Andy Patrizio
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Andy Patrizio
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Microsoft extends the lifecycle of Windows Server and SQL Server
In recent years, Microsoft has made enormous efforts to get people to migrate off products that had reached their end of life. In 2014, it was Windows XP. In 2015, it was Windows Server 2003. This year it was SQL Server 2005. So, knowing what the company went through to make people migrate makes this latest bit of news somewhat baffling. Microsoft has quietly announced the addition of a third tier to its product lifecycle, expanding the lifespan of both Windows Server and SQL Server by an additional six years. Microsoft usually offers two tiers of lifecycle support covering a 10-year lifespan. The first five years, known as Mainstream support, include new features as well as security and non-security updates. The last five years, covering Extended support, has security and non-security updates, but no new features are added to the product. After that, all support ceases. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Tech predictions for 2017: What I expect to happen, and what I hope will happen
Yes, it's that time of the year again. Where does the time go? Anyway, it's time for us in the news business to make our annual predictions for the coming year. Unlike some, I own up to my misfires by leading off with the predictions made a year ago and admitting what came true and what didn't. So let's get into that. How good were my 2016 predictions? 1. IBM becomes a major cloud player.Not really. The most recent numbers, which covered Q2 of this year, put IBM at under 10 percent share. It's still an Amazon and Microsoft world. The good news is IBM grew 57 percent year over year, so it is making up for lost ground. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Tech predictions for 2017: What I expect to happen, and what I hope will happen
Yes, it's that time of the year again. Where does the time go? Anyway, it's time for us in the news business to make our annual predictions for the coming year. Unlike some, I own up to my misfires by leading off with the predictions made a year ago and admitting what came true and what didn't. So let's get into that. How good were my 2016 predictions? 1. IBM becomes a major cloud player.Not really. The most recent numbers, which covered Q2 of this year, put IBM at under 10 percent share. It's still an Amazon and Microsoft world. The good news is IBM grew 57 percent year over year, so it is making up for lost ground. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Tech predictions for 2017: What I expect to happen
Yes, it's that time of the year again. Where does the time go? Anyway, it's time for us in the news business to make our annual predictions for the coming year. Unlike some, I own up to my misfires by leading off with the predictions made a year ago and admitting what came true and what didn't. So let's get into that. How good were my 2016 predictions? 1. IBM becomes a major cloud player.Not really. The most recent numbers, which covered Q2 of this year, put IBM at under 10 percent share. It's still an Amazon and Microsoft world. The good news is IBM grew 57 percent year over year, so it is making up for lost ground. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Tech predictions for 2017: What I expect to happen
Yes, it's that time of the year again. Where does the time go? Anyway, it's time for us in the news business to make our annual predictions for the coming year. Unlike some, I own up to my misfires by leading off with the predictions made a year ago and admitting what came true and what didn't. So let's get into that. How good were my 2016 predictions? 1. IBM becomes a major cloud player.Not really. The most recent numbers, which covered Q2 of this year, put IBM at under 10 percent share. It's still an Amazon and Microsoft world. The good news is IBM grew 57 percent year over year, so it is making up for lost ground. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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iPhone power plug knock-offs are a fire hazard
Sorry for the Daily Mail-like clickbait headline, but there's no simple way to say it. Chartered Trading Standards Institute, a U.K. group that's similar to the Consumer Product Safety Commission here in the U.S., issued a warning that 99 percent of the third-party Apple chargers do not meet proper shielding standards. The group tested 400 of these counterfeit Apple chargers and found only three of them were properly shielded to prevent a fatal electric shock or spark a fire Leon Livermore, CEO of Chartered Trading Standards Institute, told the BBC that shoppers should buy electrical goods only from trusted suppliers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Prepare for a spike in SSD prices
SSD prices have been in a freefall for the last few years thanks to increased output by NAND flash memory makers and those vendors converting their production to 3D NAND, which offers increased density at a lower cost. That's why you are seeing so many 1TB SSDs on the market these days, but it's also why prices are going up.However, going into the busy fourth quarter, the industry has been hit with a double-whammy of lower production and increased demand, and at that point it's basic economics of supply and demand. The result could be a spike in prices in the coming months.A report in China's CTimes states that revenue is up considerably for NAND flash makers such as Samsung, SK Hynix and Toshiba because prices have risen recently. Part of the reason is the increasing demand of 3D NAND flash, which stacks the memory cells in layers to achieve greater density in a smaller space. Vendors are converting their fabrication plants to handle 3D, but it takes time and money. Lots of money. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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17 for ’17: Microsoft researchers’ predictions for 2017 and 2027
