Scot Finnie and Valerie Potter November 10, 2006
(Computerworld) --
By now you should be aware there are many pluses and minuses to Vista. It's not a slam-dunk decision, but there's a lot to like about the new Windows. Once you decide to make the upgrade, you'll find that you're confronted with more than the usual number of questions to answer and details to sort through before you arrive at your Vista upgrade path.
For starters, are you buying new hardware? Or are you upgrading your existing hardware to Vista? Most of Microsoft's system requirements should very definitely be described as minimum. I mean overly minimum. It's even a little contradictory because the video requirement is more in keeping with advanced newer hardware, and the CPU and memory configuration is more like what you'd expect from an el cheapo PC circa 2004.
Or let us put it another way: This is the salient information you need to know about system requirements if you want to fully enable Windows Vista's Aero user interface:
DirectX 9 (DirectX 10 preferred) 3-D graphics processing unit with a WDDM driver, 128MB graphics memory (minimum), support for "Pixel Shader 2.0," and the ability to display a color depth of 32 bits per pixel.
Although graphics cards that share main system memory are acceptable, you will find that the best approach is 256MB of dedicated video RAM. We have seen some 64MB dedicated video RAM mobile graphics processing units that support Aero nominally, probably because they share main system memory beyond the dedicated 64MB.
The rest of Microsoft's Vista-capable system requirements read like this:
1-GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1GB of system memory
40GB of hard drive capacity with 15GB free space
DVD-ROM drive
Audio output capability
Internet access capability
Our real-world experience indicates that an Intel or comparable Pentium Centrino or M 2-GHz CPU should be the minimum. You should have at least 1.5GB of RAM, and if you're buying a new machine, get 2GB of RAM. Your hard disk should be at least a 60GB drive, and we'd recommend 25GB free to allow for new applications. Don't forget the DVD drive. The Vista disc is a DVD, not a CD.
If at all possible, get Vista on a new machine. Our limited experience with upgrading Vista over Windows XP has been surprisingly positive. But be aware that you can't uninstall a Vista upgrade the way you could those of previous versions of Windows. And you'll be absolutely assured of driver support if you buy Vista pre-installed from a reputable hardware vendor.
Anyone planning an upgrade installation should review Microsoft's Upgrade Planning for Windows Vista. There are two aspects of the term upgrade worth considering. The first is saving money on the cost of Vista. The second is something new and different. There are heavy limits on which previous versions are capable of being upgraded to four of the six main Vista versions.
So, for example, even though you can upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows Vista at the cash register, you can't actually perform a Windows 2000 upgrade of the software. You have to clean install Vista when moving up from Windows 2000. The same is true of Windows XP Pro x64. Windows XP Home Edition can be software upgraded to any version of Vista. But the other three versions, XP Pro, XP Media Center and XP Tablet PC can upgrade only to some of the new Vista versions.
Versions and prices
In the United States, Vista will be offered in five basic editions -- two aimed at businesses and three at home users. Not sure which one to choose? You're not alone. Please see the Comparison of Selected Features in Windows Vista Versions chart at the bottom of the page, which gives detail about the differences among Vista versions. Here's a quick summary of the versions along with pricing information:
For businesses:
• Windows Vista Business ($299 new; $199 upgrade) supports the Aero interface and includes several features aimed at IT manageability, including Fax and Scan, wireless network provisioning, system image-based backup and recovery, and Group Policy support. In keeping with its business focus, this version lacks many digital media features.
• Windows Vista Enterprise (available only to volume licensees, pricing not released) adds advanced management features such as BitLocker drive encryption; a subsystem for Unix-based applications; and Virtual PC Express, which lets you run legacy apps on a legacy Windows operating system inside a virtual environment on Vista. Like Windows Vista Business, this version does not include Media Center or DVD-burning functions.
For home users:
• Windows Vista Home Basic ($199 new; $99.95 upgrade) offers parental controls and not much else. This version does not support the Aero interface, and it lacks many digital media capabilities.
• Windows Vista Home Premium ($239 new; $159 upgrade) adds digital media features such as Media Center and Windows DVD Maker, as well as Tablet PC functionality and scheduled user data backup.
