Posted by: kurtsh | December 2, 2005

BLOG: Ever wanted to talk to a Microsoft Lawyer?

So here’s something that I bet you never thought you’d do:  Would you like to read the musings of a Microsoft Lawyer?  Don McGowan is from Microsoft Legal/Corporate Affairs – the side of Microsoft that handles any and all legal issues that Microsoft is involved in.
 
Don, in a word, is a god.  Or at least a demigod.  And yes, he’s a real Microsoft lawyer… and a nice guy.  He actually monitors the discussions at Microsoft to make sure people don’t get themselves into trouble online.  He has his own blog that includes many of his throughts and it’s a really good read:
 

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Posted in Web

Posted by: kurtsh | December 1, 2005

HUMOR: Our lost XBox360 advertisement

I’ve posted the TV ad that the marketing guys censored.  Apparently it was leaked through MSN Video so I don’t think it’s any big deal posting it to my blog.  This ad was probably viewed as being too "violent" but I have to say that this is really representative of the immersion you feel when you play games on XBox Live.
 
 

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Posted in Entertainment

Posted by: kurtsh | December 1, 2005

RELEASE: Virtual Server 2005 R2

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 "went gold" last week and is slated to be available for you to download from the Volume Licensing Web Site (https://licensing.microsoft.com) Friday Morning, Dec 2nd.  If you need help obtaining it, please let me know.

——————————
SUMMARY:

TODAY:  VIRTUAL SERVER 2005 R2
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is a major revision of the Virtual Server product line and has some pretty impressive improvements made to it:
– SCALABILITY (x64 SUPPORT): 
Virtual Server 2005 R2 can be installed on x64 host systems running Windows Server 2003 x64 Enterprise Edition and take full advantage of the x64 memory space, meaning that virtual machines can now carve up the massive addressable memory available to x64 processors and are no longer limited to the x86 addressable memory limitations.  Right now, guest operating systems may only be x86 or 32-bit versions of the OS’s however we are working on providing
– PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT (50%-100%): 
Virtual Server 2005 R2 has been optimized greatly for the Windows Server 2003 SP1 environment and can provide 50%-100% performance improvements over original Virtual Server 2005  implementations.  Much of these improvements will depend on the workloads that are being carried out by the machines however it is safe to say that there are big performance gains to be had by using R2.
– NEW CLUSTERING AVAILABILITY (Guest & Host): 
Clustering for Virtual Machine availability is now available in two flavors on the Virtual Server 2005 R2 platform.  "Guest Clustering" (clustering between Virtual Machines using Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition in each VM) is possible by establishing a cluster two separate virtual machines connected to a data store using Microsoft iSCSI.  This provides failover between applications on different virtual machines.
The second type of clustering available is "Host Clustering" (clustering of the host operating system to failover the entire Virtual Service to another physical host server) which is possible by establishing a cluster between the physical host server and another physical host server with Virtual Server 2005 R2 installed on it both connected to a data source through a SAN, iSCSI, or Direct-attached storage.
– INTEROPERABILITY (Linux):
Linux is now supported as an operating system on Virtual Server 2005 R2.  We provide virtual machine additions for various flavors of Linux for customers that want to run Linux on Virtual Server 2005 R2.  We also provide support for failover for other operating systems like Linux when using host clustering with Virtual Server 2005 R2.
– PRICING ($99/$199):
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is now $99 for the Standard Edition (up to 4 processors).  It is $199 for Enterprise Edition (up to 32 processors) making the product very cost efficient for individuals looking to reduce cost of ownership through virtualization and consolidation.

NEXT YEAR:  SUPPORT FOR VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED PROCESSORS
In mid 2006, we will release a version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 that will support Intel’s VT virtualization support and AMD’s Pacifica virtual machine management support.  By partnering with both Intel and AMD, we will have leveraged these new on-chip capabilities that greatly enhance the experience and performance of virtual machine implementations. 
For example, instead of having software constantly saving & loading the state of each individual machine before processing is allocated to each and doing this over and over, the hardware provides this support on chip greatly minimizing the overhead necessary to ‘switch machine contexts’ when multple VMs are configured on a server. 
Additionally, while traditional processor-OS models involve 4 rings of execution (0 through 3) Intel VT will provide additional ‘rings’ of execution specifically for virtual machine technology, enabling a separation between Ring 3 processes and virtual machines without placing the virtual machines themselves in Ring 0.  This enables an natural priority to exist in hardware for virtual machines over conventional ring 3 processes again enhancing the performance of virtual technology without requiring additional software-based machine management.
This technology will be available at no additional cost to existing Virtual Server 2005 R2 users.