Microsoft researchers have shared their annual predictions of what they believe will be the big advancements in technology within the next 10 years. The predictions were made by 17 different researchers at the company, covering 10 different areas.Predictions are always a dicey thing. Stewart Alsop will never live down his prediction that "the last mainframe will be unplugged on March 15, 1996." Twenty years later, IBM still sells its z Series mainframe. Oops. Still, the Microsoft wizards have some interesting predictions. And for this year's list, Microsoft's prognosticators are all women. Microsoft is celebrating Computer Science Education Week around the globe, with special emphasis on women and girls, given the fact women account for only 20 percent of computer science graduates in 34 of the countries which are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) yet are half the population. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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17 for ’17: Microsoft researchers’ predictions for 2017 and 2027
Microsoft researchers have shared their annual predictions of what they believe will be the big advancements in technology within the next 10 years. The predictions were made by 17 different researchers at the company, covering 10 different areas.Predictions are always a dicey thing. Stewart Alsop will never live down his prediction that "the last mainframe will be unplugged on March 15, 1996." Twenty years later, IBM still sells its z Series mainframe. Oops. Still, the Microsoft wizards have some interesting predictions. And for this year's list, Microsoft's prognosticators are all women. Microsoft is celebrating Computer Science Education Week around the globe, with special emphasis on women and girls, given the fact women account for only 20 percent of computer science graduates in 34 of the countries which are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) yet are half the population. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft’s chatbot is reborn as Zo
Earlier this year, Microsoft tried an experiment with an AI-powered chatbot called Tay. It was an interesting concept where Tay would learn from its users. Unfortunately it turned into a PR disaster very quickly as the 4chan crowd moved in and taught it all kinds of racist and homophobic comments. Red-faced, Microsoft pulled the chatbot quickly and promised to make adjustments to its AI chatbot so that it doesn’t act like a /b/tard. Fast forward a few months, and Microsoft is ready to try again. Its new chatbot has the equally odd name of Zo. For now, Zo is available only on Kik, a chat service for mobile phones, whereas Tay was on Twitter. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Windows Phone users give Microsoft CEO an earful
After spending $7 billion for the Nokia smartphone business, Microsoft has a dying platform on its hands, and shareholders want answers from CEO Satya Nadella. Rather than push the Lumia line, Microsoft has cut back its smartphone hardware to a smaller number of devices, markets and carriers. And the company has made more of an effort to get its own apps on iOS and Android rather than its own platform. Needless to say, Microsoft shareholders wanted to know why. GeekWire reports shareholders at the annual meeting gave Nadella an earful over it. One shareholder wanted to know why the nifty Microsoft Pix app (it is very nice) is only on iPhone and Android and not on Windows Phone. The same is true for Microsoft Outlook. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Joe Belfiore returns to Microsoft to put more ads in Windows 10
Joe Belfiore, the executive previously leading the Windows Phone charge (or what there was of it), has returned to Microsoft after a year-long trip around the world. And his new mission is to put more ads in Windows 10. About a year ago, Belfiore announced he was taking a one-year sabbatical to sail around the world with his kids in a program called Semester At Sea, an educational cruise program run by the University of Virginia. The cruise went around the world, making stops at every continent except Antarctica. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDC predicts the collapse of the Windows Phone by 2020
Microsoft’s mobile OS is tracking to eventually drop to 0.1 percent market share, and the proposed Surface Phone line expected next year won't do anything to stop that decline. That's the conclusion from IDC, which just released its latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. It puts global smartphone year-over-year growth in 2016 at a paltry 0.6 percent That's a major drop from the 10.4 percent year-over-year growth in 2015. + Also on Network World: When it comes to security, Android is the new Windows + However, that's the total market. For just 4G smartphones, IDC predicts a 21.3 percent year-over-year growth globally for 2016, reaching 1.17 billion units. Much of this growth is coming from emerging markets, such as Asia/Pacific—excluding Japan—Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. Mature markets such as the U.S., Canada, Japan and Western Europe are further along the 4G adoption curve, so the growth is slower.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Windows could get design language overhaul
