HP and Microsoft move in on the Foundations market

It's all been done before but HP and Microsoft have picked an excellent time to do it again. Their new competition promises a total of $50,000 (retail price) of new computer hardware and software to the two entrants most desperately in need of an IT makeover.

Of course the day after the winners are announced all of the losing contestants will receive a personalized phone call from Microsoft offering sympathy and an invitation to evaluate Essential Business Server running on HP equipment. Why the heck isn't IBM doing this kind of stuff with Lotus Foundations server on X-Series hardware?
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OT: Turning 50 today

Well I guess this post answers the question about how far off-topic this blog is willing to go :)

It's been a loooong journey since September 26th 1958. For my fiftieth birthday my darling wife said I could have anything I want (steady troops... we're not going THAT far off topic) so I spent some time thinking over my past desires and finally realized what I always wanted but would never have bought for myself.

I'm working today at my favorite client - Belinda had to work anyway so no point in having a day off by myself - but tonight Belinda, Adam and I paint the town red with some ribs and beer at a pokey little no-name pizza place and then tomorrow I get to play Air Wolf. The tough bit will be explaining to 3-year-old Number One Son why he can't have a turn at the controls.
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OT: Microsoft's Partner Base is shrinking

This article from the Redmond Channel Partner magazine points out that...

"The number of [Microsoft] Gold Certified Partners has more than doubled in the past two years, jumping from about 7,000 in 2006 to more than 14,400 today, according to Microsoft figures. (Meanwhile, the number of Certified Partners has dwindled rapidly, dropping from about 30,000 worldwide in 2006 to just more than 17,500 today as, presumably, most of those Certified companies move up to Gold Certified status.)"

So in 2006 Microsoft had 7,000 plus 30,000 = 37,000 partners and in 2008 they have 14,400 plus 17,500 = 31,900 partners which is a decrease of 14% in two years. Makes you wonder if Bill jumped ship because he saw this downturn coming?
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Moving to Linux this weekend...

For the last twelve months I've been getting my feet wet with Linux. I've installed SUSE on a spare server at home and read a few manuals and, of course, installed Lotus Foundations more than once. I've also enrolled in a one-week intensive Novell Linux boot camp in October paid for by IBM (for which I wouldn't be eligible if I wasn't an IBM Business Partner - Vaughan, you really need to wake up and smell the Big Blue Roses. There's more to the IBM relationship than just making margin on software sales.)

Anyway, I'm about done with standing in knee-deep water. Time to dive in head first and upgrade my main work PC. From what I read, Ubuntu is the friendliest desktop but since I'm running SUSE-based Foundations server and about to do a SUSE boot camp I'm thinking I should stay with Novell. So for those who have gone the SUSE route, can you give me any pointers / web-sites / tales of woe / total time estimates / Gnome v. KDE etc?

PS. And can anyone tell me the best way to run Windows games on Linux?
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Upgrading the Foundations Domino Version

Maybe I've been spoiled by always having Business Partner access to the latest software versions but I get kinda twitchy if I run too many point releases behind the bleeding edge. So with 8.02 already on the loose and 8.5 only a few months away I need to ask the obvious question.

How long after the initial release dates will we get the Foundations version of new Domino software?
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Foundations at Lotussphere 2009?

I haven't been to Lotussphere for about ten years and I probably won't be going in 2009 either. It's not that I'm not interested but the cost and the distance and turning 50 (this Friday) and having a three year old son means that my priorities are different now.

However I am interested in collecting the technical overflow that always follows Lotussphere. So Kevin, Bilal et. al. what are the chances that we'll see some Foundations-centric sessions in Orlando next January? C'mon guys... you can trust me. I won't tell too many people.
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MS EBS setup is different to Foundations

Here's one man's story of installing MS Essential Business Server.

