Microsoft tries to allay enterprise fears about Windows Phone 7

On Computerworld, By Matt Hamblen.

LAS VEGAS - Some users of Microsoft's Windows Phone Series 7 will face a major hurdle when the mobile OS appears in devices during the 2010 holiday season -- it isn't backwards compatible with Windows Mobile 6.5 and earlier versions.

Microsoft may not view the lack of compatibility as a hurdle because it is looking for the new software to take it in a drastically new direction. However, enterprise adopters of earlier Windows Mobile might see things differently.

To its credit, Microsoft will allay some enterprise fears with its promise to support Windows Mobile 6.5 for a long time. Michael Chang, the senior product manager on Windows Phone 7, yesterday reiterated earlier vows made by CEO Steve Ballmer and others to keep on supporting Windows Mobile 6.5.

We will continue to support, ship and sell 6.5, Chang said in an interview at the CTIA Wireless conference. Windows Phone 7 is a departure and a break at a code level. Doing so wasn't an easy decision. It's a tough decision to move away from a platform like Windows Mobile, but one we were willing to make.

Ballmer has said Microsoft screwed up on Windows Mobile, and the company apparently hopes that the new Windows Phone 7 can help restore Microsoft's slipping share of the mobile operating systems market.

Asked whether Ballmer is pushing the Windows Phone 7 team to attain specific market share numbers, Chang said, not publicly.

Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices at AT&T, said that his company is looking forward to having Windows Phone 7 devices use its network. Other major U.S. carriers have endorsed the Microsoft OS as well.

Windows Mobile has become the enterprise standard OS for certain vertical segments," Bradley said in an interview. However, he added, "it has fallen back. But give Microsoft credit. They've taken 6.5 and made a break for something new. They've raised the bar substantially with Windows Phone 7.

Bradley noted that Microsoft's move to develop a Windows Phone 7 interface that's similar to its Zune digital media player likely won't be an allure to many users. Zune has not been widely adopted, he noted.

Even so, Bradley said he expects that Windows Phone 7 will have a browser that is very, very comparable to any smartphone on the market.

Chang said that while Microsoft expects to offer a rich multimedia experience on Windows Phone 7 devices, the OS initially won't include Adobe Flash player. We won't support Flash at general availability, although we do have a very deep relationship with Adobe, he said.

Chang said that adding consumer friendly features like multimedia support and rich browsing to its mobile operating system doesn't mean that Microsoft will abandon its place as a supplier of enterprise handhelds, including some rugged ones.

We think of this OS as an extension & of our scope, Chang said. I wouldn't say we are building a consumer phone at the expense of our heritage work productivity. We are taking that and adding to it features that include entertainment and a focus on a new experience. Windows Mobile was all about productivity, but we had relied on someone else to deliver a great experience. Not anymore.

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'Midori' concepts materialize in .NET

By David Worthington

Some of Microsoft’s latest technologies could be green shoots on a migration toward its "Midori" operating system, according to analysts who are familiar with the project.

Recent additions to the .NET Framework adhere to the concurrent programming principles outlined in the Midori documents that SD Times viewed in 2008. Silverlight and the Windows Azure platform could also be complementary to a potential release of Midori, the analysts said.

Midori is a technology incubation project that was born out of Microsoft Research’s (MSR) Singularity operating system, the tools and libraries of which are completely managed code.

Microsoft has designed Midori to be Internet-centric with an emphasis on distributed concurrent systems. It also introduces a new security model that sandboxes applications.

"Midori is an attempt to create a new foundation for the operating system that runs ‘inside the box,’ on the desktop and in the rack. As such, it's willing to break with compatibility (or at least wall off compatibility to a virtual machine)," explained Larry O’Brien, a private consultant and author of the "Windows & .NET Watch" column for SD Times.

Microsoft may be laying a foundation for Midori in its existing development stack through languages and Silverlight as a runtime, O’Brien said. Microsoft Research is also increasingly focused on reasoning about concurrent programs, he added.

These major architectural transitions require developers to make a “conceptual leap” to a new model of programming, and to relearn how to program in an efficient manner, said Forrester Research principal analyst Jeffrey Hammond.

"We're seeing a gulf opening up right now between serial and parallel programming; only a small minority of rocket-scientist types can actually write code that works effectively in a parallel, multicore world,” Hammond added. “I think it's pretty clear that Midori is on the other side of that scale-out gulf. From a development point of view, those that can make the leap solidify their skills and employment opportunities for the next decade and beyond."

