Windows Vista

Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 released

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WVHA v2.0 was released earlier today.

Baldwin Ng, a Supremo (PM) on the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment team has details about this version here.

In my post here, I touched on the availability of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, a free tool from Microsoft that allows IT managers an incredibly detailed inventory of corporate (Windows) client computing assets, both hardware, and installed software.

Prior to the release of Windows Vista™, we at Logikworx had come up with a hardware baseline for delivering the Windows Vista Aero ‘Glass’ experience to client desktops. After validating that baseline, we then proceeded to inventory all (yes, all!) our clients’ companies’ computers, no small task, as it was spread over several hundred clients.

Well, you don’t have to do the same.

WVHA eliminates the manual labor associated with having to physically visit each computer, since hardware configuration might have changed from the date of delivery and/or initial install.

I have been testing the release (GOLD) version of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment for the past few days.

Read on at SmallBizVista.com
© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Lies, damn lies and utter speculation!

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A very insidious rumor making the rounds the past few days has been the speculation the reason Microsoft didn’t go through with a planned change easing the EULA restrictions on the Windows Vista™ Home editions on June 19 was as a result of some double-secret agreement with Apple.

Let us see: Microsoft would take extremely great pains to alienate a gazillion current and future users of Windows Vista™ Home edition just for a few Macs?

Are you kidding?

The essence of the rumor was that Microsoft, as a result of a deal with Apple to ship Macbooks (or whatever their lappers are called) with Windows on a Boot Camp’ed partition, removed it since Apple wanted the additional revenue from selling Windows Vista. The availability of Safari, iTunes, and a host of other Apple software products made such a supposition logical.

Logical, yes. But only if you live permanently in Steve Job's RDF*.

Again, are you kidding?

A billion monkeys, thumping away at a billion Selectric® keyboards, in a billion years could not come up with a rumor like this! They could come up with the screenplay for Battlefield Earth – which, incidentally, I think they did – but not this rumor.

Current folklore puts the OEM cost of Windows Vista at anywhere from $39.99 to $49.99 USD for Vista Home and Home Premium editions.

One of the strictures imposed on Microsoft in its antitrust settlement with the DOJ was a level pricing structure for all OEMs, eliminating the MFN* status of some companies.

Now, I know that Intel is sort of biting the hand that feeds it, in giving Apple certain chips that do not seem to be available to Dell, at least to this unconnected blogger. Nevertheless, I do not think, indeed, I know that Microsoft is not cut of that cloth.

So, to please Apple, which, BTW, sells a maximum of about 5 million systems per year total, Microsoft would stay the course, and deny benefits to current and prospective users of Windows Vista, not including the untold numbers, estimated at around 800 million systems running a form of Windows?

Are you still kidding me?

As a One-Man Microsoft Myth & Debunk Squad, I decided to rifle through Ye Olde Email Rolodex and try to get an answer from Redmondians.

I immediately ran into a skepticism buzz saw!

“Are you making this up?” I was asked?

I pointed out a few sites with rumors.

“Dude, that will never come to pass!” I was informed, “Not even if St. Jobs danced the Macarena in an MSN Butterfly suit at Pike Place Market!”

“Thank you”, I said, and punched out.

Another call to a well-connected source at 1, Microsoft Way, exploded with the same skeptical guffaw!

Conclusion:
Apple might be the next big thing, but only in the minds of the horde worshipping at the feet of Reverend Paulie.

Microsoft will never change, or not change its EULA to please Apple.

There you have it.

*RDF: Reality-Distortion Field. An invisible, yet tightly-controlled force field emanating from Steve Jobs, and capable of not only enveloping conference halls, arenas, and stadia, but is capable of being projected trans-continentally by Steve in order to put victims in a state of adoration and euphoria, distorting all reality.

*MFN: Most-Favored Nation or OEM. The institution of an extremely generous, albeit secret, pricing scheme for OEMs who decide to carry Microsoft products and technologies exclusively. This practice is not limited to Microsoft alone. It has been rumored that Intel, for years, paid MFN dues to Dell to the tune of $1 billion USD.

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Extra! Extra!! (Ultimate) Extra!!!

