Microsoft rallies businesses to start Win 7 migrations now

In a last promotional run-up to the Windows 7 release next month, Microsoft is urging business customers to start their upgrades now with examples of customers already using the software, and another acknowledgement that the company learned lessons from how it handled Vista's release three years ago. Additionally, many customers, as has been typical with a major Windows release, opted to wait for the release of the first service pack for Vista to even consider upgrading, and then many others did not move to the OS at all. Microsoft has devoted an unprecedented level of time and attention to making sure business customers will have a smooth migration and reap financial benefits from the new OS, said Microsoft Senior Director of Product Management Gavriella Schuster, in what is likely to be the last of a series of interviews with reporters as the company prepares to release Windows 7 worldwide on Oct. 23. "The real difference that I think people are seeing with Windows 7 is a different level of quality," Schuster said. "We've never reached this level of quality before in terms of performance, reliability, ease of deployment, the tools around it." As she has in previous interviews, Schuster reiterated Microsoft's mea culpa about how the company handled preparing its business customers, ISVs (independent software vendors) and other partners for the release of Vista, which was made available to them in November 2006. At the time, drivers for key hardware and peripherals were not available, and major applications were not compatible.

Schuster assured customers that moving to Windows 7 will be a far smoother process and will set a precedent for how the company will handle desktop OS releases in the future. We have put a lot of effort in really resolving the customer friction point before we come to them [with the OS]. We are being much more proactive and we're saying to customers, 'You don't have to wait.'" Microsoft introduced case studies Monday showing that some customers have taken this advice - among them, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the city of Miami and Dutch IT services firm Getronics - and are reporting cost-saving benefits because of this decision, Schuster said. In fact, with a release-to-manufacturing version of Windows 7 already in the hands of many business customers, they can begin to move to the OS now. "In the past customers have had to wait for ISV support, they've needed to wait for a service pack release [to deploy Windows]," she said. "Shame on us, we've learned our lesson. Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 7 after the overall disappointment of Windows Vista and is hoping the OS will jump-start business spending on desktop software. But analysts have said that many companies still using Windows XP don't really have a choice when it comes to migrating to Windows 7 - the question is more of when they will move than if they will.

Many companies put a freeze on IT spending in general in the past year during the recession, and while conditions have improved, companies remain cautious about where they put their money. Overall, customers who have moved already are saving on the time of IT labor devoted to PC management in the range of US$89-$160 per year because of new features in Windows 7, according to the findings of case studies Microsoft released Monday. The OS allows administrators to set policies across multiple desktops for updating software and other features through back-end connections to Microsoft server software that manage these processes, Schuster said. In particular, the city of Miami said it would save $54 per PC per year on power management because of new features in Windows 7 for setting group policies. Microsoft also has changed its plans for a software package that helps customers deploy Windows across multiple desktops, she said. Originally, Microsoft had planned to release a beta of MED-V 2 sometime in the first quarter of 2010, but decided to add Windows 7 support earlier due to customer demand for it, she said.

Microsoft plans to release Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 in late October 2009, adding Windows 7 support for all components of the suite except for Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). That support will come in the first quarter of 2010 with MED-V 1.1 Service Pack 1, Schuster said.

Teradata announcements target public, private clouds

Teradata unveiled a range of data warehousing products and initiatives on Monday, including new public and private cloud deployment options and an upcoming appliance that employs solid-state disks. It employs a free Elastic Mart Builder tool alongside Teradata's workload management software, and is meant to help companies quickly create data marts and analyze information, as well as "control data mart proliferation," Teradata said. The company's new Agile Analytics Cloud is a set of products and services for quickly creating virtualized data marts inside a company's private cloud.

Teradata also announced versions of its Teradata Express software for Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and VMware Player. It is meant for use by developers in nonproduction environments. "We want to make it easier for people to develop analytic applications on the Teradata platform," said CTO Stephen Brobst. Teradata Express provides a feature-limited version of the company's database at no charge. Porting Express to pay-as-you-go cloud infrastructure services like EC2 makes doing so more attractive because companies, particularly smaller ones, don't have to acquire additional hardware, he said. Teradata's appliance uses Intel chips and will scale from between 7 and 200 terabytes of user data.

