Paul's Down-Home Page

After seeing Ed Brill mention IBM’s “Microsoft Alternatives” session in Manhattan next week, I decided to sign up for it.. or at least to attempt to. There’s no online registration, so I sent mail to the listed address asking to register. No response. So, I tried again just now, and added a voicemail for good measure. Hopefully that will do the trick; it sounds like an interesting seminar.

Update: got the call yesterday; I’m confirmed, and looking forward to it. I don’t know much about BinaryTree and their migration tools, so this should be a good learning opportunity.

This week I’m on the road in Boston and New York City, presenting the second and third iterations of the Microsoft “Optimizing Collaborations and Communications” roadshow that I wrote about last week. Yesterday’s event was well attended, and the attendees asked some tough questions about Microsoft’s C&C strategy. However, the session evaluation results indicate that they liked the answers they were hearing. MS’ message– that you can augment Notes/Domino installations by adding technologies that drive better business value– seems to be resonating with these folks. Today, I go to Manhattan via the Acela (which I’ll blog about later, or maybe during), then tomorrow it’s St Paddy’s Day in the Big Apple. I didn’t bring anything green, so I need to do some shopping lest I face the wrath of the Irish.

The AP is reporting that Microsoft is buying Groove, which I think is great news. Groove adds some critical capacity to Office System and SharePoint. Lots of other folks will be analyzing this in more detail. The most interesting detail to me is that the AP’s report says that Ray Ozzie is going to be the new Microsoft chief technology officer. That certainly raises some very interesting possibilities.

I’m supposed to be working on something else, but I couldn’t resist the urge to answer Ed’s post on the Microsoft Office Communicator launch, which in turn is in response to this Microsoft Monitor piece (which, by the way, contains a couple of errors).

First, let’s consider public IM connectivity. Right now, if you want to interoperate with (say) AOL, you have to install AIM or an AIM-compatible client on your desktops… at which point you lose the security and compliance capabilities that Live Communications Server and Sametime/Workplace both offer. On the other hand, if you have a genuine business need for public IM connectivity, you can use the PIC feature of Live Communications Server to interoperate (selectively) with MSN Messenger, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger users and still maintain both security and compliance. It’s true that PIC is currently priced as a subscription. Ask yourself this: why did AOL suddenly decide to allow a competitor to interoperate? Normally their MO is to break interoperating clients as soon as they can get away with it. Are they getting a cut of the revenue? I don’t know, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

Next, let’s take Ed’s point that the Microsoft collaboration platform has more than one piece (he actually uses the phrase “jigsaw puzzle”). Back in the day, Microsoft’s claim was simple: Exchange does it all. They have since repented of that, instead delivering a broad suite of collaboration and communication tools that you can mix and match. You can deploy them together or separately. If you don’t need, e.g., SharePoint Portal Server, fine– don’t buy it. There’s significant stand-alone value in each of the components. In fact, I’m seeing a groundswell of interest in Live Meeting and Live Communication Server deployment among customers that aren’t currently using Exchange. Why? Neither of those products require Exchange, and both add measurable business value.

Now, it’s also true that the more pieces of the MS platform you deploy, the more capability you get. This is no different from Workplace, except that many of Microsoft’s platform components are more mature than their Workplace equivalents. It’s a little disingenuous of Microsoft Monitor to claim that you have to buy all of the features; that’s like saying that I have to buy the Hemi when I buy a Dodge Magnum (well, OK, I would have to buy the Hemi, but that’s another blog post).

About those Microsoft Monitor article mistakes: I count two simple typos (“Instanbul” and the confusion between SharePoint Portal and Windows SharePoint Services) and a misunderstanding of the Outlook/LCS connection. You can deploy Outlook 2003 without Exchange 2003 (in fact, you can even use Outlook 2003 against Notes/Domino servers, using either MS’ or IBM’s connectors). Every Exchange 2003 CAL includes an Outlook license, but Outlook is also licensable separately.

So, you might have seen Gary or Ed mention this, but now that it’s underway I have time to talk about it too. 3sharp is presenting a 10-city roadshow called “Optimizing Communication and Collaboration with Microsoft Technologies“. The thrust behind the roadshow is simple: you can get a lot of mileage from Microsoft’s investment in communications and collaboration technologies by deploying them in parallel with– not necessarily as a replacement for– whatever you’re currently using. The structure of the events is simple: if you’re a developer, you go to John’s excellent class on how to extend Notes apps by having them produce, or consume, data from .NET web services; if you’re a technical decision maker, you come hear the Burton Group’s forecast on market dynamics in the C&C space, then I get to explain the pieces of MS’ collaboration strategy, with copious use of demos.

Our first event in Dallas this week went really well. My content was well-received; it was obvious to the attendees that we’re not suggesting they rip-and-replace their existing infrastructures (well, maybe if you’re using OCS). Instead, we’re making a solid case for extending their business systems with Microsoft’s collaboration and communications platform. Next stop: Waltham! (Personal to Ed Brill: the Chicago show got moved to 4/21, so please adjust your calendar!)

Lots of discussion about Autolink, which is good. So far, though, I haven’t seen very much discussion around Adzilla. Their white paper for service providers describes their services for stripping banner ads (and other ad-related content) and letting the ISP insert its own ads. Yikes. I can’t imagine that content providers are going to be too happy about that. Imagine going to CNN.com and seeing locally-inserted ads from your cable modem provider.