The Mac Sucks!

Microsoft appears to be learning the value of an open beta program in selling Windows. By opening the Windows 7 beta program as widely as it has, Microsoft has given many customers the opportunity to work with Windows 7 before its official release. This has very likely uncovered bugs that might not have been found until after the official launch, when their discovery might have impacted early sales (as happened with Vista). In addition, the time spent with the beta has given users confidence in Windows 7’s security, performance, and stability… enough that they’re willing to pre-order the release version based solely on experience with the beta. Perhaps not surprisingly, the adoption rate for Windows 7 already looks to be much greater than that for Vista.

According to Network World, Microsoft and other online retailers reported strong sales of Windows 7 upgrade licenses during the first hours of pre-order availability. The BBC reports huge sales in the U.K., with Windows 7 per-orders during the first 8 hours of availability exceeding those for the entire 17-week pre-order period for Windows Vista. In Japan, the Windows 7 pre-order inventory is already sold out. IDC analysts predict that 40 million copies of Windows 7 will be sold by the end of 2009, and 177 million copies of Windows 7 will be in place by the end of 2010. They also estimate that the products and services surrounding Windows 7 will generate $320 billion in revenue.

Savio Rodrigues, a self-styled “open source aficionado within the traditional software world” seems to be impressed with Microsoft’s early Windows 7 results. He may have a point when he says that “in today’s open source world, virtually no PC user would preorder Windows 7 based on press views alone. Users today expect to try the software before deciding to part with their money.” This is doubly true given the weak economy. If the current order volume is any indication, Windows 7 adoption rates will be among the highest in the history of Microsoft’s operating system.

Apple is fortunate in that it doesn’t generally have to contend with these “adoption” issues. Mac owners tend to trust Apple and its products, giving Apple the benefit of the doubt when new releases of the Mac OS cause “blue screens of death“, lead to printers that stop working, generate a series of problems described as “the worst OS upgrade experience I’ve ever had“, or issues so frustrating that people are able to write an entire blog about how “lame” their Mac has been since the upgrade.

Were issues like those commonplace among early Leopard adopters? It’s hard to say for sure. Could Apple have avoided them by running a public beta program similar to the Windows 7 beta? Probably. (Apple does beta test its software, but this is usually a closed program limited primarily to developers who pay for advance access to the products.) Will it ever happen? Not as long as customers continue to open their wallets for each new product, and Apple continues to practice “extreme secrecy” surrounding its new products. After all, it’s hard to “wow” a crowd about your new OS release if everyone’s already been using it for 2-3 months in beta…

According to Computerworld, Microsoft confirmed today that hackers are exploiting an unpatched bug in DirectX via Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. A Microsoft representative quoted in the article says that “A user needs to be lured to navigate to a malicious web site or a compromised legitimate web site to be affected” but no further action is needed.

However, only users on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are vulnerable. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 are immune. Users running Internet Explorer 8 are also not vulnerable.

If you read many of the Windows and Internet Explorer security bulletins Microsoft has published since the release of Windows Vista, you’ll see that a lot of those vulnerabilities do not apply to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (which incorporate the same security model). It should be clear from this that while Microsoft Windows is by no means immune to attack, great strides have been made in Windows security since the XP days.

Microsoft worked with security experts to improve the Windows security model for Vista. The result of this work is a reduced level of vulnerability to exploits like the one described above. While Vista security (and by extension, Windows 7) is by no means hacker-proof or invulnerable, it does seem to be more resilient than Windows XP to attack. Microsoft continues to take a proverbial beating in the media because the majority of Windows desktops are still running Windows XP (or earlier). Combine the number of XP systems with its weaker security, and you have a perfect recipe to make Microsoft products as a whole seem to “still” be insecure.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the Windows security space if Microsoft is successful in convincing most customers to upgrade to Windows 7 when it’s released. While I would not be so stupid as to suggest that Windows 7 will be a panacea and eliminate all the security problems in the Windows space, I do believe it will make the kinds of attacks that are commonplace in Windows XP far more difficult to pull off… and hopefully far less numerous.

Since this is a site that discusses multiple desktop operating systems, it might appear to be implied that I’m suggesting Windows 7 and Windows Vista are “more secure” than other desktop operating systems such as Linux or Mac OS X. That is not the case. The point I am attempting to make is merely that Microsoft has improved security in Vista and 7 relative to earlier Windows releases. Whether this security is “better” than that of OS X or Linux (or not) is not the point.

The folks over at the Redmond Pie web site have compared the specifications of the upcoming Microsoft Zune HD to the Apple iPod Touch 2G. Follow that link if you want the full details, but here are the key differences between the two:

• The Zune has a 3.3″ OLED display with 480×272 resolution. The iPod Touch has a 3.5″ screen with 480×320 resolution. While this might give the iPod an initial “edge” since it’s slightly larger and higher resolution, the OLED technology in the Zune might provide more vibrant color.
• The Zune will reportedly feature a “special version” of Internet Explorer, reported elsewhere to be based on IE 6. The iPod’s is based on Apple’s Safari browser.
• The Zune will offer 720p video output via HDMI, while the iPod Touch only offers SD video out.
• The iPod Touch, when combined with a microphone, will serve as a voice recorder. The Zune will not have this built in.
• The Zune offers an HD radio receiver. The iPod does not.
• The Zune will offer a built-in “social service”, the Zune Social.
• The Zune will have its own built-in Zune Marketplace store, similar to the App Store and iTunes in the iPod Touch.
• The Zune will work with Windows PCs, while the iPod Touch works with both Windows and Macintosh.
• The Zune will include XBox Live integration, wireless synchronization, and wireless file sharing. The iPod Touch does not offer those options.
• The Zune features an Nvidia Tegra graphics processor, which may be superior to the graphics processor in the iPod Touch.

It’s also interesting to note some of the key features the two have in common. Both feature a multi-touch display, an accelerometer, WiFi, and games and applications. Since the Zune HD will be new to the marketplace, we can expect the iPod Touch to offer a significantly larger range of applications.

The site also shows a video of a user putting a Zune HD through some of its basic functions:

CNET has also posted a hands-on video of the Zune HD:

As I’ve mentioned before, I received an iPod Touch 2G as a Christmas gift last year. I have to admit that I like it a lot, and I can’t imagine dumping it for a Zune HD… at least not based on what I’ve seen so far.

On the other hand, and without my having gotten my hands on a Zune HD, I think Microsoft has gotten a LOT right with this device. They’ve hit a form factor that is smaller than the iPhone (though it could be larger than the iPod Touch). They have a comparable screen size and multi-touch technology. It has a built-in web browser and app support. It has an accelerometer, which is used in some of the more popular iPhone and iPod Touch applications. It’ll output HD video. The interface looks sharp and professional, though some will prefer the iPod Touch’s interface to that of the Zune (and probably others will prefer it the other way around). On the whole, I think it will be a worthy competitor to the iPod Touch provided that Microsoft prices it appropriately, allows third-party applications, and doesn’t follow Apple’s “app censorship” example. With the right catalog of third-party applications and a (compared to the iPod Touch) relatively low sticker price, Microsoft could put a dent in iPod Touch sales this fall… especially if Apple doesn’t update the Touch (which seems unlikely).

