WordPress running on Windows Azure.

You can see it announced, discussed and showcased from the 23:56 minute mark in Ray Ozzie’s opening keynote at Microsoft PDC this week:

The reason this is so significant is because it represents an important strategic shift in the ‘yes we do support open source’ talk that Microsoft has been peddling pushing. This announcement is much more that Microsoft just supporting open source. This is about embracing open source.

The WordPress announcement came as part of a broader revelation about Azure now supporting PHP, MySQL, Java and other non-Microsoft offerings. As Ray noted in his keynote:

Reaching all developers is incredibly important to us…

But don’t be too distracted by that for now. Here WordPress is the key. Let’s take a look at why.

First, we need to note that Microsoft has been targeting open source for a while. Sam Ramji said as much two years ago in an interview with Mary Jo Foley when he outlined Microsoft’s objective for open-source: get it running on top of Windows and SQL Server. Here’s the slide he used:

Source: ZDNet.com – All About Microsoft

Mary Jo summarises it nicely:

Microsoft is looking at open-source software (OSS) as just another flavor of independent software vendors (ISV) software. Microsoft’s goal is to convince OSS vendors to port their software to Windows. But Microsoft doesn’t want OSS software to just sit on top of Windows; the company wants this software to be tied into the Windows ecosystem by integrating with Active Directory, Microsoft Office, Expression designer tools, System Center systems-management wares and SQL Server database.

When it came to open source, Microsoft’s vision was for Windows Server to be the foundation. As long as you had Windows underpinning the solution, they didn’t mind what you had running on top. In their ideal world you’d be building Windows + SQL Server+ .NET, but in a non-ideal world Windows + My SQL + PHP is fine. As long as it ran on their servers…

After all, the Server market is one of Microsoft best divisions (source: Microsoft Results) with Server and Tools the only division to grow over the last 12 months).

Source: Microsoft Investor Relations briefing – slide 2 of CFO Chris Liddell’s presentation (PPT download)

But how do you grow an already significant division?

One way is to analyse what functions those servers are providing and look for opportunities… Turns out most of Microsoft’s server usage is internal to companies and there’s a big opportunity on the web.

Consider the following web statistics and WordPress in particular.

Web Server Statistics

• As of May 2009, Apache dominates the web server landscape with 71% of all domains world wide residing on an Apache server (source: Security Space). That’s roughly 26.3 million domains.
• Microsoft by comparison has 17% of the market with 6.3 million domains. Narrowing this to just the .com domains and the results are still similar (68% versus 20%).

Note: figures differ widely depending on who reports them, and what they include. The above stats likely include parked domains, and are thus not necessarily indicative of ‘real world’ domain use.

Note 2: whilst Apache will run on Windows of course, it is very difficult to find a breakdown of the stats. It is likely to be a very small percentage.

PHP language statistics

• More than 5 million PHP developers worldwide (source: Zend)
• PHP is used by many leading web sites including Yahoo and Facebook.
• As at October 2008 PHP was on approximately 33% of web servers world wide (source: Nexen).

WordPress Statistics

In August 2008 Matt Mullenweg reported that WordPress.org (the self-hosted version) had 2.6 million active installed blogs in the wild (source: TechCrunch). This from a company that only got off the ground in 2003. By far the majority of these are running on Apache.

Summary of Statistics

• The web largely runs on PHP and Apache with 26.3 million domains.
• Microsoft in total has 6.3 million domains.
• WordPress alone has 2.6 million domains.

An Opportunity for Microsoft?

When you consider that Microsoft dominates server market share globally (more than 75% of servers run Microsoft) but only hosts 17% of web domains (as per the numbers above), you can see there is a big opportunity. Just imagine for instance if all those WordPress sites were running on Microsoft…

Windows Server Momentum

Perhaps that’s why Microsoft has been actively promoting Windows Server as the premier platform for open source. Consider this slide from Microsoft’s COO Kevin Turner delivered during their recent Investor Relations briefing:

Source: Microsoft Investor Relations briefing – slide 10 of COO Kevin Turner’s presentation (PPT download)

Yes, even the COO knows the value of open source to Microsoft now!

And to a certain extent Microsoft has been supporting various open source initiatives for a while.

