This article first appeared on InformationWeek.com, and was written by Charles Babcock.

Around the breakfast table at VMworld, attendees from places like Calgary, Little Rock and
Charleston, S.C., remarked on how Ubuntu, Microsoft and Red Hat were barely visible at the
show this year. Microsoft had a little booth I never succeeded in spotting; Red Hat had a 10-by-
10 on the perimeter. It all suddenly seemed so obvious.

Microsoft, Red Hat and Ubuntu are all operating system vendors heavily invested in some other
form of virtualization than VMware's. And they're all wary of VMware's widening ambitions
and description of a future operating system for the data center, based on its own virtualization
layer. Microsoft prefers to talk about Hyper-V and its management component, Virtual Machine
Manager in Systems Center. Red Hat is sticking to its open source guns and going with KVM.
Ubuntu also packages up KVM and Xen.

What makes the operating system vendors nervous is that VMware CEO Paul Maritz talks as
if the operating system has become irrelevant. Maritz Tuesday gave a straight forward talk on
how the next phase of VMware's product line will help generate a more flexible data center.
Afterward at a meeting with the press, he sounded more combative. In the past innovation has
occurred at the operating system level, he said. (Maritz should know. When he was at Microsoft,
he oversaw the development and launch of Windows 95, Windows NT and Windows 2000.)

"Now innovation is occurring below and above the operating system, at the virtualization
layer and in applications," he said. There hasn't been any real innovation at the operating
system level in many years, he added. Operating systems "aren't going to disappear," he said.
They're "just one of several components" being managed by the hypervisor and its virtual
machine management infrastructure.

These perceptions, if correct, are disruptive to operating system-based business models.
Microsoft itself has an ongoing commitment to virtualization in the operating system rather than
concentrating on it as a separate management layer. Microsoft can line up many resources behind
that approach and tie virtual machine operation into its Azure cloud services. But it knows it
needs more time to build out all the functionality that VMware is talking about.

That may explain why on Aug. 31 it took out a full page ad in USA Today--distributed in hotels
around the Moscone Center--urging customers not to sign three-year contracts with VMware.
The ad warned VMware customers: "...signing up for a three-year virtualization commitment
may lock you into a vendor that cannot provide you with the breadth of technology, flexibility or
scale that you'll need to build a complete cloud computing environment," said the ad signed by
Brad Anderson, corporate VP for servers and tools.
"Microsoft warning about vendor lock-in is a severe case of the pot calling the kettle black,"
responded Maritz that day at VMworld.

Indeed, Microsoft may sense the same thing that VMware does: virtualization is yielding new

vantage points through which the future of the data center may be managed, if not controlled.
Microsoft is nervous because it knows a thing or two about chokepoints.

Microsoft is also leery of VMware's push to help developers produce applications for the future
data center architecture, described this year as the "private cloud." If VMware moves into a
position where it is the trusted provider of tools to cloud developers -- it's taking a giant step
in that direction with its SpringSource unit -- that's a threat to Microsoft's predominance on
another front. Given enough time, Microsoft will match up its .Net and Visual Studio with its
Azure cloud infrastructure. But there's a large part of the developer universe not yet committed to
Azure.

SpringSource and its Spring Framework addresses much of the non-Microsoft world. Spring
produces lightweight Java applications that compile to a standard byte code that runs in a Java
virtual machine. Likewise, the .Net language, C#, produces applications that compile to a byte
code that runs in .Net's Common Language Infrastructure. Microsoft's ability to do this exists in
the public arena through the Mono's project's ability to reproduce that byte code. The byte codes
are close together in that both are based on a shared ANSI standard antecedent.

It's conceivable that in less than three year's time, the Spring Framework will allow .Net
programmers to use Spring to produce applications for VMware clouds, and such a capability
could seriously impact Microsoft's hold on a key asset, its own developer base. It would prefer
that .Net developers be directed only toward Azure and the many options it plans for cloud
computing there.

So it's a different VMware that came out for VMworld this year. The show started six years
ago with 1,400 attendees. In this, its seventh edition, 17,021 showed up. And a brassier, more
confident VMware showed up as well.

That was evident in the short film that preceded Maritz' remarks on Tuesday. Much of what the
VMware brass had to say had to do with moving the virtualized part of the data center toward
cloud computing. The film short attempted to solicit the meaning of the cloud from an oracle,
who looked a lot like the female oracle in the movie, The Matrix. The scene suddenly shifted
to a round office tower like the type found at Oracle's campus in Redwood Shores. The camera
panned up to the top where, barely visible in the cloud descending over it, was the name Oracle.
A voice over made a dismissive remark about cloud computing, as if it was quoting from a Larry
Ellison's script. The audience laughed. No one is invested in dissing the cloud any more.

Wait a minute. Oracle wants to be a virtualization vendor, doesn't it? But virtualization leads to
the cloud. Oh, we didn't think about that. Oh. I guess we better come up with a cloud strategy.