FUTURE:  WINDOWS VIRTUALIZATION SERVICES
We are building a technology called the "Microsofft Hypervisor" into the Windows Longhorn Server product slated for 2007.  Microsoft Hypervisor will be an ultra thin layer of management code that coordinates security and resource allocation between guest virtual machines running on Longhorn Server.  (In case you didn’t know, Virtual Machine serving technology will be built into Longhorn Server) 
This will have the following benefits for Virtual Server customers:
– virtual machine access will be secured using Active Directory credentials, monitored using Perfmon, logged using Eventlog, and instrumented using COM.
– leverages existing Windows drivers; no need to obtain custom compiled hypervisor drivers such as those required by VMware ESX
– ultra thin architecture to ensure minimum overhead; shares higher level security services of Windows while running VMs at a lower level of execution enabling superior performance to the VMnix layer that exists in VMWare ESX, where security, instrumentation and other processes run in the same level of execution as VMs
– multiprocessor affinity between virtual machines enabling static allocation of processing power to each VM
– original virtual machine file format enabling a seamless migration from Virtual Server 2005 R2 to Windows Hypervisor
– built in to OS, minimizing cost of licensing

 

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Posted in Release

Posted by: kurtsh | November 30, 2005

NEWS: More on Microsoft’s “Apprentice” episode

Even if you haven’t been paying close attention this season to NBC’s The Apprentice, you should watch the upcoming episode on Thursday, Dec. 1st   and see Microsoft Office Live Meeting in action. 

Here’s more detailed information on how to catch the show.

The Apprentice
On your local NBC station
Thursday, December 1st
9:00 PM Eastern/Pacific (8:00 pm Central/Mountain)

See how Live Meeting helps people to work together with colleagues, customers, and business partners no matter where they are located, and meet business challenges with powerful online collaboration tools.

And that’s not all… tune in for a Live Meeting webcast event on Dec. 9th to hear Donald Trump and The Apprentice insiders talking about their favorite moments…and what it will take for the winning candidate to get hired by the Trump organization or a Live Meeting web seminar on Dec. 16th with the winner of Season 4 as announced in the finale on Dec. 15th.
 

What it Takes to Win: LIVE with Donald Trump
December 9, 2005 –9:30 AM Pacific/ 11:30AM Central/ 12:30 PM Eastern
Speakers:  Donald Trump and Apprentice Insiders
Register:  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=47857&cbClass=7903&signupkey=4379

And:

You’re Hired: Live with Donald’s New Apprentice!
December 16, 2005 – 12:30 PM Pacific/ 2:30PM Central/ 3:30PM Eastern
Speakers: The NEW Apprentice, The Trump Organization
Register: http://livemeeting.viewcentral.com/events/cust/single_event.aspx?cid=placeware&pid=2&lid=16&cbClass=7595&signupkey=4346

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Posted in Entertainment

Posted by: kurtsh | November 30, 2005

NEWS: “Microsoft testing classified ads”

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Newspaper publishers are about to confront yet another competitor for their dwindling classified advertising revenues.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is reported hoping soon to offer a preliminary version of an online classified service, code named "Fremont."  That’s a neighborhood in Seattle which hosts Sunday open air markets.

"We realized the classified marketplace was really starting to heat up," Garry Wiseman, a product unit manager working on the project, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  The service will be free to users, generating revenue for Microsoft through ads placed next to listings, the newspaper added.

"Fremont" is expected to be a stand-alone service as well as available throughout MSN’s either features such as Spaces Web logs and Messenger buddy lists.

The online classifieds project is now being tested internally at Microsoft, the report said.  It also appears a live beta test is underway at http://fremont.live.com.

(Note this is an INTERNAL test meaning that only Microsoft employees are able to access it.)

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Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | November 28, 2005

NEWS: Microsoft technologies on the Apprentice

Say what you want about it:  We have to advertise just like any other company. 

