Robert McLaws: Windows Edition : Journalists JournalistsenCommunityServer 2008 SP2 (Build: 31104.93)Schizophrenia, Public Relations, and Windows Roadmaps, 24 Jul 2007 23:30:48 GMT20f58a17-7e15-440c-89b3-dfe02fe74bcd:28265Robert McLaws5<p>I haven't been a real big fan of Microsoft's PR machine post-Allchin.&nbsp;It seems like as soon as Jim left and Windows Vista was released, the heavy-hitters at Microsoft went on vacation, and the second string PR people&nbsp;have been running the show ever since. For example, last week Microsoft stunned the blogosphere by <a href="" target="_blank">continuing the Windows Vista SP1 mind games</a>, while simultaneously <a href="" target="_blank">acknowledging more information about Windows "Seven"</a> than they ever have for the rumored Service Pack. And while Microsoft won't comment on the timeframe for SP1 (beyond the kind of vague answers typically reserved for Miss Cleo and her ilk), we now have a date of 2010 for the next incarnation of Windows.</p> <p>Now, this is just my opinion, but I think Microsoft's schizophrenic PR strategy is causing itself more harm than good. By being more specific about "Seven" than SP1, they are prematurely shifting the focus away from Windows Vista, which is exactly why they've been stonewalling bloggers in the first place! I really just don't get it. I totally understand stonewalling us about "Seven", but to stay quiet about a Service Pack that <a href=",1895,2060137,00.asp" target="_blank">by all accounts</a> will be shipped before the end of 2007 (well, not all accounts... <a href="" target="_blank">Valleywag got some harebrained idea</a> that it's not coming out till 2009)... totally baffles me.</p> <p>But I think I'm not alone when I say that, if Microsoft wants to keep this strategy of underpromising and overdelivering, then they need to be doing more outreach to get the people that drive tech conversations on board with it. And no, that's not just a selfish plug to get an interview. If Sinofsky and Co. think that the '<a href="" target="_blank">Steve Jobs Reveal</a>' is the best way to go, they should make their case to their countless enthusiasts as to why. The way <a href="" target="_blank">Allchin made the case for a Vista delay</a> in the first place.</p> <p>Or at the very least, be consistent with your strategy. If you can't apply your own rules consistently, how the hell do you guys <a href="" target="_blank">expect bloggers to follow them</a>?</p> <p>But again, that's just my opinion. What do you guys think?</p><img src="" width="1" height="1">Service PacksInterviewsJournalistsMarketingWindows Vista SP1Ziff-Davis Rights a Major Wrong, 28 Jan 2007 13:14:00 GMT20f58a17-7e15-440c-89b3-dfe02fe74bcd:20017Robert McLaws5<P>Maybe I won't have to <A href="">cancel my subscription to PC Magazine</A> after all. Apparently my post last week raised quite a bit of hell inside the walls of Ziff Davis (which is exactly what I had intended it to do), and they swiftly came to their senses. A <A href=";search=fiji&amp;submit.x=26&amp;submit.y=10">search on Microsoft-Watch for "Fiji"</A> shows that Mary Jo's byline is back on her posts. It's good to see that Ziff can respond to customer feedback... and an irrefutable argument always helps. Thanks Ziff, for allowing&nbsp;me to let you keep my $30.&nbsp;:)</P> <P>Now maybe Jupiter Research will follow suit and fix Joe Wilcox's posts. Too bad I don't have a paid subscription from them I can cancel. And hopefully "brand confusion" will never be used to screw a journalist out of their body of work ever again. I'm tired of the media thinking their readers/viewers are stupid.</P><img src="" width="1" height="1">JournalistsI'm Done With Ziff Davis, eWeek, and Microsoft Watch, 21 Jan 2007 02:19:00 GMT20f58a17-7e15-440c-89b3-dfe02fe74bcd:19516Robert McLaws14<P>It's just not Joe Wilcox's week. On Thursday, <A href="">I beat him down for extremely faulty logic</A> regarding his post on the Windows Vista Family Discount. The this morning, <A href="">Ed Bott calls him out for not fact-checking</A> his post about IE7 woes. If the comments on the stories on Microsoft Watch are any indication, the natives are not happy with the direction the site has taken. It always seemed like Joe was blatantly anti-Microsoft over at Jupiter, and IMO, not much has changed since he moved from "analyst" to "reporter". Neither one apparently requires facts.