"EBS is fine with installing into an existing network, and it's even OK if you want to keep your existing firewall / gateway in place, but you need to be a bit deceptive to prevent having to make changes to your existing infrastructure. If you want to keep your existing firewall / gateway, EBS wants to take it's internal IP (your default gateway address) as its' own and have you assign a new, unique IP address to your existing firewall / gateway. It kinda makes sense; EBS is trying to ensure that all of your existing clients go though the new Security Server, and by changing this one IP address on your existing firewall / gateway, you do not have to point every workstation to the new security server. Of course, EBS is built to be your network, not coexist with your network. "

We shouldn't be surprised at his problems since the Microsoft philosophy of One Server To Rule Them All has been around for quite a few years. This guy recommended:

"So for your test lab... Lie to it if you don't want to reconfigure your existing firewall / gateway. I told the tool that my firewall/gateway was at 192.168.1.1 even though it was really located at 192.168.0.1. This way, the new security server takes the IP I want it to, not my super happy existing firewall that the rest of my network depends upon."

I'm just wondering how far that strategy will work in a production environment. Suppose I'm quite happy with my existing non-Microsoft gateway and don't want to give that role to EBS. Does that mean I am disqualified from receiving technical support because my architecture does not conform to the Microsoft "standard"?

At least Lotus Foundations Server gives you the choice of whether you want it to be your gateway and it will work quite happily even if it doesn't get that responsibility.
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Weird IP address on Bad-Guy probe into Foundations server

I noticed this morning that a customer's Foundations server is being probed by the bad guys and Foundations is duly reporting the event in the log.

02:01:33 PM Authentication Server Error Authentication failed for Administrator@210.154. 16.12 (ftp)
02:01:41 PM Authentication Connection Warning Command 'auth' failed (user='Administrator').
02:01:44 PM Authentication Server Error Authentication failed for Administrator@210.154. 16.12 (ftp)
02:01:52 PM Authentication Connection Warning Command 'auth' failed (user='Administrator').

DNSStuff.com told me the address was owned by TOCKA-COM which is a Russian language website with some (ahem) interesting pictures on its front page.

Nothing newsworthy in that. I'm sure that everyones server gets pinged on a daily basis by Bad Guys looking for a place to load some naughty code. What I did find interesting was the formatting of the IP address. Note the space before the 16 in 210.154. 16.12

I'm not into hacker stuff generally but I was intrigued by this one. Does anyone know how you get an IP address to include a space character?
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Foundations autonomic computing and IBM support

This is a public thank you to Robert on the Foundations Support Line in Canada and to Matt Webb at IBM in Australia for helping me with my current support issue. Matt has been researching this problem in his own time (and I've got the time-stamped emails to prove it!) and together with long distance support from Robert we have almost beaten the problem.

The problem was that a customer's Foundations server suddenly stopped accepting SMTP mail. The Domino SMTP task was active and internal<->internal mail was being delivered as was internal->external mail. That server had been running fine for a couple of months and it was a complete mystery as to what had caused the problem. In the end we told the server to run a Netscan command to automatically detect its network connections and rebuild its internet access routes.

So that's what it did.

Maybe I impress too easy but I found that to be quite an elegant piece of autonomic computing. I wish organizing my personal finances was that easy. "OK Tax Return! It's the end of the Financial Year. Go away and inspect my accounting environment and fill in your blanks then tell me when you're ready to be sent to the Tax Office."

The original issue isn't completely resolved yet since the customer has switched their mail to another email server for the duration. Now we need to switch it back and run some mail-delivery tests but I think we're on the Home Stretch.

Anyway, I want to give public recognition and thanks where it's due.

Thanks again Matt and Robert. I hope your Managers read this.
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ETA for revised Foundations documentation?

A couple of months ago I blogged about the documentation that IBM had provided with the first shipment of Foundations. I know that the Foundations team have been working hard in this area since that time because some of their revisions have been slipstreamed into the on-line technical documentation available at the Nitix site.

So when will we see the final product guys? I'd love to get a finalized PDF that I can print out (call me a Luddite if you want but I do prefer working from a printed manual).
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Where is the Foundations certification roadmap?

Hey IBM...

