Category: Microsoft

Complaints About Bad Microsoft Patches Goes Mainstream

It was inevitable.  MVPs have privately voiced concerns to Microsoft about the quality of patches coming out of Sustained Engineering.  That feedback went somewhere up the chain and out the back door.

Then after many months and the July 2013 disasters, some of us decided to talk about it publicly on social media.  Some Microsoft people in Redmond agree with our concerns, expressing embarrassment that their hard work is being diminished by a laughable resource planning policy decision.  Once again, no notable changes to the CA-style “testing”.

Now I’ve just read on Silicon Republic that MVP Susan Bradley (AKA the SBS Diva) has written to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to address her concerns.

“On behalf of everyone in this community, may I respectfully request that you assign someone in a management position to investigate what is going on with quality control with patch testing lately?” Bradley asked Ballmer.

A certain negative response from a few Microsoft people to Susan’s letter is reported in the article.  I do recognise that experience.

I’m glad this has gone “main stream” and been picked up by the media.  To be honest, I think we have to embarrass whatever executive is responsible for this mess into making a much-needed change.

EDIT:

Mary Jo Foley just pinged me on Twitter to let me know that Larry Seltzer had previously posted a similar story on ZDnet.  And don’t forget that myself and Hans Vredevoort also raised issues in Windows Server and System Center in July.  To be honest, I think there’s a mindset with the power-that-is that will only increase the cost of testing if sales are hit.  The power to make a change is in your hands.

EDIT:

And Rod Trent also posted a story on this problem on Windows IT Pro.

EDIT:

Add Redmond Magazine to the list.

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Microsoft Agrees To Acquire Nokia

A few hours ago (early morning Irish time) Microsoft announced that:

… the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services.

Due to all the usual legal mumbo jumbo the purchase hasn’t completed yet and won’t for some time:

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by Nokia shareholders, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

This is huge news and it isn’t.  In fact, people have been wondering “when” rather than “if”.  There were a few clues:

1) Devices and Services

Like it or not, Microsoft describes itself as a “devices and services” company now.  It’s hard to be a devices company if you don’t manufacture the most commonly used form of device on the planet, the phone, like your two main rivals do (Apple and Google/Motorola).

2) Dwindling Manufacturer Sentiment

Who makes Windows Phone handsets?  Nokia, obviously.  So do HTC and Samsung.  The rumour mill says that HTC is considering a big shakeup in their models, and the HTC One (great reviews if not sales) might be a factor.  Samsung’s ATIV SP8 handset is doing “so well” that you can pick it up for tap dancing in a store in the UK – it’s not really that bad but not far from it.  I know lots of people with Nokias, some with HTCs, and one with a Samsung.

So Microsoft would be naturally worried about a single third-party vendor ecosystem.  That must have turned into case of the shakes when Huawei started sniffing around in Finland to see if Nokia was worth buying.

There have been rumours of Microsoft building a Surface phone, and even rumours of one being manufactured in China.  Maybe the *ahem* success of the Surface tablet range forced a re-think if Surface Phone really did exist as a program? 

It just makes too much sense for Microsoft to acquire Nokia.  They already had an exclusive arrangement.  Nokia was living off of cash reserves.  Nokia is a company that can build to rival Apple’s design – no more chunky models with the battery life of a Mayfly please!  And Microsoft needs to start building Windows Phone handsets before the partners disappear.

My prediction for the future:  2 handsets per 12-18 months.  One will be high-end device in the €600-700 (or $ because that’s how manufacturers do currency conversions) range.  The other will be a lower price device for the mass market.  Both will be available via AT&T in the USA, and nowhere else in the world.  Cos that’s how Microsoft executive leadership rolls!

Sigh.

EDIT:

OH NO!  This means Nokia CEO Stephen Elop could be coming back to Microsoft.  The horror!  His name was widely being discounted by informed people as a candidate to replace Steve Ballmer.  The general media and bookmakers had him as a lead player.  I threatened on Twitter that I’d switch sides to VMware, Apple, and Google if he became CEO.  Now it’s … it’s … it’s a realistic possibility. 

