tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12858493283447300842024-03-05T16:42:40.927+04:00exo.blogThe official blog for the editors and research staff of the exo.performance.network (<a href="http://www.xpnet.com">www.xpnet.com</a>)Research Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-51689708811835636832010-07-16T02:31:00.001+04:002010-07-16T02:31:44.839+04:00(Announcement): Pulling the PlugIt’s been nearly 4 years since we first began offering our free, hosted performance analysis services to the general public. During that time we’ve registered over 24,000 users and assembled the world’s most comprehensive repository of real-world Windows metrics data ever created. By almost every measure, the exo.performance.network has been a success. Which is why it pains us to announce that, Research Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-69267024359380101592010-05-31T23:10:00.001+04:002010-05-31T23:11:52.507+04:00(Editorial) Announcing DMS Clarity Suite 10After two months of heads-down development, punctuated by several design breakthroughs and a very successful commercial beta cycle, we’re pleased to announce the release of DMS Clarity Suite 10. This next generation of the DMS Clarity Framework provides us with a robust new platform on which to base a variety of exciting on-site and hosted performance monitoring and management offerings. FigureResearch Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-66468648518882499572010-04-27T14:56:00.001+04:002010-04-27T14:56:54.817+04:00(Editorial) Gizmodo Got What They DeservedA comeuppance. That’s how I describe the recent Gawker-Gizmodo-iPhone theft debacle. What the organization in question did – paying cold, hard cash for what was ostensibly stolen property – was plainly criminal, and those behind the act are now being held accountable. One would hope that such a well-publicized incident would serve to temper the blogosphere’s appetite for sensationalism. The Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-88978381904997982972010-04-26T17:32:00.001+04:002010-04-26T17:32:14.943+04:00(Stats) Office 2010 Delivers a Performance BoostIn a stunning reversal of nearly twenty years of progressive performance erosion, the latest incarnation of Microsoft’s ubiquitous productivity suite, Office 2010, is actually faster than its immediate predecessor, Office 2007. Testing with the cross-version OfficeBench 7 test script shows Office 2010 to be roughly 9% faster overall when running on an identically configured Windows 7 desktop Research Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-36370477707512441332010-04-08T14:06:00.001+04:002010-04-08T14:15:51.963+04:00(Editorial) Used iPads to Begin Flooding eBayWalking and chewing gum. It’s a simple idea – you do one thing while at the same time doing another, with your brain shuffling between the two (and various unrelated autonomic functions) to keep the whole parade in step. Modern computers are similarly adept at juggling concurrent tasks -we PC users call it “multitasking.” Yet for users of iPhone OS-based devices, including the new iPad, Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-86854429928497021322010-03-26T12:06:00.001+04:002010-03-26T13:13:49.050+04:00(Editorial) Why the Client Hypervisor is DoomedBig surprise! Both VMware and Citrix have fallen behind schedule in delivering their “bare metal” hypervisors for client computing. Both had promised to deliver solutions by the end of 2009, but now VMware has reset that goal to the end of this year while Citrix has stopped talking about ship dates altogether. So, what happened? In a word, hardware. Or more precisely, the ever changing Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-17716806129216000052010-03-23T15:32:00.001+04:002010-03-23T15:32:54.189+04:00(Editorial) Web Developers: Time to Dump Firefox?As a commercial web developer, I’m constantly on the lookout for new trends in browser adoption and usage. After all, there are only so many hours in a day, and investing time and energy supporting a faltering standard is both frustrating and inefficient. So it was with some hesitation that I approached our latest project: A complete overhaul of the user interface for our commercial metrics Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-14231301105626252952010-03-19T10:08:00.001+04:002010-03-19T10:15:49.426+04:00(Editorial) Microsoft’s XP Mode BoondoggleIt will go down in history as one of the more anti-climactic “surprise” announcements. Microsoft’s Windows XP Mode, which was billed as an eleventh hour killer feature for Windows 7, arrived with a thud, thanks in large part to its curious need for Hardware Assisted Virtualization (HAV) support. The company’s media apologists quickly scrambled to defend the decision, pointing out that most new Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-51086920238534232102010-03-16T11:14:00.001+04:002010-03-16T11:17:02.972+04:00(OfficeBench): A