Where Microsoft has been heading

Here’s some of the approaches Microsoft has been using to date.

1. Understanding when to ‘embrace’ versus when to ‘compete’

Instead of dismissing PHP as a threat and putting forward all kinds of bogus apples-vs-oranges comparisons of PHP versus .NET, Microsoft has been gently managing the perception of the languages. This is a smart move, especially since they are now in the process of embracing the language.

You can expect to see more and more guidance coming from Microsoft indicating where and when each language can be used. A cynical person might even suggest there will be less animosity between PHP and ASP.NET than there is between C# and VB.NET developers

This builds on much of the work Microsoft has been doing with PHP over the last few years. It’s not that Microsoft hasn’t been involved, rather it’s just that they haven’t been talking about it much. That’s changing.

Here’s a few examples of where Microsoft has been focussing on PHP:

• Expression Web. Microsoft has provided a beautiful PHP development environment with its Expression Web product (take a look – it’s pretty good).
• SQL Server. Microsoft has been providing PHP SQL Server connectivity since the SQL 2000 days (read the Microsoft PHP SQL Server blog for more on that front).
• IIS7. Microsoft did a lot of work to ensure PHP performance on Windows 2008 and IIS7 was impressive. Time flies, because this has been the case for over 3 years now.

2. Discussing open source

Part of the problem had been lack of promotion of these tools but this has also been changing over the last 12 months. Whereas previous open-source discussions have been little more than ugly-sister recommendations or pushes to open-source contributions using Microsoft technologies, lately there has been more discussion about using non-Microsoft open-source technologies.

For example, at the recent ReMIX conference I was impressed by Nick Hodges’ session on Open Source (view the entire session here). The reason this was impressive was not so much because the session (or the panel) was spell-binding, but rather that Nick was keen to get people talking about open-source from a variety of industries including those not using Microsoft technologies.

This may seem like a small thing, but it represents a willingness for Microsoft (locally at least) to learn and engage with others. It’s shows a reduction in the Microsoft-versus-Others mentality and an increase in the Microsoft-with-Others mindset.

Other examples include the fireside chats Nick and Jorke Odolphi have been having around the country.

3. Microsoft Web Platform Installer

The Web Platform Installer is now in its second version, and provides a simple yet powerful way to implement numerous open source, PHP and non-Microsoft application frameworks on your Windows box. Scott Guthrie’s rundown of the Web Platform Installer post indicates Microsoft places some importance on the success of Web PI.

4. CodePlex.org

Actually this is a bit of side track to the discussion we are having here, so I’ve only mentioned it for interest. You can read my thoughts on CodePlex.org in a previous post here.

5. Improving Relationships with Hosting Partners

There’s a few problems Microsoft is still in the process of solving. But they aren’t technical ones. They are partnering ones.

Consider something simple like URL rewriting. This is a basic need of any web site, and whilst Apache based hosting companies had this sorted years ago, they are still significant hurdles on IIS hosted sites. GoDaddy for example, one of the largest hosting companies in the world, still hasn’t provided support for the Microsoft URL rewriter modules.

Basic issues like this need to be remedied immediately (especially since the technical solutions have been available for more than a year now). And that’s been part of what Microsoft’s Architecture and IT Pro Evangelists have been focusing on.

Microsoft has recognised it needs to be putting huge effort into building a dedicated team of technical specialists that worked with every major Windows hosting company on the planet, ensuring they all provided rock-solid, no brainer PHP support along with all the required plug-ins such as the URL re-writers.

So that’s been Microsoft’s process so far. But it doesn’t really speak in any mainstream way to developers and IT Pros. But that all changed with this weeks’ announcement at PDC.

Windows Azure

Windows Azure is a highly visible, major mainstream play by Microsoft.

Bob Muglia finished his keynote appearance with the following statement:

There’s no question that the Cloud is the next generation application model. And Microsoft will take you there.

Microsoft considers their so-called ‘3 Screens and a Cloud’ strategy as being absolutely vital to their continued success.

To embrace open-source as a key component in this infrastructure alignment is a significant indicator of Microsoft’s willingness to adapt, and one that perfectly facilitates Sam Ramji’s and Kevin Turner’s ambitions for open source adoption.