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Turns out, the reason why the Windows Ultimate team had been quite was that they were working on improving DreamScene and the 20 remaining language packs.

While it is refreshing to note that there has been work going on in the background, it must be the worst PR stance of all for the team to keep quiet.

For goodness sakes, the last entry in the Windows Ultimate Extras team blog, prior to today's announcement, was in, get this, February.

Yes, February 7th of 2007!

Are you freakin' kiddin' me?

For all who spent the vig to get the Ultimate, pun intended, Windows Vistatm version, this is all you guys could do?

For shame!

If you can read a memo or fishwrap daily, you can blog weekly.

At least, blog a placeholder weekly letting people know that there is movement on their prized purchase, and that they are not floundering in the proverbial wind.

How do you keep users excited and hold their attention without any information?

How?

Inform your constituency!

Period!

The following teams at Microsoft are also guilty of the same information drought:

  • Windows Live 'Orbit': last post April 12, 2007,
  • Windows Deepfish: last post, March 28, 2007

Get with it, guys!

From the Windows Vista Team Blog. Thanks, Nick.

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Windows Vista Family Discount Program ends soon

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2007-06-30 23.59.59

That is when the incredibly generous Windows Vista Family discount program goes bye-bye.

Nick White is reminding us, via the Windows Vista Team Blog, that the sunset clause inserted into this offer is set to expire oat 11.59 PM Pacific on June 30, 2007.

I cannot exhort you with any more vigor about taking advantage of this offer; all my friends and relatives with multiple home systems already have!

Go ahead, do it!

The sands are fallings......

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Is CRN trying to go the InfoWorld way?

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For a while now, CRN seems to have hopelessly lost its way.

Formerly required reading for VARs, solution providers, and (IT) industry luminaries, CRN, in the last few seems to have overindulged in the myth of open source, and totally forgot about their ultimate customers, the endusers.

Any reader of the magazine these past few years would have seen a transition from a glossy focused on resellers/solution providers delivering the best solutions, to one seemingly held hostage to that vocal minority of resellers hell bent on wringing the very last sum of money from unsuspecting clients in the name of services.

What brings this to mind?

A so-called study finding that Windows Vista ™ is no more secure than Windows XP™.

???

Are you freakin’ kiddin’ me?

I skimmed quickly through the article for the punchline, and or to find the methodology use to formulate those absurd assertions.

Nothing satisfactory.

Note: Looking at my feedreader, I see Ars Technica has already posted on the article.

Since they beat me to the punch with a pretty detailed article, I will keep still for a moment.

Still, you have to wonder who is minding the store there.

I wonder why executive management at the parent company does not put a smackdown on these yum-yums due to falling readership.

Brings me back to the headline question:

"Will CRN become the next Infoworld?"

And fade into irrelevancy?

What a shame!

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Open source envy over 235 violated Microsoft patents

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In my NetworkWorld.com post here, I repeated Microsoft’s position that free and open source and Linux (hereinafter referred to as foux) infringes on no less than 235 Microsoft patents.

The open source crowd's invidiousness over Microsoft's patents, and indeed, it's (Microsoft's) entire IP portfolio and good fortune reached a defeaning crescendo this past week, with everyone and their shadows weighing in.

A little backgrounder:

In the May 14, 2007 issue of Fortune magazine, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, and licensing chief, Horacio Gutierrez informs users about the exact number of patents that are being infringed upon by the foux crowd.

Read on at NetworkWorld.com

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Presenting....Silverlight!

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WPF/E has now been christened 'Silverlight', a new technology for creating 'Rich Interactive Applications'.

Announced by Microsoft today at the NAB confab in Las Vegas, Silverlight, which is more than just Flash, will do, actually, I'll let Darryl K Taft break it down:

Silverlight is based on the .Net Framework and enables developers and designers to use their existing skills to deliver media experiences and RIAs—which Microsoft refers to as "rich interactive applications" as opposed to "rich Internet applications"—for the Web with role-specific tools: Expression Studio for designers and Visual Studio for developers.

More in his article here.