Decade of PC BenchmarkingAs OfficeBench approaches its 10th anniversary it’s time to look back at the history of this iconic test script. With over a million downloads, and with countless copies of its various incarnations in circulation around the globe, OfficeBench is one of the most widely deployed business productivity test scripts in history. And we’re still improving it, with the latest incarnation – OfficeBench 7 Research Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-39578643690521611692010-03-11T09:39:00.001+04:002010-03-16T11:15:13.625+04:00(Editorial): Incriminating Email Sinks InfoWorldThis is a post I hoped I wouldn’t have to write. After watching for over two weeks as InfoWorld misrepresented the particulars of my resignation as Enterprise Desktop blogger, I feel I’ve given the publication ample opportunity to come clean and admit they were complicit in the Craig Barth ruse. Since it’s now clear that no such admission is forthcoming, I feel I have no choice but to release Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-90396592919891544342010-03-10T11:48:00.001+04:002010-03-10T11:52:57.372+04:00(Trends): Windows 7 Doubles Market Share in Q1Windows 7 is on a tear. The latest statistics from the exo.repository show Microsoft’s newest client OS installed across 11% of participating systems. That’s over double the percentage that reported running Windows 7 at the beginning of the year, and the fastest penetration of any Microsoft desktop OS on record. Figure 1 - Community OS Share Today The big loser in this sea change is WindowsResearch Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-22129528741150659352010-03-08T21:53:00.001+04:002010-03-08T21:53:40.423+04:00(Editorial) When Microsoft Breaks WindowsLife as a Windows developer has its ups and downs. On the positive side, you’re associated with the most popular computing platform in history, which translates into lots of potential clients. But this also means you’re subject to the design whims of a notoriously proprietary software company. And as often as not, these changes come back to bite you in the most unusual places. Take my most Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-53494564193913665922010-03-08T10:09:00.001+04:002010-03-08T10:09:29.054+04:00(WCPI): Windows 7 = Moore’s Law In ActionWant to know what separates Windows 7 users from their XP-loving contemporaries? Try 342 additional execution threads chewing-up an extra 711MB of RAM while spending over 2/3 more time running in Windows’ privileged “kernel mode.” At least that’s what the latest Windows telemetry data uploaded to the exo.repository seems to indicate. By analyzing the approximately 1 to 1.7 million process Research Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-57818635870031833492010-03-04T18:05:00.001+04:002010-03-04T18:05:18.840+04:00(Trends): What’s Your Favorite Alternate Browser?One of the things about the exo.repository that we most like to demonstrate is how it allows us to extract market trending data points that nobody else has. Whether it’s the rate at which internal IE organizations are shedding IE 6.0 (hint: it’s a stampede), or how a new version of Windows is driving base RAM configurations through the roof, we love it when we come out with something truly uniqueResearch Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-49141216472578852022010-03-02T16:19:00.001+04:002010-03-02T16:19:25.135+04:00(Editorial): 24,000+ Users and Counting!We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve just passed the 24,000 registered user level. Thanks to an influx of new contributors from Poland (Viva Polska!), the exo.performance.network went over that heady mark earlier today, bringing our total repository statistics to a new all-time high: Over 240 million system metrics records – per week! Over 14 billion process metrics Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-60859845753115451032010-03-02T01:33:00.001+04:002010-03-02T06:40:56.989+04:00(Trends): 1 in 4 Users Running Google ChromeGoogle Chrome is on fire. The latest snapshot from the exo.repository shows the nascent web browser running on nearly one out of every four (24.88%) PCs monitored by the exo.performance.network. This represents a 2 percentage point jump in a single week, and a nearly 7 percentage point jump since the beginning of the year. Figure 1 – Web Browser Usage Share Meanwhile, Internet Explorer Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-32473669211700132972010-02-26T17:09:00.001+04:002010-02-26T18:25:27.163+04:00(Editorial): Picking Apart Intel’s Latest Windows 7 Migration DelayI read with some amusement the recent account by an Intel IT engineer of how the company has been forced to repeatedly delay its migration away from Windows XP due to concerns for, among other things, Internet Explorer 6.0 add-on compatibility and support for applications that still use 