Browsed by
Category: enterprise

Why is software licensing so complicated?

Why is software licensing so complicated?

I’ve worked around Microsoft licensing for almost 7 years at my current employer, but even when I was doing Web development back in the 1990’s, Microsoft’s licensing —particularly for SQL Server—was infamous for its complexity, or at least for how hard it was for someone new to the realm to wrap their head around. The more things change, the more they stay the same; Microsoft is still (in)famous for the complexity of their enterprise software licensing rules. I compiled a…

Read More Read More

Mobile devices or cloud as a solution to the enterprise security pandemic? Half right.

Mobile devices or cloud as a solution to the enterprise security pandemic? Half right.

This is a response to Steven Sinofsky’s blog post, “Why Sony’s Breach Matters”. While I agree with parts of his thesis – the parts about layers of complexity leaving us where we are, and secured, legacy-free mobile OS’s helping alleviate this on the client side, I’m not sure I agree with his points about the cloud being a path forward – at least in any near term, or to the degree of precision he alludes to. The bad news is that…

Read More Read More

It is past time to stop the rash of retail credit card “breaches”

It is past time to stop the rash of retail credit card “breaches”

When you go shopping at Home Depot or Lowe’s, there are often tall ladders, saws, key cutters, and forklifts around the shopping floor. As a general rule, most of these tools aren’t for your use at all. You’re supposed to call over an employee if you need any of these tools to be used. Why? Because of risk and liability, of course. You aren’t trained to use these tools, and the insurance that the company holds would never cover their…

Read More Read More

On peanut butter and chocolate and APIs…

On peanut butter and chocolate and APIs…

A friend recently posted a link to this blog. It’s an interesting read about where you should focus when building your app; should you have one app for each platform, or an API that goes as high up as possible into each platform? In particular, he quotes the expression, “the API is the asset, the UI is simply throwaway”. I get the point he’s trying to say. Platforms come and go – but an API should be designed to be durable….

Read More Read More

Windows desktop apps through an iPad? You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!

Windows desktop apps through an iPad? You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!

I ran across a piece yesterday discussing one hospital’s lack of success with iPads and BYOD. My curiosity piqued, I examined the piece looking for where the project failed. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, it seemed that it fell apart not on the iPad, and not with their legacy application, but in the symphony (or more realistically the cacaphony) of the two together. I can’t be certain that the hospital’s solution is using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Remote Desktop (RD,…

Read More Read More

iPhone Security

iPhone Security

I like opening with that subject – because it’s two words that Apple seems to never want to see next to each other. On Slashdot today, an article covered my friends from F-Secure discussing the barriers that are precluding the antivirus industry from making inroads in protecting iPhones from malware. Indeed, they are correct, you cannot build A/V into the iPhone platform – the API is explicitly designed to forbid that. However, I have to counterpoint. I mentioned in a…

Read More Read More