I might have to buy this Mastering VMware vSphere 5 book by Scott Lowe soon:

On the other hand, let’s look at Stephen Elops big achievements:

  1. He emptied the room with his keynote presentation at TechEd Europe 2009.  I couldn’t even hear at one point because of the noise of people walking out of his bore-fest.  Being an executive on his board could be like catching sleeping sickness.
  2. Nokia’s share value … well … David D’Souza (@davidds) put it well:

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Dear Mr. Gates, for all that is good and holy, please do not select Stephen Elop as the next CEO of Microsoft!!!!!

The Shareholders React To Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer’s Retirement Plans

I saw the tweet first from Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley was next.  According to a Microsoft press release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has decided to retire as CEO within the next 12 months, upon the completion of a process to choose his successor.

 

Let’s give Ballmer some credit before I stick a stake in him.  He managed Microsoft through a very difficult post-Gates era.  It’s never easy to play Steve Young to Joe Montana (to follow a legend), as Tim Cook is finding out.  Add on top of that the DOJ trying to force your company to split up and the EU suing you over everything your predecessor decided.  Then there was Vista … and the excellent Windows 7 was produced.  Microsoft’s cloud services have, after a ropey start on BPOS/Office 365 (the licensing model was changed to suit the partners that sell/implement this stuff) and Azure (they finally gave us the infrastructure services people want instead of PaaS), started to take off, joined hand-in-hand with on-premises infrastructure.  In the enterprise, SQL now fights fair against Oracle.  Hyper-V squares up against VMware.  And an enterprise management/cloud solution was grown to a mature and scalable level from nothing.  And we cannot forget that the company has diversified to have over a dozen $1 billion businesses.

But then the devices debacle happened (or didn’t).  Surfaces that no one wanted were produced, shelved, and discounted for nearly $1 billion.  The Windows 8 GUI remained unchanged for nearly a year despite overwhelmingly negative criticism, while Ballmer pulled a 3 wise monkeys.  And I have mentioned some quality issues, which need some correction from the top-down.

This retirement is a very good thing in my opinion.  Certain things have been worrying me about Microsoft in the last few years.  Several years ago I blogged that Ballmer needed to take heat over the lack of a Windows tablet – I was even on the “put Windows Phone on a tablet” band wagon.

The share holders agree: Business Insider reported (at the time of writing) that:

And the stock is surging, up over 8% pre-market.

A camp of shareholders have been quite vocal about trying to get rid of Steve Ballmer.

Timing-wise: Windows 8.1, System Center 2012 R2, and Windows Server 2012 R2 are as much as done with the release date on Oct 17th/18th, depending on product and your time zone.  Microsoft should have held off on the announcement for another few days (maybe there was a leak that accelerated things?) because they could have completely stolen the thunder of VMworld next week.  My prediction is that Steve Ballmer will step down at WPC 2014, handing over the mic to his successor.

Speaking of which …

The Board of Directors has appointed a special committee to direct the process. This committee is chaired by John Thompson, the board’s lead independent director, and includes Chairman of the Board Bill Gates, Chairman of the Audit Committee Chuck Noski and Chairman of the Compensation Committee Steve Luczo. The special committee is working with Heidrick & Struggles International Inc., a leading executive recruiting firm, and will consider both external and internal candidates.

“The board is committed to the effective transformation of Microsoft to a successful devices and services company,” Thompson said. “As this work continues, we are focused on selecting a new CEO to work with the company’s senior leadership team to chart the company’s course and execute on it in a highly competitive industry.”

“As a member of the succession planning committee, I’ll work closely with the other members of the board to identify a great new CEO,” said Gates. “We’re fortunate to have Steve in his role until the new CEO assumes these duties.”

My preference would be someone who spans marketing and technology.  It’s time to polish the rough edges from consumer products.  I’m not talking a MSFT marketing person who plans bad advertising campaigns.  A person who understands the desires of the customer is required.  The heart and the genius of Microsoft are the technologists that drive product.  That must be continued to be nurtured and wrapped in the fine veneer that a consumer expects, and partnered with quality control.  I really really home that we’re not going to see Julie Larson Green in job in a years time.

