Imagine I handed you a Twinkie (or your favorite shelf-stable food item), and asked you to hold on to it for almost 13 years, and then eat it. Aw, c’mon. Why the revulsion? It’s been hard for me to watch the excited countdown to the demise of Windows XP. Though I did help ship Windows Server 2003 as well, no one product (or service) that I’ve ever worked on became so popular, for so long – by any stretch of…
I recently read a blog post entitled DaaS is a Non-Starter, discussing how Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is, as the title says, a non-starter. I’ll have to admit, I agree. I’m a bit of a naysayer about DaaS, just as I have long been about VDI itself. In talking with a colleague the other day, as well as customers at a recent licensing boot camp, it sure seems like VDI, like “enterprise social” is a burger with a whole lot…
“As a lad he became expert as an amateur watchmaker. Disliking farm work because, “considering the results, there was too much work on the place,” he became an apprentice mechanic in Detroit, and repaired watches in a jewelry shop at night. He flirted with the idea of entering the watch manufacturing business on a large scale, “but I did not because I figured out that watches were not universal necessities.” His apprenticeship over, he served with the local representative of…
Late last week, some buzz began building that Apple, alongside automaker partners, would formally reveal the first results of their “iOS in the Car” initiative. Much as rumors had suspected, the end result, now dubbed CarPlay, was demonstrated (or at least shown in a promo video) by initial partners Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo. If you only have time to watch one of them, watch the video of the Ferrari. Though it is an ad-hoc demo, the Ferrari video isn’t painfully…
No Googling – that’s cheating. Tell me the executive (a former CEO) and the company. I’ve paraphrased a couple of parts that would give it away. “<he’s> been the primary architect of a failed transformation of <the company> from its core <redacted> heritage to some expansive consumer-centric organization, which we think employees, <partners>, and investors have found to varying degrees to be somewhat incomprehensible.” Answer key: The above is a redacted quote about Jacques Nasser, the ousted CEO of…
Yesterday on Twitter, I said the following: Suggestion… If you have an XP system that you ABSOLUTELY must run after April, I’d remove all JREs, as well as Acrobat Reader and Flash. This was inspired by an inquiry from a customer about Windows XP support that arrived earlier in the day. As a result of that tweet, three things have happened. Many people replied “unplug it from the network!” 1 Several people asked me why I suggested doing these steps. I’ve begun…
So today Google announced that they will pay US$3.2B for Nest Labs. Surely the intention here is to have the staff of Nest help Google with home automation, the larger Internet of Things (IoT) direction, and user interfaces. All three of these are, frankly, trouble spots for Google, and if they nurture the Nest team and let them thrive, it’ll be a good addition to Google. Otherwise, they will have wound up paying a premium to buy out a good company…
I hope these rumors are wrong, but for some odd reason, the Web is full of rumors that this year’s CES will bring a glut of bimodal tablets; devices that are designed to run Windows 8.1, but also feature an integrated instance of Android. But why? For years, Microsoft and Intel were seemingly the best of partners. While Microsoft had fleeting dalliances with other processor architectures, they always came back to Intel. There were clear lines in the sand; Intel…
It’s the season for predictions, so I thought I’d offer you my predictions about wearables in 2014. Wearables will continue to be nerd porn in 2014 (in other words, when you say “wearable devices”, most normal people will respond, “what?”) Many wearable devices will be proposed by vendors. Too many of those will actually make it to market. A few of those will be useful. A handful of those will be aesthetically pleasing. A minute number (possibly 0) of those…
I want you to think for a second about the key you use most. Whether it’s for your house, your apartment, your car, or your office, just think about it for a moment. Now, this key you’re thinking of is going to have a few basic properties. It consists of metal, has a blade extending out of it that has grooves along one or both sides, and either a single set of teeth cut into the bottom, or two sets…