In this article, the analysts give recommendations Microsoft should follow to prevent collapsing of Windows. That’s interesting to see that some of their recommendations reaches some of my wishes stated in this post.

I’ve been using many Linux distributions (mainly Ubuntu) for over a year now and I’m getting more and more familiar with them. With the acquisition of a little NAS I have restructured my network and my home server. I took the opportunity to rebuild everything from scratch and now my server is running Ubuntu Server and my Windows Server is now a virtual machine. Nice but, what’s the relation with the title of the article? Well I could have done it using VMWare Server on a Windows host but I chose Ubuntu Server because its faster on my hardware. The longer Microsoft will take to answer market needs, the more irreversible market shares the competition will take. That ain’t bad since good competition brings innovation.

ScottGu’s blog contains a nice post (again) about the upcoming Silverlight 2 with a sample application plus tutorial to demonstrate the concepts behind the product.

People are wondering if Silverlight is going to raise or die. In my opinion it will depend on the general acceptance by the developers and how big is the learning curve… I think it has a chance to stand up if Microsoft delivers what it says:

We will ship Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio tool support that enables great developer / designer workflow and integration when building Silverlight solutions.

Here is the link to ScottGu’s blog article

Where I’m currently working, we’re using WSS 3.0. We have a need for a workflow so I started evaluating if the offer answer our needs.

First of all, let’s try the workflows available in the web interface. I discovered that we only have the 3-state workflow template available… If we want more, we need the full-price edition of Sharepoint 2007. But still, we don’t know if the additional templates will answer our needs…

It turns out that we can create custom workflow using Sharepoint Designer, so lets download a trial edition to see if it does what we want. After being forced to register on Microsoft website under what they call “MSDN Evaluation Experience”, I receive an e-mail that states it is the first of a series of e-mail that will provide me technical resources… and that I should receive another e-mail with the download instructions within 2 to 8 hours!!! WHAT???

Well I later received an e-mail containing the link and the trial key. Now let’s try Sharepoint Designer. How do we create a new workflow?? ok a little google search revealed the task is as as simple as click “File / New / Workflow” . Good, let’s go! hum! File menu is disabled… DAMN!

Sharepoint Designer 2007 Trial is features limited!!! Not time limited as Microsoft project usually are. Then how do I test before buying? Why it was not stated anywhere? I lost my time registering an waiting for that download link for nothing!

All this to say that I’m missing the good old days… When Microsoft were making their applications easily available to developers so they can learn it. That’s how they got where they are in the first place. A developer will never promote a product he doesn’t know. Yes they are dealing with piracy issues, but still, as an observer I feel that they are exaggerating…

Funny: The “Windows Genuine Validation Tool” recognized Linux Ubuntu as a Genuine Windows installation:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=475709

It is probably not easy to build a tool that would be able to perform this Genuine validation and be 100% accurate, and that makes me wonder if it is worth it.

I’d like Microsoft to change its strategy, drop the genuine validation tool, Windows activation and other strategies that slow down machines and exist only for the sake of protecting Microsoft against piracy. I’d like Microsoft to go back to its old strategy… one OS for desktop. Combine all editions of Vista into a single one where you can choose to install packages (ex: aero, business tools, multimedia tools, etc.). All that at a decent price of 100-150$ per PC. To compensate for the lost, you may have less pirates willing to spend their time just to “fight” Microsoft strategies. That may not be enough, so since the price is low, I’d agree that Microsoft charges annual subscription fees for accessing the Windows Update site and allowing automatic updates. For those who wouldn’t sign-up, they should wait for the next service pack.

With its millions, I’d like Microsoft to work on what is worth it, enhance its operating system and increase security, stability and interoperability. Stop reworking user interface, end users need to learn it again and again, that’s not going to help increase user performance (and ROI)… We knew Microsoft Office menus and options, now we have to re-learn them in Office 2007.

It is not hard to find where Windows needs enhancements:

• Make the shell easy for administrators to script tasks
• Make it easy to work using reduced privileges
• Allow more desktop customization
• …

But doing all that would be listening to their users… not their investors…