And that’s the news from a damp Friday afternoon in Dublin, which is probably the same in Redmond Smile

 

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Microsoft Kills TechNet Subscription–Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace

This is last week’s news but I was a little occupied and, to be honest, a refresher isn’t a bad thing.  Last week, Microsoft sent out notifications to TechNet subscribers that the subscription service was coming to an end:

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TechNet Subscription is a service where you can get just about every Microsoft install products (minus the dev ones) for evaluation purposes.  IT Pros have used TechNet as a means for evaluating, testing, and learning Microsoft products over the years.  At a modest fee of a few hundred, it was a great value service.  Without TechNet Subscription I could never have become an MVP.  I could have run home labs, I couldn’t have done demos in presentations.  Before that, I leaned on TechNet to run a lab to learn Server, AD, Virtual Server (when you had to pay for it), etc.  What I learned what transferred to the production network.

Now IT Pros are to seek alternatives:

  • Evaluation Center: Get time-limited trials.  Sorry, but we IT Pros are kind of busy.  We can’t be rebuilding labs from scratch every 90-180 days.  Are you trying to make like more difficult?  I had an interesting chat with a MOC trainer (a very large international company) a few weeks ago.  He was driven insane by the need to redeploy entire training environments every 3 months because of activation limitations.
  • Virtual Academy: Seriously?!?!? Level 100/200 training?  That’s supposed to prepare an IT Pro?
  • Virtual Labs: Canned, limited, virtual only labs.  Sorry.  That’s a joke.
  • Forums: You’re having a laugh right?
  • MSDN: The equivalent subscription is 3-4 times more expensive because it is aimed at developers, and includes rights to use Visual Studio with the included s/w for development and testing purposes, not just evaluation.

I’ve said this in private, had it ignored, and now I’ll say this publicly.  This is a stupid move.  This stinks of start menu obstinacy.  Even the start menu caused a divide.  The entire IT Pro audience is furious about this.  Somewhere a bean counter has looked at the bottom line and forgotten that hybrid cloud only works if the private cloud part is implemented.  Who exactly is going to implement that?  A person who has seen 5 minute videos on Virtual Academy?  Get a grip!

Right now, a person is reading this and saying “hey you MVPs aren’t affected”.  Yes, correct.  One of our benefits is an MSDN subscription so my access to materials is not affected.  I’m not angry for myself; I’m angry for the community, the people I represent as an MVP.  Where are the next generation of MVPs going to come from?  Are they going to be dumb retweeters for MSFT marketing?  Are they going to learn just level 100 content from online labs?  How are customers/consultants going to learn how to implement private cloud?  BTW, the usage rights for MSFT partners to MSDN are limited to just a few people.  Good luck with hybrid cloud without private cloud expertise.

This is an opportunity for Microsoft to listen to feedback and reverse course before it is too late.  Don’t wait a year to apologise after you’ve alienated a market … see Windows 8.

As for you the reader, I do not want to hear a peep from you unless you’ve signed this petition.  There’s too many sheep out there.  Don’t bother tweeting, linking, commenting, or anything else unless you have signed the petition.

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A Beginners Guide To The MVP Summit

This post was edited/updated on 27/August/2014.

For the past few years I’ve been sending my “Guide to the MVP Summit” to friends who were newly minted MVPs. This year, I thought I’d share my guide (with hush-hush stuff removed) so everyone could get an idea of what goes on.

What’s an MVP?

A Microsoft Valuable Professional is, according to Microsoft:

MVPs are independent experts who are offered a close connection with people at Microsoft. To acknowledge MVPs’ leadership and provide a platform to help support their efforts, Microsoft often gives MVPs early access to Microsoft products, as well as the opportunity to pass on their highly targeted feedback and recommendations about product design, development, and support.

MVP_BlueOnly

There are around 4,200 of us around the world with all sorts of expertise. For example, there are around 14 of us in Ireland, and I am in the Cloud & Datacenter Management (CDM) expertise – note the the program now allows an MVP to have more than 1 exptertise. There are other Irish MVPs have the Cloud and Datacenter expertise, as well as other expertises from across the Microsoft portfolio.

