Category Archives: UC&C

My earlier post on the Workplace purchase experience garnered some interesting feedback, not the least of which was Ed’s post. My response:

1. Why didn’t I join PartnerWorld? I wanted to buy the software because that’s typically what customers do, and I think that doing so gives a clearer picture of what the purchase and support process– both of which have a significant impact on customers’ satisfaction with a product– looks like for a real customer.
2. Yes, there’s a live showcase available, but that’s cheating in a way. It’s like watching Norm Abram build a dresser in 30 minutes; you see the end result, but many of the most significant, painful, and/or expensive milestones are glossed over.
3. Pricing: well, what can I say? Every major vendor I’ve ever worked at or with (including Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Intergraph, Oracle, and VERITAS) have a hard time figuring out what their direct-to-customer pricing is for various products. This is a nit more than anything. However, I’m still unhappy that I was first quoted $24/seat for the Workplace rich client, only to have that price zoom up to $129/seat when I actually attempted to close the deal. So, a question for Ed: if I want one license of Workplace Messaging, Team Collaboration, and Documents, with the rich client, what’s the correct price?

I’ve decided that it would be a good idea for me to learn more about Workplace, if only so I have a better understanding of what it is and does. When customers ask me whether a solution is appropriate, I can’t give a good answer if I don’t have that knowledge. Accordingly, I decided to set up a sandbox and play; the new “Workplace” category here on the blog will contain sporadic reports of what I find and learn along the way. My experience so far has been pretty poor.

Problem #1: IBM doesn’t offer evaluation versions. Microsoft, of course, freely distributes 120-day trials of Windows, Exchange, SQL Server, and so on; heck, even Oracle (motto: Worst Messaging Software Ever!) has trial versions of OCS. So, that meant I had to buy the licenses.

Problem #2: to buy IBM, you must call IBM. Well, not quite, but close. If I wanted a retail copy of Exchange, I could just go order it from any number of online resellers, or I could contact a local partner, or I could buy it right from MS. Workplace isn’t like that. I started by calling four IBM business partners listed in this directory. I called all of them the day before Thanksgiving, leaving a detailed message explaining what I wanted. I got two return calls within two weeks, both of which wanted to know how many licenses of Domino I wanted. After I explained, both promised to get back to me within a day or two; neither did. So, I used the “call me” button on IBM’s site and got a call the next day from a gentleman who wanted to explain why Workplace was the best thing since toothpaste in a tube. Once he understood that all I wanted was to buy it, he promised to connect me with a sales rep. Two weeks later, and after an email to a rep who had previously sent me a price quote for other software, I got a call.

Problem #3: get it in writing. The rep quoted me a per-CAL price for Workplace Messaging ($14.50, 50% off the normal price), Workplace Documents, and Workplace Team Collaboration (I don’t remember their license costs offhand). She also quoted me a price of $24/seat for Workplace Rich Client. This was a substantial discount off the $129/seat list price, so I was excited… right up until my rep emailed me, after I’d already bought the server licenses, to say that her pricer had “denied” that special price and that I’d have to pay list. Oh well. The rep made an honest mistake, and these things happen in all kinds of sales environments (well, except for airlines, where intentionally deceptive pricing is a way of life.. but I digress).

Problem #4: your Passport is no good here. When you buy Workplace, you automatically get (or pay for, depending on how you look at it) 12 months of support. You access this support, and download the bits you’ve paid for, via the IBM Passport Advantage web site. This is a nice touch; MS only offers downloads for volume license customers. Unfortunately, when I logged in to the site, it showed that I had purchased a total of 0 licenses, so I couldn’t actually download anything. “No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just call the handy 24-7 Passport support line“. After 20 minutes on the phone (9am Saturday morning, mind you), the phone rep was unable to locate my licenses. He promised to call me back in “15 or 20 minutes.” Apparently time is measured differently in his local region, ’cause I’m still waiting.