To partner with WordPress as a highly visible endorsement of the strategy is a wonderfully clever move.

I think best when I’m standing. And particularly well when I’m having a shower. In fact – but don’t picture this – some of my best ideas have been captured only as a result of me rushing out of the shower to excitedly explain a thought to my wife before they were lost in post shower distractions (drying, dressing and so forth). Too much information? Yes, probably.

But here’s where you might be able to help me (and my wife ). For a while I’ve been trying to find a simple way of recording ideas whilst in the shower. Surely there’s a simple waterproof notepad that I can use? However, it seems they’re difficult to find.

The best so far seems to be The Droodle (pictured at right), but before I order one I thought I’d check for any ideas from you dear reader. There’s a few other options around including this and this, but whilst they claim to be fine in rain, I’m not sure they’ll survive a strong, hot shower.

Any thoughts? I’d appreciate any recommendations you can give.

Have you ever been involved in the hiring process for your company or team?

If you have, then perhaps you’ve been astounded at how terrible the CVs of many highly intelligent candidates you interviewed were. Senior developers who excelled at their craft, were recognised as brilliant by their peers, and yet, couldn’t seem to put together a coherent CV to save themselves. Why?

It’s a little like that with search engine optimisation. As web developers we’ve probably been involved in the development of many wonderful web sites, and yet we have no clue how to get those wonderful sites ranking in the search engines. Why?

Perhaps its because we’re cynical about the whole search engine optimisation (SEO) thing… Sure, we know the importance of ranking in Google, but we just don’t really have much respect for the process of getting there.

Well, if you are new to SEO, can I suggest the following:

SEO is the Google ranking equivalent of ensuring you have a great CV

Hopefully you’ll agree that having a well written, up-to-date CV is a good thing. And if you don’t have the skills (or motivation) to write a good CV, then perhaps you’d hired someone to help improve it for you.

So what is it about SEO that we don’t like…

Gaming the system?

Perhaps it’s because we think of search engine optimisation as gaming the system. And there’s some truth to that (especially from the bad apples). However, I’d suggest that SEO should only be thought of as gaming the ranking system in the same way as having a great CV is gaming the hiring process.

It’s true, we’ve all heard of complete incompetents gaming the hiring system and getting great jobs – making a mockery of the process. However, we don’t let those bad apples deter us from going after our ideal roles.

Similarly, SEO has those who spam the system and are rewarded (for a time at least) for shonky tactics. But likewise, we shouldn’t let them deter us from making our own sites as discoverable as possible in the engines.

I have to admit, if you’d asked me a year ago about search engine ranking and its related practices I’d have been pretty cynical myself (perhaps a little like this).

But the reason I’ve come to really appreciate and respect the art of proper SEO is simply because of the business results I’ve seen it provide. The return on investment is too hard to ignore. (You may know that I’ve been focusing on Search quite a bit this year as part of my career change to working with my wife on our own web businesses.)

Flogging the Jobseeker analogy

Admittedly, SEO is not just about the site itself. There’s more involved. So let’s push the analogy a tad.

If you know anything about SEO you’ll be aware that ranking well is a combination of optimising your site (we refer to that as the on-page stuff) AND having a lot of quality sites linking to you (we refer to this as the off-page stuff).

So, if we were to push the jobseeker analogy it’s actually more than just having a great CV. Rather, in total it might be something like this: 

• making sure your CV is optimised for your preferred list of employers, with key skills highlighted, PLUS
• ensuring you have a network of people (eg industry colleagues, friends) that help get you in front of your next boss

In SEO terms, the CV is your site, HR departments & recruiters represent the search engines, and your future employer is the web surfer. Your mission is to get those HR departments & recruiters to favour you…

HR departments & recruiters will look for key skills in your CV, plus authority signals from external sources (eg references, recommendations from respected colleagues, social profile, etc) and use this in determining where you rank in being put forward to a prospective employer.

So it is with SEO. Whilst the analogy isn’t perfect, the main point is ensuring that your product/service is:

• strategically communicated on your site (with key terms people are looking for), and
• high in credibility/authority signals (by others linking to you in relation to those key terms).