We vary from Xbox experts, Office365 gurus, and Windows Server wizards. Our community can be found on forums, writing books, delivering training, blogging, podcasting, updating wikis, speaking at road shows, presenting at launch events, and running user groups. And from time to time, we work too Smile

There are no exams to become an MVP.  After making contributions to the community over time, people get recognised by other MVPs or Microsoft employees.  A person is nominated and evaluated.  If they’re lucky they are awarded with MVP status.  And that status is good for 1 year.  At the 9-10 month mark, the whole evaluation begins again based on our contributions over the past year.  There is no sitting on your laurels when you are an MVP; you don’t want to lose your status and lose access to the MVP Summit.

What is the MVP Summit?

We get a number of benefits as MVPs but this is the crown jewel. The MVP Summit is a conference, held usually in Microsoft HQ at Redmond and in nearby Bellevue, where MVPs and members of product groups get together for several days. The contents of the conference are under NDA … it’s kind of like Fight Club: the first rule is not to talk about Summit, and the second rule is not to talk about Summit.

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The sessions we attend are mixed, from general content to focused sessions with the folks who helped create the product that we are experts in. I can’t talk much more about it …. but these sessions can be amazing.  We can learn a lot from the makers of the product.  Why would Microsoft do this at their expense?  Simple: we’re out there talking about their product in markets that they cannot reach.  For example, I have used my education to teach Microsoft partners in Ireland, to blog here, to write a book, and to speak at many events and podcasts, and author whitepapers.  We are independent (VMware folks might say different about me, but I get a lot of heat from time to time for my … … independence) so people value what we have to say, instead of listening to the same old canned presentations from Microsoft marketing.

This isn’t just a 1-way flow of information. It is alleged that Steve Ballmer once said that MVPs were people who asked questions with exclamations at the end, e.g. “Will we get NIC teaming in Windows Server vNext!!!!!” Smile We tend to bring lists of feature requests and feedback. A lot of what’s in Windows Server 2016 was because of MVP feedback (I wish I could say what bits!).  The cool thing is that the program managers welcome our feedback, either because it’s unexpected or because it provides them with the metrics to support something that they’ve been pushing for.

One of the great things is the networking.  We MVPs get to meet each other and our friends from other countries. I’ve gotten to know developers, Office 365 experts, System Center people, and the list goes on. This proves useful for that “quick question”. One hand washes the other: sometimes we find work opportunities for each other. And yes, you make all kinds of friends. Some of the best people I know I met at the Summit, and they’re the sort of close friends that I was delighted to invite to my wedding.

Where is It?

Your life during this week will centre around Bellevue and Redmond.

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There are a number of conference hotels. The big three are:

  • The Hyatt on the junction of NE 8th St and Bellevue Sq. This is the hub of social activity. A reception is usually held here. There are many bars and restaurants in the immediate vicinity within walking distance. This is the hotel everyone wants to book … and it’s why I was pressing F5 on the night that registration started Smile I’ve stayed here all but one year.
  • The Westin is down the road across from Bellevue Square. I stayed here on my first year. Some of the Summit activity usually happens here, registration, overflow, additional sessions outside of the core days. There is an undercover walk between the Westin and the Hyatt (direct to where registration usually is at the Westin). I stayed one night in 2013; it’s comfy and directly across the road from the restaurants you’ll go to in Bellevue.
  • A more economic, but distant, option is the Red Lion. I’ve not stayed there but friends have. It’s out of the way, but it offers a shuttle service into Bellevue.
  • There are a bunch more of hotels within 10 minutes walk of the Hyatt. I’ve stayed in a couple, and they’re good hotels too. Trust me – on Summit week, if it’s an official hotel, then you’ll have plenty of out-of-town nerd company.

You might find that certain groups or countries like to stick to certain hotels. If you’re an MVP, ask around and you’ll find out where your group likes to stay.

When to Travel

The Summit as an event runs for 3-4 days, but you might find additional stuff being added by the groups – some are better than others at this. They will be full and long days. I suffer from horrible jetlag, and that makes the 8 hour time difference all the tougher.  I usually fly in on the Saturday before.  The idea is to sort out my jetlag but that’s never worked.  On the Sunday, I register, relax, hanging out in Bellevue, wandering about, and spending time with friends, some of whom I might not have met since the last Summit.

