Category Archives: Microsoft

Microsofties use iPhones at their own risk

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Lovely WSJ story.

REDMOND, Wash.—Microsoft Corp. employees are passionate users of the latest tech toys. But there is one gadget love that many at the company dare not name: the iPhone.

The iPhone is made, of course, by Microsoft’s longtime rival, Apple Inc. The device’s success is a nagging reminder for Microsoft executives of how the company’s own efforts to compete in the mobile business have fallen short in recent years. What is especially painful is that many of Microsoft’s own employees are nuts for the device.

In a discussion about employee iPhone use, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once told executives that when his father worked at Ford, his family drove Fords.

The perils of being an iPhone user at Microsoft were on display last September. At an all- company meeting in a Seattle sports stadium, one hapless employee used his iPhone to snap photos of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Mr. Ballmer snatched the iPhone out of the employee’s hands, placed it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of Microsoft workers, according to people present. Mr. Ballmer uses phones from different manufacturers that run on Microsoft’s mobile phone software.

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment and declined to make executives available for this story.

Not us, guv

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You may be puzzled by this Telegraph report.

Both France and Germany’s governments have respectively advised computer users to download an alternative web browser to the most popular browser in the world, after a security flaw was detected.

The French government issued an advisory to computer users, recommending that they switch to a different web browser, such as Firefox or Google Chrome. It follows a similar move by the German government, after it was discovered that Internet Explorer contained a serious security flaw that could be exploited by hackers and cybercriminals.

However, a spokesman from the British Cabinet Office told The Telegraph that the British government would not be issuing a similar warning and instead would be referring anyone who was concerned about cyber security to getsafeonline.org.

Microsoft last week admitted that its Internet Explorer browser was the weak link in recent attacks by hackers who pried in to the email accounts of human rights activists in China. But the company said that the German government had over-reacted about the threat posed by the vulnerability, and that general users were not at risk.

Cliff Evans, head of Security and Privacy at Microsoft UK, advised people who were still using Internet Explorer version 6 to upgrade to version 8 – which is the most recent version of browser and less susceptible.

He said: “The quantity of exploits which have occurred been minimal and very targeted. The general public do not need to worry and we have not yet had a case in the UK.”

Of course, this could be an example of the UK government keeping its head while all around them others are losing theirs.

Alternatively, it could be due to the awkward fact that every PC in the vast NHS system is required to run IE 6 — which is a real pain if you’re a company trying to pitch web 2.0 products at the health service.

LATER: Charles Arthur’s take on it in the Guardian.

Now the French government is advising people to stop using IE

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Well, well. Even I’m surprised by this.

Following in the footsteps of Germany last week, France is now advising its population to use an alternative browser pending a patch for an Internet Explorer vulnerability.

The French Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) published an advisory on Friday January 15 stating “pending a patch from the publisher, CERT recommends using an alternative browser.” In the advisory Internet Explorer 7 and 8 are both listed despite Microsoft confirming the vulnerability is only exploitable on Internet Explorer 6.

Last week the German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (BSI) issued a similary advisory urging its population to stop using IE. According to the BSI the flaw will, put simply, “perform reconnaissance and gain complete control over the compromised system.” The BSI noted that even running Internet Explorer in Protected Mode isn’t enough to stop the flaw. Microsoft issued further insight into the vulnerability this morning in a company blog posting. The software giant confirmed the exploit is only effective against Internet Explorer 6.

Wonder if French and German users will pay any attention to this.

Linux regaining netbook market share quickly

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It’s funny how people become infected with myths of Microsoft omnipotence. After the first rush of Linux-only netbooks and Microsoft responded by extending the life of XP, commentators shook their heads and opined that hope of liberation from Windows were naive. Now comes some interesting news of what market research is showing.

ABI Research published some new data last month and the results may surprise you. They place the 2009 market share for Linux on netbooks at 32% with 11 million units preloaded with Linux shipping this year. In an interview with DesktopLinux.com, Jeffrey Orr of ABI makes clear that dial boot machines (i.e.: the Acer Aspire One AOD250-1613) and machines that are purchased with Windows but later have Linux loaded do not count in the 32% number. That number is pure Linux sales. This data confirms comments made first by Jay Pinkert and later by Todd Finch of Dell that one third of their netbooks sales are Linux machines and that there is no higher return rate for Linux systems than there is for ones sold with Windows preloaded…

And that’s before the Chrome OS machines arrive.

Thanks to Glyn Moody for spotting it.

Google: the latest control-freak on the block

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This morning’s Observer column.

A basic principle of warfare is never to fight on terrain chosen — or dominated — by your enemy. This principle seemed to explain why, as Google rose to challenge Microsoft as the world’s most powerful technology company, the one market it eschewed was that for operating systems. That territory was dominated by Bill Gates & Co and so Google concentrated on building dominance in areas where Microsoft was feeble or non-existent: search, cloud computing, web applications, advertising. It all seemed so sensible.

But then last July, Google gave notice that it had changed tack by revealing it was working on a radical new operating system called Chrome OS. Just over a week ago, the product was officially launched at the company’s Californian HQ, which left the technology community intrigued and puzzled, and the mainstream media salivating over the prospect of a head-to-head battle between Google and Microsoft…

Inside the mind of the Digger?

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Unless you’ve been vacationing on Mars you will know that Rupert Murdoch has been threatening to ban Google from indexing News Corporation websites. This proposition seems so bizarre that it’s had people wondering whether the Digger might be losing his marbles. There are (as I’ve observed before) two schools of thought:

1. He is losing his marbles.

2. He knows something that the rest of us don’t. Support for this view comes from people’s respect for his track record of making bold, risky decisions which have paid off handsomely. On the other hand, his record isn’t entirely unblemished when it comes to Cyberspace. This will be his third foray into Cyberspace, and his first two were not exactly unqualified successes. And even his purchase of MySpace, once hailed as an act of genius, is beginning to look tarnished in the light of Facebook’s rise. So let’s not get carried away by delusions of the Digger’s omniscience.