• Windows Vista Ultimate ($399 new; $259 upgrade) combines all the multimedia features of the home editions with the advanced file- and network-management features of the business versions. This version has it all -- and it'll cost you.
Our recommendations? Nobody should opt for Vista Home Basic. That's especially the case if you're buying a new PC. So long as you can afford a better PC, get a better PC -- one that supports Vista Home Premium. Even in an upgrade situation, you might want to move your retail version to better hardware someday. Spend a bit more for Vista Home Premium. That will deliver the ability to run the Aero interface, support for Media Center and DVD-burning capabilities. If your hardware doesn't support Aero, Vista degrades to the Vista Basic interface automatically. On a desktop PC, you may be able to get Aero by updating your video card.
IT organizations will make the decision about the business version that's best for their users, and we suspect the choice will have more to do with their license agreement than the minor differences in the feature set. Any enterprise that needs BitLocker or the Virtual PC legacy app utility on employee machines will need Vista Enterprise.
What if your computer is the primary computer you use 24/7? You use it for work, you use it for entertainment, it's your weekend shopping tool, your DVD player and the machine you give business presentations with? Well, first, we'd like to congratulate you. Because you've eliminated one of the biggest frustrations of computing: Where's that file? Oh, yeah, that was on the other computer. All your data is in one place, the way it should be.
Microsoft has a version of Windows for you. It's called Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. You'll notice it's not cheap. But it does everything you want, and then some.
Microsoft has done several things to make hardware work better with Vista. One of our favorite features is the fact that it can now smartly search an entire CD, DVD or directories and subdirectories on your hard drive to find a specific driver, without your having to click into the specific folder. So you no longer have to guess or remember where that legacy hardware driver is.
On the other hand, hardware support in the on-DVD driver pack is definitely not perfect. About 70% of the drivers that we've seen Vista come up empty on are mainstream components, such as the SoundMax driver set and Linksys's PCI Gigabit NIC. (NICs in particular should have excellent support, since you can't get online to help yourself without them.)
Microsoft is claiming excellent hardware support; we think the company intends to rely heavily on Windows Update to deliver driver support. Because, really, it's no better than previous versions of Windows.
About software compatibility, that's still a wild card. The gold version of Vista hasn't been out there long enough to draw hard conclusions. We think you can expect issues with security software, utilities and many enterprise applications designed to run on older Microsoft operating systems. We've even been hearing rumblings about issues with IE7 and some enterprise Web applications.
For more information about hardware and application compatibility in advance of installation, download and run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor on the machine on which you intend to perform the upgrade. You may not like what you learn from this exercise, but you'll be forewarned. We recommend that everyone considering Vista take this step.
Should you jump in with both feet on the first day Vista is available to you? Enterprises already know that's patently absurd. XP works well enough for now. But there are reasons why enterprises might be interested in making the move. Perhaps your hardware is tired and needs an upgrade now, and you're planning to move to Vista. Perhaps you need the security or some of the other improvements. Test it right away. But you know the drill; hang back and let the first adopters make all the mistakes.
Home users have a different set of issues to consider. Need new hardware? Hey, let's be honest with ourselves, most of us can wait another six months. That would be our very best advice. If you're going to jump, jump into the higher end. The first wave of PCs for any new Windows is often a little lacking in the right stuff to run the operating system properly for the long haul.
Instead of an upgrade installation, advanced home users should consider installing Vista in a dual-boot arrangement or as a virtual machine in a virtualization utility, such as VMWare. To virtualize Windows Vista, your utility must support ACPI. Working in this way has no downsides to you. You can buy it this way and test it for a while before making your decision about how and where to install it more permanently.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Experts debate: Is DRM good or bad for consumers?
An FTC conversation discusses business-model benefits.
Grant Gross November 08, 2006 (IDG News Service) --
Speakers at a Federal Trade Commssion event Wednesday argued that controversial DRM (digital rights management) technology may actually be good for consumers because it could give them more choices for downloading or buying copyrighted content, despite previous high-profile failures of such projects
DRM, which allows copyright holders to control how customers access content, could lead to new pricing models favorable to consumers, said James DeLong, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF), a conservative think tank. For example, instead of paying $30 for a new book, consumers may soon be able to pay $3 for a digital copy that lets them read it once, he said.
