Matsu’s World: The One Less Traveled

Today I was catching up on some reading and came across this post by Robert Scoble. He said:

Several people have told me about an off line version of Gmail, coming soon. Other people say that Google, or a company working with Google, is going to come out with a new server that will let corporations replace their Exchange servers with ones made by Google.

Now, wouldn’t it be interesting if Google did in fact come out with an e-mail client to rival Microsoft’s Outlook or Outlook Express? And, to take that one step further, what would happen if Google did release a server that could replace Exchange servers allowing all existing Outlook and Entourage users to just continue using the same client software with the new server without ever knowing the difference? Obviously, that’s not something Microsoft wants to see, but it may  be coming.

The world of technology is always interesting and ever changing.

Earlier this week Toshiba announced they are discontinuing HD-DVD. Which is their way to acknowledge that the Blu-ray standard won the high definition media wars.

Well, I just received e-mail from one vendor who is trying to unload their warehouse of HD-DVD players. I can’t help but wonder why CompUSA is going out of business.

As soon as the HD-DVD standard was pronounced dead the HD-DVD players became obsolete and almost worthless. I say almost  because you can still play standard (old) DVD’s in it, but other than that its only good for a boat anchor. And, if you don’t own a boat, it’s not even useful for that!

On a related note, I feel a little sorry for Microsoft since they bet on HD-DVD becoming the high definition media standard and included it as an optional add-on for their Xbox 360. That decision makes their high-end product appear out of date.

Yup, Apple is finally shipping a database for the rest of us. Yesterday they released a new product called Bento by FileMaker.

As you may know, FileMaker is an Apple company that provides database software designed for small to medium sized businesses. Now, they are selling a new $50 database product for individuals who want to track collections of things or just plan a party.

This product fills a whole in Microsoft’s offering as Office for Mac doesn’t include database software. Now, Mac users have a database program that will fill that need. I wonder how well it integrates with Microsoft Word or Excel.

By the way, did you know that “bento” means “lunch box” in Japanese? It does.

I haven’t installed the demo yet, but I will do it this week and let you know what I what I find out about integration with Microsoft’s office software.

Now, that’s a headline that you are unlikely to read any time soon. Though, if Microsoft is successful in their $44 billion bid to purchase Yahoo then something will have to change if Microsoft isn’t going to make that headline a reality. Why? Because last year Yahoo bought Zimbra for $350 million and now owns and supports Zimbra, the open source Exchange-server-compatible e-mail system

If Zimbra is truly an open source product and if it is in direct competition with Microsoft and their Exchange server product, then will Microsoft kill Zimbra as soon as the Yahoo acquisition becomes final? Can they kill it? Will they provide an open source alternative to their commercial product? Will they support and improve Zimbra as an alternative to their flagship e-mail server product? What do you think?

“Zimbra” and the Zimbra logo are trademarks of Zimbra, Inc.

Many corporations have held back and not upgraded to Microsoft Windows Vista, instead choosing to continue to use the stable and highly compatible Windows XP operating system. This has significantly hurt sales of Vista. Then, several months ago a CNET article reported that Microsoft agreed to allow users to down-grade their Vista computers so they could run Windows XP.

A recent survey by CDW shows why users have not upgraded. Some of the reasons not to upgrade to Vista included the hardware requirements, the way in which Vista is a memory hog, incompatibilities with existing Windows applications (which run fine on XP), security holes, and the lack of any significant advantages over Windows XP. Some people are hoping that Vista’s first service pack (SP1) upgrade will solve some of the problems, but most have already decided to stay with Windows XP and are looking forward to XP’s next service pack (SP3).

When I read this article by eWeek I couldn’t help but wonder if Microsoft was ready to give up on Vista and move on to the next version of XP, referred to as Windows 7. They have released less-than-stellar versions of Windows operating systems before. Do you remember Windows ME? In some ways, Windows NT Workstation and Windows 2000 never really took off like Windows 98 or XP. Some organizations (including where I work) stayed with Windows 98 until Windows XP was released. We totally skipped both Windows NT Workstation and Windows 2000 as the standard for the PC’s in offices and computer labs. Now, we must decide if we will do the same with Windows Vista.

Since I work at a college, many of our I.T. decisions are tied to the academic year. We lock in an operating system in our computer labs for the entire year, not making any mid-year changes. When Windows Vista was released last year, we quickly determined that much of the academic software used in our computer labs would not run properly and so we couldn’t upgrade to Vista until the academic software was made compatible with Vista. Our assumption was that one year would be ample time for the vendors to update their products (it’s just a simple re-compile, right?). Well, we are more than half way through the year and we are still waiting for updates to many of the academic programs we use in the labs. That’s a problem. We’ve been reading articles about the number of organizations that have resisted the proposed upgrade path and stayed with XP as their desktop OS standard. Then, we begin to see rumors that Microsoft will be emphasizing the next version of Window XP, known as Windows 7, you can’t help but wonder if they are having flashbacks to Windows ME.

How long will it be until Microsoft announces the end-of-life date for Vista? I predict it will be years. After all, there are millions more users running Vista than were running Window ME at its peak. It took Microsoft a couple of years before they announced the end of that product line. I expect the same for Vista. Until they have a solid upgrade path in place (i.e. released Windows 7) they can’t give the impression that Vista isn’t a viable solution. After all, they need users to update to something if they are going to maintain a revenue stream.

The most surprising statement from the eWeek article came in the last paragraph. They wrote,

“For now, whether Microsoft likes it or not, XP, and not Vista, is the Windows those businesses will continue to use. And the companies that want to move on to a truly better operating system? They’ll be moving to Linux or Mac OS.”

OUCH!