrade" has often been referred to as the most painful yet mandatory type of software upgrade that IT managers can imagine.) Depending on how effective the upgrade proves to be, relative to the pain of deploying it, this could open the floodgates to Windows competitors from the Linux and Macintosh world. But that remains to be seen.

Liberty and accountability

Did you ever run across a meme that tied together disparate pieces of your life? This is the first one I've ever found that works for me. What this says to me is: There are commons in our societies. Their value has been sorely underestimated. But because they are commons, the rules governing them have to maximize liberty, without sacrificing accountability. It's everything David Brin said in The Transparent Society in 1998 -- and then some.

Windows XP SP2: Bombarded by firewall messages

Listen to Preston Gralla, one of the long-time journalists who lives and breathes everything Microsoft, talking about Windows XP Service Pack 2, now in testing: "If I were a system administrator or in IT support, I'd be prepared for the worst. The new firewall will be turned on by default, and that means a whole lot of tech support calls and nightmares. Users will be bombarded with firewall messages, and many of their programs will no longer work." This sort of critique must be precisely the reason that Microsoft has delayed releasing XP SP2. The question is, what help will Microsoft give beleaguered networking admins? I'm not sure any wizard Microsoft can write can deal with all those firewall messages.

An Apple toaster? Heck yes!

Steve Jobs thought he was joking when he suggested Apple's next personal electronics product would be a toaster, but I'd like to endorse the idea. First, he'd beat Bill Gates to the punch (Bill's funny-video at MDC 2003 included a toaster joke), but more important, someone needs to build a quality toaster that doesn't cost a lot, or is so cheaply made as to be a joke itself. I'm dead serious. And once Apple has a toaster, you know Microsoft will follow, and eventually there will be a reliable, open-source toaster as well. :)

Gmail fractures 'open' community

Pity the poor libertarian or advocate of 'open' anything. Already under assault in other quarters, now such proponents are finding cyberspace is perilous terrain. The new fault line would be: Are you for or against Google's Gmail? Open source champion Tim O'Reilly praises it; EFF co-founder John Gilmore and EPIC's Chris Hoofnagle take serious issue with it. The solution to me: balance data openness with data security, which includes personal privacy. So check out Gmail (I will) but with your eyes open, and educate the heck out of everyone who corresponds with you via this medium. Has anyone yet written a standard privacy disclaimer to use as a Gmail signature line? (Or, for that matter, Hotmail?)

Therapy breakthrough makes the case for Save the Orphans copyright reform

UPDATE: Props to Network World for linking to my story. To NWW readers: Read on for a sad postscript. My latest feature for NurseWeek concerns an innovative program that immerses cancer patients into "virtual worlds" while receiving chemotherapy, to lessen their pain and discomfort during the procedures. It's also a textbook example of why Lawrence Lessig's "Save the Orphans" campaign, which could allow copying of abandoned software titles, is so important, since one of the therapeutic programs discussed in my feature is out of print.

"The Developer" at MDC 2003: Borderline tasteless

Maybe I don't realize just how tolerant TV viewers are of tacky reality TV shows, but I found this morning's mock-reality-TV show video from Microsoft, "The Developer," presented at this morning's MDC 2003 keynote, to be borderline tasteless. The premise is that a hunky blonde mobile application developer guy gets to choose from four women dressed up in large cartoony mobile device costumes -- obviously patterned after Nokia, Palm, Pocket PC and SmartPhone. Each of the women is desperate to be chosen and of course the two based on Windows devices are the winners. At the end, the Nokia-woman and Palm-woman are leaving via limo; Nokia-woman is crying but Palm-woman pulls out her own "little black book," then starts crying when she realizes she includes no phone to call another would-be suitor. Even worse, developer-guy ends up with two women! Oh well, maybe Microsoft subscribes to the "even bad publicity is better than none" school of PR. Certainly the whole thing was pitched for laughs, but I'm not sure all the women present were laughing, amongst this (as-usual) overwhelmingly male crowd. If you ask me, the gag would have been far funnier if the developer had been a woman and the phone-objects men.