VMware in the past has gone out of its way to sound like a good partner and a supplier of a base
technology that will fit into the big guy's shops. Now it sounds like it's willing to crowd the big
guys on their own turf. And I'm at a loss to see what is going to stop it from doing so.

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This article first appeared on InfoWorld, and was written by Galen Gruman.

A new survey shows business use is a major reason that employees are getting iPads -- it's not just for videos and surfing

Corporate IT, consider yourself warned: You'll be dealing with the iPad in your enterprise, whether or not you want to. And it won't just be the iPad; tablets and slates of all sorts are on their way in as well, as Android, WebOS, and Windows Compact Embedded 7 devices begin shipping in 2011. That's one of the findings from a survey of 1,100 enterprise employees polled by mobile management vendor iPass in a report released today.

According to survey results, 16.3 percent of mobile employees already have an iPad or tablet PC device, and another 33.2 percent planned to purchase or receive one in the next six months. A surprising 59.8 percent of those planned to use it for significant amounts of work, while 30.8 percent said they would use it for mostly personal reasons but also for some work. (It's a good thing that the forthcoming iOS 4 for iPad offers corporate-level security capabilities that third-party management tools can tap into.) A surprisingly small percentage said the iPad would go toward personal use only.

[ Can an iPad be used as a PC in business today? InfoWorld's Galen Gruman found out in hands-on tests. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobile Edge blog and Mobilize newsletter. ]

Here's the breakdown of intended iPad and tablet usage:

Although Apple has never positioned the iPad as a work device, and it certainly has limits in business settings today, users seem to be noticing the business potential for themselves, as are some forward-thinking business and IT leaders. In my ongoing informal conversations with vendors and IT managers, I keep hearing about the fascination many have with using the iPad at work across a wide range of industries: financial services, retail, hospitals, and all manner of field forces.

A couple examples: Intercontinental Hotel Group is piloting the use of iPads by its concierges at some hotels, so they're not tethered to a computer to help guests find directions and book services. And the D7 Consulting construction firm has given its onsite managers iPads to access construction drawings and othert support materials in the field.

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This article first appeared on InfoWorld, and was written by Ted Samson.

MalCon organizers want us to believe that security community can benefit from an event showcasing and teaching malware.

Anyone who was ever concerned by the concept of hacking conventions such as Black Hat -- which has evolved into a reputable venue for security defenders -- should brace themselves: An event called MalCon is on the horizon, which will provide a fine venue for malware creators to hone their craft, as well as, theoretically, an opportunity for malware fighters to bolster their arsenal to fight malware.

The organizers of the MalCon, which will take place in Mumbai and Pune, India, have attempted to put a positive spin on the event, as noted by security guru Brian Krebs. According to the conference website, MalCon is "the worlds [sic] first platform bringing together Malware and Information Security Researchers from across the globe to share key research insights into building the next generation malwares."

In addition to showcasing the top whitepaper submissions from malware researchers and coders, the event will offer training workshops on topics such as coding malware, analyzing malware, and reverse engineering. Said workshops are recommended for those who "[want] to develop or code [their] own virus / malware for research" (italics are mine) and for those who "aspire to advance their professional skills in security research and malware analysis."

The whole event sounds about as wholesome, innocent, and security-minded as a nuclear-bomb building convention in Tehran. Sure, some people might attend to learn a bit more about fighting malware, but it's bound to be more of a magnet for ne'er-do-wells who are eager to put their newfound knowledge to malicious use.

I ran it by InfoWorld Security Adviser blogger Roger Grimes for a reality check, and here's what he had to say: "No good can come from the conference. It's probably being held in India because there are a lot of 'legitimate' companies there, very out in the open, that produce bad software for other people.

"There have been similar projects before: virus coding books (plenty of them), dozens of malware ezines, etc., and none add to the good side of the equation," he added.

The conference coordinator Rajshekhar Murthy attempted to put a positive spin on the conference, Krebs reported. "While a conference can be done by inviting the best / well known security experts who can share statistics, slides and 'analysis' of malwares, it is not of any benefit to the community today except that of awareness. The need of MalCon conference is [to] bridge that ignored gap between security companies and malcoders. They have to get on a common platform and talk to each other."

And the capper from Murthy: "Just like the concept of 'ethical hacking' has helped organizations to see that hackers are not all that bad, it is time to accept that 'ethical malcoding' is required to research, identify and mitigate newer malwares in a 'proactive' way.'"

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We have all experienced it - a computer crash, the blue screen of death, a program freeze and the worst of all, a hard drive failure resulting and data loss.  When faced with the following situations your crucial data may be lost or become inaccessible.  Here are some tips on solving that problem.

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Ever wonder how many PC's are sold per year?  What about per day, hour, minute?  These numbers are astonishing and frankly hard to really see how big they are.  So, we've done our best to show you a visual of the numbers and a few other amazing computer statistics.  We hope you enjoy, and please do SHARE!

