Ever wondered what the cars behind the autobots were…?
Beating the iPad
I was just spending a few minutes trawling through my new favourite web site, Quora, when I spotted and interesting question:
How should Microsoft respond to Apples iPad?
Now to be honest that question has all the hallmarks of one of those internet debates that turns into a religious crusade… but so far Quora seems to have avoided that sort of nonsense so I thought I’d take a punt at an answer:
I think MS have the talent to build something that can compete with the iPad, but to do it I think they have to take the XBox/Zune (and Apple!) approach and design, build and sell it themselves.
Whilst MS’s extensive partner ecosystem has advantages in the SMB and enterprise space, in the consumer world where this market is evolving from in my view it’s seriously hurting their ability to deliver platforms to market. No matter how quickly MS develop an OS/application solution, they’re then dependent on a HTC/HP/Acer/etc to build a product, add whatever ‘value add’ they want, get it to market and then provide the commitment and support to make it work. Frankly Google are beating MS by taking the same approach but making the software free to the OEM’s because the Android business is subsidised by Search!
It’s a risk for sure, but by taking the entire platform in house MS can align the OS, services and hardware in the way they want it to and show the platform in the light it was intended to be seen.
Would XBox have been a success if there were a host of manufacturers all selling variations of the them? I reckon the variation, complexity and mixed messages would have killed it dead. Would the iPad be the object of desire that it’s become if I could go out now and buy a HTC version? My guess is probably not.
As I say, it would be a hell of a risk, but MS have the required technology components, WP7 shows they have the designers (and courage?) to implement an entirely new user interface and I reckon Courier shows they have the vision. They just need to get on with it.
What do you reckon?
Communicator for Mac 2011
A conversation at work today reminded me that I’d been meaning to knock up a quick post about the new Communicator for Mac client for Microsofts Office Communicator and Lync Server applications. For those not aware, OCS and Lync provide companies with internal instant messaging, conferencing and voice over IP services.
Up until recently Microsoft provided a single Messenger for Mac product that used to enable you to connect to both the MSN public IM network and private Live Communications Server or Office Communication Server systems. With the release of Office 2011 and Lync though all that changed. Now there are two separate products, Messenger for Mac 8 for MSN and a fully fledged Communicator for Mac client that connects to both OCS 2007 R2 and new the newer Lync Server.
Well, when I say fully fledged, it doesn’t quite have all the functionality of the Windows client, but it’s pretty good. It’ll most of what you’ll need it to do day to day. It does most of the main presence, IM and contact stuff, and even now supports OCS conferencing and voice calling. There’s a complete feature comparison here.
Messenger for Mac will continue to be free and available from the MS site, but Communicator for Mac will only be available to volume license customers with OCS or Lync as part of Office 2011. I suspect most organisation with OCS or Lync will probably have some sort of Select or Enterprise agreement so hopefully that won’t be too much of a problem.
What’s it like to use? Well it’s actually pretty good, whilst it doesn’t d everything the Windows version does I’ve yet to come across anything that’s got in my way. It’s handy app to have if your organisation has OCS/Lync as it opens those systems up for use by Mac users. With more companies looking towards supporting Mac’s or implementing some sort of ‘bring your own PC’ scheme this alongside Office 2011 brings Mac’s very close to PC’s in terms of general office apps.
Anyway, if you want to try it out it’ll be on your Volume Licensing website or if you have MSDN it should be there too.
More on Windows Phone 7 Security Policies
Following my previous post about Windows Phone 7’s support for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) security policies I’ve had some further conversations with MS on the subject.
They’ve sent through some more detailed information about what’s supported, what’s not supported and the thinking behind those decisions.
The big one is encryption, at present WP7 doesn’t support it. However there are some factors which help mitigate the risk of having data in plain text on the device.
Firstly WP7 doesn’t support accessing data on the device over USB. You can’t plug a WP7 phone into a PC and access it’s file system as you could with earlier Windows Mobile OS’s, so in that respect it behaves like an iPhone. In addition, WP7 doesn’t support the use of removal media such as Micro-SD cards, so in theory there’s no way of getting to the raw data.
In practice I’m not sure that’s the case. It looks like at least one device has a user accessible micro-SD card slot, and that WP7 does have at least some support for expanding storage in that way. Whether you could remove a card and recover anything useful from it is another question altogether. Initial reports would suggest not, but but that’s not certain.
The other slight concern was WP7’s limited support for MS Exchanges ActiveSync Policies. These allow an organisation to configure the security options on any device connecting into it for email. Or indeed block any device which doesn’t comply.
My previous post lists the policies that are supported, but MS have offered some additional info about some of the policies which aren’t.
- Encrypt storage card – With WP7 not supporting removable storage this isn’t needed
- Disable desktop ActiveSync – WP7 no longer supports desktop Sync for Email and Documents, and Zune software takes care of media sync’ing with a PC
- Disable removable storage – Again, WP7 doesn’t removable storage
- Disable IrDA – WP7 doesn’t have any Infrared support so the policy wouldn’t do anything
- Allow desktop sharing from device – Desktop Sync is no longer available or supported
- Allow unsigned applications – As all WP7 apps are delivered through marketplace, they are all signed and have to be in order to be installed. WP7 doesn’t allow loading or installation of apps through the browser as Windows Mobile used to.
- Allow unsigned CABs – WP7 does not support native applications delivered through CAB files so the policy is redundant
- Configure message formats (HTML or plain text) – plaintext messaging is not supported in WP7 anyway
- Allow mobile OTA update and Mobile OTA update mode – WP7 only supports app installation through marketplace, marketplace automatically notifies users if there is a new version of software
- Include past calendar items (Days) – This is only user controlled in WP7
- Require manual sync while roaming – Again this is user controlled in WP7, though I would imagine many organisations would like control over this – either to enforce it to minimise data charges or disable it.
- Allow attachment download (client side) – This is always on in WP7
- Application allow list and Application block list – All applications are installed through MarketPlace and currently there’s no way to explicitly allow or block the use of certain apps
Many of these do make sense, but whether the support offered will be enough to mitigate the security risks for large organisations who care about these things I’m not sure.
I think MS will need to demonstrate and prove the inherent security they are claiming around WP7’s internal storage, particularly where devices can be expanded through micro-SD cards. Previous versions of Windows Mobile have been pretty secure, indeed there are configurations that have passed Common Criteria evaluation. Whether MS is pursuing this with WP7 is unknown.
Updated Exchange ActiveSync Policy Compatibility Table
A while ago I knocked up a table showing which devices were compatible with what Exchange ActiveSync Policies. I’ve just updated it to include Windows Phone 7.
You can find the updated doc here:
https://refraction.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Exchange-ActiveSync-Policies.pdf