Similar schemes for "disposable DVDs" or "closed home-video systems" such as DIXV and Flexplay have been market failures.
Limited-use works will be cheaper than unlimited works, DeLong said. Before DRM, "you could do what you want with it," he said. "But is that a good thing?"
Others on a panel discussion about new technology products aren't convinced DRM is such a good deal for consumers. The panel was part of the FTC's three-day conference, "Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade."
When told of survey results that suggest consumers would be willing to pay twice as much for a music download they could play on more than one device or share with a small number of friends, Urs Gasser, director of the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, said that before DRM technologies, consumers didn't have to pay extra for those things.
Until DRM matured, consumers had control over how they used digital content, noted Deirdre Mulligan, director of the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, Law School. DRM is creating a "permission culture" where consumers have to ask the copyright owner's permission to play a piece of music on a both home computer and a car stereo, she said.
Until DRM, "there was a lot of breathing space in copyright law," she added.
In addition, many consumers don't understand DRM restrictions, and they're surprised when a CD that works on a home stereo can't be played somewhere else, she said. Vendors offer "little disclosure about how consumers can use" DRM-protected content, she said.
But Andrew Moss, senior director of technical policy at Microsoft Corp., claimed that DRM will be important to consumers as more of them began to create their own digital content. DRM will allow them to control how their creations are used, he said.
"What [DRM] is intended to do is give people choices," he said.
Moss and Tom Jacobs, director of research at Sun Microsystems Inc. Laboratories, sparred over the way to achieve DRM interoperability. Jacobs called for open DRM standards that allow researchers to reverse-engineer DRM technologies and check for bugs or trap doors.
But Moss said interoperability can be achieved through a variety of means. Engineers can figure out ways to make proprietary DRM systems talk to each other, without consumers knowing what standards are used, he said. "From the consumer's perspective, they just want things to work," he said.
Grant Gross November 08, 2006 (IDG News Service) --
Speakers at a Federal Trade Commssion event Wednesday argued that controversial DRM (digital rights management) technology may actually be good for consumers because it could give them more choices for downloading or buying copyrighted content, despite previous high-profile failures of such projects
DRM, which allows copyright holders to control how customers access content, could lead to new pricing models favorable to consumers, said James DeLong, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF), a conservative think tank. For example, instead of paying $30 for a new book, consumers may soon be able to pay $3 for a digital copy that lets them read it once, he said.
Similar schemes for "disposable DVDs" or "closed home-video systems" such as DIXV and Flexplay have been market failures.
Limited-use works will be cheaper than unlimited works, DeLong said. Before DRM, "you could do what you want with it," he said. "But is that a good thing?"
Others on a panel discussion about new technology products aren't convinced DRM is such a good deal for consumers. The panel was part of the FTC's three-day conference, "Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade."
When told of survey results that suggest consumers would be willing to pay twice as much for a music download they could play on more than one device or share with a small number of friends, Urs Gasser, director of the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, said that before DRM technologies, consumers didn't have to pay extra for those things.
Until DRM matured, consumers had control over how they used digital content, noted Deirdre Mulligan, director of the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, Law School. DRM is creating a "permission culture" where consumers have to ask the copyright owner's permission to play a piece of music on a both home computer and a car stereo, she said.
Until DRM, "there was a lot of breathing space in copyright law," she added.
In addition, many consumers don't understand DRM restrictions, and they're surprised when a CD that works on a home stereo can't be played somewhere else, she said. Vendors offer "little disclosure about how consumers can use" DRM-protected content, she said.
But Andrew Moss, senior director of technical policy at Microsoft Corp., claimed that DRM will be important to consumers as more of them began to create their own digital content. DRM will allow them to control how their creations are used, he said.
"What [DRM] is intended to do is give people choices," he said.
Moss and Tom Jacobs, director of research at Sun Microsystems Inc. Laboratories, sparred over the way to achieve DRM interoperability. Jacobs called for open DRM standards that allow researchers to reverse-engineer DRM technologies and check for bugs or trap doors.