Know your schedule before you book flights/hotels.  The more diligent might want to get back home as quickly as possible to minimise time away from work or family.  Are any elective sessions outside your core expertise available?  Is your product group laying on extra sessions or days?  Some groups have been known to do 2-3 days of extra content because they have some much content to share and get feedback on.

Travel

The local international airport is Seattle-Tacoma (SEA). From UK/Ireland, I used to go via Heathrow to take advantage of the convenient departure/arrival times of BA into/out of Seattle, but Heathrow Terminal 5 is a nightmare to change in now. Instead, I prefer to fly directly from Dublin into the USA (and do immigration in Ireland), and then get a short hope either from Chicago or Seattle.

The airport is about a half hour from central Bellevue by taxi. I can’t remember the price but I think it was around $50-$60. Note that some of the hotels, such as the Hyatt, run a shuttle service.

If you’re arriving in after 9pm then you might find it difficult to find food at the hotel. Plan ahead: get food on the way.  Yeah, that’s airline food, but it’s better than nothing. Joey’s bar across from the Hyatt front entrance is the only place I know of that serves food late, but it’s usually full of MVPs and the posers that parked their hypercars outside.

The trip to Redmond from central Bellevue takes around 15 minutes. Microsoft runs regular coaches from each official hotel to the hub in the middle of the campus. Buses are queuing up and leave when filled. Calling Redmond a campus is an understatement: it’s a small city with its own road network, buses, and taxis. You find out where your sessions will be when you build your schedule (online soon before the conference). At the hub, you catch another organised coach to get to your building – they run on a loop stopping off at different buildings. If you find yourself stuck at a building needing transport, there’s a buzzer outside the front door where you can request a Microsoft bus/taxi – you just need to know what Microsoft building (number) you’re going to … including the several Microsoft buildings in Bellevue.

The Social Side

The reception is a welcome party, usually in the Hyatt, where all MVPs from around the world and all expertise mingle.  It’s a chance to meet old friends and new ones. And the group of a certain country annoys everyone else with their endless chanting. Note to self: print a huge poster with their results from the world cup *evil laugh*. BTW, the food is often shite, but there’s a Wendy’s burger place around the corner 🙂

The product group evening session is a big deal. Here you’ll get to talk more with the presenters from the week, and meet other program managers that you didn’t get to see talk.  This event can be where you make those contacts that save your bacon in 2 years time, and it’s where the PMs figure out who are the right people for them to talk to when planning products.  This informal atmosphere is where a lot of stuff gets done.

Bars and Restaurants

You usually don’t need to buy food during the conference days. Breakfast is served in the hotel in a conference room – what’s the story with turkey sausages? They are God-awful pale turds.  Seriously!  I usually skip that by getting cereal/milk in a local supermarket and eating in my hotel room.  There are frequent breaks and lunch at the sessions.  Dinner is taken care of most nights.  The reception at the Hyatt features weird tasting mini-burgers.  There are lots of options nearby:

  • Breakfast is served in a hall in the conference hotels on official Summit days. Day 1 it’s good. Then it switches to those God-awful “dog turd” turkey sausages. That leads me to …
  • Palaminos beside the Westin is OK.  Typical American food and a pricey but tasty breakfast.
  • Denny’s is a great way to fill up at breakfast, but there isn’t one near the hotels.
  • The Starbucks is across from the Hyatt gets very full.  There is another bigger one just 1 minute walk past that one and it’s never as busy.
  • The Italian across from the Hyatt is excellent.  I recommend the spaghetti & meatball.  There is another Italian (I think) beside the Starbucks on the corner.
  • There is an “Irish” bar across from the Hyatt that is popular with MVPs
  • The bar outside the Hyatt on the corner, Joey’s, also gets busy but is close by. It’s a pricey spot with lots of exotic cars being parked in the hotel courtyard.
  • There is a small restaurant/bar on the ground floor of the Hyatt.  Nice breakfast.  Don’t remember many MVPs in there.  I also think there’s a Mexican or a fish restaurant in the Hyatt complex.
  • Near Barnes & Noble (east of Westin hotel) is a really good bar.  Huge beer and food menu from what I remember.
  • There’s a pizza place around the side form the Westin. I ate there in 2013 and the pizza was good.
  • Cheesecake Factory is across the road from the Westin.  Huge portions of food and always busy.  If you go there with a big group, you will wait for a table (they give you a pager).  It’s usually full.  I guess this is a mandatory visit for non-American fans of The Big Bang Theory (get the barbecue bacon cheeseburger, delivered with barbecue sauce, bacon, and cheese on the side) Smile Go there hungry. Very hungry.
  • Breakfast is pricey everywhere. Add in coffee and you’re talking $35/person.
  • There is a Chinese across the flyover walkway between the Hyatt and the Westin. I hear it’s excellent – it must be because it is always full and busy.