In addition, Teradata announced an upcoming data warehousing machine called Extreme Performance Appliance 4555. Like Oracle's Exadata 2 product, it uses solid-state drives, which offer better performance than traditional hard disks but are more expensive, although prices are dropping. Teradata is looking for early adopters now and plans to release the appliance in the first half of 2010, according to Brobst. This is "only fair," since Greenplum's initiative echoes what eBay has already done using Teradata technology, Monash added. "It also provides major support for what I think is an extremely sensible trend." Each vendor will bring relative strengths to the table, Monash added. With Monday's announcements, Teradata "hopes to leapfrog" its competitor Greenplum, which recently launched its own "Enterprise Data Cloud" strategy, analyst Curt Monash said in a blog post. Teradata should have an edge in managing virtual data marts versus just physical ones, but Greenplum may do better in regard to pricing and deployment options, he said.

Windows 7 May Spur Virtual Desktops, On and Off the iPhone

Predictions from analysts and virtualization vendors that desktop virtualization will take off during 2010 may be off the mark. VMware, Citrix and a range of other companies are putting clients on smart phones, minimalist thin-client hardware and USB keys in an effort to find something about Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) that will hook a customer's imagination, says Andi Mann, head of systems and storage-management research at Enterprise Management Associates. "VMware and Citrix both announced support for the iPhone, which is sexier, even though Blackberries have a greater penetration in business," Mann says. "Virtualization on handhelds is a kind of halo project -like the Chevy Corvette that dazzles customers who come in and end up buying a Chevette." The Chevette, in this case, is the aging desktop PC or laptop used by any one of millions of corporate workers stuck with Windows XP and looking to upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out later this year, says Chris Wolf, virtualization and infrastructure specialist at The Burton Group. "Windows 7 is going to drive a lot of the activity around desktop virtualization for companies that want or need to upgrade to Windows 7," Wolf says. Sales may take off, but the desktop PC may not have much to do with it.

Bulk migrations will take a long time, but many companies will at least begin moving users to the new OS within weeks or months, Wolf says, and will try to avoid spending the money it would take to upgrade every PC while they do it. [ For timely virtualization news and expert advice on strategy, see CIO.com's Virtualization Drilldown section. ] "Strategically, both Citrix and VMware have been planning that Windows 7 would be a major catalyst for desktop virtualization, and have been working toward it for a long time," Wolf says. Citrix Systems demonstrated its iPhone client in May. "Right now, it's a race to produce client-side hypervisors," according to Wes Wasson, chief marketing officer of Citrix Systems. "With that, [enterprise applications] are just a URL to the user. VMware announced more than a year ago that its VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client would run on the iPhone. You could be using a home-office PC or a Mac or a smartphone; as long as the client is there, you have secure access." Racing to an Anywhere Virtual Client Other software and hardware developers are also racing to build add-ons to make virtualization usable, and devices to make it easy to acquire. AppSense, whose code is part of both VMware and Citrix's VDI offerings, stores all that data and code on the server and reloads it all every time that user logs on, no matter through what device the access comes, according to Martin Ingraham, VP of strategy for the company. "We have to make it transparent across all the delivery technologies, so a user can set preferences on one, and go home and sign on using a different one, and have it exactly as they left it," he says.

The User Environment Manager from AppSense, for example, is designed to make a virtual desktop mimic the real thing by allowing end users to make changes, install software add photos, store cookies and do all the other things they'd do on an actual "personal" computer. Competitor Moka Five's desktop suite offers similar functionality adding the ability to personalize PCs and Macs without disturbing the "golden" PC image on which the company relies. It's just a hub to connect a keyboard, mouse, monitor and other peripherals to a Windows desktop image running in the data center. Thin-client manufacturer Pano Logic sells what it calls a "zero client" that has no CPU no operating system, drivers or moving parts. A starter kit of five, plus one remote USB key that can turn any computer into an authenticated thin client, starts at $1,989. LG Electronics is trying to streamline the hardware by building a thin client from NComputing a Pano Logic competitor directly into its SmartVine line of LCD monitors. NComputing sells a range of mini- to micro thin computers.

