Monthly Archives: July 2006

The Retiring Bill Gates

Posted on Monday, July 31, 2006 by Robin Bloor

Bill Gates is leaving the $50 billion monopoly he established in order to work for a non-profit. Sadly, it is to be a long goodbye.

Version 1.0 of Retiring Bill was released on July 15th last week, but the implementation is not expected to become robust until version 2.1 which is scheduled for July 2008. Given Microsoft’s recent track record it is doubtful whether such an early release date will be achieved and whether Retiring Bill 2.1 (code name FTP) will have the same features that Microsoft is currently talking about.

Commentators are already suggesting that July 2010 is a more realistic release date, while cynics are plumping for 2012.

Retiring Bill 2.1 will include the following features:

  • The Ballmer control interface will remain in place.
  • CTO functionality will be added to the Ozzie wizard.
  • Chairman functions will remain with Bill, but will be invoked by RPC.

A Microsoft spokesperson said, “Microsoft is very excited by the benefits that Retiring BG will bring to all our customers.” According to a closed source inside Microsoft, the code name FTP stands for Full-Time Philanthropist.

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Is JAJAH a Skype Killer?

Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 by Robin Bloor

There’s a new “free” VoIP telephone service called JAJAH. It’s free like Skype is free. You only have to pay a fee if there’s a network fee of some kind involved in the call. With Skype that’s the SkypeOut charge that you pay if you ring a handset. JAJAH’s differentiating point is the way it works. With JAJAH you don’t have to download anything. (You can but you don’t have to). You just register on the JAJAH web site and specify your actual phone numbers (both fixed line and mobile) that you want JAJAH to use. When you want to make a call, you just log on and enter the phone number you want to call (or pick it from your list) and JAJAH does the rest. It phones both of you.

So what does that mean?

Well first of all, it means you don’t have to have a headset attached to your PC (or Mac). The call goes directly phone to phone, with VoIP happening in between. Secondly it means that you only have to pay the incoming call fees, which are generally low and can be zero. (JAJAH tells you the call rate when you call).

Used in this way, JAJAH doesn’t require a broadband connection. It will work fine on a dial-up line, but it claims to work fine over dial-up anyway, even with a PC-to-PC call. Reportedly, JAJAH uses a higher quality codec (a codec is a voice to digital coder/decoder) than Skype, delivering higher quality on lower bandwidth. As it happens it can also use the Skype codec, which means that you can phone Skype users for nothing if it’s a PC-to-PC call.

To do PC-to-PC calls, you need to download the JAJAH Webphone. This gives you:

  1. Chat, including SMS capability
  2. Real-time text message translation. ( English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian and French)
  3. Call forwardiing
  4. Conference calls
  5. Skype search capability
  6. Ringtones and skins (give me a break)
  7. Voicemail
  8. Videophone

Some of this is clearly first release (JAJAH only launched in February) so the software is likely to improve—I’ve read some negative comments about the video aspects of the interface. The main point of JAJAH, though, is that it integrates well with the phones you already use. This is why it could challenge Skype or at least take a piece of the Skype market.

Incidentally, Vodafone in Germany has suggested that it may refuse to accept calls from some VoIP services (starting mid-2007)—I think Vodafone Germany is targeting Skype, but I guess JAJAH would also qualify for the same treatment. Such strategy would not put Skype, JAJAH, et al out of business. It’s too late for that. Too many users. Also the free VoIP companies could respond in kind, which would surely disrupt everything.

A Telco trade war may be brewing out there.

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Ingres Floats Free

Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 by Robin Bloor

The announcement that Ingres had been spun off from CA came a few days before CA World, and the new Ingres management team led by Terry Garnett (of Garnett & Helfrich Capital), could be seen hanging around the conference center, greeting Ingres customers and meeting with journalists and analysts (me included).Terry is acting CEO, but will stand down as soon as “the right man for the job” can be found. The new Ingres company is built from the old CA Ingres development team with a set of executives being added, some of whom are ex-Oracle. It is quite clear where Terry and his team think Ingres is going to make a living—beyond supporting the Ingres customer base, which numbers in the thousands. It is going after Oracle.

The idea is simple. A good few Oracle customers are unhappy with Oracle license fees and will happily entertain an alternative proposition. Ingres will be the alternative proposition—far less expensive and, for those who are happy to sail without a support contract, no cost at all. Ingres can claim to be enterprise ready (it is deployed already in large transactional and data warehouse systems) and currently has more credibility than MySQL or Enterprise DB as an Oracle replacement.

