Do we over complicate things?  Do we take a small problem and make it bigger because we don’t always see the answer?

I’ve slipped this last month.  Honestly, I’ve been extremely busy.

Next week, back work here!

Lately I’ve had a few questions that keep flying around my head:

In the datacenter of the future, where does the operating system fit, and what’s it’s role going to be?

As virtualization becomes a standard, and our virtual machines become more “appliance-like” will we concern ourselves with operating systems as much as we do now?

Will the operating system be something provided by application vendors?

These are important questions, and their potential answers are a threat to companies like Microsoft. If in the future, more and more companies leverage virtualization to bundle operating system and applications to create “virtual appliances” then the need to purchase Windows lessens. As this starts to happen Microsoft looses control of the industry and more companies have the ability to compete in the market.

Many believe that they are already loosing grasp. Consider the Microsoft/Novell deal. Microsoft is attempting to claim IP rights over software licenses by the GPL. Years ago I had a customer tell me he wouldn’t use Linux because Steve Ballmer allegedly told him that Microsoft already had a legal case prepared against the Linux community for IP and patent infringement.

Does this mean that virtualization can change the world? I wouldn’t go that far, but it can definitely change the IT industry.

Technorati Tags: virtualization, Microsoft monopoly, Steve Ballmer

A friend just sent me this new story from Yahoo! discussing the explosive growth of electronic data.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070305/ap_on_hi_te/information_explosion_2

I’m not sure people realize how much of a problem this could be. Currently, historians have to search the earth for the slightest bit of data. Take for example the Ancient Egyptians. We search allover Egypt looking for tombs, cities, pottery, scrolls, etc… Even with what we find it’s not always clear what it means. Science has made this easier, but it’s still not an easy task.

Think ahead to the future. With googols upon googols of pieces of information. How do they determine what’s important and what’s not. How do they determine what’s factual, and what’s a hoax?

Combine this with all of the new governmental regulations forcing companies to hold onto data for years, sometimes decades, it becomes hard to delete old data. Where does it end?

What can curb this? Content-Addressable Storage? Archiving? Something new?

I know that I have been very suspicious of Microsoft’s recent moves into the virtualization space, citing what they’ve done in the past to companies like Netscape. Having said that, I believe competition in the marketplace is a good thing. In the end, I’d hope that customers would have a choice of virtualization platforms.

I bring this up because I recently found an interesting video on Microsoft’s website that discusses their vision of virtualization. You can view the video here:

I’ve been posting too many YouTube videos lately…. and in honor of this, I’m posting another video. This one my wife sent me.

This is a parody of tech support calls that all us geeks have had to go on, only this is slightly older technology.

I’ve posted a number of times on what I consider are unfair business practices of Microsoft and how it destroyed Netscape. I recently found an old Time magazine article about this, and thought I’d share it.

This article discusses how Microsoft was able to quickly disable Netscape and place Internet Explorer as the defacto Internet Browser. Microsoft’s dominance shows the true power that they have.

I remember back then everyone complaining about how buggie IE was. Whenever I turned someone on to Netscape Navigator they raved about it. However, I’m only 1 person. For the millions of people who were just learning about the Internet and logging on for the first time that little logo that said “The Internet” was where they went. This was usually right next the “Inbox” icon that loaded Microsoft’s email program. (Sorry, I don’t remember if it was called Outlook at the time or not.)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985115-1,00.html

You can read the article “Winner Takes All” here.

You can read my other thoughts on this subject:

http://www.vi411.org/2006/07/11/microsoft-compete-with-vmware-ha.html

http://www.vi411.org/2006/07/25/micro-source-vs-open-source.html

http://www.vi411.org/2006/09/19/virtually-unstoppable.html

This is a great video I found on YouTube called Punish your Microsoft Developer. Whenever Windows causes an error, the developer who wrote the code gets punished! Check it out:

So I decided to play around with http://www.indeed.com/ a little more and do some comparisons. I wanted to compare salaries based upon certifications. So I consulted some sites to find out what’s hot, and added a few that I see a lot of demand for. Here are the results:

macdailynews.com recently reported that Forbes has “chosen 10 of [their] favorite celebrity business moguls from the Forbes list of The World’s Billionaires and asked a professional astrologer to give us the lowdown”.

One can only ask why Forbes would pay for this. Must be a humor piece. Seriously though, isn’t there something better to write about?

Well, since I brought it up here’s who they picked:

* Amazon.com’s Chief Executive, Jefferey Bezos
* Chairman of Harpo, Oprah Winfrey
* Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg
* Apple CEO, Steve Jobs
* Microsoft Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer
* Google Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt
* Chairman of Viacom, Sumner Redstone
* Founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson
* Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet
* Co-founder of Dreamworks, Steven Spielberg

Never ones to take ourselves to seriously, we here are vi411.org have to protest the exclusion of VMware CEO Diane Greene. Therefore, in the spirit of the Forbes’ article, we written our own astrological “lowdown” on Diane.

Diane Green Chief Executive Officer, VMware Birthday: Unknown Sign: Doesn’t Really Matter New competetive technologies are developing at a rapid pace. However, VMware still holds onto their market share by maintaining it’s position as the true industry leader. Our “astrologer” says that “with Mercury’s ascention into Leo, Diane will experience rapid growth. Market growth that is.” Be careful though, Neptune is in retrograde, which means that you have emenies abound. As long as VMware stays focused on developing new technologies and doesn’t go into panic mode, they will be able to control the market for some time to come.

You can also watch the slide show here.

P.S. Bonus point to anyone who can tell me what Diane’s real sign is!