Glyn Moody posted “The Huge Hidden Cost of Microsoft Software” on June 30, 2009, on Computeworld UK’s web site, and a similar article on Slashdot. In the post, Moody discusses how various UK government organizations had to spend a great deal of money cleaning up the Conficker worm. Moody explains how this is a “hidden cost” of running Microsoft software in your environment, much as Microsoft and others have tried to claim there are “hidden costs” in running free open source software and Macs.

There are certain of Moody’s points I agree with. More malware exists for Windows than for Mac OS X and Linux combined. That’s just a fact. If the PCs in your organization become infected with malware like the Conficker worm, it can be extremely time-consuming and costly to clean up the mess. Again, it’s a fact. If you ran Linux or Mac OS X throughout your organization instead of Windows, a Windows worm like Conficker would be stopped dead because it can’t infect those operating systems. Fact. But the conclusion that this is a “hidden cost of using Windows” may be true to some degree, it’s not quite on target. Allow me to explain.

I work in a company with approximately 2,000 Windows PCs, maybe 50 Macs, a small number of Sun Solaris workstations, and a data center including Linux, Windows, Solaris, and mainframe operating systems. In an environment like this, with so many Windows desktops, you might be thinking I’ve had to clean up some massive infections.

Ironically, in my 20+ year career, the biggest malware mess I ever had to clean up didn’t affect Windows at all, and it wasn’t at the shop where I work now. The culprit was a little Classic Mac OS virus code-named “WDEF“. Infection via WDEF was very Mac-like. It “just worked”. If an infected disk was inserted into a Mac, it instantly infected the Mac’s hard drive. You didn’t have to run any programs or do anything. If you inserted a clean disk into an infected Mac, that disk became infected. The WDEF virus managed to find its way onto every Mac in our company and on to most of the floppy disks. I was able to trace it back to a disk a single employee (yeah, it was me) brought into the office from home. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent cleaning up that mess (we had only a dozen Macs but literally hundreds of floppies to scan). I only found it because I was showing a co-worker how Macs didn’t really need antivirus software by running a scan with a free tool called Disinfectant. It was very humbling to see it detect WDEF, in addition to being painfully ironic.

It was also a valuable lesson. Over the 10+ years I was a Mac user, I had downloaded lots of free Mac software. When I ripped the shrinkwrap off my first antivirus package (bought after the WDEF incident), I was shocked to see how many viruses had already infected my supposedly “superior” system. During my time as a Classic Mac OS user, I saw more viruses than I’ve seen since… even though I’ve primarily been a Windows user, and still download lots of free programs. Mine may not be the typical experience, but it’s a true story.

Moody’s stories and mine share a common theme – and it’s obviously not Microsoft software. Take proper security precautions, no matter what computer you’re using, or you will pay a price eventually. I’m willing to bet if you investigate any of those very expensive cleanup deals mentioned in Moody’s article you’ll find that certain basic security precautions were ignored that would have cost FAR less than the cleanup effort for Conficker eventually did. Maybe they merely needed a cheap hardware firewall to keep the worm from getting in, or a cheap antivirus package to detect and clean it, or just to deny administrator access to their employees. As far as I’m concerned, Microsoft may share some of the blame but the bulk of it lies with the organizations themselves. I can say that with confidence because our 2,000-machine Windows environment didn’t see a single Conficker infection. Not one. (And no, I wouldn’t be so bold or stupid as to say that we “never will”… only that we’ve made all reasonable precautions to prevent such an occurrence. That’s about as much as you can ever really say about your security.)

While Mac users have been relatively free of malware, viruses have existed for OS X, Mac malware has made it into the wild, and it has resulted in the creation of a Mac-only botnet. I’ll bet if you could find the owners of the Macs whose systems are part of that botnet, they’d tell you they don’t need antivirus software because they’ve got a Mac, and Macs are immune to that stuff…

Linux has been relatively immune as well, but it too has seen Trojans, viruses, and other malware. The threat to Linux is nothing compared to the situation on Windows, but that doesn’t mean there is “no” threat.

If you go through life with the assumption that your platform of choice is totally secure, completely immune to malware, and impervious to hackers, the odds are good that you’re going to find yourself very sadly mistaken one day… just like I did when I ran that disinfecting program on my Mac those many years ago. Good security is a “hidden cost” of owning a computer, no matter whose logo is on the box or whose is displayed when you start it up.

As Ars Technica and other sites have reported, Microsoft has made a step toward pushing its employees away from competitors’ mobile phones. Reportedly part of its cost-cutting measures, Microsoft has begun denying employee reimbursement for cellular data plans unless they’re using phones based on Windows Mobile. That means Microsoft will no longer be paying for iPhone and Blackberry data plans.

In the short term, this will no doubt help Microsoft save a few dollars. In the longer term, it’s likely to benefit Microsoft in a lot of other ways. For example, if its employees are “coerced” into using Windows Mobile phones as a result of this shift in policy, that should help the company understand where it can improve Windows Mobile in the future. Users familiar with the Blackberry will undoubtedly put pressure on their peers to develop for Windows Mobile the things they perceive to be superior in the Blackberry platform. Users familiar with the iPhone and other smartphones will put pressure on the developers to enhance the Windows Mobile experience in other ways. In the end, it may make Windows Mobile a much better competitor than it is today. As Ars Technica notes, “Windows Mobile 6.5 may include tons of improvements, but it’s still a long way off from putting Microsoft back in the game (not to mention it’s still not yet available), so even with the incentive to move to Windows Mobile, I doubt many Microsoft employees will make the switch anytime soon. Maybe next year, when Windows Mobile 7.0 is expected, Microsoft employees will start switching.”

I’ve discussed before how Apple makes a bad habit of slipping extra software onto Windows systems as part of the installation of iTunes. For example, they “offer” you MobileMe, QuickTime, and Safari with iTunes. If you’re not careful, they’ll install these automatically as part of the update process – even if you didn’t have them before. Microsoft is starting to learn from Apple, it seems, including some of the “bad” lessons.

Back on May 1, Slashdot discussed that Microsoft made Internet Explorer 8 a “critical update” that could be installed by default (depending on your Windows Update configuration). Worse, the installation of that critical update also makes Internet Explorer 8 your default browser on Windows. To Microsoft’s credit, this settings change can be easily and permanently undone, so it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It’s just unfortunate to see Microsoft pushing Internet Explorer 8 on users so blatantly.

If you’re a home user, this may not be a big deal. In a corporate environment, it can be a problem. You may need an older release of Internet Explorer to use with an intranet (or third-party) application. You may have settled on a third-party browser for security reasons. Or you may simply not want Internet Explorer 8 on your office systems. Marking IE8 as a critical update and forcing it to the default browser is a problem in those situations.

Where I work, this fortunately isn’t a problem. We use a third-party system to manage security patches to Windows and disable the built-in Windows Update functionality. This allows us to control the updates that get applied, identify which machines are and are not patched, exclude some machines from a patch if it’s going to cause them compatibility problems, etc. Thus, in our environment, Internet Explorer 8 won’t go out until we’re good and ready for it. We can also use that system to automatically reset a user’s browser preference if need be, so they never even know Microsoft tried to force IE8 on them. Home users and businesses too small to own such a system, however, don’t have that luxury.