Thursday, we will be featured on NBC’s “The Apprentice” as part of our cross promotion with the show to establish awareness of LiveMeeting & Live Communications Server solutions.  Dustin Grosse and Janice Kapner of Microsoft’s Real Time Communications Marketing team will have cameo appearances on the show to select the episode’s winning team.

Some of you may know that a couple years ago, I considered leaving my position for another one that would have made me responsible for Microsoft’s product placement in Los Angeles Entertainment community.  The idea was that our products – Smartphones, Pocket PCs, Tablet PCs, XBoxes, Windows, and other software were to be in the background… or even highlighted on prime time television shows. 

For example:  If you watch really carefully, you’ll notice that the Kiefer Sutherland TV hit, "24" has a tremendous amount of Microsoft technology in it.  From Pocket PC’s to Tablet PCs, they seem to find ways to use MS technology in every episode.  If you look at NBC’s "West Wing", you’ll see that they use Windows-based computers prominently displaying the "Start" button along with Windows Mobile PDAs and Tablet PCs around the White House.  (After all – while the cast of Will & Grace might all use iMacs and iPods, what President would ever be caught using a Macintosh? <grin>)

In my travels, I’ve met the Product Placement guy for Apple incidentally – he’s EXCEPTIONALLY well paid, but lives in a little 1st floor condo in West LA.  It turns out that Apple doesn’t have an internal group to do this in the same way that we do.  They hire outside consultants to do the placement and the advertising and they through a lot and I mean a LOT of money at it.  At last check, I heard, Apple’s placement and advertising budget was 15x the size of Microsoft’s… which is why you see all those TV commercials and billboard ads all over the place. 

Well, that’s the position.  I ended up not applying for it, even though the position seemed designed for me, because I’d made a commitment to my account executive that I’d stick around as long as he was on the same accounts. 

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Posted in Entertainment

Posted by: kurtsh | November 25, 2005

COMMENTARY: How do I get an XBox360?

There’s been a lot of lame rumors going around recently about what Microsoft’s doing to get more XBox’s out there in distribution.  I myself have gone to eBay for 2 consoles and paid a healthy premium – but I accept that there’s a cost to getting an in-demand item.  That’s supply and demand.
 
I’m not going to sit here and ‘hate’ on the ‘scalpers’.  They provide a legitimate service and that’s what capitalism’s all about.  I personally waited in line with these folks (I was unable to procure one at the Mojave Desert launch… long story) and for 10 hours, we all stood in line in front of BestBuy waiting to get our hands on a XBox360… hoping that the unit we got was a Premium pack with a Hard Drive.
 
There are however two things I’d like to clear up about this whole ‘shortage’:
1) BE PATIENT:  It’s a long ways until Christmas.  Microsoft has new shipments of XBox’s going to the major stores EVERY WEEK.  You’ll notice that the price of XBox360 units on eBay have gone down from $1,500 to around $800.  This drop will continue as more and more units are available in the distribution channel every week.  In fact, all you need to do is call your local store in the evenings to see if they’re going to get any the next day (or call them in the morning to see if they’re expecting any midday)… and then just show up.
 
This is the single easiest way we can ‘trump’ scalping:  Simply make the units available at varying intervals every week so that other people – normal consumers – have a shot at getting the inventory just as any other scalper does.  It makes it so that scalpers aren’t the only one’s holding the goods:  There’s ALWAYS an alternative, and that’s to simply wait a little and constantly check back with your local Best Buy or Circuit City.
 
 
2) THERE’S NO HOLD BACK:  The conspiracy theorists abound around this topic however, rest assured that we’re not synthetically holding back consoles to heighten the hype around the launch.  I assure you – there’s no need.  Logic dictates that this is clearly the "hot item" of the holiday season and there’s no need to aggrevate people any more than necessary.  We know that all people want to do is buy our product.   We’re chruning ’em out as fast as we can. 
 
And if you really want to get down to brass tacks, our goal is to sell GAMES – not consoles.  We need the consoles in people’s hands as a platform to sell games.  We make a rumored $8-$9 per 3rd party game and a bit more for our first party games.  We lose a considerable amount of money on the consoles but without the consoles out there, we can’t sell the games.  We NEED as many consoles out there as possible and as soon as possible to make up the difference otherwise this whole "razors for razorblades" model falls apart.
 