Kara Swisher is the latest commentator to attempt to fathom the Digger’s mind. In this post, she offers no fewer than five possible interpretations. Here’s a summary:

1. Murdoch really means it.

the increasing money being made by Google, even as their revenue has suffered, has developed into a growing problem.

Which is simply this: There is a lot more money to be made in searching for content than in making content.

This realization has to shake content czars like Murdoch to the core, but it is indeed the situation they find themselves in.

Murdoch makes a fair point in that journalism costs money to make and it used to have a solid economic system under it until Google and others on the Web disaggregated it wholly.

Thus, online aggregators become “tapeworms,” as The Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson quipped.

2. Murdoch really means to create a lot of confusion, in order to shake down Google.

Well, it would not be the first time Murdoch and many others of his ilk have used public sharp elbows and saber-rattling to get what they want.

Except in this case, the algorithm experts over at Google know precisely–down to the tenth decimal–how much linking to News Corp. makes for them.

And it is not much, especially when looking at the vast sea of data Google serves up.

Its money-making is widely dissipated, from searches for vacation information to mapping to car-buying to health. While news-finding definitely is part of the mix, it is not at the center of the Borg.

3. Murdoch really means to create a lot of confusion, in order to shake down Microsoft.

4. A deal will be made.

My not-too-surprising prediction is that in the end, News Corp. and others will probably strike some kind of lesser deal with Microsoft – although it will tout the heck out of it – while taking some of its content behind a pay wall and thereby de-indexing it from Google.

5. The truth is out there.

In perhaps his most strident television interview, with his Sky News Australia service (which you can see below–oh, the irony–on Google’s YouTube), Murdoch said about those who use Google to find News Corp. content:

“They don’t suddenly become loyal readers of our content. We’d rather have fewer people coming to our Web site but paying.”

That really is the honest truth in all this hubbub: Murdoch and other publishers have to find a way to get a some pool of dedicated online readers to pay enough to be able to then provide them with content that will keep them coming back for more.

That’s a business that Google truly cannot help or hinder, really.

In a nutshell: something will happen but we don’t know what.

Microsoft to fund ACAP development?

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The search by newspaper publishers for DRM-for-papers continues. ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol) is currently their Great White Hope. This report from TechCrunch suggests that Microsoft might be getting in on the act.

Our sources say Microsoft has pledged to help fund research and engineering into ACAP to the tune of about will put £100,000. This is the more granular version of the robots.txt protocol which has been proposed by publishers to enable them to have a more sophisticated response to search engine crawlers. However, we understand that Microsoft won’t be involved in developing the protocol, just the financial funding.

For years, Google has characterised the debate about search engines as “you are either in our index or not in it, there is no half-way house.” But the Automated Content Access Protocol ”ACAP” proposes a far more layered response, allowing full access or just access to some content of a site. Unsurprisingly, it’s been developed by a consortium of the World Association of Newspapers, European Publishers Council and International Publishers Association. Proposed in 2006, it has been criticised as being biased towards publishers rather than search engines, specifically Google, and few non-ACAP members have adopted the protocol. Some call it the “DRM of newspaper web sites”. That said some 1,600 traditional publishers have signed up to using ACAP.

But if Bing starts to play ball with ACAP, this could change the game. Suddenly newspapers will have a stick, and a heavyweight enforcer in the shape of Bing, with which to beat Google. Google would have a choice – either recognise the ACAP protocol in order to get some level of access to newspaper sites, or just ignore it…

Apple declares war…

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… on unauthorised ingenuity, to wit this:

According to Wired,

the latest update to Snow Leopard, version 10.6.2, drops support for the Intel Atom processor. This means that anyone with a “hackintosh” who tries to update to the latest operating system version will see their computer die, going no further than the gray Apple logo on startup.

The reports are lighting up various hackintosh forums, and OSx86-co-author wizard Stellarolla sums it up thusly:

“Well, looks like I was right, again. The netbook forums are now blowing up with problems of 10.6.2 instant rebooting their Atom-based netbooks. My sources tell me that every time a netbook user installs 10.6.2 an Apple employee gets their wings.”

It shouldn’t be long before some clever hacker figures out a workaround and releases a patched kernel to the world, re-enabling the OS on Atom-based computers. But that’s not the story. The bigger message is that Apple has finally stopped ignoring the incessant buzz of the hobby-hacking, Mac netbook scene and instead pulled out a fly-swatter and dealt it a whack. The war is officially on.

Hee, hee! Thanks to a warning from Quentin, I shan’t be ungrading for the time being. And my lovely little Dell/Apple hybrid will continue to be a delightful workhorse.

The thing that gave me most pleasure when I hacked the Dell in the first place was that I was simultaneously annoying two of the world’s great control freaks! Apple’s latest gambit only increases the pleasure.

Exclusive: holocaust and incest jokes not a good “fit” with the “Windows brand”.

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Wonderful story in the Daily Telegraph.

The episode was to be called “Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show”.

A publicly released preview featured characters from Family Guy using Windows 7 and making computer related jokes.

However, the writers also included more typical Family Guy material which has been described as “riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest”. There was also a section in which the writers stepped in front of the camera to play Latino housekeepers.

After executives saw a run through of the show a Microsoft spokesman said: “We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humour of Family Guy.

“But after reviewing an early version of the variety show, it became clear that the content was not fit with the Windows brand.”