When are you going in getting together a certification exam for Lotus Foundations? I did some of the on-line tests available at Nitix but they're obsolete now. How are we going to separate the serious players from the box pushers unless we have a certification roadmap?
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Microsoft SBS bundled with 'IBM' hardware?

The rumors of Lenovo buying out IBM's x86 server line have been around for a while now, but this article raises an interesting point.

Suppose Microsoft per$uades Lenovo to bundle Small Business Server 2008 or Essential Business Server 2008 with the ex-IBM Thinkservers. That's still not going to match a Foundations appliance on 'bang-for-your-back' but the image of SBS teaming with an 'IBM' brand and the resulting bundle competing with Foundations might be a bit embarrassing for IBM.
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When do we see Foundations and SBS go Head-to-Head?

In my last Poll I included an option to vote for ‘Technical Bake-Offs’ as a technique for marketing Lotus Foundation Server. That suggestion polled poorly but in that doesn’t mean that it was a bad idea – merely that the other options were better (or at least more popular) ideas. Some head-to-head comparisons of Nitix and SBS from past years past are available.

PCMag compared SBS and Nitix in 2004.

A more in-depth review from 2004 with some TCO numbers is available here.

In 2006 CRN put Nitix into equal first place with Microsoft’s Small Business Server 2003 R2 over Xandros and Novell. Note that this was before Nitix integrated Lotus Notes/Domino and Lotus Symphony into its product stack so I would expect Lotus Foundations Server to easily win any rematch which used the same testing regime.

Finally, if you’ve got USD$195 to spare you can invest in the ‘Small Enterprise Workgroup Server Software: Product Comparison Report’ from Infoedge.

I’d love to see a more up-to-date comparison, specifically one that maps Lotus Foundations Server directly against SBS but maybe the PC magazines are all waiting for SBS 2008 to hit the streets before they start the next round of comparison tests.

Hey IBM, how about giving those IT reviewers a prod with a pointy stick?
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Followup post on why SBS sucks

Normally I don't post on weekends - I figure most news can wait till Monday so people can read it with their morning coffee. However I am finding the David Williams series that I blogged about yesterday is becoming more interesting. Grab some popcorn and head over there now.
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Go read "How Linux is keeping Microsoft honest (and why SBS sucks)"

Here's an interesting article from one of our Italian friends.

David Williams points out that Micro$oft's 2008 Server platform is moving away from the traditional MS GUI interface and back towards control by the command line (which is how Linux admins traditionally earn their daily bread). Scripting languages are essential in modern server environments since there's only so much that you can do with point and click. I haven't used the MS Powershell interface and don't want to start, but I must admit that I prefer doing Notes admin by command line.

Part two of his article is where the meat is for the Foundations market. His argument for the historical success of SBS is:

"... you’ll find many a lone consultant who is eager to resell [SBS] and to attain their sales certificate in the product... They lack the fiscal backing to purchase the standard range of Microsoft server products so they hone in on SBS because it’s what they can afford themselves..."

Now here's the selling point for Foundations:

"Yet, SBS comes with a catch. It’s heavily restricted. You cannot have another SBS server on your network, for one thing. And while you can have other Windows Servers – using the full product – none of them can be domain controllers. Your total user count is restricted.

This may sound acceptable; you have a reduced cost setup with the trade-off of some limitations. However, it’s exasperating, to be honest. SBS is much more restrictive than businesses realise. Even if it suits today, it’s almost certain it won’t tomorrow. It absolutely offers no scalability and any organisation which intends to grow is heading off on the wrong path by using it."

Our problem lies in getting customers to recognize these limitations before they send their money to Micro$oft.
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OT: Is Vista ever the Right Tool for the Job?

The laptop I've been using for the last year is a perfect fit for the task at hand. It has a 233mhz CPU, 64 mb of ram, a couple of gig of disk space, runs Windows 98 and Office 97 like a dream and it does everything I need on my daily commute to and from the city. I never got around to installing Notes R5 on it since I use that commuting time for writing proposals and playing with numbers rather than resolving email. At the Partnerworld conference in Sydney earlier this year IBM gave away some smoothlooking pens with an embedded 256mb memory stick - thanks IBM - so I use that as the data conduit between the laptop and the network.