As usual, Mary Jo Foley has some thoughts, and Robert McLaws chimes in too.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

The HP tx1000 Review

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I have been reviewing the new HP tx1000 Tablet PC.

I reviewed the HP tx1000 in three phases: as an entertainment Tablet PC, as a mobile information worker’s replacement laptop, and as a Tablet PC replacement for the Acer C100 Tablet PCs that are currently placed at client healthcare providers’ offices that are at the end of their operational life.

Unboxing and looks

In the box was the tx1000, a remote control, an additional battery, and two sets of stereo earbud-style headphones.

The sleek, black tx1000 is a very welcome departure in design from the normally utilitarian looks of Tablet PCs and notebooks, apart from the Ferrari series of notebooks from Acer.

This unit has quite a few little design elements that speak to the desirability of the unit. The touchpad, for instance, is of an entirely new design, and the most comfortable I have ever used. It also comes with an integrated fingerprint reader, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, dual microphones built into the lid, and dual headphone jacks, for the included headphones. The stylus has a lanyard for securing it to the system. Going further along with the entertainment theme, the tx1000’s stereo speakers are located on the lid, allowing the user the full benefit of the speakers even when the unit is in slate mode. A dual-layer LightScribe 8X DVD drive completes the package. An added vig is the remote control.

The system also has a plethora of I/O ports, from three (3) USB ports, Ethernet, modem, external monitor, S-Video, ExpressCard, and a 5-in-1 memory card reader.

Configuration & Performance

Configuration

The tx1000 has both 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in. In fact, it has a very nifty switch built into the system that allows you to enable/disable wireless connectivity on the fly!

This system came with a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher (why?) and Microsoft Works (again, why?). A 6-day Norton Internet Security 2006 package was also in the box (why, why, why???).

I promptly discarded the Norton, AOL, Works, and Office 2003 software, RealRhapsody.

I then installed the Logikworx Standard Desktop Suite 2007.

Performance

The tx1000 is based on the speedy dual-core AMD Turion TL-60 CPU running at 2.0 GHz and an NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 with 128MB.

This system has a Performance Index of 3.0 and more than that, feels pretty fast, for a compact Tablet PC.

Testing

Suitability to task 1: Default configuration (almost) aka Entertainment Tablet PC

As an entertainment PC, the tx1000, out-of-the box (OOB), has a range of multimedia software included, such as Muvee AutoProducer DVD edition, and Sonic Digital Media Plus.

The system just rocked. The IR remote control allowed me to make the most of it and the speakers were quite loud, even in a crowded airport. Using the headphone was another plus, as I was able to get two test subjects (John-III & Trevor) to quietly watch Callou, Bob the Builder, and other content quietly…..

Suitability to task 2: Mobile Information Worker’s Tablet PC

In this test, I tested the suitability of the tx1000 to the task of being the primary workstation of a mobile information worker, such as insurance agents, real estate agents/brokers, or a drug manufacturer’s representative.

I completely wiped the system and performed a clean install of Windows Vista Business and the Logikworx Standard Business Desktop 2007*……

Suitability to task 3: Healthcare Provider’s Tablet PC

I made the tx1000 into a dual-boot system by installing both Windows XP and Windows Vista™, since some of the target PM software required Windows XP. In the Vista™ partition, I tested the tx1000 using the two most common PM and electronic medical records (EMR) software suites among our clients in both a direct install, and running in a Windows XP Virtual machine…… (Please see notes below for information on Windows XP on the tx1000)

Conclusion

HP has a winner here.

In the tx1000, HP has a Tablet PC with an impressive feature list and at a price point that is easily palatable to most users, small businesses, and enterprises. It is compact, powerful, relatively-inexpensive, and durable enough to be used daily.

Apart from the relatively short orientation for the passive display, I found it to be a very capable machine. In fact, compared to our reference Toshiba Tecra M7, which cost over $1,000 USD more than the tx1000 in a virtually similar configuration, the tx1000 more than held its own.

It is in this vein that we are awarding it the SmallBizVista.com Preferred award, and making it the recommended Tablet PC for all our customers.