16-bit code in places where, quite frankly, they shouldn’t. It’s the latest in a long line of “public displaysRandall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-45304184193086896212010-02-25T12:41:00.001+04:002010-02-26T17:18:17.916+04:00(Editorial): App-V Takes Virtualization MainstreamThose who have followed me on InfoWorld and elsewhere know that I’m a big fan of application virtualization. The idea of bottling-up all of the messy deposits from a typical Windows application installation into an easy-to-deploy, self-contained package has always seemed like a good idea to me. And during my extensive testing of various “appvirt” solutions, I’ve developed some strong opinions Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-26513685025065660302010-02-25T10:50:00.001+04:002010-02-26T17:20:40.621+04:00(Trends): Windows 7 Drives RAM Size SurgeThe latest data from the exo.repository shows Windows 7 driving a measurable surge in average RAM configurations across the nearly 24,000 registered xpnet.com contributors. According to repository snapshots taken in the weeks following the Windows 7 launch, the average RAM configuration for PCs running Microsoft’s newest OS has increased from 3.15GB on November 30th, 2009, to 3.76GB on February Research Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-37658440326909572322010-02-24T16:56:00.001+04:002010-03-11T13:21:38.005+04:00(Editorial) Confessions of an Internet “Shock Jock”Note: Please see my follow-up post which sheds more light on what InfoWorld knew and when, including an email thread that proves the publication’s complicity in the Craig Barth ruse. Public falls from grace. We all love to watch them unfold. Whether it’s a golfer with libido issues, or some blowhard blogger getting his comeuppance, we just can’t get enough of it. The sordid details. The Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-90848145604993328192010-02-23T16:42:00.001+04:002010-02-26T17:22:06.710+04:00(Editorial): Clearing the Air On the SSL IssueMuch has been made recently of ZDNet’s so-called “expose” (really a smear piece) about our software. And one of the most disturbing accusations is that we were exposing user data by having our tracker agent communicate over the unsecured TCP Port 80. As evidence, ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow offered up network traffic sniffer data showing our client communicating in the open and without encryption.Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-72068480379955946992010-02-23T10:57:00.001+04:002010-02-26T17:18:43.348+04:00(WCPI): Windows 7 Improves ... But Only a LittleThe latest WCPI snapshot – taken at 12:00AM EDT on 2/23/2010 – shows the Peak Memory Pressure Index value for Windows 7 improving, but not by much. An influx of new Windows 7 systems in the past few weeks is serving to reshape the exo.repository’s demographics. And this, in turn, is being felt in the WCPI calculations, which are becoming increasingly influenced by Microsoft’s latest and greatest.Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-39860338388222877992010-02-22T15:42:00.001+04:002010-02-26T17:22:48.775+04:00(Trends): Windows 7 Gaining on VistaA recent influx of new clients to the repository has shifted the demographic of our user base once again. Windows 7, which had been lagging in the low-mid single digits in terms of usage share, has jumped a whopping 4% points in the past few weeks. Microsoft’s latest and greatest is poised to break into double-digit usage share territory in the next 30 days, with much of its gains coming at the Research Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688739704799598919noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-33240110407753679742010-02-22T11:00:00.001+04:002010-02-26T17:21:34.879+04:00(Editorial): When Microsoft Attacks ... AgainRaw nerves. You know you’ve hit one when the entity in question practically jumps through the roof to staunch the pain. In my case, the nerve belonged to Microsoft Corporation. And true to form, the company spent incalculable political capital – and cashed in more than a few favors – in order to orchestrate the most one-sided smear campaign in the history of IT journalism. What has been said Randall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1285849328344730084.post-63586112353403843922010-02-21T09:19:00.001+04:002010-02-21T09:58:14.918+04:00Editorial: What took you so long?It took three days, countless idiotic comments (some too obscene for us to approve), and more than a little patience, but finally somebody bothered to do what anybody with half a clue could have done all along. SirBruce, one of our new favorite readers, actually took the time to fire-up the only performance monitoring tool that matters (ironically, called “Performance Monitor”), and start loggingRandall C. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11388524265141175059noreply@blogger.com51