Before the Mac users chime in about how this kind of thing would never happen on Leopard, let’s just clear the air. When I was the company’s sole Mac administrator, I handled patch management for OS X. While it was possible to configure individual Macs to automatically receive all the “recommended” updates from Apple, that proved to be a problem on several fronts. First, Apple would automatically update Safari. That’s fine for most users, but if you’re doing Web design and QA, you may need a machine or two to remain with an older version of Safari for testing purposes. By default, Apple would update you. And in typical Apple fashion, there’s no built-in uninstaller functionality in OS X to make rolling back to the old version of Safari simple.

Similarly, if your job included occasionally producing digital video with QuickTime, the Software Update process could cause you some headaches as well. For example, imagine that you had installed the (hypothetical) QuickTime Pro Y.1 version. Apple marks the new Y.2 version as a “recommended update” for all users. If your Software Update settings are configured to automatically apply all recommended updates, you’ll automatically receive Y.2. Unfortunately, your QuickTime Pro license key only works for Y.1, so you lose all Pro functionality until you get the new version. In our environment, this was a huge problem because software purchases require approval by multiple levels of management and the legal department. They don’t happen quickly. Imagine the trouble you’d have if you needed to create a video using QuickTime Pro “right now” but couldn’t use the software because it had been automatically updated to an unlicensed version. It might take weeks to get the purchase approved. Unfortunately, in the case where this happened to us, Apple had in the meantime updated QuickTime Y.2 to QuickTime Y.2.1 and then Y.2.2. Apple only provided an uninstaller for Y.2, and that uninstaller did not work for the Y.2.1 or Y.2.2 releases. To resolve the problem, I literally had to go into the script code for the Apple uninstaller and modify it to remove the version checking. Fortunately, that seemed to work with no ill effects. If it hadn’t worked, we might have had to restore it from an old backup (this was pre-Time-Machine) or rebuild it. (This is a lot more work than we’d have had on Windows, where updates can normally be backed out via the Add/Remove Programs control panel.)

In other words, these “forced” updates aren’t just a Microsoft problem. Apple does them, too. I haven’t encountered the issue in Linux so far, but my Linux experience is still low compared to my Windows and Mac experience. It’s possible that automatic update installs in Linux could cause the same issue. This is an area where all the OS developers could be doing a better job.

Dell’s director of product management for its business client group, Darrel Ward, says that while Windows 7 appears to be superior to Windows Vista, its proposed pricing will be an obstacle to widespread adoption. Ward is quoted by CNET as saying that “In tough economic times, I think it’s naive to believe that you can increase your prices on average and then still see a stronger swell than if you held prices flat or even lowered them. I can tell you that the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista.”

Still, Ward seems to be encouraged by the level of interest Dell is seeing in Windows 7. “When Vista came out we didn’t have the motivation to do the types of services that we’re doing now. We didn’t have the clear customer demand for such services,” he told CNET, “We do have a visible number of customers, large and small, who are actually waiting for Windows 7 and who have already put plans in place to target the transition to Windows 7, they’re asking Dell for help. That demand and this opportunity is stronger than it has been in the past.”

While raising prices during a tough economic period doesn’t sound like a very smart move for Microsoft to make, there does seem to be a much stronger interest in Windows 7 than there was for Windows Vista near its release. That’s not surprising. When Microsoft released Windows Vista, it seemed to think customers would automatically upgrade as they had done in the past. However, Microsoft’s corporate customers (the bulk of its users) didn’t find Vista a compelling upgrade. It was more strict about the drivers it supported, didn’t work with a lot of older legacy applications corporations were using, and offered little incentive (in terms of improvements) to upgrade. It didn’t help that early adopters complained about incompatibilities, slowness, and frequent security warnings.

Microsoft has an opportunity to improve its situation with corporate customers in Windows 7, if it doesn’t price itself out of consideration. Most businesses are watching their finances carefully, and for Microsoft to be able to convince them to invest in an upgrade to Windows 7 they will have to demonstrate how Windows 7 will make things better than they are with XP. Given that XP has proven to be a relatively stable and secure environment in the business world, that could be a tough sell, especially if licensing costs increase significantly.

Let’s hope the powers that be in Redmond recognize that times have changed and that while Windows 7 is indeed an improvement over Vista, that doesn’t necessarily justify a price increase.

If you read a lot of articles and blog posts by mainstream journalists and the comments from their readers, you’ll hear a lot of them saying that they don’t understand the popularity of netbooks and believe they’ll vanish from the marketplace fairly soon. Apple’s COO Tim Cook was quoted as saying “When I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens.” Earlier, Steve Jobs said that Apple doesn’t “know how to produce a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.”

Given this, you’d probably figure that netbooks aren’t doing so well in the marketplace, but you’d be wrong. The netbook share of the notebook market has grown from a mere 0.6% in 2007 to 11% in 2008. The share is expected to reach as high as 17-20% in 2009. So, if netbooks are junky, cramped, useless little devices, why are they selling? The answers are surprisingly simple.

If Netbooks Are Junk, Why Are They Successful?

The key factors in netbook success are: price, weight, size, and capability. Netbooks can’t run applications which require high-end 3D graphics, lots of processing power, lots of RAM, or built-in optical drives. In spite of that, they’re capable of running web browsers and web-based applications, email, Adobe Flash content, Java, office applications, and other mainstream applications. Not coincidentally, these are the applications most people use, most of the time. Therefore, netbooks are a good fit for many people.

Journalists (and Apple executives) try to dismiss netbooks because they’re no match for thin-and-light notebooks like the MacBook Air, Dell Adamo, and Lenovo X series. There’s some merit to that. Given an identical price, I doubt that many netbook users would prefer a netbook over an Adamo or Air. But there’s the rub. If I want the portability of the MacBook Air, I also have to pay Apple’s price for the Air, which currently lists at $1799 and up for a new model (Lenovo and Dell pricing is comparable, and refurbished Airs are available for less than $1000). For that same money, I could buy a netbook for every member of my household (given a 4-person household and netbook prices in the $250-500 range). As good as the Air may be, my family would probably be happier having personal netbooks than sharing a single MacBook. I’m not suggesting that netbooks will destroy the market for devices like the Air, but rather that people who need the portability of a device like the Air but aren’t willing to shell out $1799+ may find the netbook a better alternative. Netbook market share would appear to bear out that conclusion.

Price is probably the single most important factor in netbook success. When you pay $250-300 for a netbook, you’re probably far more willing to tote it around with you to places where you risk losing or damaging it than you would a more-powerful, more expensive device like the MacBook Air. You might be willing to toss your Eee PC under a car seat while you go into the mall, for example, while you’d probably take the MacBook Air in with you to avoid having it stolen. That makes the netbook a device that’s “more usable” in that it’s “usable in more places under more circumstances” than a full-size, full-price notebook. That is probably the biggest factor in netbook success. Netbooks are almost “disposable” computers compared to their full-powered cousins.

Are Netbooks on the Decline?