</P> <P>As if that wasn't enough. (<STRONG>Edit:</STRONG> This next part has nothing to do with Joe, it's his employer that I have a problem with here.) So&nbsp;on Wednesday,&nbsp;I was doing some research for my <A href="">"Longhorn Reset" post</A>, and I was searching the net for posts about Windows "Fiji". I came across <A href="">this post from Brandon LeBlanc</A>, who links to <A href="">a post from Mary Jo Foley</A> on Microsoft Watch about the subject. To my shock, <EM>her name had been removed from the post</EM>. Don't believe me? Well, look at the article <A href=",2180,1948571,00.asp">as it was published on April 13, 2006</A>, courtesy of the <A href="" target=_blank>Wayback Machine</A>. After completing a search, I found that <A href="">several</A> <A href="">other</A> <A href="">MJ</A>&nbsp;<A href="">posts</A> we had linked to in the past had also purged her byline. <STRONG>In fact, I'm pretty sure they removed her name from her entire body of work.</STRONG></P> <P>I was completely stunned. <STRONG>I cannot BELIEVE that a journalistic organization would attempt to remove any trace of a writer's work just because they don't work there anymore.</STRONG> That's total bullsh!t. I asked MJ about the circumstances around her departure from MicrosoftWatch, and she said there wasn't any bad blood when she left... so why was that necessary?&nbsp;</P> <P>That's the last straw. I'm done with Ziff Davis, which means I'm not just deleting my RSS feed subscription for Microsoft-Watch (which I did after MJ left, only to try re-subscribing after Wilcox showed up)... I'm canceling my subscriptions to eWeek and, unfortunately, PC Magazine. It makes me kinda sad, since PCMag has been really good to the site in the past. It has become quite clear that the organization is no longer interested in presenting reality to its readers, and is completely devoid of journalistic integrity. Which means that I have no use for them anymore. And the only way to do that is to stop sending them my traffic and my money.</P> <P>And as a side note to any Ziff Staff Writer: I'd make backup copies of all your articles, because Ziff will probably screw you someday when you leave. Thank God for the Wayback Machine.</P> <P><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>UPDATE:</FONT></STRONG> This is not a dig on Joe, but I don't buy the "brand confusion" argument that was used against both Joe and MJ. A person's work is a person's work, it doesn't matter who someone currently works for. It wouldn't be any more acceptable for NBC to go back through the archives and edit out Katie Couric from any NBC broadcast because she works for CBS now... how is this any different? If editors don't think that we're smart enough to figure out which site is which and who is writing for whom, then they are dumber than they think we are. All the more reason why I don't trust Ziff Davis or JupiterResearch anymore.</P> <P>And to clarify, Joe's not the reason I'm canceling my subscriptions, the byline crap is. But I put MW in there because I gave it another chance after they brought Joe in, and it hasn't got any better IMO.</P> <P><STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000>UPDATE2:</FONT></STRONG> They resolved this situation. I blogged about it <A class="" href="">here</A>.</P><img src="" width="1" height="1">JournalistsGartner Has Officially Jumped the Shark, 20 Oct 2006 18:14:57 GMT20f58a17-7e15-440c-89b3-dfe02fe74bcd:17118Robert McLaws1<p><a href="">Joris Evers</a> from C|Net covers <a href=";tag=6128157&amp;subj=news">a Gartner report that says that HIPS solutions will not work on Vista x64</a>. But wait a second, didn't just post an excellent article about how <a href="">the Sophos antivirus product works like a charm on Vista x64,</a> without interfering with PatchGuard? </p> <blockquote> <p>In an interview with BetaNews on Friday afternoon, Sophos senior security analyst Ron O'Brien suggested that, even though his company plans to participate with Microsoft's program to <a href="">build a