But Moss said interoperability can be achieved through a variety of means. Engineers can figure out ways to make proprietary DRM systems talk to each other, without consumers knowing what standards are used, he said. "From the consumer's perspective, they just want things to work," he said.
Online banking fraud dramatically jumps in the U.K.
Phishing scams mainly responsible for 55% increase.
Jeremy Kirk November 08, 2006
U.K. banks reported a 55% increase in losses from fraudulent online transactions for the first half of the year, mostly from phishing scams, an industry trade group reported Tuesday.
Losses totaled $42.8 million, up from $27.6 million from the first six months of 2005, according to the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS).
The loss figure isn't broken down by individual financial institutions. APACS' 31 members, including HSBC Bank PLC and Barclays PLC, account for about 97 percent of bank and credit-card transactions within the U.K.
The figures underscore continuing problems with phishing, where criminals try to capture financial details through fraudulent e-mails and sophisticated fake banking Web sites. Account numbers, log-ins and passwords are often then sold online to other fraudsters who try to turn them into profit.
More than half of consumers who shop online don't verify that e-commerce sites are using a secure connection, often shown by an "https" in the URL (uniform resource locator) or a padlock in the Internet Explorer browser, APACS said. In the U.K., some 26.5 million people undertook an estimated 372 million online transactions in 2005, the organization said.
APACS did have some good news. Phone, mail order and Internet fraud increased by 5% overall, but that growth was markedly slower than the 29% jump between the first half of 2004 and the first half of 2005. APACS put the total loss through from January to June this year at $181.3 million.
Jeremy Kirk November 08, 2006
U.K. banks reported a 55% increase in losses from fraudulent online transactions for the first half of the year, mostly from phishing scams, an industry trade group reported Tuesday.
Losses totaled $42.8 million, up from $27.6 million from the first six months of 2005, according to the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS).
The loss figure isn't broken down by individual financial institutions. APACS' 31 members, including HSBC Bank PLC and Barclays PLC, account for about 97 percent of bank and credit-card transactions within the U.K.
The figures underscore continuing problems with phishing, where criminals try to capture financial details through fraudulent e-mails and sophisticated fake banking Web sites. Account numbers, log-ins and passwords are often then sold online to other fraudsters who try to turn them into profit.
More than half of consumers who shop online don't verify that e-commerce sites are using a secure connection, often shown by an "https" in the URL (uniform resource locator) or a padlock in the Internet Explorer browser, APACS said. In the U.K., some 26.5 million people undertook an estimated 372 million online transactions in 2005, the organization said.
APACS did have some good news. Phone, mail order and Internet fraud increased by 5% overall, but that growth was markedly slower than the 29% jump between the first half of 2004 and the first half of 2005. APACS put the total loss through from January to June this year at $181.3 million.
Opinion: Googling for corporate data
Why is it that in your organization, only the backup admins can find data?
Jerome Wendt November 08, 2006
In the past seven years, I have gone from Yahooing to Googling. The scary part about that sentence is that it actually makes sense in this age. For if you are like me -- and according to the Web page view statistics, millions of you are -- when you need to find information, you head out to Google Inc.'s Web site to look for it.
With that in mind, I have a question for everyone in corporate America: Why is it that in your organization, the only individuals who can locate data from a specific backup that resides on a specific tape are the backup administrators?
You would think that if one can go out to Google.com, search for some interesting but largely unneeded factoid such as "number of Google page hits" and find that discussed on the "support.proboards.com" Web site, surely someone or something other than the backup guys would be able to tell you what data is on a specific tape and where that tape is located.
Yet for most organizations, that is not the case. Rather, this basic and critical corporate information is still only accessible and retrievable by just a few people.
Granted, there are some good reasons all data is not viewable by everyone. For one, I am grateful that not everyone can just jump onto Google.com, type in my name and retrieve my driving or medical history. (By the way, I checked, and you cannot.) Truly there are some records that should remain inaccessible to the general public.
With all of the technical innovation that has occurred in the past 10 years, why can't organizations Google for the information they need to run their business? Well they can, and I'll discuss how they can do that next week.
Jerome Wendt is the president and lead analyst with DCIG Inc. He may be reached at jerome.wendt@att.net.