Some are saying that there’s an indication that netbooks are on the decline, or that people have stopped being interested in the devices. What these analysts are ignoring is that Microsoft has placed an artificial barrier on netbook improvement. Windows Vista’s hardware requirements and poor reputation have rightly made netbook makers unwilling to preinstall the operating system on their products, preferring instead to load Windows XP Home, which has lower requirements, probably a lower price, and a better reputation. (Linux took an early lead in netbook pre-installs until Microsoft opted to make XP available.) In order to qualify for Windows XP licenses, netbook makers are required by Microsoft to ship devices which do not exceed the following specifications:

• Processor: Single-core CPUs only, clocked under 1 GHz, unless it’s an Intel Atom, Celeron 220, AMD Geode LX, Athlon, or Neon CPU (in which case 1.66GHz is the upper limit)
• RAM: No more than 1GB installed
• Storage: SSD/Flash drives may be no larger than 16GB, hard drives no larger than 160GB
• Graphics: No chipsets that support anything above DirectX 9.0
• Screens: No larger than 10.2 inches on netbooks and no larger than 14.1 inches on large-screen netbooks. Nettops may have any size screen.

If you look at any currently-shipping netbook, you’ll see that these limits are being strictly adhered to. Netbooks with faster processors or better graphics pretty much don’t exist. Netbook makers are being forced to innovate in areas like thinness, color choices, style, and the like, because they’ve hit the glass ceiling on performance improvements. Since the technical specifications of the devices are all pretty much identical now, it’s likely that the netbook market is leveling off as buyers wait for netbook makers to introduce “better” devices. Unfortunately, unless Microsoft eases the restrictions on netbook hardware, that’s not going to happen.

Where are Netbooks Going?

There are three things which could result in the introduction of more-powerful, more-capable netbooks:

1. We could see a resurgence in the pre-installation of Linux, such as Ubuntu’s “Netbook Remix”, which places no artificial restrictions on the hardware and allows netbook makers to use any CPU or chipset they like.
2. Apple could release a netbook-like product, which would not be bound by Microsoft’s limits, and could inspire Microsoft to loosen its restrictions to remain competitive.
3. Microsoft could release Windows 7, which runs well on current netbook systems and would not have the same hardware limitations Microsoft has placed on Windows XP pre-installs.

If any of the above happens, netbook makers can again work on delivering devices that offer more speed, better graphics, more RAM, more storage, etc., in a netbook price range. This would likely give some netbook users an incentive to upgrade their current devices and might increase the capability of netbooks to handle more kinds of software (like games, video editing, and the like), resulting in greater popularity. Unless one of the above happens, however, it seems likely that we will see little real innovation or improvement in the netbook space.

Windows 7’s release is the most likely scenario. Ubuntu Netbook Remix has already been out for a little while and none of the netbook makers seem to be jumping on it, even though it would reduce their costs and give them an opportunity to release a more-powerful, more competitive device. Apple still claims it’s not going to release a netbook-like device, despite rumors to the contrary, and the likelihood it will do so before Windows 7 is released declines each day. Rumors say that Microsoft will release Windows 7 to retail in late October 2009, which is when the netbook market is likely to heat up again.

Once Windows 7 is released, netbook makers will be able to pre-install the cheaper, feature-limited version of Windows 7 on their products. They will be freed from the limitations on their hardware imposed by Microsoft in order to qualify for Windows XP licensing. They should be able to introduce netbooks with dual-core processors, more RAM, better graphics, etc., which will likely increase demand for the devices – even among those who already own a netbook of the current generation. (After all, why spend $130 or so on a Windows 7 license for your older netbook when you could buy a faster, better netbook for $250-350 that includes Windows 7?)

Are Netbook Limits Helping or Hurting the Industry?

The current artificial limits on netbook development may actually be a good thing in the long term. In order to differentiate their products from the competition, netbook makers will be forced to look at areas like power consumption (so that they can tout better battery life than the competitors), form factor (to deliver lighter, thinner devices), usability (more comfortable keyboards, touch screens, accelerometers, and things of that nature), style, and other improvements apart from technical specification bumps. This should result in better overall netbook products and some innovations that improve mainstream notebooks as well. By the time netbook makers get back to specification bumps they should have improved the other aspects of the devices as much as they can within the price limitations.

The iPhone/iPod Touch Argument

Apple likes to think that the iPhone and iPod Touch are a superior alternative to netbooks, and for some users and some uses, they are. The iPhone/Touch can be carried in pretty much any pocket, unlike a netbook. They’re an “instant-on” device, while a netbook needs to load an OS. They have the capability to run basic applications in a user friendly manner with a certain “coolness” factor netbooks don’t have. But unless drastic changes come to the product line, the iPhone/Touch line isn’t a replacement for a netbook. A netbook, while limited, is a “real” computer. This gives the netbook a number of benefits over Apple’s portable devices:

• Netbooks offer real keyboards with tactile feedback and decent typing speed. They may be cramped or small for some hands, but it’s likely the iPhone on-screen keyboard would be equally cramped for those users.
• Netbooks run multiple web browsers and can handle plug-ins like Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Sun’s Java, and others. These are not currently supported on the iPhone.
• Netbooks can be made to run Windows, Linux, and even OS X (if you’re willing to violate license agreements), allowing for a wide selection of software. While the library of applications for the iPhone is impressive, there are some apps that Apple refuses to allow in its App Store. You can run pretty much anything on a netbook if you have enough horsepower.
• Netbooks have USB ports and can be connected to flash drives, CD-ROM drives, etc. The iPhone has no such ports, so it can’t be expanded as readily.
• You can download files to a netbook, which is something Apple doesn’t allow the iPhone’s Safari browser to do as of this writing (e.g., try to download an MP3 on your iPod Touch… you can’t).
• While smaller than notebooks, Netbook screen sizes are superior to the iPhone’s screen, allowing for uses that require scrolling and zooming on the much smaller iPhone screen.

I’m not suggesting that netbooks are “better” than the iPhone/Touch, but rather that each of them has advantages over the other. I happen to have both the iPod Touch and a netbook, and I wouldn’t like to give up either one because each offers me something the other doesn’t. If you think netbooks don’t offer anything that you can’t get from the iPhone or the MacBook line, Google “leopard netbook” to see just how many people are buying netbooks simply to run the Leopard operating system on smaller, cheaper hardware than Apple offers. If there was nothing compelling about netbooks, would so many Apple/Mac fans waste their time loading netbooks with OS X (to say nothing of Windows or Linux) when they could have instead bought a MacBook or iPhone? While netbooks definitely are not for everyone, they do fill a need existing products don’t.

Netbooks Aren’t Going Away Any Time Soon

Netbooks fit into a very interesting niche. They’re superior to mainstream notebooks because they’re smaller, lighter, have longer battery life, and are much less expensive while still running most of the same software. This makes them a more-capable, nearly disposable, complement to a notebook or desktop PC. They offer capabilities that smartphones like the Apple iPhone don’t, which make them a good complement to those devices as well.

But netbooks aren’t for everyone. There are plenty of people who need something that a netbook doesn’t offer, such as a large keyboard, DVD burner, high-end graphics, or pocket-size form factor. For these people, there are products like the iPhone, MacBook Air, Dell Adamo, Sony Vaio, and full-size notebooks. Because they fill a need the other products don’t, it’s unlikely netbooks will go away any time soon unless another device comes along that fills those same needs in a more-compelling way.

Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Turner, spoke to an audience of around 300 at the MidMarket CIO Summit in Redmond, Washington, back on April 6, 2009. The text of Turner’s speech, which is available online, contains the following text I’ve seen skewered by the media:

Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we’ve ever built. It’s also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It’s the safest and most secure OS on the planet today. Everything that we’ve learned in Vista will be leveraged in Windows 7, but certainly when we broke a lot of the compatibility issues to lock down user account controls, to lock down the ability to manipulate states and all the things, that was a very painful process for us to grow through, but we had to do it. And the reason that Windows 7 will be successful is because of the pain we took on Vista. Because from a compatibility standpoint, if it works on Vista, it will work on Windows 7. If it doesn’t work on Vista, it won’t work on Windows 7.

I saw part of this quote posted on Slashdot, and it naturally drew a lot of ribbing from the audience there. Is Windows Vista the most secure OS Microsoft has ever released? Probably. It’s certainly more secure than anything in the “pre-NT” days. It seems to have required fewer patches than XP, so it’s probably more secure than that. On the other hand, XP has a much wider adoption than Vista and is therefore exposed to more attacks than Vista (and thus more holes are found, requiring more patches), so maybe Vista’s just been lucky. j

When Turner calls Vista “post-SP2″ the most secure OS on the planet, I can’t defend him. I’m willing to argue that Vista is the most secure OS Microsoft has released to date (at least to a point). I’ve not had any security issues with it, there have been relatively few security patches for it compared with Windows XP, and it’s certainly the most locked-down OS they’ve ever produced. But as for the most secure OS on the planet, that’s pushing it. On the other hand, it could well depend on your definition of “most secure”…

If you define “most secure” as “the least malware” then Vista would lose to Linux and OS X, which have relatively little malware (but not “zero”). I’m not saying there’s a ton of malware that affects Vista specifically, just that there is probably more than affects the others.

On the other hand, if you define “most secure” as “quickest to fix security bugs when they’re found” then there has been some evidence that Microsoft is faster at that than Apple or Red Hat, and thus you could say it’s the “most secure” of the three.

Bottom line, it’s a dramatic statement but ultimately a meaningless one. There’s no mutually agreed-upon definition of “most secure” so there’s no way to objectively evaluate it. Many statements depend entirely on the context or the speaker’s point of view, so while Turner may be right for his own way of evaluating Vista, that doesn’t make the statement true for everyone in all situations.

There is one point Turner made that I thought was interesting:

The real issue with Vista is we need to be able to partner with you to show you the TCO advantage you get with Vista. Not only do you have fewer patches, not only do you have the ability to do hot patching, which doesn’t require a reboot when you get a patch…

I don’t have a lot of patch experience with Vista, but I’ve done quite a bit with XP, Leopard, and Tiger. I know that with XP, Leopard, and Tiger, rebooting to install a patch is pretty commonplace. It’s not a 100% thing by any means, but it’s pretty common. With respect to my home system (which runs Vista), I can’t say that I’ve noticed very many patches going on without a reboot. If the majority of Vista patches go on without reboots, that would be an advantage Vista might have over Linux or Leopard. Somehow, though, I doubt there’s as much “hot patching” happening as Turner suggests there is. Anyone else care to comment? It might be interesting to see stats for how many Windows Vista patches require a reboot versus Leopard patches. I suspect there probably isn’t much difference, but does anyone out there know for sure? It might also be interesting to count the number of individual patches (separate executables) issued for each OS.

It sounds like Microsoft may have a decent product in the pipeline as its response to the Apple iPod. According to an anonymous source on wmpoweruser.com, the upcoming Zune HD will allegedly feature:

• Capacitive, multi-touch OLED screen with 16:9 aspect ratio
• HDMI out
• HD radio
• HD media playback, including to a television
• 3D Xbox game support
• 16 and 32 GB versions
• Wireless synchronization
• Web browser that supports multi-touch

There will also reportedly be a 120GB model, presumably hard drive based.

In the comments below the wmpoweruser.com post, there are indications that there will be a portal site (presumably Microsoft’s equivalent to the Apple App Store) where games can be purchased.

This could be a solid competitor to the iPod if in fact it delivers on all the rumored features. If not, well, we’ll have to see what Microsoft does come up with…

According to the folks at The Register Hardware, MSI recently unveiled its latest all-in-one PC. The MSI Wind Top is a touch-sensitive 19-inch machine with a “fashionable and glassy frame” that resembles something we might see come from Cupertino. It’s even white.

The Wind Top uses Intel’s low-power 1.6GHz Atom processor and the Intel 945GC chipset. It comes with 2GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive, 1.3 megapixel web cam, 802.11 wireless, Ethernet, four USB ports, a super-multi DVD drive, two built-in speakers, and a four-in-one memory card slot.

The Wind Top reportedly uses only 45W of power in full operation and its sound output never exceeds 26dB, which is said to be equivalent to the noise level in a library.

Engadget reports that this machine will be priced at $529 in the U.S. They also have some pretty detailed specifications for the hardware in the machine if you’re curious.

In a recent opinion piece on ExtremeTech, writer Joel Durham Jr. advises readers: “If you love music, don’t buy it from Zune Marketplace“. Durham explains that in 2007 he bought a Zune and decided to purchase an album (”Swordfishtrombones” from Tom Waits) from the Zune Marketplace. After having the album in his collection for two years, he lost it. As he tells it, the problem is all Microsoft’s. Of course, you may disagree after reading the rest of the story.

A few months ago, Durham “lost a bunch of data due to a hard drive crash” and although he thought he had reliable backups, “part of the drive evidently corrupted during the backup”… the part containing the Tom Waits album. He tried to re-download the album from Microsoft, but found that the record label had made it unavailable to the Zune Marketplace. He tried to plead with the Zune support people for help, but they were unable to help him because they’re no longer authorized to distribute that album.

While I certainly sympathize with Durham for the lost music (I’ve got about a 300GB collection myself), I can’t say that I agree with his recommendation that people not buy music from the Zune marketplace. It’s hardly Microsoft’s fault that his hard drive failed (they didn’t manufacture it). It’s hardly their fault that the drive became corrupted before or during the backup process (at least, it’s unlikely that’s their fault). It’s also not their fault that Tom Waits’ record label terminated its contract with the Zune Marketplace and that it won’t allow them to distribute the album anymore. That would be like blaming Apple if (as a hypothetical example) U2 decided to stop selling its music via iTunes and demanded that Apple stop distributing it. iTunes customers would be just as much “out of luck” in this situation as Durham was.

Durham closes the article by recommending that buyers burn a copy of the albums they purchase to CD or DVD as soon as they purchase it (which is good advice). He also recommends checking your backups periodically to make sure they are working and that data can be restored (also good advice).

His final point, though, I do agree with. The Zune Marketplace, upon learning of Durham’s situation, should have offered a remedy such as credits to buy an album they ARE allowed to distribute. On the other hand, the Zune folks would have no way to know for certain that Durham isn’t trying to scam them or claim that the album is no longer usable when in fact it is.

This should be a cautionary tale in today’s age of digital media. In the end, you’re purchasing nothing more than a series of ones and zeroes recorded in a computer somewhere. If you don’t want to lose what you’ve paid hard-earned money for, you need to be very sure of your backup procedures.