Microsoft is reported to be working on a new design language, which affects how the UI looks and functions, that will eventually be rolled into one of the major Windows 10 updates coming out next year. Windows Central said Microsoft is working on what it called Microsoft Design Language 2 (MDL2), or Project NEON. A design language is a term that refers to a language for how controls, fonts and iconography in the desktop and mobile versions of Windows 10 are controlled. It manages things such as switches, toggles, pickers and dialog windows. You know and hate MDL1 already. It was Metro, introduced in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7. It introduced the flat, dull UI instead of the more 3D-looking skeuomorphism that iOS and Android were adopting. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google security expert says antivirus apps don’t work
A senior security engineer at Google told a hacker conference that traditional antivirus apps that use intrusion detection are useless and companies should switch to meaningful methods such as whitelisting applications. At Kiwicon X, the New Zealand equivalent of the Black Hat conference held in the United States, Darren Bilby called many existing tools ineffective "magic" that engineers are forced to install for the sake of compliance but at the expense of real security. "Please no more magic," he said, according to The Register. "We need to stop investing in those things we have shown do not work." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google security expert says antivirus apps don’t work
A senior security engineer at Google told a hacker conference that traditional antivirus apps that use intrusion detection are useless and companies should switch to meaningful methods such as whitelisting applications. At Kiwicon X, the New Zealand equivalent of the Black Hat conference held in the United States, Darren Bilby called many existing tools ineffective "magic" that engineers are forced to install for the sake of compliance but at the expense of real security. "Please no more magic," he said, according to The Register. "We need to stop investing in those things we have shown do not work." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft details post-LinkedIn plans to EU
Antitrust regulators at the European Union like to make American firms jump through an awful lot of hoops before approving a big merger, as they did to Oracle when it spent nine months trying to acquire Sun Microsystems back in 2009. Now they are doing it to Microsoft over its proposed $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn. Earlier this month, regulators expressed concerns to Microsoft that it would stifle access to LinkedIn's APIs and other mobile concerns. Last week, the European Commission said Microsoft had responded to those concerns by proposing "concessions," which Reuters has obtained. According to the news outlet, Microsoft has made three major promises to the European Commission:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft is replacing the CMD prompt with PowerShell
One of the last vestiges of the old MS-DOS days, the Command Prompt, is looking like an endangered species. The latest Windows 10 preview build puts the Windows PowerShell, first introduced on Windows Server, front and center. Build 14791, believed to be the basis for the Redstone 2 upgrade coming early next year, replaces the Command Prompt window in many key areas of the operating system. Command Prompt is still there, just not as accessible. Microsoft is putting the emphasis on PowerShell as the main command shell going forward.Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider Program, mentioned this change in her blog post discussing Build 14791. She notes that it is still possible to stick with Command Prompt if you wish: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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ICQ, the original instant messenger, turns 20
About 20 years ago, I started driving co-workers within listening distance crazy with constant chirps of "Uh oh!" emanating from my laptop. It was all coming from a nifty little program I'd discovered called ICQ, which let me talk to friends in real time. Created by a group of Israeli college students who eventually formed the company Mirabilis to support development of the app, ICQ stood for "I seek you" and was intended as a way for Windows users to communicate much in the same way Unix users could send real-time messages. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Visual Studio for Mac: Microsoft publishes details a little early
Premature publication of news is a common mistake on both our end and that of vendors. Today was Microsoft's turn to suffer an oops with the premature announcement that it is bringing its flagship development tool to the Mac. Microsoft will be hosting its Connect(); 2016 developer conference in New York City later this week, which will be the launch grounds for Visual Studio for Mac, but for whatever reason, the news was published early to an MSDN blog. Several sites, including TechCrunch and Neowin, got the news before the blog post was taken down, although a cached version is available from Google.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here