The 19-inch version retails for $199, can save 70 percent on maintenance, 60 percent on hardware and 90 percent on electricity compared to a PC, the company says. Big VDI Question: Management Tools "The hardware can really be anything, which is the great thing," according to Steve Bonney, vice president of business development at Bayscribe, a software developer that builds high-volume, server-based dictation systems for medical facilities. But questions about how to manage those assets, protect intellectual property, and even measure the amount of risk involved are holding many companies back. "The fundamental problem is not getting access to the application from a phone," Mann says. "We can do that with a Web application. Bonney is hoping VMware will push its client out on all the major phone operating systems to save his company development costs and show that even heavy duty applications work on very thin clients if the client is ubiquitous enough. "This will completely reshape the way enterprise IT is done," Wasson says of Citrix' client-side hypervisor. "It shifts the information flow model back to pull-so you're not pushing things at users they don't want, and it simplifies things for IT." Even without the fancy hardware, VDI can save a ton of money for IT in support, capital costs and licensing, Mann says. It's all about the manageability, without that, there's no question it's cool, but no one is really sure if it's practical." Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.

Fall HDTV Trends: 3D, Fewer Cables, and Skinny LEDs

Move over, LCD - here comes green, lean LED. Make room, too, for sets that dispense with unsightly cables and get ready for a coming wave of 3D sets. CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) is the trade group for people who install high-end home entertainment and automation systems, and its annual show has become the venue of choice for consumer electronics companies who want to show off their high-end wares. These are the big HDTV tech trends on display at CEDIA Expo in Atlanta this week.

One of the biggest trends is the emergence of LED backlighting as the upscale replacement for conventional, CCFL LCD screens. But they also cost more than traditional LCDs, so most vendors are continuing to offer LCDs for those on a budget. LEDs are more energy-efficient than LCDs (many sets tout local dimming - the capability to turn down brightness in dark spots - and ambient-light-sensitive displays that get darker in darker rooms). LEDs also dispense with environment-damaging mercury, and their superslim screens are capable of richer color. Either way, the sets are now almost all 1080p (as opposed to the 720p resolutions that dominated the market earlier in the decade. The sets come with either a 46-inch or a 52-inch screen. Sony, for example, announced a new pair of super-skinny Bravia sets, the XBR10 series, with edge-lit LED backlighting.

They boast speedy 240Hz screen refresh technology to make action video look smoother. You hook up all your audio and video sources - set-top boxes, game consoles, home theater receivers - to the transmitter box, which beams their uncompressed signals (1080p and 7.1-channel audio) to the set over the unlicensed 60GHz band. Cutting those Cables The XBR10 sets feature another hot technology: WirelessHD. Designed to eliminate ugly cables dangling from wall-hung sets (although they still need a power cord), WirelessHD sets come with transmitter boxes that have the myriad of inputs usually found on the back of the set. WirelessHD offers vastly more throughput than even the fastest Wi-Fi ; backers say the first products, all based on chips by a company called SiBeam, move about 4GB per second (802.11n tops out at a theoretical rate of 600mbps). But WirelessHD lacks Wi-Fi's range - it can cover only up to 33 feet - which is why it's a cable-replacement technology, not a home networking technology. LG Hops on the LED Train LG Electronics' new SL90 LED sets are also extremely thin - less than 1.2 inches thick, with no raised bezel. All the goodies in the XBR10 series don't come cheap, however; the 46-inch set is expected to run about $4500, while the 52-inch model will go for $500. Sony plans to ship both next month.

They're due out later this fall with price tags of $2599 for the 47-inch model and $2099 for the 42-incher. LG is also bringing three WirelessHD sets to market. A trio of new conventional LCDs, the SL80 series, are somewhat thicker - 1.8 inches - but also less expensive, at $1599 for the 42-inch model, $1,899 for the 47-inch set, and $2799 for the 55-inch display. The top-of-the line 55-inch LED-backlit 55LHX is expected to ship shortly at a suggested price of $4799, while a pair of conventional LCD sets, the LH85 series, are due later this fall for $3199 (55 inches) and $2399 (47 inches). Panasonic Shows WirelessHD set, 3D Technology Panasonic recently began shipping a 54-inch plasma TV with WirelessHD, the TC-P54Z1, which It had announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Insisting that its technology is poised to become the industry standard for 3D, Panasonic said it expects to begin shipping 3D-enabled TVs and Blu-ray Disc players next year.