In closing, I would like to thank HP, and AMD for the opportunity to I got to review this desirable unit. My only negative feeling about is the fact that the tx1000 has to go back. Sob, sob……

The full SmallBizVista.com tx1000 review is here.

*The Logikworx Standard Business Desktop 2007 consists of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional, Microsoft Office OneNote, Microsoft Windows Defender, Microsoft Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft Expression Web Designer, Paint.NET, Spybot Search & Destroy, v1.4, ahead Nero v7.8, Microsoft Tablet PC PowerToys, and InterVideo WinDVD v8.

The HP tx1000 is a Windows Vista-only system and is available with either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows Vista ONLY.

My installation of Windows XP was for demonstration purposes ONLY.

Windows XP is an unsupported configuration for the HP tx1000.

If you downgrade to Windows XP, you will do so at your own risk, and your system may either cease to function, or lose functionality.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) will NOT support you or your system in this configuration.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

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© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Adobe CS3

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What a ripoff!

When Adobe came out with that amazingly stupid statement about not patching currently shipping software for Vista, tell me, who didn't see this ripoff coming?

Who?

Now that the other shoe has hit the jaw, I hope the herd decides very carefully where to invest their coins of the realm next time.

A$$wipes!

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Windows Live on Lenovo systems

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They have seen the Light Live!

Lenovo, the #3 PC manufacturer, has inked a deal with Microsoft to ship its systems with the Windows Live Toolbar, and Live.com as the start page of all systems.

The move for Lenovo to Live.com from the former sparse page will allow for greater customization of the start page by Lenovo, and their customers.

Live.com, for the 3 people on Terra who do not know, allows an infinite number of customization options including gadgets, RSS feeds, and mail.

I also see deals of this sort help the fortunes of other Live properties, which is 'A Good Thing', since I consume virtually all of the Windows Live products on a daily basis, including but not limited to Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail Desktop, Windows Live writer, Windows Live QnA, Windows Live Expo, etc.

This is a big blow to those those search philistines who owned the space with this vendor before.

Congratulations to the Bruce Kasrel and the Windows Live team for this very auspicious start to the hopeful flood of similar deals.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Redeem your Vista Express upgrades soon!

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Thanks to a post by Ed Bott, I just remembered that I had a Vista Express Upgrade due me from Toshiba for the Tecra *M7.

That offer is due to expire at the end of this month.

I immediately sent out emails to clients I know purchased personal systems during the period of time in the offer was in place, and will be sending out spam an email blast to all contacts later today to remind them of the impending expiration date.

BTW, I also redeemed my Vista Express upgrade, to Vista Business Edition from XP Tablet PC Edition, and I am awaiting the media, which costs $10+coins delivered.

Thanks Ed.

*I ordered the dual-core Tablet PC on December 19, 2006 and it didn't get delivered until January 8, 2007. Yeah, shame on them.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Lost emails at the CEO-level

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How will 2007 shape up for Intel?

While developing his thesis on Vista migration, Intel's CEO apparently forgot to save emails as required for the current lawyerfest called AMD vs Intel.

Hopefully, this will not snowball.

Then again, why not?

For someone like me who thought his dissertation was at best imbecilic, it was 他人の不幸は蜜の味

Translation: tanin no fukou wa mitsu no aji

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Intel CEO: We'll wait for Vista SP1

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That has got to be the most stupid statement coming from the piehole of a Fortune 500 CEO for a long while!

Also, from Intel?

For a company which is supposed to be this great company, now you know why they stumbled that greatly and for so long, Dell notwithstanding.

Wait for Vista SP1?

Still a lot of media ho's carried the news, treating is a some sort of validation of their position.

I'm afraid not only is the point missed, but the stupidity of Otellini's statement is missed as well.

Is this the way you treat your best software partner? Does this yum-yum think that the 4% Linux, and 3% OS X market share can take him there? Forgot, AMD had the greater Linix market share as well.

Robert McLaws, of Windows-Now.com, skillfully dissects the Intel position in a rejoinder to Otellini's moronic statement, and provides the text of a memo from AMD Executive VP Henri Richard exhorting his troops to move to Vista post haste.