Simple right? Obvious even. Maybe. Why then are so many wonderfully useful web sites ranking so poorly? Perhaps its because we developers haven’t put a priority on SEO. In much the same way as many of us trot out sub-standard CVs when searching for a new job. And further, whilst knowing that having a network of people to recommend us is a good idea, few know how to build that network efficiently & appropriately.

Thus, think of SEO like this:

SEO is the process of performing the strategic ranking actions for your site, efficiently and appropriately.

It’s far from a perfect analogy of course and if you know a little about SEO then you’ll probably be picking holes in it. But if you are a web developer and reasonably new to SEO, then I hope this helps highlight the relevance of SEO to your profession.

(If you are after a few more details of what SEO entails, I recommend these overviews from Wikipedia, Search Engine Land,  SEOBook and Google.)

A change of mindset?

As a final note: I’ve noticed a progression in the developer mindset over the last few years. Whereas less than 5 years ago we often dismissed graphic designers and usability professionals as a bunch of skivvy wearers, now we have a healthy respect for their talents. In the Microsoft ecosystem, skilled Silverlight designers (and so-called ‘devigners’) have experienced a deserved credibility increase. They are becoming the uber-cool. It seems we finally understand the importance of a great looking site…

I’d suggest that in a few short years, developers with (proper) search engine optimization skills will have a similar credibility boost.

Search optimisation is an important skill – one that’ll become almost mandatory in the web developer’s toolkit. Don’t ignore  the opportunities it affords.

If you’re like me, then you probably cringe when you see people referring to themselves as a ‘social media strategist’.

And if they point to Gary Vaynerchuk as their main example of why you too should embrace social media then I really despair. Too often it seems, we’re told of the wonderful success stories, with scant mention of the hard work, sweat and perserverance these overnight social media celebrities have been putting in… for years  (as most overnight successes do).

Of course, anyone and everyone can use social networking, but with so many options, how do you know which path to choose? How do we avoid ending up like this poor person:

When it comes to getting the right social media guidance, you obviously want to be wary. Sure, you need to have an open mind and accept that the way you’ve traditionally done stuff might not be the way you’ll succeed in the future. But that doesn’t mean you should jump on the latest social networking fad, or embrace a popularity contest strategy that has little financial rewards. And if you’ve been employing a particular social media approach that doesn’t seem to be bearing fruit yet, it doesn’t necessarily mean you dump it.

Instead, you need to understand – without the hype – what’s really going on in the social media and social networking space.

So, what do you do? How do you find the right guide?

And, perhaps most importantly, how do you get to eat a lot of chocolate in the process…

The Solution

Well, my friends, I have the solution. This month at the Sydney Business & Technology User Group (SBTUG) we are fortunate to have one of the world’s leading social media consultants presenting. Laurel Papworth (aka @silkcharm) is coming along to give us an update on the state of play in social media and social networking. If you are a regular SBTUG member, you’ll remember she presented to us a little over 18 months ago. Things change rapidly. This time she’ll be reviewing what’s changed, what’s new, what you need to understand, adapt to & embrace, and what you should ignore.

About Laurel Papworth

You can read her full bio here, but I thought it worth mentioning the following extract so you get the idea:

Laurel has been a virtual communities/online Community/Social Network consultant since 1989 when she was involved in Twin Peaks IRC and Usenet groups online. For the last decade, Laurel has been running virtual worlds and MMORPGs as a game moderator, forum admin, customer service manager and marketing consultant. Laurel has a patent in social network currencies and is considered a leading social media monetization strategist worldwide.

Since 2005, Laurel has been teaching social media classes, including at the University of Sydney, has advised projects such as Interactive (social media) Emmy award winning Scorched.TV and recently went to Saudi Arabia to work on the iMatter Project for Middle East Broadcasting, teaching Arabic women how to blog and use social media to gain a “voice”. She also runs workshops on Government 2.0 on their social media strategies in Asia.

Laurel is currently in top Power150 bloggers for Marketing and Media worldwide, as collated by the global Advertising Age magazine. She is a popular keynote speaker around the world, recently returning from a Portugal keynote, and her books and courseware are available for download under Creative Commons Licence from LaurelPapworth.com.