The set/transmitter bundle runs $5500. However, 3D HDTV took center stage at the company's CEDIA booth, in the form of a mobile theater showing dramatic 15-minute reels that included clips from the Pixar film Up! and sports footage. The technology requires wearing special glasses, which Panasonic says are superior to those provided for 3D movies in theaters. Samsung, meanwhile, has for some time been shipping 3D after-market kits. Panasonic isn't the only vendor to set a stake in 3D. Jeff Goldsmith, Sony Electronics television VP, says the company is committed to 1080p content in 3D. "You can bet that we're bullish on the technology as 2010 approaches," he told reporters at the company's CEDIA news conference. Sharp Thinks Big Sharp's new offerings also include a line of four LED-backlit AQUOS sets, the LE700 series, all 1080p sets ranging in price from $2800 for a 52-inch model to $1100 for a 32-inch set. The 65-inch LC-65E77UN will sell for about $4500 when it ships later this month, Sharp says, and the 60-inch LC-60E77UN will run $3500. JVC, meanwhile, announced only one LED HDTV, a petite 32-incher weighing a mere 12.5 pounds.

The company also announced a pair of larger conventional LCD sets at what the company described as attractive price points, given the dimensions involved. As skinny as one-quarter-inch at its leanest point, the 1080p JVC LT-32WX50 is slated to ship in November - but there's nothing skinny about its price (except maybe the effect on your wallet), which JVC describes as "less than $3000."

Eleven Years of Google: A Look Back

Google has come a long way in its eleven-year history, from its humble beginning as a Stanford University research project in 1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar online presence Google enjoys today. The unique logo illustrated Google's eleven years in operation by adding an extra L to the company's name to form a number eleven. Earlier this week, the company celebrated its 11th birthday and choose to mark the occasion with an all new Google Doodle, a fun take on their colorful identity.

Google's actual founding date is subject to debate. Still others think that Google should recognize September 15, 1997 as its founding date, as that is when Google registered the google.com domain. There are those who think that Google should bring out the cake on the September 4, the day in 1998 that Google filed its incorporation papers and officially became Google, Inc. But despite the debate, Google has celebrated its anniversary on September 27 for the past few years now, making the date somewhat official. Early Days: 1998 With 1997 behind them, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped the original BackRub moniker in favor of Google, a play on the mathematical term "googol ". With the Google.com domain registered and a healthy $100,000 investment from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, the two Stanford students rented out a $1,700 a month garage space in California's Menlo Park.

Any birthday offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past, so just what has Google been up to in the last eleven years? With a makeshift office in place, Google made it official and filed for incorporation as "Google Technology Inc" on September 4, 1998. As the rest of year played out, Google began to receive positive support in the press, and the company also hired their first employee, Craig Silverstein. In June, the company released its very first press release, detailing how the firm had secured $25 million of funding. Money And Moving: 1999 Thanks to its growing workforce, the fledgling company moved twice in 1999. Google outgrew its modest garage and relocated briefly to a more suitable location in Palo Alto. During the second half of the year, as the company reached forty employees, Google moved once again to offices in Mountain View, with an in-house chef included.

Growth & Expansion: 2000 2000 was a year of growth, as along with the search engine reaching a milestone of one billion pages indexed, the website also expanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French, German Japanese and more. This year also saw Google drop the exclamation mark from their logo and settling with its now world-famous branding. How things change. At the time this was a big deal, as Yahoo! was once one of the darlings of search, which Google had originally set their eyes on to compete with; mission accomplished? This year (2000) also saw Yahoo! reveal that they will be using Google as their default search provider.

Of course today paints a very different picture as now both Yahoo! and Microsoft are collectively attempting to compete with the search giant that Google has become. With the year drawing to a close it was pretty clear that the search engine was on a meteoric rise, as Google was now handling nearly 100 million search queries a day. Before the year was out Google also found time to launch the immensely successful AdWords program, and their Toolbar browser plug-in. Going Global: 2001 With the search engine now available in over twenty-five languages, it only seemed right that the company would expand on a global level with the opening of its first international office in Tokyo. 2001 also saw Google hire ex-Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt, who started at Google as the Chairman of the Board, before quickly moving on to become the CEO. With the Google search index approaching three billion webpages, it seemed the perfect time to tackle a new type of search: Images. Getting Geeky: 2002 2002 saw Google launch a range of new products, including the shopping tool Froogle, the experimental Google Labs, and the popular Google News service, a product of the company's so-called "twenty percent time". Geeky Google also decided to offer a Klingon translation of the site for all those Star Trek fans out there, bringing the total number of supports languages to over seventy. Google launched its Image Search service in July, and initially had an index of over 250 million images.