For goodness sakes, if Robert, myself, and several thousand other people could have had over 2 years to test Vista, where were the yobs at Intel whose CPUs were targeted by Vista as well?

Intel is waiting for Vista SP1?

I hate to tell Paulie this, but by that time, AMD would have released Barcelona. And if estimates are to be believed, and I don't see why not, what platform do you think would be hot during the Christmas/end-of-year buying season?

In the same vein, what company's products do you think I would be recommending to clients, family, and friends?

Certainly not the company whose boss does not have enough confidence it his own IT department's ability to support Vista today.

Can you say, AMD?

Here's looking at my next desktop, with a 2-socket Barcelona solution for a total of 8 cores come Q3 of 2K7!

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Live Search Gadgets

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Nick White has disclosed the public unveiling of the Live Search Traffic Gadget and the Live Search Gadget

Folks, this are invaluable items.

I use the Live Search Traffic gadget whenever I'm in LA for traffic info as you know how free the freeways in Los Angeles are.

Download here and here.

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Open Source ID: Please let us copy you.

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Just like open source, isn't it?

Pushers of the Higgins open source ID project, IBM and Novell, are aiming to replicate the work done by Microsoft in so that a "user should be able to sit down in front of the open-source implementation and feel comfortable and understand how things work, like Firefox versus Internet Explorer" according to a 'distinguished' engineer at Novell.

I guess the word distinguished no longer has meritorious value.

When was the last time an average user sat down to look at the source code in a browser? Any browser. Totally bolsters my declaration that source code evaluation is a figment of the collective reality distortion fields of open source proponents.

IBM's chief security architect - deliberately non-capitalized, talking out of his a$$ as functionaries at that once-storied firm are wont to, indicated that Microsoft's abandoning of rights related to patents is what is holding this 'great' project back.

If that is so, why don't you dweebs actually, ahem, create something?

After all, Microsoft never innovates, right?

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Fear the penguin? NOT!

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In today's issue of the Redmond Channel Partner newsletter, there were so many errors in the section mentioned below that I was forced to reply.

In your newsletter article, titled, READERS SAY, 'FEAR THE PENGUIN!, I am afraid the responders made so many glaring errors that I am forced to debunk here in order to stop the confusion.

I will be blogging my entire answer as well here.

Starting with “Mike” who writes

First off, his reasons for selling his company because of ‘disenchantment with Microsoft’s offerings’ were never enumerated.

Secondly, to say that Microsoft is lacking in its mission or zeal in courting developers is plain wrong. Microsoft engages customers from several angles and provides the resources, in several languages, to do so. There are so many programs directed at developers – MSDN, ISVs – Empower for ISVs, to beginners – the Express Editions, that I cannot help but wonder what he’s talking about.

However, Mike gets to it with the next sentence, namely, distributing fully-working virtual machines with a working copy of Windows on them.

Is he kidding? Why would you be allowed to distribute fully-working VMs of software licensed for one system only?

Then the marketing savvy of Ubuntu?

While I know that his experience, indeed, all our experiences with Vista™, are subjective, I cannot help but ask what functions in Vista are a step back.

As a user of Vista since it was the Windows codename Longhorn beta, I do not have the same experiences and would like to know what I missed in order to both help my clients and my firm, and also to escalate those issues to Microsoft for resolution.

One area in which I agree with Mike completely in is his assertion that the landscape would look different in three years. In three years, the landscape would look a little different, with Linux having lost just a little more ground as customers come to realize that the promises of Linux zealots about productivity gains over Windows were not only shallow, but also totally devoid of reality.

We get to “Bill”

In his post, Bill starts out by praising Windows Server SBS, and then brings out his flensing knife, stating that it requires a well-trained IT person to run it.

Very untrue. It does require a well-trained person to install and configure it. However, it does not require that that person be around to babysit it.

Bill states: "A SOHO will often have less than 10 computers in the entire office and about half of these should be servers for safety, according to Microsoft recommendations.”

That is about as untrue as it gets. 50% of the computers in a 10-system SOHO/branch office should be servers? Bill, stop! Really STOP!