Shopping

Everyone wants to shop when in the USA, especially us gadget geeks.  The Apple and Microsoft stores are separated by an escalator doors apart in the mall.  It’s a big indoor mall, typical of USA.  There’s also a camera place.  But I’d also check out the Best Buy website if I was you.  Best Buy is about 1.5-2KMs away.  If you are going into either Apple or MSFT stores, don’t go in too late in the day – 2500 MVPs will also be in there.  The mall has lots of other stores and lots of small coffee shops and places to eat. Fry’s is huge, but it’s quite a distance away. You can get a taxi there, but it’s tough getting back. And do not even attempt to get on that road in peak traffic.

There have been discounts in the past for MVPs at the MSFT Store, such as a cheap Surface 2. And we were there in 2013 when the Xbox One was released and we got to see the madness in the mall and on the MSFT campus. That’s not an every year deal – wait until you register before you shop in the MSFT store … and do ask if there is an MVP discount before you pay.

There is also a Barnes & Nobel 1 block east of the Hyatt and Westin. I remember my first visit there: I got to see my name in print on the cover of a book for the very first time (Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2). 

There is also the Company Store in the Redmond Hub.  This is the place to get your cheap XBox Live Gold membership, webcams, etc.  Any time  I see one of my Hyper-V books on sale in there … another “happy dance” Smile

Seattle

It’s actually a good distance away, about 20-30 minutes to the main part of the city, which is west of Bellevue.  You can get a bus (I am told).  There is lots to do and see.  The underground tour is supposed to be excellent.  The fish market is a must-see apparently.  A few did a harbour boat tour.  I did the spike thing last year.  You go up, pay for coffee, and go back down again.  I’m not much of a city-tourist Smile  I prefer going out into the mountains with camera gear.  If that’s your thing and you have time, then you’re in luck.  Olympic National Park (big snow mountains) is west of Seattle.  The Cascade mountains run north/south east of Bellevue.  Mt. Ranier National Park is southeast of you.

The Experience

Maybe you’ll get to learn loads, and maybe not – it depends on your product group and how interested they are.  To me, the Summit is the most important event I go to each year.  Part of it is meeting the MSFT folks, and part of it is meeting the other MVPs.  This is a conference like no other, because this is where you get to mingle with other experts and where you get to shape future versions of the products that you work with.

The NDA

I have left some stuff out because I’m not sure of the NDA nature of it – better safe than sorry!  You’ll learn more about the event from your regional leads as we get closer to it.  Be sure to talk with local MVPs or others in your same expertise to find out what else goes on during the week.

Oh yeah: At MVP Summit there will be no photography, no blogging, no tweeting, no facebooking, no instagramming … and I am not joking. This is put on your serious pants time and take the NDA very seriously.  Assume everything is under NDA unless told otherwise.  If you are told it’s not under NDA then you can blog, etc, but I am careful with that stuff and ask for it to be reviewed before publishing, just in case I included NDA content by accdent.

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Successor to Network Monitor – Microsoft Message Analyzer (Beta)

This came in early this morning:

Microsoft Message Analyzer has been released to the public, available here.