Spiderman, Warcraft 3 and pop star Shakira were amongst the most common search terms of the year. It began in February when Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, which allowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease. The Written Word: 2003 2003 was one verbose year for the search-engine giant. Soon after the acquisition, Google's company name was announced as a recognized verb, to "google it" had become synonymous with search, however Google strived to steer clear of dictionaries and protect their strong brand. Classic books and their film adaptations, such as Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, were some of the most searched for terms on Google in 2003. Email, Google Style: 2004 Without a doubt 2004 biggest Google news was the introduction of Gmail.

In December the controversial Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the service allows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form. The beta launched on April Fools Day, but Google made sure that Gmails was no joke, offering a then-unheard-of 1GB of storage along with a speedy user experience and the beauty of Google's search technology built right in to your inbox. After five years, Gmail finally disposed of its beta status early in June of 2009. 2004 also saw Google move to its Mountain View, California "Googleplex" headquarters, where the company still resides today. The service launched as a strictly invite-only affair, which resulted in an online gold rush of those hoping to land an invitation. In addition, Google opened a research and development center in Tokyo and a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. Mapping The World: 2005 In 2005, Google's ongoing effort to organize the world's information continued as they released Google Maps.

With over three thousand employees, a range or products under its belt and over eight billion items in its search index Google's growth continued to amaze. Sicne then, Google has continually improved the mapping service, adding new features such as satellite views and directions, as well as increasing the number of new searchable locations. Optimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released. Google Earth, a 3D satellite photography-based mapping application, soon followed, further complimenting Google's range of location services. 2005 also saw the release of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google Analytics. Oh, and could you imagine naming your newborn baby "Google"? It happened 2005. A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006 Ending months of speculation, in late 2006 Google finally revealed that they had bought online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction.

Gmail was also made available to all, no longer requiring an invitation. The Growth Continues: 2007 The year started with Google expanding into new territories once again, with Google Maps making its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages. The biggest innovation from Google in 2007 was the addition of street level photography to Google Maps. Naturally, Street View's introduction caused some controversy as it raised quite a few privacy concerns. Dubbed Street View, the service lets you view and explore a number of US locations at street level. Popular search terms in 2007 included the iPhone, Facebook and Second Life.

Going Full Circle: 2008 Last year Google celebrated their tenth year in operation, and showed no signs of slowing down. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the popular video site has grown into an outright juggernaut: Even the Queen of England has her own YouTube channel. The company released its first iPhone application, expanded Street View's coverage to include a number of additional countries, revealed a new version of its Picasa photo management app, and launched Knol, a Wikipedia-type service. The open source Google Chrome appeared in September of last year, and featured a minimalist interface and home page with shortcuts to frequently visited pages-features that have made their way into other browsers since then. In its biggest move of the year, Google announced that it would enter the browser wars with its own take on the humble web browser. Later in the year, Google's foray into software continued as the first ever cell phone to use Android, Google's open-source mobile OS, hit the scene.

So far Google has added offline access to Gmail, introduced its Latitude location service, taken you to Mars with a new version of Google Earth, and re-launched the GrandCentral phone service as Google Voice, to name but a few things. Google At Present: 2009 2009 has been a busy year so far for Google, and it isn't over yet. Google also unveiled its Wave service in May of this year. The biggest news from Google this year came when the firm announced that it plans to release an operating system. Wave combines a range of communication and social networking activities into a single web application and is expected to be available to the masses later this year.

Google Chrome OS is expected to land next year, and will initially be aimed at low end devices such as netbooks. What Does The Future Hold? Several hints at what the OS could look like have leaked online, but Google have yet to comment on any supposed screenshots. With eleven years behind them, Google is still innovating and tweaking. Just be sure to remember this, Google: Don't be evil.

What we can expect next from the search giant is anyone's guess, but in the immediate future we can look forward to taking Chrome OS for a spin, trying out new versions of Android, and watching countless videos on YouTube. Please. Chime in with your thoughts in the comments. What will Google come up with next? Follow Geek Tech and Chris Brandrick on Twitter.