He then goes into his rationale for that wild and completely erroneous declaration. Microsoft established Windows Server SBS as a single-server system. Period. In fact, using multiple boxes ad described by Bill is totally unsupported. I challenge him to reveal any official information from Microsoft describing what he is saying.

In larger enterprises, what he describes is the recommended configuration. However, at that time, you would have moved out of the realm of Windows Server SBS and into BackOffice Server.

That said, all of his arguments regarding the hardware requirements for Windows Server SBS are invalid and hereby discarded.

Linux server has a place in computing, just not in SMB computing. It, and not Windows in any version, requires a body in place to support it.

It is amazing to note that IT pros, who think nothing of tinkering with source code and recompiling stuff, would foist that on small businesses with Linux, making the specious argument that it is better or easier than Linux.

Lance’s rants are, to put it kindly and politely, somewhat nonsensical. My replies to his points on Microsoft’s customer unfriendliness:

  1. 100% the discretion of system vendor
  2. To reduce piracy.
  3. See #2
  4. See #2
  5. ???
  6. To protect the creative properties of musicians
  7. There is NO DRM in Windows Vista.
  8. How so? Any different from the EULA restrictions in a DVD, OS2, Solaris, Oracle?
  9. HDCP – I give you that.
  10. So securing a system is now a Bad Thing?
  11. So not true. Robert McLaws, of Windows-Now.com, has a post here that details the true cost of Microsoft Windows from version 1.0. After reading it, I am sure Lance would want to take this one back as well.
  12. ???

What he does not realize it that Microsoft has a fiduciary duty to its owners, employees, and customers to protect its IP? That is being in the customer interest.

Furthermore, if Microsoft or Windows weren’t there, where would Linux zealots get their ideas?

He also states that Microsoft is neglecting legitimate customers in pursuit of a small number of pirates. I do not know about him, but if you are ever in Asia, and have a street hawker come up to you with a DVD full of Microsoft software for sale at the equivalent of $10, you would freak out if you were Bill G. In addition, it must have warmed the hearts of holders of MSFT to hear the president of Romania tell of how piracy delivered his country.

When tagged, customers are able to revalidate their systems online or offline. Not outrageous at all.

Contrary to what Lance would have us believe, consumers are not clamoring for alternatives to Windows. It is the IT cognoscente that wants change, partly for some misguided need to root for the underdog, and partly because it keeps them and their jobs relevant to the great unwashed who think that they are delivering some sort of valueadd when they spew forth all that jargon.

My replies to his suggestions for customer-friendliness are:

  1. Actually, it is not. Vista Ultimate, as its moniker suggests, it the ne plus ultra of Windows. As a premium product, it carries a premium price, just as a Maybach does. As for the price discrepancy in Europe, that is up to a) The current tax structure in Great Britain, b) the cost of doing business, there, for which you can thank Kroes and the absurd EU office of Competition, and c) the
  2. How then would you mitigate the piracy issue?
  3. Same as #2
  4. That statement makes absolutely no sense to me
  5. I have no problem with WGA. And lots of people I know, including lots of clients concur
  6. Why? How many people know how to install an OS? Just because you do, doesn’t make it the norm. Moreover, if they are comfortable with Windows, what is wrong with that?

Lance’s final wish, that there be competition for Microsoft was a head-scratcher! How does he want that accomplished? Like they want in Europe, by government fiat? Or like Penfield-Jackson wanted: by dividing Microsoft into three companies? How, buddy?

In closing, I have to wonder about the disproportional coverage Linux gets relative to its importance, both on desktops and as servers. In an ideal world, it should have coverage proportional to the 4% or so of the market it commands.

For years, it has been touted as the Second Coming, only to have that event pushed back.

Folks, this ain’t happening!

There you have it.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

What if Opteron never existed?

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Earlier today, I was asked that question as well as the following:

  • Would processor prices be going up?
  • Would dual-core technology even exist?
  • Would we all be running Itaniums?
  • Would we need Itaniums to get 64-bit Vista?

My reply:

The first thing would be for me to blame AMD for the current throttling back of processor speeds.

