Micosoft – Server OS maker par excellence

Microsoft gets a lot of flak for its many lame products. It’s difficult to decide which is the lamest of all. The Me too Windows Phone, the pathetic Bing or the “so NOT “ Microsoft Live? Or maybe the Windows desktop OS? Its on death row, its head neatly greased, and waits happily and patiently to be executed - even though it will take years. And Microsoft Office can now be DONE online, but cant DO online. It just waits. To be undone by time.

But behind all this doom and gloom shines Microsoft’s little lauded and often forgotten jewel – the Windows Server OS. Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 8 even more so, are the ultimate in server computing. Yes, if you want to run Apache with a PHP app (Wordpress), nothing beats Linux. But for everything else you need Windows Server. Windows Server is performant. Scaleable. Manageable. Programmable.

With terminal services you can virtualize desktops and apps. And its inbuilt virtualization makes it easy for administrators to run several machines on one server and easily configure redundancy and automated backup of not just apps but the whole OS. Windows Server makes it easy to go to the cloud, but allows you to decide to wait. Windows Server is THAT reliable and manageable you can hold on to your precious data a while longer. Share your data with Google or your hosting provider at some point in the future.

And Windows Server 8, already far ahead, lifts the bar even higher. Hyper-V is greatly improved. The internal switches between VMs can now be intelligently configured and traffic throttled or filtered. Hyper-V Replica can backup virtual machines automatically itself at intervals. And differentially. Put your server back in time with a few mouse clicks in case of emergency.

Storage for your servers can be virtualized and moved to other hardware with a few mouse clicks. You can move virtualized servers onto other servers - LIVE.

You can even send a LIVE VM to a remote host, thanks to network virtualization. Domain controllers can now also be virtualized and the Hyper V hypervisor will recognize domain controllers and deal with them intelligently avoiding conflicts.

And Windows Server management got easier too. Not just the management of a single server but of all your servers, including virtualized ones.

Windows Server 8 is cool. And it’s the future of Microsoft.

HTC Wildfire S frees me of iTunes

I recently bought an HTC Wildfire S and have been very impressed with the phone. The Android operating system is evolving rapidly, and in terms of usability its pretty close to an iPhone. But HTC Wildfire trumps the iPhone on several points:

1. It has a smaller form factor and is more durable.
2. Its half the price.
3. The operating system is more open allowing you to install your own apps.
4. I'd say the the text input keyboard on the HTC is better.
   
5. The HTC has speech recognition for text messages and mail which works really well.
6. You can rid yourself of the awful iTunes software!!

I have also been using 3CXphone on Android with the new tunnel feature connected to our 3CX Phone System. I can now use our company PBX from pretty much any hotspot in town. Easy and free…

Google buys Motorola and secures android market growth

Google just bought Motorola for 12,5 billion, and in my view this is a very good thing for the entire industry. The mobile device market has been growing at an amazing pace, and this largely because of the innovation that iPhone and Android based devices are delivering. In time, mobile devices powered by iPhone/iPads and Android devices will replace the traditional desktop and reshape the IT landscape. A whole host of new products and opportunities for IT vendors and resellers.

And this innovation and growth could only be blocked by one thing – the US patent system. Supposedly it protects innovators but it does exactly the opposite. Android already faced significant lawsuits which could deter device makers of using the platform. However, with Googles Motorola buy, Googles has a huge patent portfolio that can be used to defend itself against Apple and others. With google protecting Android and companies developing for Android, the market is suddenly a lot safer. And thus market growth and innovation has been secured. Heads up to Google!

Microsoft and Skype = Why?

I still can not see benefit for Microsoft. At least not a 8,5 billion benefit. OK so Skype is a big brand, has some decent infrastructure & technology and 660 million users. Thats all good. But most of those users are already Microsoft Users, running Windows. So its kinda like buying customers you already have. The infrastructure is decent, but linux based, and the technology cant be worth that much money.

Microsoft has become very communications focused, it would appear as Bill Gates and Steven Ballmer view this as the way forward for Microsoft. However Microsoft's core business, operating systems and productivity software (office) is under attack and needs to advance much more quickly for Microsoft to keep that business long term. iPads, Android tablets and soon GoogleChrome books are capturing significant market share and changing the way we interact with computers. The "desktop", as we know it, is fast becoming history. Its just too static and difficult to manage. So with the desktop being Microsoft's core business, I am sure Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates have some plan for Skype to push forward their Windows and Office products - but i am not getting it. How exactly?

Until now i have not read any convincing analysis or comments by Microsoft how Skype can really help Microsoft push forward. I would think a significant buy at the operating system or enterprise level would make more sense. Maybe Vmware, Citrix, or potentially invest in hardware vendors to make notebooks that are more integrated with Windows to be able to match a MacBook air or iPad.