Jerome Wendt November 08, 2006
In the past seven years, I have gone from Yahooing to Googling. The scary part about that sentence is that it actually makes sense in this age. For if you are like me -- and according to the Web page view statistics, millions of you are -- when you need to find information, you head out to Google Inc.'s Web site to look for it.
With that in mind, I have a question for everyone in corporate America: Why is it that in your organization, the only individuals who can locate data from a specific backup that resides on a specific tape are the backup administrators?
You would think that if one can go out to Google.com, search for some interesting but largely unneeded factoid such as "number of Google page hits" and find that discussed on the "support.proboards.com" Web site, surely someone or something other than the backup guys would be able to tell you what data is on a specific tape and where that tape is located.
Yet for most organizations, that is not the case. Rather, this basic and critical corporate information is still only accessible and retrievable by just a few people.
Granted, there are some good reasons all data is not viewable by everyone. For one, I am grateful that not everyone can just jump onto Google.com, type in my name and retrieve my driving or medical history. (By the way, I checked, and you cannot.) Truly there are some records that should remain inaccessible to the general public.
With all of the technical innovation that has occurred in the past 10 years, why can't organizations Google for the information they need to run their business? Well they can, and I'll discuss how they can do that next week.
Jerome Wendt is the president and lead analyst with DCIG Inc. He may be reached at jerome.wendt@att.net.
Hands On: A Hard Look at Windows Vista
Now that it's gold, here's an inside look at the best and the worst of Windows Vista
Scot Finnie and Preston Gralla November 10, 2006 (Computerworld) --
It's taken five years, enough lines of code to span the globe several times, countless thousands of hours of developer time, and so many builds, betas, and release candidates that you'd need a cluster-based supercomputer to keep track of them all -- but Windows Vista is finally here.
Vista development, which started with the Windows Server 2003 core, which in turn started with the Windows XP SP2 core, is in the same league with Microsoft's Windows 95 effort, and not far behind the gargantuan Windows NT undertaking. Whether you love Windows or not, whether you believe in Microsoft's ability to innovate or not, you can't fault the software giant's R&D efforts with Windows.
The question is, what does all that work mean to you and to businesses the world over? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? There can be no doubt that there are pluses and minuses to Vista, from easier installation and management to aggressive anti-piracy features, from advanced video 3D graphics to a notable bump up in the video hardware requirements, from hundreds of security improvements to the frustrating User Account Control user experience.
While Windows Vista is an ambitious total overhaul of Windows XP, in the end there's no big gotta-have-it feature or functionality, unless you're a big fan of Aero, its considerably improved and more elegant interface. From a user perspective, there are literally thousands of mostly small advances, but the sum of the parts isn't greater than the whole. Yet Vista is clearly a better OS than XP.
But how can a major new version of Microsoft Windows not be compelling? That's the conundrum of Windows Vista. The vision behind Vista was in many ways about laying the groundwork for the future. So it could well be that the benefits will play out over time. In the meantime, the two big selling points are presentation and security.
Should Windows Vista be in your future? To help you evaluate, this article focuses on the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the product. You be the judge. At the end, we'll tell you what we think overall.
Scot Finnie and Preston Gralla November 10, 2006 (Computerworld) --
It's taken five years, enough lines of code to span the globe several times, countless thousands of hours of developer time, and so many builds, betas, and release candidates that you'd need a cluster-based supercomputer to keep track of them all -- but Windows Vista is finally here.
Vista development, which started with the Windows Server 2003 core, which in turn started with the Windows XP SP2 core, is in the same league with Microsoft's Windows 95 effort, and not far behind the gargantuan Windows NT undertaking. Whether you love Windows or not, whether you believe in Microsoft's ability to innovate or not, you can't fault the software giant's R&D efforts with Windows.
The question is, what does all that work mean to you and to businesses the world over? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? There can be no doubt that there are pluses and minuses to Vista, from easier installation and management to aggressive anti-piracy features, from advanced video 3D graphics to a notable bump up in the video hardware requirements, from hundreds of security improvements to the frustrating User Account Control user experience.