So, I can’t talk about any other aspects of Workplace because I can’t install it yet. On the other hand, IBM offered to accept a net-30 purchase order, so at least they don’t actually have my money yet. Stay tuned for further developments.

Update: after a lengthy call on Monday to Passport support, we discovered that there were no licenses actually attached to my account yet because the order hadn’t been generated. Apparently there is some double-secret approval process that has to take place before I get the bits but after I get the message saying “you’ve got bits”.

Update: two interesting things happened today. First, this post made Network World; second, the Passport support folks called me back to tell me that my account was fixed. I am now downloading the first of the 31 components that the site seems to think I need to install Workplace Messaging. No connection is implied, since the support tech I spoke with yesterday was very helpful and courteous, and would have undoubtedly have solved the problem anyway.

In chapter 2, I claimed that Outlook 97 supports S/MIME v3. This is patently absurd. The correct claim is that Outlook 98 supports S/MIME v1, and that Outlook 2000 SR1 and later support S/MIME v3. Hat tip: Karim Battish of Microsoft.

This week I have a whitepaper due, plus the usual round of appointments (chiropractor, piano lessons, and so on). Next Monday– that would be a mere 7 days from today– I am supposed to have 100% of the text for my book submitted. Yikes! I’d better get back to work.

So, I thought I’d set up an ISA Server firewall. While I already have two other firewalls on other network segments, ISA allows you to make Exchange available with good security. So, I built a standalone machine and put ISA Server on it. So far, I’ve spent two days with no luck. It looks like I have to do all of the following:

1. Install the Secure NAT client on the Exchange server. I don’t want to do this, becuase I don’t like installing anything on the Exchange server. However, it appears to be necessary to make Exchange publish-able.
2. Get a new SSL certificate for the ISA server. Of course, since I tore down my internal CA a month or so ago, that means I have to either set it up again (a pain) or buy an external certificate (a bigger pain).
3. Go buy Tom Shinder’s book. I probably should have done this already.

So, that’s what I’m going to be doing, probably for the rest of this week, unless I get a better offer. Right now, Halo is looking pretty inviting. (At least I set up a new blog for e2ksecurity.com, which will be visible as soon as the DNS gods feel like it.)

Wednesday and Thursday were busy days too. Wednesday morning I did my session on best practices for migrating to Office XP. It was moderately well-attended, but posted good numbers (7.6/9.0, my best session overall). A surprising number of people are still using Office 97, which to me makes sense only if you can’t afford better hardware. My own productivity is measurably higher with Office XP, based on just two features: the Send To collaboration features and the offline improvements in Outlook. I’m really excited about seeing the betas of Office 11, which promise improvements in the collaboration and disconnected-from-server environments.
In the afternoon, John & I went pistol shooting with Pierre Bijaou and Kieran McCorry of HP and Jerry Cochran of Microsoft. We had a great time, even though we could only stay on station for a short while. Pierre shot a little better than Kieran did, but they were both shooting respectable groups (Pierre with a Beretta .40S&W, Kieran with a 9mm Glock) by the time we left. Next year in Dallas, watch out!
Wednesday night was the Windows & .NET Magazine editorial dinner. What a great group of people! I met Darren Mar-Elia for the first time and got to spend some quality time talking with Kim Paulsen, the new publisher. These folks are serious about making a great magazine that gives their readers the information they want, but they’re serious about doing it in a fun and lighthearted way.
Thursday was my storage management session, largely a repeat from last year. It was well-attended, and it got good evals, but it ran long (just like last year), so I missed most of the panel discussion I was supposed to attend. I had a meeting with some interesting hardware people, then it was time to head to the airport for my flight to Sacramento. That trip (and the associated wedding) was so cool that it deserves its own trip report, coming soon.