If you are business owner, software manager or developer, utilising social networking in your role, then this will be an extremely valuable session. Come and learn from a recognised expert (and engaging speaker), who imparts considered and data-backed advice to all levels of business, including government, enterprise and small business.

I’ve heard Laurel present many times, and can tell you she’s excellent. We’re lucky to have her for the night. And if you are still wary of social networking, then let me put it another way… she’s one of the few people who when I hear the term ‘social media strategist’ I don’t cringe! She’s the real deal.

Please RSVP here on our Facebook Event or email me to secure your place.

Christmas Bonus

But why all this talk about chocolate? Well, two things:

• First, this will be our last meeting for the year (*sob*). So, it’ll be our SBTUG Christmas party (*woo hoo*). Which means we’re bringing along beers, cocktails (did somebody mention mojitos) & nibblies in addition to our regular pizza feast. And chocolate.
• Second, Laurel loves chocolate. It’s the least we could do!

So, do yourselves a favour. Book the night of Wed 25 November in your diary now. Come along to SBTUG and hear one of the leading social media consultants outline the state of play, PLUS enjoy a beer, pizza and plenty of chocolate. Sound like a good night? I look forward to seeing you there.

Full Details

When: Wednesday 25 November 2009 at 6pm
What: Social Media and Social Networking for Business
Who: Laurel Papworth presenting
Where: Microsoft, North Ryde (click for map)
Register: RSVP here to secure your place
Cost: $5 donation* to cover pizza (the beer, mojitos and chocolate are provided for free!)
Why: Because you need to understand how to use Social Media in your business

(*If you’d like to sponsor the night, and help us remove the $5 donation request, then please shoot me an email. We’ll promote you and your company/service on the blog, in our email newsletter and on the night.)

One Final Thing

If you could help promote the event I’d really appreciate it. A simple retweet or thumbs up would be great. But I expect many of you will have to print this out and physically hand it to your boss the people who need it most…

One of the core building blocks of Microsoft’s success over the past decades has been its close relationship with partners. The Microsoft Partner Network (previously Partner Program) has helped Microsoft reach (via their partners) every conceivable sector of the myriad markets they service. And in return, Microsoft was known to be very loyal, supportive and even protective of its partners (there’s even books written on how to best work the relationship).

But that’s been changing over the last few years. Resellers are feeling the pain the most I expect, as Microsoft opens up its own retail stores, experiments with subscription models and grows its online sales channels (Microsoft Office for example makes a sizeable proportion of its revenue directly from consumers, especially those who download the 60-day trials and then buy an activation key). Hosted services are next in line, with Microsoft price-cutting its way to market dominance –> bad luck if you are a reseller trying to make a buck there.

ISVs aren’t immune and will increasingly have to look over their shoulders as their segments get taken over. Anti-virus is an example perhaps (financial software isn’t ) , but the real danger is if you are a partner ISV in the health or educational sectors – be very careful.

Microsoft based consulting companies should also be wary (unless you’re at the big end of town), as they find themselves competing more with Microsoft’s own consulting services and partnerships – entities that are continually scaling up.

Is this wrong?

Is any of this wrong? Or unexpected? Of course not. Microsoft is a business with demanding shareholders and strong competition from other vendors. It needs to push ahead.

So, this isn’t a note to criticise what Microsoft are doing – in fact, some would say it’s been too long coming.

But it is a wake up call to Microsoft Partners. Be wary of counting on continued loyalty from Microsoft in your particular market.

Or more correctly: The Jeff Putt Show

What you would do if you had to organise a product launch? How would you structure it? You’d probably get marketing to pump out a few of the pretty videos, crank the upbeat motivating soundtracks and speed through the nice photo slideshows.

But then, what would you focus on? Would you put the Managing Director of the company up first. Yes, you would. What would you have them talk about? Well, you’d make sure they mention how excited they are, and how thankful they are for the input of many of those in the audience who were involved in the beta program and RC releases. You’d probably note a few statistics with billions in them (there are 1.1B Windows users apparently). OK, ho hum so far. What next?

You’d probably fly one of the stars from corporate out and get them to present a bit as well. Perhaps talk about the approach you’ve taken developing the product and throw in a few more statistics. They’re probably not going to win over the crowd (even with corn syrup lines), but at least it shows you’re taking the event pretty seriously.