When asked whether there were any new developments in the Midori project, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "Microsoft is always thinking about and exploring innovative ways for people to use technology. Midori is one of many incubation projects under way at Microsoft."

Green shoots

Microsoft's F# programming language, which will ship this month with Visual Studio 2010, "hugely fits" the Midori programming model that was outlined in Microsoft’s documents, O’Brien said. F# is designed with restrictions that are intended to make it easier for developers to automatically parallelize applications, he explained.

For instance, F# is highly immutable—meaning that object states cannot be modified once created—and has an implicit type system. Midori requires developers to follow a similarly constrained model.

"Immutable variables are pretty much the opposite of how most programmers think about variables ('A variable that doesn't vary?'). So just a few years ago, the idea that functional programming was going to catch on seemed very dubious, and it was very surprising that F# became a first-class language so quickly," O'Brien wrote in an e-mail.

"Similarly, immutability and strong typing make it easier to reason about security," he added.

O'Brien questioned whether F# would become a more prominent language, or if Microsoft would evolve C# to have more of the same constructs that support automatic parallelization.

Automatic parallelization was a "big question mark" in Microsoft's Midori documents, he said. "One thing I've been noticing is that MSR is producing tons of stuff on reasoning about concurrent programs, exploiting latent parallelism ‘automatically.’ "

Microsoft must evolve the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime further to fully exploit the advantages of functional programming, O'Brien said.

Microsoft also has rapidly developed its Silverlight runtime. The Midori programming model includes Bartok, an MSR project that endeavored to create a lightweight compiled and managed runtime system that was more efficient than the .NET Framework.

"There's no question that Microsoft is seeing Silverlight as the lightweight platform for delivering applications (Web-based and mobile). As far as Midori and [Windows] Azure go, what I can see is that a Silverlight front end is a good front end for an Azure-powered back-end system," O'Brien said.

An Azure tie-in?

It would make sense for Microsoft to use the Azure platform as a vehicle for introducing Midori, Forrester's Hammond said. "It's essentially a .NET-centric (and Internet-centric) scale-out runtime.

"A distributed network-aware OS is the perfect thing to host in the cloud, and what better place to knock out the kinks than your own data center, where you have 100% control over the hardware and infrastructure you're testing on? This also allows them to test it underneath parts of the overall infrastructure: for example, hosting an individual service," Hammond explained.

Further, Microsoft is battling for new territory—distributed applications—with the Windows Azure platform, O'Brien said. As such, the platform has little legacy codebase, as well as ample funding in money and talent, along with new challenges, he added.

"While I don't think that we know if Midori would work as something fed ‘down the pipe’ to the consumer, the idea that Azure might ultimately benefit from its own operating system is definitely worthy of debate," O'Brien said.

O'Brien said that Microsoft might launch Midori as a new operating system for cloud data centers to up the ante against Google, which has developed new programming languages for writing distributed applications.

Midori's strong emphasis on concurrency issues, a willingness to break compatibility, and the idea of using a hypervisor "as a kind of Meta-OS" would fit that strategy, O'Brien observed. However, he noted that there is no concrete knowledge about the state of Midori or even that its design is necessarily attractive for a data center OS.

Microsoft does not have the lead in cloud computing, and it is rolling out new features for the Windows Azure platform to stay competitive with Amazon and Google, O'Brien noted. "At this stage, Microsoft cannot build Azure bottom-up. But the risks of retrofitting Azure to a new OS are vastly less than the unknowns of putting a new OS onto all the world's hardware."

The status of Midori

While the company has remained tightlipped, some information relating to the status of the project has become available. Midori team member Jonathan Shapiro departed Microsoft in March, citing personal reasons.

Microsoft recruited Shapiro from the BitC language and Coyotos operating system projects to work on Midori. He served on a team of high-profile programmers reportedly led by Microsoft senior vice president of technical strategy Eric Ru

dder.

Whether Rudder's focus has shifted away from Midori onto other projects in unknown. He recently presented at TechEd Dubai in early March on the topic of Microsoft's "three-screens-and-a-cloud" software-plus-services strategy for .NET.

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Microsoft Readies Its Cloud CRM Apps For Global Markets

By Rick Whiting, on ChannelWeb

Microsoft is going global with its on-demand CRM application.