But let’s face it:  People hate us not matter what we do.  We could have enough consoles for everyone and the press would conclude that the product "is a dud" because people aren’t fist fighting in the aisles for an XBox360.  We could come out with the cure for cancer and there’s be some guy with a Macintosh yelling about how "we could have released it sooner" or that "we’re trying to monopolize the market on cancer cures".
 

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Posted in Entertainment

Posted by: kurtsh | November 21, 2005

RELEASE: XBox360… details.

If you want to get one of the 1st XBOX 360s (we will only ship 1M units in the US at launch) Here is how:

 

Option #1:  

Go to Zero Hour in the Palmdale desert and buy it there … one allocated to every attendee (if you were invited to go and have a pass).

 

Option #2:

If you preordered form EB Games or Gamestop and received confirmation, you are set and should get it shipped to you, or pick it up at the EB games celebration event @ Universal City Walk.

 

Option #3:

If you absolutely want to guarantee getting one at this juncture… and don’t mind dropping a $129 premium you can go to your Best Buy and sign up for the Geek Squad to come to your home and install your unit (that’s what the $129 is for… but it guarantees you will get a unit since you prepay for it and the service)

Otherwise wait in line for a Best Buy to open at 9:00 a.m. on the 22nd to get your unit. Allocations differ by Best Buy, and just to give you an idea of “the limitations” my local Best Buy in West LA is only getting 78 units total and I don’t know if all of them are the premium edition

Costa Mesa will have 120 of the $399 Xbox.  Fountain Valley will have about 60.  Tustin will have 40.  Fullerton will have about 60.

This is the Xbox360 locator:  http://xbox.clambert.org

Other sites to note: 

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Posted in Entertainment

Posted by: kurtsh | October 26, 2005

NEWS: ZDnet – OpenOffice turns out

Oh man:  Straight from the publication organization that seemingly HATES us. 
 
The net-net of the evaluation is that OpenOffice 2.0 requires 10x the CPU & memory resources AND takes 10x as long to accomplish the same relative operations as Microsoft Office 2003.  Here’s an excerpt:
——————————–
Performance analysis of OpenOffice and MS Office Posted by George Ou @ 3:21 am
"It doesn’t matter how fast the CPU is:  OpenOffice is simply bloated."
 
In my last blog, where I did a high-level technical evaluation of Microsoft Office 2003 and OpenOffice.org 2.0, I showed that OpenOffice was a memory and resource hog.  Contrary to popular belief (among Open Source advocates), Microsoft Office came out very lean and fast while OpenOffice.org Office Suite was just the opposite.  Some couldn’t accept the numbers and complained that the Task Manager numbers may be inaccurate and hiding memory usage.  They demanded more proof, so here it is.
——————————–

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Posted in Computers and Internet

Posted by: kurtsh | October 21, 2005

COMMENTARY: The high definition DVD wars

So from the gods on high, I got a comment directly from the folks without our company working with each of the DVD consortiums:  BluRay and HD-DVD.

The net net is that the 50GB dual-layer BD-ROM disc is completely & total vaporware.  The major US replicators not only do not have any pilot lines or even a single TEST line running.  They can’t even pre-order the equipment to do so. 

If you think that’s bad, check this out:  The replicators don’t even have access to any replication data or specifications to even begin to guess at prices or manufacturability.  As a matter of fact, far as we can tell, it will be SEVERAL YEARS before BD-ROM 50GB is ready for mass production.

Conversely, the HD-DVD 30GB dual-layer disc is ready for mass production today. Given that BD-Rom will enter the market with only the single-layer 25GB disc ready for production, HD-DVD will launch with more more capacity than BD. 

This is apparently what’s so laughable:  All the people in the peanut gallery rallying behind BluRay because of the well-marketed 50GB capacity are in for a very big disappointment over at least the next 3 years as they see all the other folks puchasing HD-DVD’s with not only 5GB more capacity that their BD-ROM disc, but more importantly, HD-DVD will have managed copy allowing people to store their videos on their PC or their Home Video Servers for random access without needing a DVD jukebox.

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Posted in Computers and Internet

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