Can it succeed? It is difficult to predict. In my view Ingres has two opportunities;

  1. To be the natural Open Source alternative to Oracle. The idea here is simply to persuade large enterprises to use Ingres in order to have a bargaining position when it comes to negotiating Oracle licenses. Few Oracle customers would contemplate a complete migration, but some might contemplate a slow migration over time, which puts pressure on Oracle pricing.
  2. To be the Oracle replacement for SAP users. If Ingres gets into this position, it will prosper. Currently an estimated $500 million per year is paid to Oracle for the privilege of having the Oracle database sit under SAP. If Ingres can partner with SAP, it will help SAP and help Ingres and reduce costs.

It’s a little early to judge whether the brave new Ingres will succeed. Right now it hasn’t yet decided what its licensing scheme will be. Most likely it will be a dual licensing scheme like that of MySQL. What I am convinced about though, is that the database market will eventually flip over to being dominated by Open Source. Ingres stands a good chance of being a significant player in that move.

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The AV Vendors' Track Record

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 by Robin Bloor

AntiVirus software is truly disturbing, so this week AVID, which really stands for AntiVirus Is Dead, also stands for AntiVirus Is Disturbing. And it really is. Allow me to introduce you to some pestilent viral logic bombs (it’s life Jim, but not as we know it).

First, take a bow, the Morris Worm. Well what can I say? The Morris Worm stopped 10% of computers connected to the Internet. An awesome achievement for a worm that may never be equalled again. But that was in 1998, in the days before everyone had AV software, right?

And if Helen of Troy was beautiful (Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?) then how about the gorgeous Melissa. Is she the virus that stopped a million chips at a cost of $1.5 billion. Yes she is. She was easily the most appealing female virus of 1999. She’s feisty and she’s pricey.

Three little words, eight little letters and everyone but everyone longs to hear it. It’s “I Love You”. And we certainly got the message in the year 2000 from the I Love You virus. But, in the end, don’t you know it; love hurts. I Love You certainly did. The cost was $8.75 billion.

By then we were getting the message. Right. Go down to your local software shop and get some AV. Hey that’ll stop the pain.

In 2001 (A Space Odyssey), HAL, the computer, can read lips. Indeed, it is so intelligent that it recognizes bad acting and tries to prevent a wooden “actronaut” from getting back into the mothership. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that Dave” etc. In the real 2001, non-Apple computers are so dumb that they let just about anything onto the motherboard. In 2001 millions of computers had visits from Sircam (cost $1.25 billion) Code Red (cost $2.75 billion) and Nimda (cost $1.5 billion).

Come on. Be fair. It takes a while for people to get the AV message. But eventually they take the pills and cure the ills. I mean what about 2002; Klez only $750 million impact, BugBear $500 million impact and Badtrands $400 million impact. What kind of dumb analyst are you that can’t spot a trend?

But then came 2003; Slammer Worm—$1.5 billion impact. SoBig.F—$2.5 billion impact. This was not a bear market for viruses.

By 2004 nearly all computers at home and in businesses had AV software. We’re talking 99+% penetration. I mean the AV vendors were wittering on about viruses on mobile phones. They were out hunting for new devices to fail to protect. Enter MyDoom, with the impact of a giant asteroid. $4 billion damages—none of it to mobile phones.

Yes indeed AV is disturbing, and one of its aspects that is disturbing is that with every one of these viruses there’s always been some AV spokesman happily doing interviews with the press and television, getting free publicity for the AV software that failed to stop the outbreak. You know the kind of comments they make…

“Yes the AlienSexPills virus is an entirely new virus, although it bears some resemblance to MeanBastard.C virus of June 2003. If your PC gets infected, the virus takes control, trashes your data, melts your keyboard into a plastic lump and rapes your teenage daughter. If you’re infected, our advice is to go to our web site where there’s a detailed description of how to rectify the situation. We’ll probably be able to save most of your data and our experts are working on solutions for getting your daughter’s virginity back.”

So if you’re a journalist reading this, then next time there’s another newsworthy virus outbreak, don’t call them, call me—and I’ll tell you that signature-based AV software is not part of the solution but part of the problem. It is horribly flawed and should be abandoned now that there are software products from the likes of Bit9, AppSense and SecureWave that do the job as it should be done and give you complete protection against all viruses. And, dear journalist, I’ll also explain why, technically, their approach is so much better.

We’re not done here. Not even close. It ain’t over until the fat lady stops buying AV software and sings about it.

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