security services API for Windows Vista SP1</a> -- and perhaps because of that fact -- Microsoft does not need to create a bypass mechanism for its upcoming PatchGuard kernel lockdown service, as other vendors have recently insisted. <p>"Two of our largest competitors, McAfee and Symantec - which clearly have anti-virus products that compare to Sophos - have publicly complained that being locked out of the Vista kernel somehow prevents them from being able to innovate," O'Brien noted. <p>"I would say that the opposite is really true: that by not focusing on having Microsoft provide us with the means to access the kernel, and in fact using the APIs that have [already] been provided by Microsoft, we are not experiencing any problems with PatchGuard for our latest HIPS technology, Sophos Anti-Virus, or any of the other aspects of our security offering for either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows Vista." <p>By HIPS, O'Brien is referring to Sophos' current <a href="">Host Intrusion Prevention System</a>, a version of which is being planned for the initial release of Vista. The system uses heuristics to examine the behavior of software that may not have been identified as viruses by way of signature, to determine whether it is likely to negatively impact the system. <p>... <p>Sophos' Ron O'Brien contends, however, that this is not a problem, at least from his company's perspective. "I would say that other vendors may not have coded their solutions with 64-bit Vista in mind," he told BetaNews, "but because we've taken a slightly different approach to HIPS, focusing more on identifying bad behavior by analyzing code before it executes, we have been able to make do with the interfaces that have been provided by Microsoft, rather than trying to subvert the kernel. That's why we're ready for 64-bit Vista, and other companies are not."</p></blockquote> <p>Wow. See, <a href="">this is exactly what I've been saying</a>. McAfee and Symantec are using FUD to cover the fact that their software sucks and they're too late to fix it, while forward thinking companies like Sophos have already adapted. It looks like with Scott's article (excellent reporting, BTW), Sophos gained more than a few new customers. Myself included. <p><strong>If it isn't plain as day that Gartner has an&nbsp;agenda other than&nbsp;finding <em>facts</em>, I don't know what will.</strong> Someone please show these guys the door. Looks like they can join the Irrelevance Club that John C. Dvorak and <a href="">Paul Thurrott</a> started.</p><img src="" width="1" height="1">JournalistsWGA and SPP: Normal People Don't Care, 08 Oct 2006 03:28:00 GMT20f58a17-7e15-440c-89b3-dfe02fe74bcd:17002Robert McLaws7<p><a href="">Joe Wilcox has a long and interesting post</a> about Windows juxtaposed against&nbsp;the offerings of&nbsp;Web 2.0 companies, in respect to Microsoft&#39;s recently announced Software Protection Platform. He thinks that Web 2.0 companies have the better business model. Web 2.0 business models are great, but I don&#39;t think they&#39;ll last. Why? Because most rely on advertising to generate revenue. The concept is wonderful, as long as the economy is doing well. But as soon as the economy tanks, and companies scale back their spending, those Web 2.0 companies will take a hit. </p><p>And as socialist/communist as techies want to get regarding the concept that ideas/concepts/software should be free, the bottom line is... the bottom line. <strong>Human nature is best suited to free market economies</strong> (history proves this well), and it costs money to operate all those Web 2.0 organizations. And instead of just taking&nbsp;hits from a few big clients, these companies need to consider also taking hits from lots of smaller clients (consumers), or they won&#39;t survive through the next wave of innovation.</p><p>Besides that, he&#39;s comparing apples to oranges. Web 2.0 sites are hosted once and can run anywhere. Operating systems have to be installed on individual machines... making&nbsp;the ecosystem&nbsp;far more difficult to distribute/operate/maintain.