As you might guess from the name, Message Analyzer is much more than a network sniffer or packet tracing tool. Key capabilities include:

  • Integrated "live" event and message capture at various system levels and endpoints
  • Parsing and validation of protocol messages and sequences
  • Automatic parsing of event messages described by ETW manifests
  • Higher-level display of operations->messages->packets
  • User controlled "on the fly" grouping by message attributes
  • Ability to browse for logs of different types (.cap, etl, txt) and import them together
  • Automatic re-assembly and ability to render payloads
  • Ability to import text logs, parsing them into key element/value pairs
  • Support for “Trace Scenarios” (one or more message providers, filters, and views)

We are providing this beta release to give you an opportunity to let us know what you like and don’t like and where we need to focus our energy as we drive towards a mid-2013 RTM date. 

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Microsoft Exam Prices Going Up In Some Countries

Microsoft just announced that some regions/exams will undergo price increases come July 1st (August 1st for India).

I checked the Irish price, and it remains unchanged at €140 or £124.40.  I was asked to check the UK price.  It’s going up from £88 to £99.  Wait; the UK price is still going to be £25.40 cheaper?  Hmm, something smells rotten to me.  It isn’t a tax difference.  Sounds awful like the Office365 pricing issue I blogged about recently.

Opalis & How Something Isn’t Finished Until It’s Documented

I mentioned in a blog post last night that I started out my career as a dev (eek!).  One of the things that was drilled into us in college was that something was not finished until it was documented.

I recently tried to get System Center Opalis up an running in a lab.  The newest release, 6.3, added support for Windows Server 2008 R2 so I thought I’d fire it up in a lab.  It did not go well.

It appears (assuming I understood the v6.3 documentation correctly) that you install v6.3 by installing v6.2 and hacking it with some files from the 6.3 zip file.  OK!  You then install two types of agent.  One coordinates tasks that run on various machines, and another runs the tasks on those various machines.  The management agent deployed OK.  But the other one … all I could get was a useless error telling me that it failed to install.  No codes, nothing to check, etc.  I did the usuals like very domain admin rights, and disabling firewalls but still no joy.  I checked online and there was nothing to help.  Seeing as it was just a lab that I was trying to do something quickly on, I didn’t bother hitting the TechNet forums.

And there-in lies the problem.  I know that most customers don’t search too hard for solutions.  If they try something, and it doesn’t do the basics cleanly, then it’s on to the next alternative.

To me, Opalis is an unfinished product.  And that’s a pity.  Because the idea of Opalis is pretty damned good.  But it fails at the final hurdle.  I wonder if this is why there’s lots of talk about the MS acquisition of the Novel PlateSpin resources?  Opalis is so un-MS-like as a product.  It’s like MOM 2000 … nice idea but maybe some of us will wait until the recently added Microsoft logo actually means something more than IP ownership.

By the way, here’s a step-by-step video for Opalis.

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Bob Muglia Fired?

Steve Ballmer sent an email to employees to say that Bob Muglia, the executive in charge of cloud, server and tools, was no longer employed by Microsoft. You might be able to read that as the latest of the Nero-esque executive firings. And I guess that it’s another division that Ballmer will take direct control over?

If you are a division lead (any left now?) it might be a good time to prepare your alternative plans.

I really don’t think that Microsoft shareholders will tolerate this for very much longer.

I’ll miss the “Bob Muglia cloud drinking game”; it beats being told that MS wants nothing to do with you if you’re not interested in the cloud.

The Novel Acquisition May Be More Relevant To Microsoft Customers Than You Originally Thought

News broke yesterday that Attachmate was buying up Novell.  “Who cares?” was my original thought.  Linux admins are very wary of Novell so SLES does not have the usage of RHEL (corporate) or CentOS (hosting).  As for XenWorks … hmm.

But, Virtualization.Info posted an article that made me pay attention.  Here’s the highlights: Novell own Platespin and they make a really good virtualisation assessment tool.  Microsoft’s MAP is OK (currently 5.5 release) but the data it produces is a bit basic and hidden away for my liking.  Averages are misleading.  Standard deviations are more useful.  I’ve found the Platespin reports to be quite useful for host sizing.

And it appears that Novell has done quite a lot of work on cloud and workflow automation across multiple hypervisors.  I didn’t know that.  The original article mentions trouble with Opalis.  I’m yet to see a good MS explanation on it. 

But here’s the really interesting bit … Microsoft might be able to get its hands on some of the assets.  Check the original article for more details.  This could really add some clout to the MS offering.