Busy day yesterday. John & I met in the speakers’ lounge for a delicious convention center breakfast. We fell in to a conversation about WLANs with Spyros Sakellariadisand Nick Cavalancia, two opinionated and knowledgeable guys.
My first session, “Big Security for Small Exchange Sites”, was well-attended. Many of the attendees, however, came from large Exchange sites, so I was a little nonplussed. My eval numbers were good, although the high sessions are doing no better than about 7.4 or so on a scale of 1-9. This is a bit unusual; the high sessions for last year’s MEC were in the 8.5 range. Of course, Steve Riley and Jerry Honeycutt, two of the MEC’s perennial stars, haven’t presented yet.
After the session, I had a pleasant lunch with Sue Mosher and Randy Bryne, where they mostly talked about incomprehensible Outlook stuff. Then I went to the show floor, where I spent more time in the security ghetto talking to anti-spam and content filtering product vendors. I’m impressed with Nemx’s PowerToolsproduct and IMLogic’s suite of instant-messaging logging/reporting/auditing tools.
Session #2, “Exchange Security Secrets”, was packed– they had to turn people away at the door. My energy level was a little higher for this session, and I spent about two hours shoehorning in new content right before the session, but disappointingly my numbers were slightly lower than the first session. Such is life. (In an entertaining twist, the database that’s supposed to give the speakers access to the attendees’ comments on sessions is scrambled– my comments page has comments about at least three other sessions, including two that got panned pretty badly. A little schadenfreude never hurts…)
I went to the big product show-floor reception and alternated between checking out booths I hadn’t been to and staying near the Windows & .NET booth, where people asked me some interesting and flavorful questions about SANs, ISA Server, and a variety of other stuff. I’d finally had enough about 8:30, so I went back to the hotel and met John for a late dinner– a giant banana split.

MEC 2002 is approaching fast: it’s October 8-11 in Anaheim. I just got word that I’ll be presenting two sessions there: “Big Security for Small Exchange Sites” and “Exploring Exchange Storage Manageability and Design”. I am also tentatively down for a session on the best way to migrate to Office XP, which should be interesting.
So, a big shout out to all Exchange 2000 folks: come on to Anaheim and get some good learnin’

Well, I have to write it first, so hold your horses 🙂
Seriously, I am soliciting volunteer reviewers for Secure Messaging With Exchange, which I am busily writing for Microsoft Press. Exchange security is on a lot of peoples’ minds, so I’d like to get a mix of experience levels. You don’t have to be a writer, and you don’t have to have years of Exchange experience. What you do have to do is simple:

• Install and use the Groove Transceiver client to gain access to the Groove shared space where I’m working.
• Agree to download new chapters as they’re released and actually (gasp!) read them.
• Agree to turn in comments on chapters. You don’t have to comment on every chapter, but if it becomes clear that you’re sandbagging I’ll have to drop you from the review group.
• Agree to make suggestions for improvements to the book.

In return for this, I’m offering acknowledgements in the text, my great gratitude, and a free copy of the book when it’s printed. If you’re interested, email me and tell me why you want to be a reviewer and what expertise you have with security and/or Exchange.

Microsoft’s just released the Security Operations Guide for Exchange 2000. This is the definitive reference to how you should secure your E2K boxes, at least until my Exchange security book comes out 🙂 The included scripts are mighty interesting, too.

Unfortunately, part 1 was only the beginnings of my troubles with Exchange.

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A humble preface

I have been using computers since 1978, when I got my first puny little
TRS-80 Model I. I’ve been earning a living from them since about 1981 or so.
During all that time, I’ve never had a serious hardware failure. No data loss;
no crashed drives, no nothing– not even when a
crazed squirrel bit
through our house power line and incinerated the power supply of my (then)
brand-new Mac Plus.  However, I am now a convert to the gospel of regular
backups and redundant hardware, in a different sort of way. At
my old job, I specialized in telling people what
to do to ensure the availability of their Exchange and Windows servers.
Furthermore, I write columns for two
magazines in which I teach these
principles. Unfortunately, my own application of them has been lacking. As it
says in the New Testament,
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

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