While Windows Vista is an ambitious total overhaul of Windows XP, in the end there's no big gotta-have-it feature or functionality, unless you're a big fan of Aero, its considerably improved and more elegant interface. From a user perspective, there are literally thousands of mostly small advances, but the sum of the parts isn't greater than the whole. Yet Vista is clearly a better OS than XP.
But how can a major new version of Microsoft Windows not be compelling? That's the conundrum of Windows Vista. The vision behind Vista was in many ways about laying the groundwork for the future. So it could well be that the benefits will play out over time. In the meantime, the two big selling points are presentation and security.
Should Windows Vista be in your future? To help you evaluate, this article focuses on the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the product. You be the judge. At the end, we'll tell you what we think overall.
Google gives 'start' page to hosted apps suite
Juan Carlos Perez November 13, 2006 (Computerworld)
Google Inc.'s Apps for Your Domain has a new component: an entry Web page that organizations can use as a central point for users to access this suite of hosted applications.
Launched in August, Google Apps for Your Domain is a set of browser-based collaboration and communication applications for an organization to provide to its employees using its own brand and Internet address.
On Monday, Google plans to add the Start page option, whose technology and user interface is based on the Personalized Home Page service Google offers to consumers.
The Start page lets organizations package links to Google Apps services and to other relevant content that they want their users to take note of, like weather, news stories and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) syndicated feeds. The Start page, whose layout and design can be customized via point-and-click interfaces, is intended as a more dynamic alternative to static home pages, which are more difficult to refresh and update.
With the new feature, Google continues beefing up this suite, which is one of several software offerings the company has for organizations. Others include Google Analytics, a hosted service for tracking Web sites' usage and traffic, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, which consists of hosted word processing and spreadsheet applications. The company recently bought hosted wiki provider JotSpot Inc.
Google executives have been clear about their intention to have the company play in the hosted applications market for consumers and businesses, a model that many see as a big threat to the packaged-software model upon which Microsoft has built its empire.
This week at the recently concluded Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt again championed this software-as-service model in which users access applications remotely via the Internet. Hosted applications are more robust, reliable and simpler to maintain, he said. In the hosted model, it is also easier to search for data across applications and share documents, he said.
Of course, the hosted model isn't a panacea. For example, users of Google's Blogger have complained about persistent performance problems that have hobbled that popular blog hosting and authoring service in recent weeks. Likewise, Google Analytics suffered crippling performance problems when demand for it surged after Google made it a free service in November. After being unable to stabilize the service for a week, Google temporarily shut the door on new sign-ups for Analytics.
The Google Apps for Your Domain suite includes the Gmail Web mail service, the Google Talk instant messaging and voice chat service, the Google Calendar scheduling service and the Google Page Creator Web page design service.
Google Apps for Your Domain is free, but Google is preparing an advanced fee-based version for larger businesses with more sophisticated needs.
Google Inc.'s Apps for Your Domain has a new component: an entry Web page that organizations can use as a central point for users to access this suite of hosted applications.
Launched in August, Google Apps for Your Domain is a set of browser-based collaboration and communication applications for an organization to provide to its employees using its own brand and Internet address.
On Monday, Google plans to add the Start page option, whose technology and user interface is based on the Personalized Home Page service Google offers to consumers.
The Start page lets organizations package links to Google Apps services and to other relevant content that they want their users to take note of, like weather, news stories and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) syndicated feeds. The Start page, whose layout and design can be customized via point-and-click interfaces, is intended as a more dynamic alternative to static home pages, which are more difficult to refresh and update.
With the new feature, Google continues beefing up this suite, which is one of several software offerings the company has for organizations. Others include Google Analytics, a hosted service for tracking Web sites' usage and traffic, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, which consists of hosted word processing and spreadsheet applications. The company recently bought hosted wiki provider JotSpot Inc.
Google executives have been clear about their intention to have the company play in the hosted applications market for consumers and businesses, a model that many see as a big threat to the packaged-software model upon which Microsoft has built its empire.
This week at the recently concluded Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt again championed this software-as-service model in which users access applications remotely via the Internet. Hosted applications are more robust, reliable and simpler to maintain, he said. In the hosted model, it is also easier to search for data across applications and share documents, he said.