</p><p>But that&#39;s not the real issue here. The real issue is the value of open v. closed models. When it comes to the Software Protection Platform / Activation / WGA, etc... <strong>most normal people don&#39;t care</strong>. It&#39;s something they have to deal with once when they buy a computer, and they&#39;ve accepted it as a necessary aspect of dealing with something that is so easy to make an inexpensive&nbsp;exact duplicate of. It may be a rallying cry for techies who would rather&nbsp;have&nbsp;all the coolest stuff without ever having to pay for ANYTHING, as well as for the media companies who target them... but people like my Mom do not spend all day thinking about this stuff. And, I hate to burst that self-important bubble that most techies have blown up around themselves, but non-techies make up an overwhelming majority of computer users.</p><p><strong>These people just want the stuff they buy to work</strong>. The only time they care is when it doesn&#39;t, or it doesn&#39;t allow them to do what other technologies do. DRM is a prime example of this. DRM deals with the same issue, but centered around media platforms. Most people don&#39;t care about DRM... until it interferes with the Right to Fair Use. If you buy any other product... be it a gun, a car, a chainsaw, a pen, or a knitting needle... you can do whatever the hell you want with it... because it is <em>yours</em>. DRM-protected content is the only product out there that prevents you from doing absolutely anything except for the original intent of the product. If I want to be able to move it to another machine that I own, shrink it for a handheld device, edit out the commercials (all things that the Right of Fair Use allows)... whatever... forget it. And THAT is what makes normal people mad about DRM.</p>IMHO, as long as SPP/WGA does not throw false positives with Vista &amp; beyond, most consumers won&#39;t care that their machine will automatically activate itself within the first 72 hours of setting it up. They acquired it legally, and it&#39;s not a big deal. The ones that are pissed off are the ones that abused the old system, which was far more open. And now that is is closing, they are screaming bloody murder. <p>So&nbsp;where does &quot;Fair Use&quot; come into play in regards to Windows? Licenses, keys, and activation are in hundreds of thousands of other applications out there, not just Windows. Do people honestly think that you should be able to install a software product on an unlimited number of machines?</p><p>The answer to that question is &quot;no&quot;. Most people know that you can only use the software you buy on one computer. <strong>The REAL reason why people are mad about SPP/WGA/etc is because the cost of acquiring additional Windows licenses for a single household is prohibitively expensive.</strong> You shouldn&#39;t have to pay twice as much for something that was only manufactured, distributed, and stocked&nbsp;once... there is zero additional cost involved. <a href="">So most families unknowingly turn to &quot;gray piracy&quot; and install a single license of Windows on multiple computers</a>. SO if that problem is solved, who is left to be mad, the Asian software piracy market? Oh darn... I feel your pain.</p><p>I spent a good portion of my time lobbying for Microsoft to correct&nbsp;the family licensing issue&nbsp;while I was in Redmond last week, and the feedback that&nbsp;I got was very encouraging... I think the right people are now aware of the problem. All we can do is wait and see.</p><p>In conclusion, I think Joe&#39;s article is interesting and thought provoking (at least it provoked a lot of thoughts for me). But I think the assessment is way off base. The Web 2.0 model has yet to see any long-term validation, and is not a valid platform for comparison against the Windows operating system.</p><img src="" width="1" height="1">CommunityJournalistsNewsWindows PricingWGAMary Jo Foley: The Exit Interview, 20 Sep 2006 18:16:00 GMT20f58a17-7e15-440c-89b3-dfe02fe74bcd:16858Robert McLaws11<P>Alright, I admit it. <a href="">I knew what was going on all along</A>. Mary Jo Foley <A href="">dropped a bombshell this afternoon</A>, announcing she was leaving <A href="">MicrosoftWatch</A> to branch out on her own after 11 years at ZiffDavis. What are her plans for the future? I have the exclusive Exit Interview.