My reason for sharing this piece of technical nostalgia with you is this article from six weeks ago - I told you I was cleaning out my in-tray - talking of the perils of skipping the Vista OS and waiting for Windows 7. The theme of the article is that failing to upgrade to the latest Microsoft technology is dangerous for your business. Lets look at some quotes :

"Waiting another two years -- or more -- for Windows 7 is a gamble on a business's financial future. And that wait could be longer if Microsoft delays Windows 7, further complicating application compatibility issues."

"As XP gets older, you may hit more issues and at some point -- we think that point is 2012 -- you will need to bite the bullet and move all your users from XP to Windows 7. Which means you may need to hire an external service provider to help you move."

Call me stoopid if you like, but I really can't see the the gamble which the article states is being undertaken by businesses who don't upgrade to Vista. Yes I know Gartner wrote an article on precisely those points but I'm not going to pay USD$195 for a four page PDF explaining why I need to send more money to Microsoft.

Lets stick with the original article for the moment:

"... support for XP is more likely to be dropped by some application vendors before Microsoft halts its own support."

I don't think so. No application vendor will cut their own throat by refusing to support the most commonly used OS. Application support for XP will only stop after it loses critical mass in the marketplace and given the 1-2 year lead time that application vendors provide when notifying End of Life for an application version, there will be plenty of time to consider and implement an OS upgrade.

"Consider cash. Since an OS refresh of some sort is inevitable, CIOs should consider conducting on when they have the budget to do it. Waiting another two years -- or more -- for Windows 7 is a gamble on a business's financial future. And that wait could be longer if Microsoft delays Windows 7, further complicating application compatibility issues."

Why should an OS 'refresh' be inevitable at all? If the existing OS is doing the job and there is no financial or business justification for moving to an alternative system then why spend even one red cent talking about buying Vista? It gets worse when we read the tissue paper logic about a '... gamble on a business's financial future'. So where is the gamble? How is my financial future at risk if I don't upgrade? There seems to be the implication that if I have the money today then I should quickly give it to Microsoft before I get tempted to spend it anywhere else.

"Support for XP from hardware vendors could also wane by 2011 or thereabouts..."

Another bogeyman without any substance. If the world is still running on XP then the hardware manufacturers will provide drivers for that OS. Failing to do so means they won''t sell their hardware.

"Lastly, organizations working without the Microsoft Software Assurance program may also be stuck if Windows 7 does not include downgrade rights to XP, a scenario Gartner considers likely. In that case, XP users who skip Vista would be required to buy Windows 7 licenses to upgrade."

Or they could switch to Linux or Apple or Citrix technology or, if the organisation was big enough, maybe the threat of them doing that would be enough for Microsoft to relent on allowing downgrade rights.

Getting back to my laptop for the moment. That machine is the right tool for the job and it makes no financial sense for me to invest in an upgraded tool. I have the same impression about this whole XP to Vista upgrade thing. Has anyone, anywhere ever found a situation where an organization was financially worse off because they didn't upgrade from XP to Vista? As Rod Tidwell would say...

"Show me the money!"

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Foundations on Apple Macintosh?

Real life work - the billable kind - has kept me busy for the last week but I'm starting to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. That gives me time to purge my blogging in-tray, including this article from a fortnight ago about how IBM is reconfiguring Lotus Foundations to run on multiple flavors of Linux. There are a few d'oh moments in the article like when they call Sametime a component of Foundations, but it was still worth the read.

Migrating Foundations to other distros is quite a logical move by IBM. Their objective is to arrange for the widest possible penetration of the Foundations suite while simultaneously eroding the Microsoft marketshare for servers. Allowing Red Hat, Ubuntu and all the other Linux flavors to host those applications opens new markets to Foundations and also gives those distros additional bragging rights when pitching for new business. In fact, this move makes sense for everyone but Microsoft ... oh darn!