In the second half of the year, Microsoft will make Dynamics CRM Online software available in 32 new markets, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK.

Until now Dynamics CRM Online has been available only in the US and Canada. The service competes head-to-head with cloud-computing CRM applications from Salesforce.com, Net Suite, SAP and Oracle.

“We're seeing tremendous momentum around our Dynamics CRM product,” said Stephen Elop, President and Microsoft Business Division. Sales of Dynamics CRM, online and on-premise combined, grew 40 percent in fiscal 2009, he said.

Dynamics CRM has about 22,000 customers and about 1.1 million users today. More than 1,000 customers subscribe to Dynamics CRM Online, ranging from businesses with five seats to several with 500 or more seats, said Brad Wilson, General Manager, Dynamics CRM, Microsoft, in an interview. Dynamics CRM Online, which shares the same code base as the on-premise version, has been available for about two years.

Earlier this year, Microsoft added Dynamics CRM Online to its list of products that can be sold under an enterprise agreement license. "So we expect to see some healthy growth in our seat-count for CRM Online," Wilson said.

Microsoft also said this week that it's offering its Dynamics GP customers a Dynamics CRM Online subscription for $19 per user per month

About 4,000 Microsoft channel partners work with Dynamics CRM. Kirill Tatarinov, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Business Solutions, sees opportunities to capture customers and channel partners of competing vendors whose CRM products have are difficult to work with. "We're seeing a phenomenal amount of CRM shelf ware," he said in a press conference.

Wilson said solution providers who work with Dynamics CRM Online include resellers of the on-premise product who want to add an online component to their offerings, partners who sell other Microsoft products such as Exchange and SharePoint and want to add CRM applications to their product lineup, and startups building new businesses around Software-as-a-Service. Most focus on developing value-added services around the on-demand application.

The timetable for availability in specific countries hinges on working out operational issues such as establishing payment and local tax collection processes. Wilson said Microsoft is currently recruiting channel partners in each market to help sell the service.

Microsoft also unveiled the May 2010 service update for Dynamics CRM Online, which offers new development tools for building connections to other on-demand and on-premise applications. It also provides a framework for integrating Dynamics CRM Online with Microsoft's Dynamics GP ERP application set, and new portal accelerators that businesses use to extend CRM functions such as partner relationship management and event management to external constituents.

The new release of Dynamics CRM Online also helps set the stage for its international expansion by providing multi-language support for North American customers with departments or international operations with French, Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese language requirements.

Microsoft also said that starting August 1, 2010, it would ship a version of its Dynamics AX software, Dynamics AX for Retail, for specialty retailers. The application will provide links between point-of-sale devices such as cash registers to back-end ERP systems.

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Oracle-AMD Acquisition Speculation Flares Once Again

By Zewde Yeraswork, CRN

Dirk Meyer, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has denied rumors that Oracle may look to acquire AMD.

"AMD is not for sale, but we are happy to listen to any proposal which is in the interest of our shareholders," Meyer said at an industry conference in Barcelona, as reported by Reuters.

The speculation was sparked by comments Oracle CEO Larry Ellison made last month at Oracle's annual financial analyst meeting, in which he said Oracle could soon acquire a chip company in addition to software acquisitions.

But at the Oracle annual stockholders' conference earlier this week, Ellison reiterated his interest in acquiring additional semiconductor and software companies, more so than new service offerings.

"My point really was that we are interested in buying intellectual property of all kinds," Ellison said, as reported by The Wall Street Journal . "We would be interested in certain kinds of semiconductor companies and software companies. Most of our acquisitions and the bulk of our strategy are in creating and acquiring intellectual property, including chips."

By acquiring AMD, Oracle would gain access to the chip company's IP portfolio, adding hardware to its software acquisitions and moving closer to end-to-end control of the entire IT stack.

Oracle couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. An AMD spokesperson offered the following comment to CRN: "As a matter of policy, AMD does not comment on speculations or rumors, but I can confirm that AMD is not for sale."

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BSIMM crafts model for building in software security

By David Rubinstein

With the sample size of participating companies having tripled in one year, the folks behind the Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) have found that most have an internal group responsible for security, and that 15 activities to ensure security are almost universally done.

The BSIMM project began in March 2009 as a joint effort between Cigital and Fortify Software to record what organizations are doing to build security into their software and organizations. Starting with input from nine companies, the number of participating organizations has grown to 30, according to Gary McGraw, CTO at security consulting firm Cigital. He said the larger sample size allowed the group to statistically validate the model, and that the levels for measuring security are sound.