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Microsoft recently announced that they are sticking to the cutoff date for Windows XP of June 30^th. They tried this in January, but everyone complained and it was extended to June. But so far, it looks like June 30^th will be the date. It is pretty amazing to think of how long Windows XP has lasted. For example, when it was released in October of 2001, the minimum processor to run it was a 233 MHZ processor, with 300 MHZ the recommended speed. Amazingly, they claimed you could run it on 64 MB of Ram, and that you only needed 1.5 GB to install it. As an interesting comparison, here are the system requirements for Vista:  1 GHz Processor, 1 GB memory, 15 GB of available hard drive space, and a 128 GB graphics card. Maybe that is why 99% of the computers we have sold in the past two years have still had XP on them. On identical hardware, Windows Vista is slower than Windows XP. Functionally, our users don’t see any improvements that justify the required extra expenses to get a machine fast enough to tolerably run Vista.  Windows XP still accounts for about 63 percent of all Internet-connected computers, according to March 2009 statistics from Hitslink, while Windows Vista makes up about 24 percent.

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In the world of IT, there are a number of maintenance activities that need to be performed regularly in order to keep a network running smoothly. Much like changing the oil or rotating the tires on a car, system updates, backups, hard drive defragmentations and other processes are important for maintaining the overall health of a network or server. Many of these processes require system resources or even system down time, so a certain amount of planning and organization is required in order to minimize impact on end users or overall system performance. In addition, running too many of these tasks at the same time can cause these processes to slow down or even conflict with each other, further complicating the issues associated with system maintenance.

 For these reasons, we have strived to maintain a proper schedule when it comes to system maintenance tasks. Most of these services happen during off hours when end users will be impacted least. In addition, they are set up to run at specific times in order to minimize conflicts, such as updates causing the system to reboot while a backup is in progress. It also allows for greater troubleshooting. For instance, if we know all system updates occur on a specific night, it makes it easier to assess whether or not those patches are related to a specific issue that a system may be having. This kind of organization not only allows us to provide better service, but is also essential to ensuring proper system health while minimizing system down time.

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Here is an impressive demonstration by Samsung that shows you how slow your hard drive really is, and how fast solid state drives are.

The only catch? This demo is using about $20,000 worth of hardware. A bit pricey, by with computers, what is $20,000 now might be $2000 in the future.

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As computers progress and get cheaper, it is often easier and cheaper to replace a computer than it is to fix it. Some of our clients aren’t used to this approach. Many have been using computers since they cost $5,000 and are accustomed to maximizing the investment by getting as much use as possible out of the computer. Here are some of the reasons I give when I tell clients their money would be better spent replacing a problematic PC older than 3 years:

• Productivity. Almost everyone who gets a new computer talks about how much faster it is compared to the old one. For business owners, that means your employees can be more productive, and hopefully make you more money.
• Data protection. While it is always good to test your backup strategy, doing so by experiencing a failed hard drive is not what I would recommend. A 3+year old hard drive is in some cases a ticking time bomb. It is much easier to replace a computer before the hard drive dies.
• New programs and features. Often times, companies contact us when they have a new program they want to install that won’t run on the computers they are currently using. This means that if they want to run the new program, all computers need to be upgraded or usually replaced.
• Warranties. As a machine gets older, it is often more difficult to find replacement parts for some components. By being covered by a manufacturer’s warranty, we can typically receive all necessary parts next business day, free of charge.
• Budgets. When you drive a computer until the wheels fall off, it is difficult to predict what the expenses will be. Computers often die a slow death, requiring on-site visits to replace failed components and employee downtime. If a company decides to replace all computers every three or four years, it is easy to plan in advance, before yearly budgets are created, which machines will need to be replaced during that year.

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Dell doesn’t change platforms that often with their corporate customers, so when they do, it is a pretty big deal. The seven-year-old latitude D series will be phased out by the end of the year being replaced by the E series. Here’s why I will be ordering one as soon as possible:

• Dell Latitude ONTM. Sometimes when I am traveling with my laptop, I need to get something on the internet real quick, or I need to check my e-mail. I don’t necessarily need to wait for Windows to start up to do simple tasks. Latitude ON allows you to pretty much instantly boot into a simple operating system (Linux based) to access your e-mail, calendar, contacts, or browse the internet. Since it is not using your system’s main processor or hard drive, it dramatically improves battery life.
• Style. Some people say style shouldn’t matter for corporate computers, but when it comes to laptops, size and looks count. The new laptops are around 1 inch thin, and start out at around 2 lbs. This means you won’t feel inadequate sitting next to someone using a Macbook.
• Speed. The new laptops use faster DD3 memory, faster processors, and are available with the latest solid state disk drives (sorry, I had to use a little geek speak, I am talking about a computer after all.

I am holding out for the Latitude E4300 due to be released in the next few weeks. It is the smallest Latitude available that uses full-size laptop components.  This means you don’t have to sacrifice speed for size.

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