The most interesting point was the statement that IBM will ship Foundations for Apple's Macintosh OS later this year but given some of the other bloopers in the article I'm not going to take that event as a sure-fire thing. Maybe IBM was just flying a kite to see how the market would react to that suggestion. Maybe the reporter just heard it wrong. The source for the quote was given as Jeff Smith, Vice President of Open Source and Linux Middleware for IBM.

We live in interesting times.
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The Official Voice of Foundations?

I personally find it a marathon task to identify which of the hundreds of Lotus Forums/Wikis/websites scattered across the internet are hot and which ones are dead. Planet Lotus helps enormously but there is still a lot of work to find the golden needles in that haystack.

Since the official Lotus Foundations wiki is starting up right at the beginning of the Foundations roller-coaster ride it has the potential to become the premier source of information about Lotus Foundations server - apart from my blog of course :).

I think the Foundations wiki is a Good Thing and I'm going to be plugging it quite frequently. Head over there now to check out "How to install a Lotus Foundations Test Environment using VMWare".

Of course it would be good to have a regularly-blogging Foundations-focussed Ed Brill clone as 'The Official Voice of Foundations', but until that happens I'll just keep checking out the Wiki.
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IdeaJam for Foundations

Here's a way to tell IBM what you think. Go over to Elguji's Ideajam for Foundations and add your two cents worth.

Whaddyamean you've never used Ideajam??? Sheesh... what are they teaching kids in college these days?
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Microsoft Channel Partner site looks at Foundations

Here's an article about the SMB Market that was published on 'Redmond Channel Partner Online'. Despite their tag line of 'Driving Success in the Microsoft Partner Community' and their self-proclaimed mission to provide a "... focus on the strategic and practical needs of Microsoft IT professionals" I found the article to be well-balanced and surprisingly devoid of adjectives.

The article compares the SMB offerings of Cisco, Oracle, HP, Dell, IBM, SAP and Microsoft. It only gives a paragraph or three to each vendor but it's a good snapshot of what the different players are doing. I'd already 'been-there-done-that' with what they had to say about the IBM and Microsoft products, but I did learn a thing or two about the plans of the other vendors.

I've got the site bookmarked to see what they say about Foundations in future issues.
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The perils of outsourcing

Earlier today Stefan Krueger posted a pointer to the Microsoft's Office Live Small Business service outage that has apparently resulted in the loss of customer data.

This is not the first service failure for the Microsoft Office Live Small Business service. There was a similar incident in February and (according to customers quoted in the article) a number of smaller intermittent outages since then. I'm not suggesting that it's easy to run these data centers but if the hosting company can't protect your data then why would you hand it over to them in the first place? Would you give your money to a bank that didn't promise to give all of it back?

In this case the data loss was confined to email, but I don't see a guarantee that the next outage won't hit the data servers. Goodbye spreadsheets!

I can understand the temptation for a SMB to hand over all of their IT worries to a "big brother" who promises to look after them but IMHO when push comes to shove it'll be VERY difficult to get any sort of leverage over Microsoft to get your data back. I mean if the White House couldn't get Microsoft to provide sufficient technical assistance to retrieve all of their emails then what chance has Joe the Mechanic and his ten man team got? "Sorry about that service outage Joe. We did think about trying to retrieve your data but we compared the cost in M$ man-hours against the potential adverse publicity and decided we would rely on clause 175(b) subsection 2 of our service contract which states blah blah blah..."

The possibility of vendor (ie Microsoft) lock-in was emphasized in the last paragraph of the Infoworld article by a quote from a Microsoft customer who lost their data in the recent outage:

'Reilly says that while he's disappointed with Office Live Small Business, he doesn't plan to switch. "I'm kind of stuck with them," he said.'

Ominous words. Well, if I'm going to be stuck then I'll get stuck with Foundations Server and its automated backup so if I lose my data then I've only got myself to blame. This way I also get the choice of what OS to run for my staff and to decide whether I want the MS Office elephant or one of its more nimble competitors.

Not a very hard decision.
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