McGraw explained that the BSIMM team observed 109 activities that the 30 organizations do to secure their software, and those activities are broken down into 12 “large-scale conceptual buckets,” he said, such as training or code review. Then the activities within those buckets are further divided into three levels: The things that most of the organizations do are at the first level, while level 3 is for “the rocket science, things that are rarely done but are very cool,” he added.

Organizations can download BSIMM2 to compare their own activities to what other groups are doing and plan their security strategy going forward, explained Brian Chess, cofounder and chief scientist at Fortify Software, which makes vulnerability detection software and provides security services.

Chess said that the companies studied all do good hosting and network security. “They all have firewalls, that’s no great revelation,” he said. “But there are 14 other activities that almost all the companies universally do.”

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Microsoft Rides Windows 7 To Another Solid Quarter

By Kevin McLaughlin, ChannelWeb

Microsoft didn't do badly in its fiscal 2010 third quarter, certainly a lot better than it did in last year's Q3 when it reported the first quarterly revenue decline in company history. But in the eyes of investors at least, Microsoft's results were less than stellar.

As expected, Microsoft's results were buoyed by Windows 7. The Windows and Windows Live division reported revenue of $4.4 billion, up 28 percent from the $3.4 billion it reported in last year's quarter. Given the Microsoft's OEM channel accounts for about 80 percent of total Windows revenue, this jump is linked to sales of new PCs.

"Business customers are beginning to refresh their desktops and the momentum of Windows 7 continues to be strong," Kevin Turner, COO, Microsoft, said in a statement.

For the quarter ended March 31, Microsoft's net income rose 35 percent to $4.01 billion, or 45 cents per share, compared to $2.98 billion and 33 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Overall revenue during the quarter was $14.5 billion, up six percent from the $13.6 billion the company pulled in during the year-ago quarter.

Despite the strong numbers, Microsoft investors were apparently not satisfied, as Microsoft shares were trading down 40 cents at $30.98 in after-hours trading.

Microsoft's Server and Tools division revenue was $3.5 billion, up two percent from last year, while Microsoft Business Division revenue dropped six percent to $4.2 billion during the quarter, which the company attributed to $305 million in deferred revenue for its Office technology guarantee program, which allows customers that buy Office 2007 in advance of the Office 2010 launch to upgrade to the new version.

Online Services division revenue grew 12 percent to $566 million due to a 19 percent jump in online advertising revenue, according to Microsoft. This number includes a $154 million charge for transition expenses stemming from Microsoft's search partnership with Yahoo. Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division revenue was up slightly at $1.66 billion.

"Windows 7 continues to be a growth engine, but we also saw strong growth in other areas like Bing search, Xbox LIVE and our emerging cloud services," said Peter Klein, CFO, Microsoft, in a statement.

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Symbian opens up developer tools for Web platforms

From SDTimes, By Katie Serignese

To open its platform to a wider pool of developers, particularly Web developers, Symbian announced in late April the availability of its new Web application development tools.

The open-source tools are built on top of the Eclipse JavaScript Debug Toolkit project and add mobile-specific capabilities to enable the transition from desktop development to mobile development. The capabilities include mobile application previewing, debugging, project creation and mobile API support.

With these new tools, any Web developer can apply existing skills in CSS, HTML and JavaScript to create an application for the open-source mobile platform, Symbian 3.

The non-profit organization took this approach to ease the creation of apps and widen the pool of developers for them, said Larry Berkin, head of global alliances at Symbian. He also noted that there are a lot more Web developers out there than native developers.

Despite still being the most widely used operating system in terms of the sheer numbers of phones using it, Symbian has fallen behind in popularity since the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating systems, said Theresa Lanowitz, CEO of technology analyst firm Voke.

Lanowitz added, however, that she thought “[Symbian] always had a good road map” as far as development, but it lacks a connection with customers.

Another way Symbian is trying to tap into the reservoir of Web developers is by offering JavaScript APIs as a way to create more-robust applications. This will give developers a means to create more-capable applications with access to contacts, an accelerometer, a GPS and a camera, among other features.

The tools can be used on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows operating systems, and will supplement the Nokia-owned Qt framework that already supports application development for the Symbian 3 platform.

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