OK, so far so good – it’s looking like a professional event… but the crowd is probably going to be bored. What do you do?

You pull out a Jeff Putt

Yes, thank God you’ve got Jeff Putt up your sleeve. Within 30 seconds of taking the stage at this morning’s Windows 7 launch, Jeff has the crowd in the palm of is hand. Why? Because he’s geeky, believable, and jumps straight into the demos. Useful stuff. And pretty funny. Australians like self-deprecation and quiet confidence. And a bit of humour.

A few sound bytes from Jeff as he gets rolling:

Alt-Tab is a thing of the past

This is Windows Aero made useful (talking about Taskbar preview)

Sooner or later you’ve got leave the house… ahem hello to all our viewers on Ustream

The demos are good. Windows shake gets a few good laughs. Onto libraries and file management. Simple demos showing the benefits. Home networking, Media Centre, Remote media streaming, all good.

Then a demo of touch, including shake, right click, jump lists. And not just the simple stuff, inertia in the touch interface, multi-finger resizing, and the list goes on. It’s great stuff.

Hardware

But no presentation of Windows is complete without discussion of the hardware, and for a minute I’m worried that we’ll lose Jeff as he hands over to a number of the partners to demo their new products running Windows 7 – starting with Acer. This is where I’d normally zone out (I’m not really a hardware guy) but thankfully Jeff stays on stage and keeps me awake, and then, hello! did someone mention 12 hour battery life. Yes, 12 hours on the Asus. But it gets better. Dell pops up to show one of their new products – was it called the Adamo?. It’s beautiful. HP are keen on the touch aspects of course (ie their TouchSmart machines have lead the market for the last 2+ years) and their devices are not only highly functional, but look very slick, enter…  the HP Envy. Sony, are up next to demo the Vaio X series – it’s only as thick as the VGA port, and has an embedded 3G module. And their site mentions 14 hour battery life! And made from carbon fibre body – which Jeff stands on for a demo. Toshiba are up last, and their focus is on battery life also. 21 new notebooks, including one that boots up in 3 seconds. Yikes. Maybe hardware isn’t so bad after all…

Partners

Sadly, our Jeff time is coming to an end, and David McLean is the unlucky person who has to take over.

David does pretty well though and brings up two partners for a little chat. Deborah from Dick Smith, and Theo from Leader Computers. Amusing introductions and then a quick chat about the hype around Windows 7. Consumers are the focus here, even though business is well catered for. Deborah’s opinion is that touch, home networking and backup are key consumer interest items. It’s always good to mention a pain point (she suggest losing all your photos as a common anxiety) and then how Windows 7 is the solution. The discussion yawns into evolution and other guff – I think I heard connectivity mentioned – and how it was an exciting time. Sorry, trailing off…

Aside: It’s interesting to note how much Home group is mentioned. Personally I don’t think this is going to be a big thing for most ‘normal’ consumers (although it would be for power users of course). Instead, I think consumers just want something that works… And if it’s rock solid, simple to use, and has lower hardware requirements than it’s predecessor then all the better.

For example: When I personally talk about Windows 7 with people, I highlight that:

It just works! It’s beautiful to use, and it works.

There’s a few Windows ads shown – the ‘Windows Kevin’ is a classic, followed by the ‘I’m a PC and the chops are done’ moment. Love it.

Question time

Yay, Jeff Putt is back.