Multiple choice

When Microsoft lowers the price of its software only in countries dedicated to investigating, developing or adopting open source alternatives:

(a) Microsoft is rewarding countries willing to investigate all the alternatives available today.
(b) Microsoft is rewarding countries whose educational system produces so many well-educated engineers that these countries aren't afraid to tackle the integration complexities of open-source software
(c) Microsoft is rewarding countries spending money for open-source solutions as if they were the 21st-century equivalent of infrastructure, similar to the way countries built highways and phone systems and data networks in the 20th century
(d) All of the above.

Which move offshores more jobs: Continuing open source development, or non-U.S. Microsoft price cuts?

Open source software usually free. Microsoft software is not. When Microsoft decides to drop the price of software sold to developing nations, but not the price charged to U.S. customers, Microsoft is effectively subsidizing economic development everywhere but here. Make no mistake: Microsoft is a multinational corporation that will do whatever is best for Microsoft. As this trend plays out, it will be more and more difficult to wrap oneself around the Microsoft flag as some sort of defense against the offshoring trend.

Microsoft's monopoly pricing model may be cracking

The combination of continuing security breaches and competition from open source alternatives appears to be putting enormous pressure on Microsoft's monopoly-like, take-it-or-leave-it corporate pricing. Consider the following report from ITBusiness.ca about a speech Steve Ballmer gave in Toronto yesterday:

"When Canadian users grilled him about licensing on Thursday, Ballmer said he offered a number of options, including a tool that would report to customers exactly what they have licensed. The biggest reaction, however, came when Ballmer suggested a formula that charged customers based on the number of PCs and servers they own and allowed them unlimited use of its software. 'There was screaming in the aisles,' he said. 'At least, it gave me some direction.'"

Ballmer's had plenty of direction before this, but what's rapidly disappearing are excuses for not doing anything with that direction. Eventually, the market figures out a way to price non-monopolistic goods and services appropriately.

Author of The Flickering Mind on NPR this coming Monday

Now, a plug for a live radio appearance by Todd Oppenheimer (see previous item). Quoting NPR: "An estimated $70 billion was spent to put computers in U.S. schools in the 1990s. But do computer-savvy students translate into better educated students? In his book The Flickering Mind, Todd Oppenheimer says technology in the classroom can actually get in the way of the learning process." The national call-in radio show, Talk of the Nation from National Public Radio, airs Monday, January 26, 2004 at 3 p.m. Eastern time, noon Pacific time. UPDATE: Listen to a recording of the broadcast.

Computers may do harm to elementary school students

Joanne Jacobs: "Computers do no good in elementary classrooms and may do harm by shortening attention spans, says this story in Education Reporter." See also The Flickering Mind, by Todd Oppenheimer, which notes that music education, which has been drastically cut, actually does more to improve math scores. (Full disclosure: I was a source Oppenheimer employed while he researched his book.)

Fawcette weighs in on open source & more

While trying to discover where the chart below came from, I discovered Jim Fawcette's Weblog, which does not appear to have a working RSS feed. It's worth a read, particular for Jim's views on open source (not innovative enough), Java (suffering from lack of Sun marketing dollars) and Google (playing questionable games like changing ad contracts retroactively).

Happy 25th, InfoWorld

InfoWorld turns 25 this week. I spent 16 years of my life there, and devoted most waking moments of those years trying to make it the best publication it could be. Thanks to the efforts of literally thousands at this point, InfoWorld is still going strong, and no doubt will thrive in the years to come, as information technology goes through the biggest change it's seen since the PC emerged.

Browsing will be nicer under Longhorn -- but how?

Robert Scoble: “Using a Web browser on Longhorn will be far nicer than using it on Windows XP.” How so? This wasn't addressed at Microsoft's PDC. Robert won't say yet.

Longhorn becoming a big rug

Michael Gartenberg: "More and more Longhorn is becoming a mighty big rug to sweep things under. Not a good sign for the development process." I wonder what the internal time frame at Microsoft is, if any, for a feature-freeze.

The Longhorn wish list will be long

My goodness but will Microsoft have a lot of work to do if they're serious about accepting the public's suggestions about what features it should have. Take David Coursey's latest Longhorn wish list, for example. By introducing Longhorn at a developer conference, rather than an IT event, Microsoft was able to direct the discussion mostly to whiz-bang features such as Indigo. The features Coursey wants are more like the autonomic and self-healing computing that IBM's been talking about. Assuming IBM is able to add these to Linux, Microsoft had better respond in kind.

