Spreading misinformation

After attending an Microsoft seminar a few weeks ago, and this odd phone call I just got from some dude who knew WAY to much about my EA, it would seem MS is going full steam to strengthen their borderline monopoly in the PC world.

Let's start with the mostly fact part then I'll branch off into purely rumor and opinion. At a recent seminar I was made aware of a push by Microsoft to help customers minimize their cost overlap, or spend overlap or some goofy businessy sounding term. What they are referring to is the money business spend on multiple products that do the same thing. For example, if you are using MS Word you don't need to buy special label making program or whatever. It's a stupid example, but you get the idea. So MS is hosting seminars and making cold calls to people offering FREE webinars and training on the "little known" features of the MS product line.

"Don't buy a fancy network monitoring application, this free app written by one of our partners turns Visio into a visual network monitor and by linking your excel spreadsheets it combines monitoring with documentation! Don't go buying something 3rd part like Numara Network Monitor or whatever"

What this is clearly doing is convincing people to not look to 3rd party applications to do specific tasks, MS thinks their products cover the majority of things that need to be done in a company and are trying to shut the door on other vendors. This is of course cleverly disguised as a recession strategy to "save their customers money". Not a bad plan, I have to give them credit. So if you get a phone call from MS offering to show you "little known" features of products you already own...this is what is going on.

Now, on to the rumor and personal opinion. Also from what I'm seeing and hearing at these seminars and from the Windows 7 party I went to, is that MS is abandoning their Office/Exchange 2007 line of products along with Vista. Early next year the 2010 versions of Office and Exchange are coming out. From an administration point of view Office 2007 is riddled with bugs and oversights that I have to assume are addressed in 2010. (like the QAT not being part of the roaming profile - Good job!) Exchange 2007 has had it's challenges as well with performance on a single box and it's battle with BES and other goofiness.

When people were asking about some of the problems with the 2007 line, the conversation was always directed toward 2010. So, that seemed like a diversion to me.

ALSO, that one guy leaked information about Windows 8 and it's 128-bit-ness. Crazy... I'm not sure how Midori fits in to this. Is Windows 8 the same thing? What about these network-based OS's they keep talking about. What is going to be the combination of OS's to land on for a while? My prediction? Server 2008 R2, Exchange and Office 2010, I'm not sure about the desktops though. Who knows?

It's been a crazy year or so at MS, I can only imagine what the future will bring. Unfortunately it's making budgeting a nightmare.

Brian