In my own case, I use Zune Marketplace’s subscription feature to try out albums I think I might like. After I’ve listened to them, if they’re albums I expect I’ll be listening to for years to come, I investigate either buying the commercially-manufactured CD or a non-DRM-protected digital version. I make regular backups of my MP3 collection and periodically test those backups to ensure that they’re OK, since sometimes a hard drive does go bad, or get corrupted, or otherwise garble its data and I don’t want to lose anything. Fortunately, with DRM thankfully going away, there are likely to be fewer cases like Durham’s in the future.

PC maker Acer recently announced an upcoming touchscreen, all-in-one PC called the Aspire Z5600. This new model vaguely resembles the Apple iMac, and is designed to take advantage of the multi-touch features incorporated into Microsoft Windows 7.

According to the Acer press release linked above, the Aspire Z5600 features a 24-inch display, “the latest generation of Intel processors” and hard disk drives up to 2TB. A Blu-Ray player combo drive is built-in. It also includes “the latest generation of MXM graphic processors” to ensure “optimum multimedia performance”… whatever that means.

Pricing and detailed hardware specifications are not yet available from the Asus web site. Images are available online on several non-Acer sites.

According to The Register Hardware, Acer has debuted a new line of notebooks called the “Acer Aspire Timelines” that will be available in 13.3, 14.1, and 15.6 inch versions. The Timelines reportedly deliver eight hours of battery life, or ten for models with a solid-state disk drive. The entry-level models will be priced in the $600-800 range and Acer claims that models with similar specifications from Lenovo, Sony, or HP cost $2,000 or more. The notebooks range in weight according to their size, from 3.5 pounds for the 13.3″ model to 5.3 pounds for the 15.6 inch model. At the thinnest point, the Timelines are 24mm thick, increasing to 50mm at the thickest. They are built in gun metal grey brushed aluminum. They offer up to 500GB hard drives and 64GB SSDs, DDR3 memory, and Dolby sound.

The Timelines also offer some interesting touches like an AC adapter that senses when the laptop is fully charged and goes into idle mode, saving power and battery life. They also incorporate special cooling features that enable them to run 5 degrees (Celsius) cooler than typical modern notebooks.

If the products deliver on their price, performance, and power-saving features, Acer should have a very good year in 2009.

The OStatic web site published an article today entitled “What if Windows 7 Starter isn’t meant to just stop Linux on Netbooks?” in which author Kristin Shoemaker discusses Microsoft’s possible motivations in releasing a less-expensive “starter” version of Windows 7 at launch. The starter edition is supposed to allow users to launch up to 3 applications simultaneously, with an upgrade (which can be purchased) to allow unlimited application launches. Shoemaker suggests that having a limit built into the starter edition, any limit, may cause consumers to look at alternatives. I’ve also seen a lot of derision in the Mac press about this and the other various “levels” of Windows 7 (and Vista) functionality. I have to say that I agree with pretty much all of this.

On the one hand, I rarely run more than 3 apps simultaneously on my netbook. For one thing, there just isn’t enough screen real estate in a laptop (even my 17″ HP laptop) to comfortably run a lot of applications. However, I bristle at the thought of being physically unable to run a fourth (or fifth, etc.) app if my needs dictate it at some point… simply because Microsoft wants to choke a few extra bucks out of me.

I also agree with the Linux and Mac folks who point out that their operating systems have a server and a desktop version, period. While Ubuntu is working on a netbook version, that version isn’t trying to limit functionality but rather optimize the user interface for smaller screens and less-powerful hardware in order to provide a better user experience. That kind of a versioning I can support because it’s about tailoring the experience to suit the hardware, not about limiting a customer’s options so they can be up-sold.

I’m completely against the many different flavors of Windows 7 Microsoft is reportedly planning to release. I can understand a low-end version for home users that is priced under $100 and includes everything but business features like Active Directory, and a full version that is priced higher and includes all of the features available. I can even understand a server version for homes and small businesses that is priced well below that of the “datacenter” variety, again allowing for an inexpensive in-home or small-business server. That’s about as many variants of Windows 7 as I’d want to see. But Microsoft is planning 5 different versions of Windows 7 at the desktop and who knows how many on the server side. That is simply ridiculous.

Having said that, I’m very impressed with Windows 7 itself, in the “Ultimate” form Microsoft is beta testing now. I’m running that version on two different notebooks, one a netbook PC from Asus and the other my aforementioned HP 17″ laptop. In both cases, it’s performing extremely well. The netbook is at least as responsive in Windows 7 as in Windows XP. The visuals and performance on the higher-end notebook make it much more pleasant to use than XP… not that I have any particular problem with XP. Unless Microsoft prices Windows 7 too far out of my ballpark, I’m planning to buy licenses for my main desktop PC, laptop, and netbook. I like it that much already. The only thing I don’t like about it is this “umpteen different levels” of product. I didn’t like that about Vista, and I like it even less with Windows 7.

In the end, I’m inclined to agree with OStatic’s Shoemaker when she asks: “Does [Microsoft] think it will sell upgrades? Will it sell upgrades? Yes, on both counts, and probably not nearly enough. The question is, then, is Microsoft trying to get the upper hand in the netbook operating system market, or stomp out the netbook market completely? You don’t need to worry about market share when there’s no longer a market.” With some netbook makers looking at Google’s Android OS and others at Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix, and Apple’s own rumored work on a netbook device, Microsoft’s tactics may indeed backfire on it.

I’m a fan of netbooks. I carry my Asus Eee PC 1000H with me every day when I go to work, and on any trip away from home where I think I’ll possibly be bored. I use it to read news and comics on the web during my lunch hour at work, and even post an occasional article to my blogs (including this one). For the record, I’m happy with my netbook as it is, but I am always keeping an eye on the market to see if anyone produces a device I think I’ll like better. Unfortunately, it always seems that each new netbook has approximately the same specs. Never a faster processor than the 1.66 GHz Atom, never more than 1 GB of RAM, limited graphics capabilities, relatively small hard drives and SSDs, and XP Home. I know there are faster CPUs out there, chipsets that allow for more RAM, and better graphics cards. So why aren’t the netbook makers using them? Sadly, the answer is Microsoft.

The early netbooks offered Linux as their OS. Undoubtedly Microsoft saw this as a threat and tried to get netbook makers to include Vista instead. Netbook makers knew that Vista was too resource-intensive for netbooks, and pushed instead for the lighter Windows XP. Faced with Linux becoming the dominant netbook OS, which might bleed over into mainstream notebooks and desktops, Microsoft relented on Vista. Unfortunately for consumers, however, Microsoft also set limits on the hardware devices that could be shipped with XP.

Microsoft requires netbook makers to limit main storage to built-in flash drives of 16GB or less, or hard drives no larger than 160GB. Graphics cards can’t support anything newer than DirectX 9.0. Main memory can’t be larger than 1GB. The CPU must be single-core and no faster than 1GHz unless it’s an Intel Atom, Intel Celeron 220, AMD Geode LX or Athlon, Via C7-M or neon. Screen sizes can be no larger than 10.2 inches for a netbook or 14.1″ for a large-screen netbook. If you look at pretty much every netbook on the market right now, you’ll find they all pretty much bump against the maximum set by Microsoft and stop.