(This is in addition to the loss of income I suffered nearly seventeen years ago from the AMD 80387 math-coprocessor battle, which decimated math-co prices across the board. On the other hand, should I thank AMD for opening up the market for the tons and tons of math-coprocessors I sold when prices were ‘normalized’ by the AMD math-co?)

Prior to the debut of the Opteron, we were on a direct collusion trajectory with Itanium, that all-new be-all of computing. It was going to be the Swiss-knife of computing, allowing us supercomputer power at each of our desktops, and utilizing that most current of computing architectures, the EPIC.

Before that though, we were going to go through several iterations of the Pentium architecture. Personally, I was looking forward to a 10 GHz Pentium 6 without active liquid cooling – no need to have a space heater in my office.

If the Opteron had never existed, it would still be a Pentium world, without a doubt. The mobile Pentium, based on the P-III, would have been slowly ramped up in speed and would have been hitting about 4 GHz right now. As I stated earlier, the desktop Pentium and the Xeon would have been continually cranked up relative to the gains in processing power of the Athlon.

All the while, we would have been inundated with flackware and ink about the coming goodie called Itanium.

Processor prices would have remained stable for mainstream CPUs, with newly introduced CPUs continuing to command ridiculous prices a la Extreme Edition.

It was a very slick way of raising prices or introducing ‘premium’ pricing into the market, disguising it as new product with attendant bells and whistles. In reality, it was just a cranked-up unit just like the mainstream CPUs.

Dual-core? Are you kidding?

Remember, it IS Intel we are talking about!

Remember the 80487?

What was the function of the Intel 80487 math coprocessor? It was to turn off the primary processor in an Intel 80486-80487 CPU-math-co combo.

What do I mean?

Let me jog your cobwebs.

At the intro of the 80486 (i486), the math-co world was still burgeoning, however, due to AMD’s entre into the math-co space with the 80387 for which it (AMD) was still in litigation with Intel, margins were very low. For the 80486, only high-end match-coprocessors were worth stocking for margins, and the Wietek math-co cost over $1,200.00 USD back then. Intel’s solution was a perfectly good integrated CPU/match-co chip sold as being without a math-co. When you purchased the 80487, all it did was to turn off the original 80486 chip and perform all processing itself.

Yes, the only difference was an additional pin on the external connector that shut off the original chip.

Now that we have divulged some of the ‘advances’ developed by Intel, and the tactics used to defraud educate the buying public, let me ask again:

Dual-core from Intel?

Without the Opteron, I don’t think so.

Itanium? Nevertheless, in the 2K7 timeframe, we definitely would not have been running the Itanic Itanium processor. For the following reasons:

  1. Processor yields have been deplorable,
  2. Thermal signature of the chip has remained pretty high,
  3. Performance has remained very, very ho-hum, never exceeding that of the Pentium 5, not to talk about the Opterons. Oops, forgot Intel canceled the P5!
  4. Development of software targeted at Itanic has remained pretty much in the mainframe/alternative OS realm, and
  5. The benefits of Itanic, aka The WIIFM Factor, have never been successfully enumerated to both the public and developers.

64-bit Vista?

It would have been pie-in-the-sky without the Opteron, IMO.

What is very ironic is that just prior to the intro of the Opteron, Intel had been sabre-rattling about the IP contained in its 64-bit platform, not knowing that AMD was going to extend the much-maligned current computing architecture, the x86, and create the AMD 64-bit platform.

It was a brilliant move, and superbly executed, and a fitting ‘Exit Stage Left’ moment for Jerry Sanders.

I can safely say that the Opteron ushered in the modern 64-bit desktop and server processor era.

It revolutionized servers, created the market for x86-based blade servers, and redefined data center architecture, especially in terms of thermal output and cooling requirements.

My 2¢

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows

Vista no threat to OS X Leopard

in , , , , , ,

Says Apple's CFO.

So?

Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? That the company whose product has 90% of the market shouldn't feel threatened by an upstart?

If, with 3% or so of the computing market, this idiot feels the need to reassure us about his forthcoming product's prospects, what does that say about the loops at 1 Infinite Loop?

Dude, this ain't the iPod market.

Holla' when your market share gets to 3%.

© 2007, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®

© 2005-2009, John Obeto for SmallBizWindows