Paper charts die hard in nursing

I found Connie Schneider, a public health nurse, being quite candid about technology adoption in my latest story for NurseWeek, which grew out of last week's APHA conference: "It's the old thing, why rock the boat?" Schneider said. "Some nurses do not want to do away with paper charting. But with practice, you can increase your use of the software when you know what you are doing."

Start, er no, stop

Andy Rooney: Why computers are screwed up. No one will ever let Microsoft forget that to turn off the computer, one first has to click on the "start" button. Just wait until our phone and our TV work the same way!

The new IT elite

It's fascinating to me how often health care is cited as fertile ground for adoption of the latest new technology. I take some good-natured ribbing from my buddy Marc Canter for the fact that I'm doing case studies for NurseWeek online -- the latest one is here -- but the fact of the matter is, IT professionals in this field, I believe, are much less likely to have their job outsourced to India. As my article suggests, however, the trick in health care is to get your health care degree first, do some work in the field, then go back for the advanced IT degree. As noted in my story, it can provide some impressive career advancement opportunities. I suspect the same holds true for a number of other industries where the human touch is a part of the equation, instead of simply building some Web site or Web services somewhere.

Software upgrade - a safer way?

I saw a lot of Longhorn features last week in Los Angeles, but one thing I didn't see was any safer way to upgrade a software program. As an example, my RSS aggregator, Newzcrawler, has an upgrade. In a message I'm sure I've seen many times during other upgrades, I'm advised by the software publisher thusly: "We strongly recommend you to make a backup copy of your NewzCrawler folder prior to upgrading. Backup your user data folder also." This is a hassle. The next version of Windows (or any other operating system) should automatically present me with the option to do this, then do it for me automatically if I so desire. Doing it manually is a big, big reason why IT departments don't want to mess with any sort of software upgrades.

Clock is ticking

Brian Livingston: "In my view, most corporations are willing to give Microsoft one more chance to produce a tight, secure version of Windows. Longhorn is the perfect—but possibly last—opportunity to do this. If the upcoming release offers merely a few more features and the same old internal flaws, the trickle of enterprises abandoning Windows will become a flood." Brian refers to the client side, but on the server side, if you count the number of Apache installations, Microsoft has lost quite a few potential customers. Not to mention server-side Linux.

That's better

All right -- at least Mangione just told the audience that even he will have trouble finding stuff on a terabyte drive.

WinFS: How about a fresh spin on a tired cliche

At the start of Gordon Mangione's keynote at PDC, Microsoft put a number of "attendee in the street" video clips on the big screens. How cliched to have one attendee saying he liked WinFS because now his wife would be able to find things on her PC. Next time, at least follow such a comment with one from a woman saying the same thing about her husband!

More PDC questions: XAML

Now that I'm at PDC, I think I'll just keep asking questions. One prominent software developer I talked to after this morning's keynote suggested that XAML (XML application markup language, not to be confused with the other XAML), is HTML as re-envisioned by Microsoft, only under its control. I wonder to what extent this maps with Microsoft's strategic vision of XAML.

Connectix->Microsoft->Utility computing?

Here's another clue regarding what Microsoft is up to with the Connectix technology. I suspect this "virtual server" strategy not only plays well to the storage market, but opens up a path for Microsoft to enter the utility computing field. But how much, and how fast?

PDC: What is the JVM straitjacket?

Another question I'll be asking at PDC is about a phrase I read last week, branching off something Don Box posted. The phrase was "JVM straitjacket." What is a JVM straitjacket? I presume it has something to do with application performance. But the reference wasn't clear, and Google doesn't help.

About questions

P.S. If anyone at PDC tells me that Java and Linux still matter, I'll ask them why.

More PDC questions: Java, Linux

Here are two more questions I'll be asking all over the Microsoft PDC next week. Why doesn't Java matter anymore? Why doesn't Linux matter anymore?

HIPAA deadline is tomorrow but Fed enforcement starts out lax

U.S. health care organizations face a deadline of tomorrow to be compliant with HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, but it doesn't sound like the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services plans to penalize anyone, not right away at any rate, for noncompliance, according to VARBusiness: "Not surprisingly, many providers were unable to fully complete testing of their standards-based transactions by Oct. 16. That prompted [HHS] last month to implement a contingency plan to accept noncompliant claims, citing the 'unacceptably low number of compliant claims being submitted' as its justification."