While Microsoft thinks it’s doing itself a favor by introducing these restrictions (and perhaps to some degree it is), what it’s doing in reality is creating a perfect opening for Apple. By placing artificial limits on the capabilities of netbooks, Microsoft thinks it’s protecting the market for Vista and limiting the continued use of Windows XP… and it is. But Apple doesn’t have to play within those limits because Apple won’t load its netbook with Windows. As a result, Apple could (in theory) introduce a dual-core netbook with a high clock speed, 4GB (or more) of RAM, a large hard disk or SSD, higher-end graphics, etc. Such a netbook would be superior to any of those currently shipping, and if priced properly (and able to also run Windows/Linux), Apple could carve out a very large chunk of the netbook market.

We’ve already seen in the past that netbook buyers (like myself) aren’t averse to using a non-Windows operating system. Early netbooks were almost all Linux machines, and many today still are. Microsoft managed to win back the market by making XP an option, while limiting the ability of manufacturers to innovate in that space. If it can’t release Windows 7 on time (or netbook makers are unwilling to adopt Windows 7), that gives Apple a very large opening to work with.

Realistically, it’s unlikely Apple will introduce a netbook in the sub-$600 price range. Steve Jobs has claimed in the past that they don’t know how to make a notebook or netbook in that price range that isn’t “crap”. (Since other manufacturers have produced netbooks in this price range that are quite usable, it’s more likely that Apple refuses to produce an inexpensive netbook than that it can’t do so.) If Apple does introduce a netbook device of some sort, I’m betting it will be more like the iPhone than the MacBook and probably unable to run a non-Apple OS. But I’ve been wrong about Apple before. However, the right device, released soon enough, could allow Apple to carve out a big chunk of this market for itself. Time will tell if this happens, of course.

Engadget has posted a story with images of a supposed new Microsoft Zune model called the Zune HD. Very little is known about the device, other than that the images are being unofficially confirmed as real. What’s interesting about the Zune HD is that it appears to be a touch-screen device vaguely similar to the Apple iPod Touch. One can also guess by the name that it will probably have a high-definition screen. Not much more is known about it than this.

Interestingly, I read another article on CNET about how a survey of teenagers indicated that 100% of them planned to buy an Apple iPod in the future. That’s right, 100%. Before you start to take that statistic too seriously, realize that the survey only counts 600 students with an average age of 16.3 years. Moreover, this same group of students said that they wouldn’t pay more than $200 for an MP3 player. That leaves only the Nano and Shuffle as options in Apple’s product line. And, of course, the survey only asks what player they “want” to buy rather than what they “expect” to buy or may eventually actually buy. Still, it does show how successful Apple’s marketing efforts to teenagers have been.

While the above articles don’t paint a very rosy picture for Microsoft’s chances in the media player market, I wouldn’t be too quick to rule them out yet. The current Zune model has been receiving very favorable reviews compared with the iPod Classic (which is the most-similar product to it in the Apple line). While Microsoft is losing “mind share” because its players aren’t up to the “wow” factor of the iPod Touch, the Zune HD is evidence that Microsoft recognizes this deficiency and is taking steps to correct it. If their Microsoft Surface technology (and the “touch” technology included in Windows 7) is any indication, it’s clear that Microsoft recognizes the need to incorporate this kind of technology in their products. What remains to be seen is whether Microsoft can produce a touch-screen device that’s truly competitive with the iPod Touch. Because it’s good for competition and innovation, I hope so… but I’m not willing to bet on it yet.

PC Magazine published a very thought-provoking article by Neil J. Rubenking entitled “OpenDNS: ‘Conficker’ Barely Scratched U.S.” in which we learn that the much-publicized Conficker worm didn’t hit very many personal computers in the United States. The free OpenDNS service which handles domain name service (DNS) lookups for its customers was in a unique position to monitor and track the number of machines infected by the worm based on their DNS activity.

As Rubenking reports, “Around five percent of all OpenDNS customers evidenced infection by the Conficker worm. Despite the fact that roughly half of OpenDNS’s users are in the United States, the vast majority of infections came from elsewhere. Under 5 percent of infected systems came from the U.S.; it’s not even in the top five of countries affected by the worm, which are: Vietnam (13 percent), Brazil (12 percent), Philippines (11 percent), Indonesia (10 percent), and Algeria (7 percent).”

Elsewhere, it’s been speculated that the areas hardest hit by the Conficker worm are nations where Microsoft Windows is widely pirated. Since pirated copies of Windows have a much harder time getting security patches and updates from Microsoft, they are much more vulnerable to malware like the Conficker worm. In countries like the United States, where Windows isn’t pirated as widely, infection rates are much lower.

Within the Mac fanbase, a widely held perception is that Windows PCs “constantly” get viruses, worms, and other malware. Apple likes to perpetuate this myth in its advertising (remember the commercial where “poor PC” is sneezing and falling over because of a virus infection?). The reality for most Windows users, especially those here in the United States, is that we’re fairly well protected against malware. Am I suggesting PC users in the U.S. never see a virus infection? Of course not. What I am suggesting is that the prevailing image in the Mac community of Windows users suffering from “constant” malware infection is exaggerated, at least in the U.S. and other areas where pirated software is less widely used. (Pirated software, even for the Mac, is often used to sneak malware onto the systems of unsuspecting users.)

CNET’s Ina Fried posted an interesting article on April 6, 2009, entitled “Microsoft puts finger on better gestures” which talks about a presentation the company made at a computer interface conference in Boston. The aim of Microsoft’s research is to improve the use of touch-screen gestures to perform computer functions.

Microsoft did its research by showing test subjects a set of commands and asking them to do the most logical gesture for each. The most popular gestures were the ones researchers concluded made the best sense. As Fried reports, “Multitouch gesture controls are already an integrated part of the iPhone and Microsoft’s Surfce and are also supported on some notebook trackpads. Windows 7 adds operating system-level support for multitouch gestures. While widely praised as intuitive, Microsoft’s research shows only some of the gestures used on multitouch devices (like the iPhone) make sense…” Others are not very intuitive. \

Microsoft’s Meredith Morris said that what users did like to do, was make gestures in the air, something that today isn’t supported by devices like the Surface or the iPhone… though it makes sense to consider this in next-generation systems.

This shows an interesting difference between the Microsoft and Apple philosophies. Apple appears to have largely developed its iPhone gesture technology in-house without much attempt to consult the outside world before releasing it. Microsoft, on the other hand, is trying to work with “real people” to determine gestures that are intuitive and universal before building them into its products. In fact, it is interesting to note that Microsoft presented or co-presented over 10% of the papers delivered at the CHI 2009 conference on “computer-human interaction”. In other words, Microsoft engineers are sharing what they know with others in the industry to help improve all computer-human interaction. I wonder how many of the papers were delivered by Apple engineers or researchers? A quick scan of the conference program seems to say “None.”

It’s very interesting to see that Microsoft, sometimes perceived to be a monopolistic, money-grubbing machine, is out there supporting the user interface design field and sharing the results of its internal research. Meanwhile, Apple, which is openly lauded for its user interface and user experience skills was conspicuously absent. If Apple knows so much about making technology accessible to “mere mortals” why isn’t it sharing its gifts with the world (even if that means the Microsoft-ies in attendance will learn something, too)? Doesn’t the sharing of knowledge and skill fit in with their image? And if not, does that make them a little more “evil” than Microsoft, who’s willing to share?

