On Midori, Forrester, and my favourite recent MSDN Blog posts

A little news coverage on something called Midori, Forrester’s comments/ response on Vista enterprise adoption, and a few things you really should read: the best of recent MSDN Blogs…

First, there’s been a lot of press this week on “Microsoft’s plans for post-Windows OS revealed”, with this from David Worthington (July 29, 2008):

“Microsoft is incubating a componentized non-Windows operating system known as Midori, which is being architected from the ground up to tackle challenges that Redmond has determined cannot be met by simply evolving its existing technology.”

Kurt Mackie of Redmond Developer News said “Microsoft Mum After Midori OS Plan Leaked“

“Microsoft is working on a project to develop a new operating system, code-named “Midori,” but the company won’t disclose the details at this time. The Midori OS will be a non-Windows solution, unlike Microsoft’s “Windows 7”

Go figure.  Last I heard, lots of companies don’t talk about their research projects; in this case, one that’s been referred to in the above articles as “one of many incubation projects across Microsoft Research.”

Now on to Chris Flores’ post that Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista (in the Windows Vista Team Blog).  This in response to a report from Forrester analyst Thomas Mendel, who said that Windows Vista has been “rejected” by enterprises and that customers should re-evaluate Windows Vista deployments and consider waiting for Windows 7. 

I agree with Chris in that this report seems a little sensationalist. Chris notes that…

“First, this report doesn’t reflect the normal enterprise OS adoption cycle. Enterprise adoption of OSes has always been much slower than consumer adoption.   After all, upgrading the PC in your living room is easy, but upgrading an entire front and back end infrastructure to thousands of users without downtime is much more complex, and that takes time.  Computerworld contributing author (and Microsoft partner) David Feng just wrote an article about this, too.  Mendel’s report, however, simply skims over this common knowledge.

“What is even more puzzling is that Mr. Mendel’s report directly contradicts another Forrester report titled, “Building the Business Case for Windows Vista,” which was written by fellow analyst Ben Gray.  This report outlines the five main reasons why enterprises should start their company’s migration to Windows Vista now.  You can read it for yourself here.  Mendel’s report also goes against other industry analyst reports that show that Windows Vista adoption is progressing faster, or at the very least, just as fast, as Windows XP adoption did when it first launched.”

What’s more interesting is that Forrester’s Brad Holmes (VP, Technology Industry Research) apparently responds today on the blog that…

“For some vendors, as with some enterprises, Vista won’t be the right choice. But for many it will. Which is why Thomas goes on to state in his recommendations to vendor strategists that: “All software vendors need to make strategic decisions about the client-side platforms their solutions will support. To throw the widest net possible over enterprise users while remaining pragmatic, vendors should: [writer’s emphasis]

“Develop exclusively for Windows XP and Vista. Forget about Macs unless you’re aiming at a specific business vertical where Mac use is prevalent. Windows XP and Vista account for 91% of operating systems used in enterprises.”

Again, go figure.

Now, some reading I heartily recommend: a few interesting posts on MSDN blogs…

Ray Ozzie & Rick Sherlund comments from FAM (//steve clayton: geek in disguise) — At around 22 mins in to Ray’s talk at FAM today he gets a great question from Rick Sherlund – check out the smile on Ray’s face when he answers. He seems kinda pleased to be able to answers all the nuances of Rick’s question.”

My US tour closes out with Ozzie (//steve clayton: geek in disguise) — Steve writes about “the BIG highlight – I got to work with Ray Ozzie and his team on a presentation have gave to our group and the next day saw him lay out our S+S plans to the company. WOW. He blew me away.”

You had me at “Hello World”: Search and Give — “One thing that caught my attention is Search and Give. You can search your favorite non-profit organization, and every time you search, Microsoft will make annual collective donation to your charity. You can search and also make a difference.

The Visual Basic Team: WANTED: Your feedback on a potential Quick Search & Navigate feature (Lisa Feigenbaum) — The VB team has “Future Focus”, a way “to collect your feedback on ideas that we’re considering for future versions of VS. The latest post is regarding an IDE feature to help you quickly search for and navigate to symbols in your code.”

Blogs of Senior Microsoft Testers (System.Blog.Martens.Ben) — Ben posts a list of “some of Microsoft’s senior testers, and I was reminded of that task today when I found out that James Whittaker has started blogging. If you’re interested in testing, these are great places to see inside the minds of some of the industry.”

Sorting it all Out : Behind facebook status like: “…somewhere between ‘Addictive’ by Faithless and ‘Addicted’ by Juliana Hatfield.” — Michael notes (pun intended) that he is “in the habit of using a musical metaphor in my facebook status information lately. And even more occasionally in my Windows Live Messenger status.”

OneNote and Education: The Freedom Writer Teachers, OneNote and the Long Beach Airport — Mike attended the Freedom Writer Teachers conference and provided a 4 hour workshop on using OneNote, “accompanied by Sara, a 7th Grade Forest Teacher and Tony Franklin, the Philadelphia School of the Future SSP.”

Microsoft UK Schools News Blog: OneNote – Part II — Ray wrote about OneNote, and he “got an email shortly afterwards drawing my attention to the video on the Tips page above the one I mentioned, which was about a group of pupils from a Norwegian Primary School.”

CRM Online Customer Evidence Video – Total Structures (Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online) — Total Structures manufactures structural staging systems to be used in rock concerts, trade shows, [and their VP] discusses the advantages… of an integrated CRM system, why he chose Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and describes their successful implementation.”

Kavitha Radhakrishnan’s Blog: Eat, Pray, Love – thats an interesting way to live life — “The book definitely sparked off a bunch of thoughts in my head – “If I had a year, where would I go?” Where would you go?

Joe Stagner – Frustrated by Design !: Risks with Cloud Computing. — Joe says hat When you’re using a cloud hosted service, remember to build support for graceful degradation your application. You application need not fail completely because you can’t fetch images, ads, etc.”

Inside Office Online blog: What’s it really like to work at Microsoft? — Nancy says “you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work at Microsoft, I’m pleased to be able to point you to Microspotting – a blog about the people who work here. It’s not just about the people at Office – it’s about people throughout the company.”

Heath Stewart’s Blog: Why Windows Installer May Require so much Disk Space — Heath explains that “Windows Installer is an engine for performing transactional installations. But when upgrading or patching a product, most often those files are replaced so copies must be kept if an error occurs and the installation needs to roll back.”

Peering Into Microsoft’s Cloud – Sarah Perez’ ReadWriteWeb — Sarah writes that “Ray Ozzie hinted at Microsoft’s cloud initiatives, a part of their Software + Services (S+S) strategy… [and ] some information we can piece together to help determine what Microsoft’s cloud will look like.”

Sorting it all Out: Not everyone gets to know everything? — Michael says “So sharing can feel like like a violation of someone’s privacy (perhaps mine, perhaps not) and on the whole it seems exist to just not risk it.”

Tags: MSDN blogs, articles, what I read, Microsoft, Windows Vista, MSDN, Forrester.

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