Skype will of course help the Microsoft Lync product. However, Microsoft Lync is hardly a significant product for Microsoft. Not now and neither in the future. At the same time Microsoft is making it self into a telecom company, and of course telecom companies are going to be wary of this development and avoid Lync. VoIP providers worldwide would be silly to push interoperability with Lync, after all its likely that Microsoft will take their business sooner or later. And telecom companies still have considerable clout.

So, I remain skeptical of this purchase by Microsoft.

Website Defender - New online website security service

I’m proud to announce a completely new product from the Acunetix team - our new online website security service, WebsiteDefender. WebsiteDefender will protect your website from malware and hackers by scanning for security issues such as outdated or insecure Wordpress plug ins and by monitoring your website for suspicious activity.

WebsiteDefender is one of the first and definitely the most feature rich online website security service. Its built on the pioneering know how we gained whilst developing the market leading Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner software.

WebsiteDefender is not an online version of Acunetix. Whilst Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner is used to scan for security issues in web applications, WebsiteDefender scans and monitors a website, and checks for Malware, Insecure Wordpress plug ins, file changes, administrator credentials changes and so on. In that sense its more like “Website Intrusion Detection“.

WebsiteDefender goes live today as BETA. You can sign up for a free account here, or learn more here.

I look forward to hearing your feedback!

3CX Phone System V10 BETA available

Finally! 3CX Phone System v10 Beta 1 is out of the door. V10 is a major release, with an all new – Silverlight based – user portal, 3CX MyPhone. The new 3CX MyPhone replaces the 3CX Assistant and the old 3CX MyPhone portal. Everything is now grouped in one easy to use portal.

The new 3CX MyPhone is web based, but can be installed as a desktop application. In this mode it uses the browser in the background but allows the user to resize 3CX MyPhone to their preference, as well as launch it automatically. 3CX MyPhone should also run on Macs.

More information and download links here

Microsoft and Nokia to marry?

There is a rumour going around that Microsoft and Nokia are courting each other. A partnership would make perfect sense. Microsoft and Nokia are both loosing the battle for the Smartphone / Tablet market. Apple iPhone is the cream of the crop, with a far superior product. Android is rapidly gaining market share because it more or less does what iPhone does (without the finesse, style, and class) but at a much lower price tag. These top two are followed at a distance by Nokia and Microsoft. Nokia still has a name and significant market share. But its on death row with its hopeless Symbian Operating System. Its having its head shaved and soaped without making as much as a peep. Their Symbian OS has little developer support. In fact little support at all. But Nokia still has market share. Significant market share.

At the same time, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is too far behind and not significantly better enough to really bridge the gap to Apple and Android. It works, but that’s about it. That said, Microsoft has a significant developer community behind it. And developing for Windows Phone 7 is going to be easier for most developers then developing for Apple or Android. But there is no significant market.

Now take Microsoft Windows Phone 7 with its huge Microsoft developer community and marry that to a still powerful mobile brand name with still significant market share, and, hey presto, you have a serious contender. A serious number 3 that with the right moves could potentially do some damage. Sure, it might anger some of Microsoft’s hardware partners. But none of them are committed to Microsoft themselves? Samsung does it with anybody and messes with just about any OS, including its own self made ‘Bada’ OS. Surely a strong and loyal partnership with Nokia might be worth it for Microsoft.

Microsoft could buy Nokia, or it could simply ‘incentivize‘ them. Microsoft is still a huge cash machine, and sitting on a sickeningly large pile of cash. Steve Ballmer has been known to spend money on sillier things (Search and online ads for example). But who knows, maybe it doesnt even have to go that far.

I for one believe the Smartphone/tablet market is strategic to Microsoft. And one that it has ignored for a long time. Seeing the development of Microsoft share value in the last 12 years its not like the stock market is overly excited by Microsoft’s ‘Vision’.

So its really time for Steve Ballmer to do something. Crack open the wallet and spend where it matters….

3CXPhone for iPhone available via Appstore!

We finally released 3CXPhone for iPhone - the first free SIP VoIP Phone for iPhone that does not tie you to a particular PBX or VoIP provider.

It took us a while - iPhone development is not trivial and we also wanted to have a good first version. 3CXPhone for iPhone shines with its provisioning feature - users of 3CX Phone System can have the phone automatically configured without having to worry about SIP authentication IDs, SIP server details and so on. This is a great help for administrators and users.

3CXPhone for iPhone turns an iPhone 3, 3G or 4 into a great wireless deskphone alternative. We plan to add features that will make use of iPhones as extension phones within companies easier.

See the full press release here