Of course, the hosted model isn't a panacea. For example, users of Google's Blogger have complained about persistent performance problems that have hobbled that popular blog hosting and authoring service in recent weeks. Likewise, Google Analytics suffered crippling performance problems when demand for it surged after Google made it a free service in November. After being unable to stabilize the service for a week, Google temporarily shut the door on new sign-ups for Analytics.
The Google Apps for Your Domain suite includes the Gmail Web mail service, the Google Talk instant messaging and voice chat service, the Google Calendar scheduling service and the Google Page Creator Web page design service.
Google Apps for Your Domain is free, but Google is preparing an advanced fee-based version for larger businesses with more sophisticated needs.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Allchin Suggests Vista Won't Need Antivirus
By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
November 9, 2006, 4:26 PM
During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while touting the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system's new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Vista without antivirus software installed.
November 9, 2006, 4:26 PM
During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while touting the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system's new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Vista without antivirus software installed.
Allchin's statement came in response to a question about his relative level of confidence that Vista would be more secure than Windows XP SP2. In response, he noted there were key security features added to Vista which could not be added to Windows XP SP2 even though, he said, his people apparently tried to do so.
Two such features -- namely Vista's new parental controls, and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), which renders the object code of the system kernel in memory differently each time to thwart the designs of malicious code -- render his son's Vista machine comfortable enough for him to use, even though production-quality anti-virus software for the unit has yet to be completed.
"I would say that Windows XP SP2 did an amazing job, and I'm proud of what we did there. But you have to understand, we learned a lot during Windows XP SP2, and there were things that we couldn't put in that product," explained Allchin.
"I'll give you an example: It's my favorite feature within Windows Vista, it's called ASLR (Address Space [Layout] Randomization). What it does is, each Windows Vista machine is slightly different than every other Windows Vista machine. So even if there is a remote exploit on one machine, and a worm tries to jump from one machine to another, the probability of that actually succeeding is very small. And I wanted to do this in Windows XP SP2, but we couldn't figure out how to do it. So then a smart guy here came up with a solution, so we put it in Windows Vista."
After summarizing that past statement, Allchin continued, "Please don't misunderstand me: This is an escalating situation. The hackers are getting smarter, there's more at stake, and so there's just no way for us to say that some perfection has been achieved. But I can say, knowing what I know now, I feel very confident."
"I'll give you an example: My son, seven years old, runs Windows Vista, and, honestly, he doesn't have an antivirus system on his machine. His machine is locked down with parental controls, he can't download things unless it's to the places that I've said that he could do, and I'm feeling totally confident about that," he added. "That is quite a statement. I couldn't say that in Windows XP SP2."
Allchin led up to that comment after having recalled the company's Defense-in-Depth program, which emerged in 2004 as a way to assist software in defending specifically against viruses, but which evolved into a comprehensive anti-malware campaign.
As a result of Defense-in-Depth, Allchin told the reporter, Service Pack 2 of Windows XP made it substantially more difficult for malware to get to the kernel.
"So we've just put up one barrier after another," he said, "so that the end result is, in the percentages, when I look at the number of bulletins that we've produced over a period of time for Windows XP SP2, and I look at what I would expect to take place in terms of, not just the number, but probably more important, the severity for Windows Vista, we have been doing measurements of that all along, and it's my opinion that the severity of the bulletins will be less, as well as the number will be less.
"That's to be proven, so we will see about that. But I need to say the following: Windows Vista is something that will have issues in security, because the bar is being raised over time," Allchin continued. "But in my opinion, it is the most secure system that's available, and it's certainly the most secure system that we've shipped. So I feel very confident that customers are far better off by using Windows Vista than they are with anything that we've released before."
ASLR would apparently have been a component of Defense-in-Depth, based on Allchin's comments, had it been compatible with the existing architecture of Windows XP. In fact, ASLR may help substantiate the need for such features as PatchGuard, which is designed to draw a kind of "moat" around the kernel of the operating system, rendering it inaccessible accept through authenticated communications.
But the evolution of the Defense-in-Depth program, he implied, may have evolved its implementation in Vista beyond the need for the generation of antivirus protection that was its original impetus.
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