• Question time is on, and Dan Warne asks about Family Pack. Sorry, I got distracted and tuned out during the answer.
• A good question about Windows Security and whether the Windows advertising downplays the risks. Jeff mentions that consumers shouldn’t take their security advice from an advertisement. I hope I’m not mis-quoting him here, but I think his answer is less than ideal. In fact the Q+A time is the only part where Jeff doesn’t shine – as a host and presenter he’s wonderful, but there’s a few rough edges that need smoothing when it comes to taking questions from the gallery (more on this later).
• The inevitable question about what went wrong with Vista and what did they learn from that and fix in Windows 7. This is a gift question, because it will be a perceived reality in many customer’s minds and needs to be addressed. The answer is standard and James had pretty much covered it in his earlier presentation anyway.
• Next question: Why not include an email client in the Windows 7? Why make the Live Essentials suite a separate download (instead of providing it in the product). James DeBragga responds well with an explanation about the speed of innovation of the Live Essential separate from an O/S. Good answer, but most people are probably just thinking it’s so Microsoft doesn’t get caught in anti-trust cases or some such. Or perhaps so they can claim that the product is a smaller footprint than Vista. There’s a number of advantages for Microsoft of keeping it separate, but I suspect the advantages to customers is minimal. Retailers, we are told, have the option of bundling the extra packs (which is good!) but I’m still sceptical. The average mum and dad consumer uses the web browser, then the email client, and then probably some photo programs. Having it as a separate download is a bad call (in my opinion). At least having it as part of the install as an option would be better. But that’s just me, and chatting a few people afterwards I realise I’m in the minority (ie most people think keeping it separate is better).
• There’s a question about pricing. There’s a spin answer. It gets called out as BS from the audience. Yawn. There’s an ever-so-slightly heated (I’d have liked a bit more actually) retort from David – with lots of ‘facts’ mentioned. Pricing is always a sensitive topic, and rarely are you going to keep many people happy – everyone wants it cheaper right? I’ll move on.
• A well known journalist asks what’s in it for business? He’s laughed down because as Jeff explains this event is the Consumer Launch. Funny? Perhaps. But a bad call by Jeff. Making a joke of questions asked by the audience is not going to win anyone over.

For the record, here’s the invite I received. No mention of consumer here. The only clue would be if you knew/noted that James DeBragga is the Windows Consumer Product Marketing Manager.

So, a good question actually, but not one that is being focused on this morning (they’re having separate launches and PR events targeting business customers).

• A question about ‘offers’. Answer: stay tuned. Yawn.
• A question about netbooks. Yes, it’s getting a lot of focus.
• A question about music, video and home automation. Much was promised with Vista, but not much delivered. Answer: again, stay tuned. *crickets*
• Finally, a question about whether Microsoft Retail Stores would pop up in Australia. Answer: currently no plans, instead they are only focused on working with existing partners.

The event finishes on a down note – some of the final questions have given it a negative tone, and perhaps that’s why the closing motivating music gets pumped up (to compensate?).

Main lesson of the day. If you are organising big product launch, don’t end the event with a Q+A from the press. Hindsight is easy of course, but perhaps saving some of the best demos for the end would have provided a better outcome.

Summary

I love Windows 7 and have been using it since the beta in January, so I’m definitely biased, but all in all I think this was a good event that highlighted the approach, features and benefits of Windows 7. Microsoft have been far more humble about their products in the last 12-24 months, and in place of the hype of yesteryear, we now have the quiet confidence of a vendor who is working extremely hard to produce top quality software for a more demanding than ever customer. I think they are doing well.

And finally, Jeff Putt is a master. If you are planning a product launch, or a wedding for that matter – he’s the man to run the show!

So, that’s how Microsoft launches a product. How would you do it?

I love the Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 pitch – no namby-pamby here:

This is no namby-pamby beta. It’s a full-octane beta release with a “Go Live” license that you can use to concept, build, test, and deploy* your next project.

The Beta 2 has just been released, and whilst it seems to be downloading/installing OK, I notice that most of the download pages still refer to Beta 1 (but I’m sure they’ll be updated soon).

I missed this little announcement about ‘TFS Basic’ a few weeks back, but luckily Adam Cogan alerted me to it during one of our recent walks (can you tell where we stopped for lunch ). The news came from Brian Harry originally, but you could be forgiven for missing it since his blog post was extensive (that’s a good thing!) and covered a history of SourceSafe before mentioning TFS Basic details.

TFS Basic is aimed at the small development teams that use SourceSafe (or worse – nothing) and need a better solutions for source control, bug tracking and automated builds. It’s part of the upcoming TFS 2010 release (ie it’s not released yet – look out for Beta 2 in the coming months) and Brian’s post has all the details about ease of installation etc. Note also, that TFS Basic is just a label at this stage (I’m not sure what the final name will be) and of course there is no pricing information yet.