After years of letting Apple bash the image of PCs and Windows in its white-background ads, Microsoft has finally taken off the kid gloves and gone after the crew in Cupertino. There are currently two spots circulating. The first shows a woman who tries to purchase a 17″ laptop for under $1,500. She looks at the Apple Store, but can’t find a 17″ machine in her price range, declaring that she isn’t “cool enough” for a Mac. Eventually, she settles on an HP machine that’s well within her budget. The second spot shows a supposedly technically savvy young man shop for a new laptop that meets his demanding needs for performance, battery life, and price. He looks at a MacBook, declaring it “so sexy” but explaining that to him, “Macs are more about aesthetics” than computing power. Like the woman in the first commercial, he walks away with an HP laptop.

Both spots hit Apple in its key weaknesses. Apple has established itself as a luxury brand, known for sleek lines and little touches like magnetic power connectors and accelerometers… and there’s nothing wrong with that. But these little touches add to the price of a Mac relative to a PC with comparable performance specifications. Microsoft realizes that and is doing its best in these commercial spots to point it out.

The commercials are having a predictable effect within the Mac community, which is understandably outraged that its favorite products are being attacked (just as Windows fans found Apple’s commercials insulting). But technology industry people are saying that Microsoft is “finally getting it right” in its ads. Will the commercials draw people away from the Macintosh? Highly unlikely. However, they may give potential “switchers” to the Mac some pause to consider the cost of switching to the new environment…

The AppleInsider web site posted an analysis of Dell’s new “Adamo” laptop line. The laptops are clearly designed to compete with Apple’s MacBook Air, offering what Dell claims to be the thinnest laptop in the world. Like the MacBooks being shipped today, the Adamo is reportedly constructed from a single piece of aluminum. It was designed to evoke images of “fine watches” and other luxury items. It also supposed to position Dell as a designer brand and luxury PC maker.

On the one hand, it’s good to see a mainstream PC maker challenging Apple with a thin designer machine. It will help that the machine is even thinner than the MacBook Air. On the other hand, Dell’s Adamo is even more expensive than the MacBook Air, at a time when netbooks are dominating the laptop market because of their low prices. I’m inclined to agree with AppleInsider that this is strange timing to introduce a “luxury” product line.

According to Computerworld, Microsoft is planning to invade our television sets with its Zune Marketplace.

An analyst quoted in the article thinks they’ll do this via the Xbox game console, much the way Netflix is streaming rented movies to the Xbox. His thinking is that Microsoft will hope that if you’re using the Xbox for movies and other media you might decide to pick up a game or two.

According to the Free Trader Beowulf blog, there is a flaw in Mac OS X Leopard’s handling of Microsoft Windows Active Directory accounts that results in some users being grated root access upon login, even though they had no special privileges on Windows (and should not have any on OS X).

The details for reproducing the error are provided on the blog as they were reported to Apple.

Although blogger Charles Profitt says that this isn’t a critical bug, it does seem like a pretty big mistake on Apple’s part to grant root access to normal users when it’s not appropriate.

On February 25, 2009, OSnews’ Thom Holwerda posted “Ballmer: Linux Bigger Competitor than Apple“. It’s an interesting piece from a few points of view. In Holwerda’s post, a slide from a presentation given by Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer shows that Microsoft’s biggest competitor to Windows is “unlicensed” or “pirated” copies of Windows, followed by Linux, then Apple.

As OSnews tells the story, “As much as I find Ballmer a rather annoying figure, he does score a major point here. About 300 million PCs were shipped worldwide in 2008. Round and about 9-10 million of those were Macs. Apple’s market share might be increasing, but it’s still relatively irrelevant compared to the bigger picture. As we said yesterday, Apple might be doing swell in the United States, but on a worldwide scale, Cupertino still falls a bit to the wayside. In any case, it appears that Linux (and piracy) is a larger blip on Microsoft’s radar than Apple, and it’s not hard to see why. With an economy that’s not doing very well, people will opt for cheaper products. Apple cannot offer those, but Linux and piracy can.” (Emphasis added by The Mac Sucks.)

We recently covered how CNET blogger Matt Asay, an admitted Mac fan, thought that just the opposite was true… that people would increasingly seek out the Mac because it represents a value in excess of its sticker price. The statistics presented in the OSnews article by Microsoft would indicate that people don’t seem to agree with Asay’s point of view. In spite of the economic climate we’ve been living in for a while now, Microsoft’s biggest threats are pirated copies of Windows (i.e., a “free” OS) and Linux (another free OS) – and not the Mac. It seems that “free” is more desirable in bad economic times when people have less disposable income. Go figure.

I will readily acknowledge, however, that Ballmer’s words and Microsoft’s actions are somewhat incongruous. On the one hand, Ballmer says Apple isn’t really a threat because they’re only a tiny part of the overall personal computer market. At the same time, Microsoft is launching a number of initiatives that are clearly an effort to replicate Apple’s business models: the Zune to compete with the iPod, the Zune Marketplace to battle the iTunes Store, and Microsoft Stores similar to Apple Stores. (Admittedly, not one of these is really a direct aim at the Macintosh or OS X, so Microsoft is at least somewhat consistent.) Will Microsoft be successful with any of its Apple-like efforts? I don’t know, but if you look at the articles linked in that earlier sentence it’s clear that people are finding things to like about Microsoft’s offerings.

It reminds me of the cola wars. Coke practically owned the soft drink market, but they tinkered with their formula to compete with Pepsi, a smaller competitor in terms of market share. Today, the phrase “New Coke” is often used as a derogatory term to refer to business disasters. In the cola wars, Coke eventually went back to the original formula that made it successful. One wonders if Microsoft will someday do the same thing. Maybe Vista was Microsoft’s “New Coke” and Windows 7 will take them back to a winning formula?

If you look at Microsoft’s history, it’s clear that they are serious competitors in the long term. Initial versions of Windows paled in comparison to the Macintosh of the day, but Microsoft gradually improved the operating system to the point that it (and Apple’s mis-management) nearly eliminated Apple from the market in the mid-to-late 1990s. Even with Apple’s sales growth of late, Microsoft is still the 600-pound gorilla in the personal computer OS market. The early Zunes met with a lot of derision, but more-recent reviews are comparing it very favorably with the iPod Classic. Even the XBox 360, which (like the Sony Playstation 3) has been beaten by the Nintendo Wii, still garners a fair amount of praise from developers and players when compared with the Playstation 3 from former market leader Sony. All of these indicate that while Microsoft may enter the market in a fairly weak position, its products slowly but steadily reach a point where they become “good enough” to be serious contenders for market leadership.

Perhaps that’s why Linux is a bigger threat to Microsoft than Apple. While Microsoft could always turn a battle with Apple into a price war, that’s not the case with Linux. Linux will run on older (i.e., much cheaper) hardware and cost nothing to install, compared to Windows, which will need relatively current hardware and of course a license fee (i.e., “not free”). In a tough economic climate, it will be increasingly difficult for Microsoft to convince customers to invest in new licenses and new hardware when there’s a free alternative that requires no new hardware and offers a lot of comparable software at no charge.

As reported on ChannelWeb and elsewhere, Microsoft has announced a program called “Elevate America” with which it plans to help train millions of Americans in Information Technology subjects. The program includes both web-based and classroom training. This has to be welcome news to some of the millions of people who have been let go or laid off due to the poor economy.