</P> <P><STRONG>RWM:</STRONG>&nbsp;You’ve been covering Microsoft for ZiffDavis for a very long time. What made you to decide to go solo?<BR><STRONG>MJF:</STRONG> It just seemed like the time was right. It’s a bloggers’ market out there. Blogging is the future of journalism, in my opinion. More and more bloggers are not just reacting to – but actually breaking – news. I wanted to try my hand at running a business that was blog-centric from the get-go. So I decided to take my show on the road. </P> <P><STRONG>RWM:</STRONG> Does this mean you’ll be moving back to Redmond? Will we be seeing you in the cafeteria of Building 10 anytime soon? <BR><STRONG>MJF:</STRONG> I am an East Coaster by birth and plan to stay one for the foreseeable future. So I will continue to do my job of watching Microsoft from the Right Coast, in NYC. But you might see me in the Building 10 cafeteria; some folks report that they’ve seen me flipping burgers there in the guise of a line cook&nbsp;:). Truth or urban legend? I take the fifth. <P><STRONG>RWM:</STRONG> What is your favorite memory of covering Microsoft the last 11 years?<BR><STRONG>MJF:</STRONG> The day that Windows 95 was released to manufacturing is my favorite memory. Back in the stone age in 1995, the Web wasn’t the main place to break a tech news story. That still happened in print. Leading up to Windows 95, my job with PCWeek was to write one story every week -- for almost a full year – about the latest happenings with “Chicago,” a k a Windows 95. The day that product RTM’d, I felt a big relief (since I had just finished a print story claiming Microsoft had RTM’d the product – without Microsoft confirming that fact). I also felt a big sense of accomplishment, in that I had been able to bring readers the blow-by-blow story about Windows 95 through a big part of the development process. (Remember: This was in the pre-transparency, pre-pro-blogging era at Microsoft.) <P><STRONG>RWM:</STRONG>&nbsp;Least favorite?<BR><STRONG>MJF:</STRONG> I’d have to say being blacklisted by Microsoft for writing a story based on an internal memo penned by Mark Lucovsky (now with Google, ironically) that acknowledged 63,000 bugs were still left in Windows 2000 when the product shipped. I was barred from executive interviews at the Windows 2000 launch as a result of my story. My “punishment” lasted for a few years. Certain Windows execs refused to speak to me or meet with me for ages because of that story. I believed, and still believe, that I was just doing my job as a reporter. <P><STRONG>RWM:</STRONG> Why are you sticking with covering Microsoft? There are so many other companies doing cool things… isn’t Microsoft on its way out? <BR><STRONG>MJF:</STRONG> There still is no other company in the tech space, IMHO, that matters as much as Microsoft. Because of its position in operating systems, Microsoft’s strategies and policies affect nearly every hardware, software and services company in this business. And with Microsoft slowly but surely diversifying, I believe the company will continue to play a big role in a variety of markets for quite some time. It would take a really big screw-up on Microsoft’s part in the order for the company to cease mattering. <P><STRONG>RWM:</STRONG> What do you see as Microsoft’s biggest challenge in 2007?<BR><STRONG>MJF:</STRONG> Microsoft needs to convince users that Vista and Office are worth upgrading to. That could be an uphill battle, given the skepticism that currently prevails regarding the stability of Vista, and the extent to which both of these products represent compelling upgrades over their existing counterparts. Microsoft is going to need to prove that Vista and Office 2007 are as good as the hype. <P><STRONG>RWM:</STRONG> What can we expect to see from you now?<BR><STRONG>MJF:</STRONG> On my new blog, <A href=""></A>, you can expect to see lots of Microsoft news, rumors, tips and pointers to the most interesting Microsoft stories of the day from all around the Web. I also have some other interesting new projects in the works, so stay tuned :).</P><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="" width="1" height="1">CommunityInterviewsJournalists