The Benefits

The reason I mention this announcement is because it shows that the trend towards better software development methodologies is being promoted to all levels of an organisation now. TFS was initially an enterprise play (at least its price tag said as much) and small teams had to suffice with SourceSafe or get their heads around the TFS Workgroup edition. But that is all changing (as Brian mentions):

To make sure we could handle the broadest range, we started by targeting enterprise customers and development teams with more involved development processes.  The pinnacle of that has been the Microsoft Developer Division experience that I’ve talked so much about where we have over 3,500 regular users and terabytes upon terabytes of data.  However, it has been our intention from the beginning to build a toolset that is attractive to teams of all sizes and all levels of process.

And this is happening not only in the Microsoft space. Atlassian for example and have been making their toolset much more integrated and affordable for the smaller shops (check out their Starter offering here) over the past 12 months.

It’s a promising trend. With large numbers of senior enterprise workers starting their own consultancies (either by choice or forced by economic downsizing), the need for proper software development tools in the small business sector is greater than ever. Tool vendors are catching on and providing better solutions at affordable prices.

Society puts a premium on getting access to ‘news’ as quickly as possible. The person who breaks the story first gets the rewards. Speed to market trumps quality delivered to market every time. It’s a shame really.

Take the T-Mobile debacle as an example. The story kicked off two weeks ago, but hit fever pitch last Saturday with news from TechCrunch of T-Mobile losing all customer data and thus:

This goes beyond FAIL, face-palm, or any of the other internet memes we’ve come to associate with incompetence. The fact that T-Mobile and/or Microsoft Danger don’t have a redundant backup is simply inexcusable, especially given the fact that the Sidekick is totally reliant on the cloud because it doesn’t store its data locally.

and the Engadget pronouncement of it:

…shaping up to be one of the biggest disasters in the history of cloud computing…

Mashable follows with unchecked agreement:

The story is a jarring one for those storing increasing amounts of data in the “cloud”: as we become more reliant on servers to house our data, such losses can be catastrophic.

The event descends into a critique of Microsoft’s failure to make backups, and the impending death of the Sidekick:

Unless Microsoft pulls a miracle out of thin air the Sidekick is dead.

Ars Technica keep the momentum going:

This outage and subsequent data loss is just the latest, and probably the most dramatic, black eye yet for "cloud computing,"…

And of course, then the lawyers start lining up:

Another suit, filed on behalf of Maureen Thompson "and all others similarly situated" seeks unspecified damages for Thompson and others who have lost data as a result of the recent Sidekick problems.

(Keep in mind these legal suits are being filed within 3 days of the initial report of data loss and long before final details of the extent of the loss were fully confirmed!)

By mid week reports had started to shift the blame away from ‘the cloud’, and away from Microsoft directly to their outsourced partner (Hitachi), and then to non-Microsoft technology, and even to sabotage (supposedly due to low morale in the T-Mobile team).

Finally, by the end of the week Microsoft reports that most of the data may well be recovered and the story cools down.

We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing of course, but you have to wonder how much time and energy was wasted preparing and consuming this extended, lack-of-information fuelled coverage.

In our age of ever increasing speed of access to information, what a pity we can’t improve the quality. The signal to noise ratio this last week has been way too low.

Just a quick tip if you run your WordPress site on IIS 7.0 and run into issues with pretty permalinks.

It’s pretty easy to configure: there’s a full tutorial here on the Learn IIS site and the WordPress Codex has a good overview too.

You just need to add a few lines into your web.config file.

[If you don’t know what a web.config file is don’t get too concerned. All you need to do is copy the following text into a text file, save it as web.config and put it in the WordPress directory.]

Here’s the full content of your web.config file:

<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<configuration> 
    <system.webServer>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="Main Rule" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url=".*" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
     </system.webServer>
</configuration>

If you’ve already got an existing web.config then chances are you know what you are doing, and will know how to add the snippet above into your existing file.

This is also handy if you keep backups of your WordPress sites on your local machine. For example, even though my blog is hosted on Apache, I keep a full backup of it locally on my Windows 7 machine running under IIS7 (using the most excellent Web Platform Installer). Just about everything works perfectly out of the box, except the pretty URLs, so I use the rewrite lines above to make it work. The web.config file gets placed in a directory such as:

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\<your wordpress directory>\

And if you haven’t yet checked out the Web Platform Installer, then I strongly recommend it. You can get it here: