(Editorial) Used iPads to Begin Flooding eBay

Walking 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, multitasking is a completely foreign concept. You can’t walk and chew gum with the iOS. In fact, you can’t walk and do much of anything with an iPhone/Pod/Pad other than carry a tune (current iOS devices can play audio in the background, but that’s about it).

Why so many iPhone/Pod users are willing to put up with such a limited functional model has always been a mystery to me. Maybe it’s the fact that most people simply don’t expect too much from a “smart” device. After all, it’s not a real computer – it’s a phone (or media player). The fact that you can get online at all with such a device seems like a huge leap forward to many people, especially less sophisticated consumers with cash to burn.

Now we learn that the upcoming iOS 4 will likely improve on this situation, but only a little. Depending on the mood of Apple’s often arbitrary application approval process (Google Voice, anyone?), certain apps will be allowed to run in the background under iOS 4. So you may finally be able to walk and chew gum – and perhaps even carry that tune as well. But don’t expect to be able to walk and carry an umbrella (not approved), or to walk/sip a drink/read a paper or map (too many tasks at once).

Again, people don’t expect too much from a “smart” phone, so the continued lack of true multitasking will likely go unnoticed. But even the idiot iPhone-using masses know that PCs are supposed to multitask. Concepts, like switching away from one running application to do something in another running application – all while the first application is still running - are now thoroughly ingrained in our collective consciousness.

It’s a level of functional convenience that we’ve grown to expect in any serious computing device. Which is why I predict a high degree of long-term customer dissatisfaction with Apple’s latest and greatest, culminating a in a glut of used iPads hitting eBay (just in time for Christmas).

You see, customers are buying the iPad with the expectation that it will somehow replace all of their other computing devices. Such has been the media hysteria surrounding the product’s launch. However, in reality the iPad is nothing more than a glorified “companion” device – a limited function platform designed to compliment a Mac or PC while roping Apple’s customers ever more tightly into the iTunes sphere of influence.

So, when these early adopters - especially those swayed by the media hype - begin to bump into these very real functional limitations, they’ll likely feel cheated. And as they slowly gravitate back to their familiar PC environments (including powerful new Windows 7-based tablet PCs that outclass the iPad in almost every way), they’ll begin dumping their now underutilized Apple devices into the online auction meat grinder.

Hence my prediction: By year’s end there will be a glut of used iPad’s flowing through eBay, Amazon, et al. So resist the urge to splurge now and count your savings later.

RCK

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Get This and Similar Charts at www.xpnet.com

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(Editorial) Why the Client Hypervisor is Doomed

Big 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 cornucopia of PC hardware devices and configurations. A “bare metal” hypervisor has to sit at the very bottom of the software stack, where it directly manages, and controls access to, the underlying hardware devices. And doing those two things requires hardware-specific control software – i.e. device drivers.

Developing a comprehensive library of device drivers is no easy task (just ask Microsoft). Even assuming that you can create enough generic or “pass through” type modules to allow the majority of common devices to function, there will still be the inevitable subset of components or peripherals that refuse to cooperate.

It would only take handful of (highly publicized) customer run-ins with such finicky devices to give the “bare metal” client hypervisor a long term compatibility black-eye. Which is why these leading vendors continue to test – and wait.

But waiting (and testing) won’t solve the long-term problem of PC hardware churn. Unlike in the server space, where hardware evolves more slowly and where there are fewer basic configurations to support, the client PC space is in a constant state of flux. The never ending performance arms race, coupled with a near constant stream of innovation at both the internal and external component level, has turned the PC platform into a moving target. Blink, and you’ve missed it.

What is needed is a layer of hardware-level device abstraction, with groups of discrete components functioning as a logical block and accessible through a relatively static interface model. Intel is doing its best to promote as much through its vPro and similar management initiatives. However, these sorts of solutions require significant buy-in from the very OEM partners who stand to lose by making client computing environments portal across hardware platforms. Why would HP want to make it easier for you to move your stuff over to Dell or Acer?

And then there’s the 800lb gorilla in the room next door. Microsoft, which stands to lose the most in a hardware-abstracted world, has been relatively silent on the issue. Ask them about “bare metal” hypervisors on the client and they’ll respond that they “already have one…it’s called Windows.”

In fact, much of what a “bare metal” hypervisor does is entirely redundant in a Windows client environment. It’s an abstraction (client hypervisor) of an abstraction (the Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer). Which makes me wonder why you would really want one in the first place.

After all, it’s not like the current generation Windows platform is really tied to the underlying hardware. Technologies like Plug & Play and improved hardware auto-detection/driver-reconfiguration have made the process of creating a portable, hardware-abstracted Windows client image relatively trivial. This was the whole point of developing WIM and other post-XP installation technologies: To make PC imaging easier.

So, if the primary goal of a “bare metal” client hypervisor is to further abstract the OS from the hardware (and I give zero credence to the “other” reason being bandied about: Running multiple OS VMs on a single PC), and if this task is already handled quite effectively by Windows and its well-established device driver ecosystem, then the only real reason to pursue such a strategy is if  you’re trying to do an end-run around Microsoft’s desktop hegemony.

Which is exactly what VMware and Citrix (not to mention Microsoft’s fair weather friends at Intel) are trying accomplish. They want to remove the Windows kernel/HAL/driver model as the gatekeeper to the PC client world. As such, their actions represent a clear and present danger to the ongoing survival of Microsoft’s core desktop OS business.

And we all know what happens to companies that post a threat to Microsoft’s bread-and-butter revenue stream. First they pan you. Then they copy you. And, finally, they bury you – typically with one of those infamous “free” solutions that seems to fit the bill but still somehow locks you into their world.

A “bare metal” hypervisor on the desktop? Without Microsoft’s direct support?

Good luck VMware and Citrix…you’re going to need it!

RCK

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(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 analysis portal site, DMS Clarity Suite 10.

I knew from the last go-around that getting our site to render consistently across the leading browser platforms (legacy IE 6/7 and Firefox) was a chore, one involving lots of dynamic tweaks and clever hacks. Now we were planning to expand this list to include several newcomers, including IE 8 (running in “standards compliant” mode) and Google’s Chrome. The thought of testing, tweaking and re-testing each and every page against four or more separate rendering models was enough to make me start breaking out in hives.

Worse, still, was the fact that, with our DMS Clarity 10 release, we weren’t just overhauling the UI. We were gutting the entire site to make way for a new, highly-visual, componentized interaction model. Gone were the static page layouts of the past. In their place, a collection of discrete rendering widgets that would assembled on the fly to create a fully customizable presentation. These widgets could be re-arranged, broken-out into their own windows and re-attached to other parts of the site in order to better identify and expose the most critical data points. Here’s a screenshot of the net result:

Figure 1 – DMS Clarity 10 Portal Site (BETA)

Not surprisingly, the project ran behind schedule, with much of the delay attributable to us figuring out how to get identical results across our various target platforms. For example, calculating the window resize values for our slide-out widget configuration panel. Each browser had its own idea of how “big” or “small” a window would become when we executed the window.resizeto() method. To short, and you’d cut-off the panel. Too long and you’d end up with lots of ugly white space.

Our workaround was to read the browser make/version via JavaScript and then dynamically resize the underlying ASP.NET panel control prior to rendering the page - not a complicated task, but one that required a lot of trial and error to get the desired result. It definitely qualified as a “hack” solution in my book, though by all accounts its a fairly common one.

Figure 2 – Clarity 10 Widget Rendering Consistently

Needless to say, we got to know a lot about the various quirks and rendering oddities associated with today’s web browsers. And by far the biggest PITA to work with – next to legacy IE 6/7 - was Firefox. HTML and CSS that would render consistently on IE 8 and Chrome would always require some hand-tuning for Firefox, while JavaScript code that ran flawlessly under the other browsers would often need at least some minor tweaking for Firefox to be happy.

In fact, it got so bad that we eventually had to expand our base template design to include three major potential rendering models: IE legacy, Firefox and “everybody else” (including Chrome and IE 8). And when even those assumptions proved to be inadequate (offset values that worked for one page would sometimes also work elsewhere, but not consistently), we seriously considered dumping Firefox support altogether.

With most of our commercial customers still using IE for in-house application access, it was a shortcut we could probably have gotten away with. However, in the end we decided to bit the bullet and hand-code the necessary markup and scripting corrections. After all, Firefox is still a major web presence, and we do plan to offer Clarity 10 as a hosted commercial solution later this year.

However, the situation was very much “touch-and-go” there for a while. Had we been under tighter time constraints, or if we had run into any real “showstopper” issues that compromised our design in some fundamental way, we likely would have given Firefox the boot.

Compounding matters is the perception, now shared by many of my contemporaries, that Firefox is in decline. Our own exo.repository numbers still show strong (50%) use among our tech-savvy contributor base. However, those same users are also increasingly turning to Google’s Chrome. Some 25% of systems monitored by the exo.performance.network report Google’s nascent web browser.

Figure 3 – Latest exo.repository Browser Share Statistics

If this number climbs much higher, and if Firefox use takes the kind of nose-dive so many are now predicting, we may have to revisit our decision to continue supporting Mozilla’s browser. With the web gravitating towards the rapidly maturing webkit, and with the latest versions of IE and Chrome converging towards a consistent rendering result, the writing may finally be on the wall:

Save yourself a headache or two and dump Firefox.

RCK

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(Editorial) Microsoft’s XP Mode Boondoggle

It 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 business-class PCs were shipping with HAV-enabled CPUs anyway. However, this argument did nothing to stem the tide of complaints, both from consumers - who purchased seemingly state-of-the-art, multi-core PCs only to learn that they were incapable of running XP Mode – and from small business customers who wished to leverage the capability on existing, non-HAV-supporting PCs.

A year later, and Microsoft has finally caved to the pressure. Just this week the company released an update to XP Mode’s underlying virtual machine engine – Windows Virtual PC 7 – that allows it to run on non-HAV-supporting PCs. All of which begs the question: Why the bizarro requirement in the first place?

Microsoft’s official line has always been that HAV was necessary in order to ensure an “optimal” end-user experience. However, I suspect a more sinister motive. Specifically, I believe that the “Great XP Mode Boondoggle” was in fact a concession to Intel Corporation – a kind of apology for royally screwing-up with the whole Windows Vista “too fat to fit” debacle

By tying VPC 7 to HAV, Microsoft was helping Intel to discourage small business users from buying low-cost PCs sporting “consumer” versions of its powerful dual and quad-core CPUs – parts that were intentionally neutered in order to create differentiation among the company’s myriad SKUs.

Of course, the whole exercise backfired. Savvy users balked at the restrictions (some even built workarounds using VirtualBox or VMware Player), while small business owners and consumers were left dazed and confused by the various XP Mode “compatibility matrices” that cropped up on the Internet

And then there was the matter of Microsoft’s Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). A forerunner to VPC 7 and XP Mode, MED-V does not – and thanks to the aforementioned VPC 7 update, never will – require HAV, ostensibly because enterprise customers would never put up with these sorts of “marketecture” shenanigans in the first place

In fact, XP Mode users can likely thank Early Adopter Program (EAP) customers – many of whom have no doubt been evaluating the VPC 7-based MED-V 2.0 in pre-release form – for this reprieve. Now the only question is whether or not Microsoft will provide updated integration components that allow XP Mode VMs to run with good performance and functionality under the non-HAV update

As of right now, the plan is to not release an optimized integration solution for users of VPC 7/XP Mode on non-HAV PCs. But you can be sure that MED-V customers will get them, and this provides hope that somehow they’ll trickle-down: Either unofficially, through some end-user hack; or officially, as part of yet another “mea culpa” update

Regardless, it’s a good day for Microsoft’s small business customers and end-user consumers. The “Wintel” duopoly tried to foist another bogus restriction on its customer base, and the base fought back.

You balked. They blinked. Chock one up for the little guy!

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Figure 1 – Get This and Similar Charts at www.xpnet.com

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(OfficeBench): A Decade of PC Benchmarking

As 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 – available for free download from the exo.performance.network web site.

When I first conceived of an Office Automation test script, the popular benchmarks of the day – Winstone and BapCo – were static and inflexible. They only worked on stand-alone PCs, and then only with a “clean install” of the OS. Frustrated by these limitations, and needing to test Terminal Services scalability as part of my contract to Intel’s Desktop Architecture Labs, I sat down and started writing my own, “bulletproof” test script.

The net result, OfficeBench, was a first-of-its-kind linear test script, one that used the programmatic interfaces of Microsoft Office (OLE automation – a.k.a. COM) to drive the suite through a series of common business productivity tasks. The script was simple, reliable and, if necessary, could scale to tens of thousands of concurrent Terminal Services users.

Figure 1 – OfficeBench 7 ( Download )

More importantly, it worked with the existing installation of Office as configured in the runtime environment (no more clean installs). All of which helped to make OfficeBench the lightweight (less than 2MB to download), easy-to-use choice of performance-oriented IT pros everywhere.

All of which brings us to the topic at hand: OfficeBench’s 10 year anniversary. It was a decade ago this week that I released OfficeBench 1.0. Now, with version 7 “in the wild” for six months, we’ve got something even more exciting to reveal: We’re now publishing comparative OfficeBench test results from across the globe.

Using a new, interactive OfficeBench Performance Explorer widget (see below), you can now explore OfficeBench results from across the range Microsoft environments. Filter by Windows or Office version, CPU type or RAM size. The widget will apply your filters and then scour our online database of OffieBench results (almost 8500 users) to return the averaged scoring results for systems that match your specified criteria.

The OfficeBench Performance Explorer (Interactive)

It’s a great way to assess your own PC’s performance and also to see how other combinations of CPU, Memory, Windows and Office Versions perform across a selection of real-world PCs. Use the widget as a base reference for your own testing. Or simply mine the various combinations to see how changing a single criteria – for example, upgrading from XP to Windows 7 – affects the outcome.

Don’t see your particular hardware/software combination represented above? Then download OfficeBench 7 today! You’ll then be able to compare you own configuration to those of similarly equipped users while adding a unique new reference point to our growing repository of real-world performance data.

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(Editorial): Incriminating Email Sinks InfoWorld

This 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 the following email exchange which demonstrates, without question, that Infoworld Executive Editor Galen Gruman knew of my ownership of the exo.blog; that he knew I was using it as source material for my InfoWorld blog; and that Gregg Keizer was regularly quoting from the exo.blog and its sole public “representative,” Craig Barth. Moreover, it shows that Galen was willing to assist me in promoting the very same exo.blog content, even going so far as offering to use InfoWorld staff writers to create news copy based on my numbers.

And lest he somehow try to escape scrutiny by passing all blame down to his subordinate, I’ve also included an email from InfoWorld Editor in Chief Eric Knorr (i.e. the guy who “fired” me with much sanctimonious aplomb) which shows that he, too, was clearly aware of my ownership of all sites, content and materials associated with the exo.peformance.network.

Note: Conspiracy theorists, please scroll to the bottom of this post for the prerequisite SMTP header disclosure.

But first, I need to set-up the timeline:

The following exchange took place roughly one week before the infamous ComputerWorld Windows 7 memory article. I was pushing Galen to let me run another story in InfoWorld that would reference the exo.blog data on browser market share, and he replied by pointing out that I had done something similar just a few weeks earlier, with Gregg Keizer quoting from my exo.blog. He also spoke of assigning staff writer Paul Krill to begin quoting from my exo data as part of a new regular news component for InfoWorld.

I responded that I had no problem with him having Paul Krill write up my usage data, but I requested that he approach it the same way that Gregg [Keizer] had in the article Galen had referenced earlier and thus not use my name but instead refer to xpnet.com as a separate entity. I close the paragraph by emphasizing how I was determined to curry favor with every beat writer I could find, including Gregg Keizer, and how there would be no real overlap between the data I publish in my blog (i.e. exo.blog) and what I did for InfoWorld.

A couple of items to note:

1. At no time prior to the “scandal” breaking did I, Randall C. Kennedy, publish any research articles through the exo.blog. All articles were published through the generic “Research Staff” account and subsequently fronted to the media by the fictitious Craig Barth.
   
2. Galen Gruman clearly acknowledges my ownership of both the exo.performance.network and the exo.blog, and notes how he saw my data being referenced in ComputerWorld. Yet at no time did I, Randall C. Kennedy, ever represent the exo.blog, xpnet.com or Devil Mountain Software, Inc., to the media outside of InfoWorld, nor was I ever directly quoted as such in any of Gregg Keizer’s articles or articles from other authors or publications.
   
   So, in the Gregg Keizer-authored article that he acknowledges reading, Galen would have seen copious references to a “Craig Barth, CTO.” And yet he makes no mention of this contradiction. Nor does he take issue with my repeated claims to be the owner of the exo blog and also the person seeking to get Gregg Keizer and others to quote me (in the guise of Craig Barth) and exo.blog’s content.

Needless to say, this is damning to InfoWorld. Not only does it show that members of their senior executive staff were aware of the ruse, they were also actively working with me to take advantage of the situation, to the benefit of both parties: Me, by allowing me to quote from the Craig Barth-fronted exo.blog’s content in my Enterprise Desktop blog; and InfoWorld, by assigning a staff writer to create original InfoWorld content based on the exo.performance.network’s data and conclusions.

Important: I am not seeking absolution here. I accept that what I did crossed the line, no matter how benign my intentions. Rather, what I am doing here is exposing the lie behind InfoWorld’s high-handed dismissal of their leading blogger because, as they claim, he “lied to them.” On the contrary, InfoWorld was in on the ruse from the earliest stages, and the fact that they looked the other way – and then tried to cover their exposure by hanging me out to dry – speaks volumes about the “ethics” and “integrity” of InfoWorld as a publication and of IDG as a whole.

So, without further ado, here is the email exchange that InfoWorld wishes never took place. The following excerpts were taken directly from the last reply in a series of four emails that passed between Galen Gruman and myself. I’ve highlighted the most relevant bits in red so that they stand out from the bulk of the email text. I’ve also re-ordered the original messages and replies so that they proceed, from the top down, in chronological order vs. the normal bottom-up threading applied by Outlook.

Finally, I’ve added breaks/numbered headers identifying each stage of the conversation. You can see the original, unformatted contents of the email thread by clicking this link.

Note: The SMTP header is included at the bottom of this post showing the date, time and mail delivery path taken by the 2nd Reply From Galen message from which the various thread sections below were excerpted.

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1. The Initial email from me:

From: Randall C. Kennedy [rck@xpnet.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 3:17 AM
To:

Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com
Subject: Story Idea - Browser Trends

Galen, 
  
Here’s a story idea: A look at browser usage trends within enterprises, using the repository data to back-up our analysis/conclusions. Here are a couple of examples that we could build off of: 
  
 http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ies-enterprise-resiliency-one.html 
  
 http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2009/09/ie-market-share-holding-steady-in.html 
  
Could be a good, in depth, research-y type of article, one that pokes holes in assumptions about IE’s decline, the nature of intranet web use, etc. 

Anyway, let me know if you think this is worth exploring…thanks! 

RCK

2. Galen’s First Reply:

From: Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 10:51 AM
To: rck@xpnet.com
Subject: Re: Story Idea - Browser Trends
 
Hey Randy. 
 
You covered the IE aspect last fall in your IW blog, and I saw that CW did a story along these lines based on your exo blog. So I'm not sure there's a further story with that theme. 
 
I'd be more interested in what it takes for IT to move off of IE6. MS is encouraging them to do so, and Google and others are now saying they're dropping IE6 support. Of course, reworking
IE6-dependent internal apps means spending time and money, so IT has an incentive to not do anything for as long as it can avid doing so. Unless there's a forced requirement to shift (I can't imagine companies saying users MUST use IE6 for legacy stuff and Firefox for Google and other providers' services, and I don't believe you can run or even install multiple versions of IE at the same time in Windows). Or maybe the shift away from IE6 is not as hard as IT may fear. What does it take? What could force IT to pull the trigger? 
 
FYI I've asked Paul Krill to come up with a regular news story based on the exo data, much like how Gregg Keizer does the regular stories based on NetApplications data. It makes sense for IW to do the market monitoring stories from a business-oriented data pool, and that would also create news stories that are syndicated that highlight the exo system. I'm not sure if Paul should or can do something as predictable as Gregg always (he always does a Web browser share story and an OS share story), so thoughts welcome on that. Of course, your data is available all the time, so monthly is arbitrary; NetApp releases the data monthly, giving Gregg a predictable but inflexible schedule.

--
Galen Gruman
Executive Editor, InfoWorld
galen_gruman@infoworld.com
(415) 978-3204
501 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94107

3. My Reply to Galen:

From: Randall C. Kennedy [rck@xpnet.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 2:44 PM
To: 'Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com'
Subject: RE: Story Idea - Browser Trends

Galen,
 
  I have no problem with Paul Krill or anyone else writing-up my usage data (which took some very clever programming, not to mention some extensive data shaping/massaging, to generate). However, I’d appreciate it if he could follow
Gregg’s lead and reference/link to the exo.blog and xpnet.com as the source of the data (i.e “Researcher’s from our affiliate, the exo.performance.network, have discovered…etc.”). This will help me to further establish xpnet.com as a distinct research brand and to begin to create a parallel distribution mechanism for my original content – one I can monetize through sponsorships, etc. It’s important that I raise the public profile of xpnet.com, and that means currying the attention of every beat writer, pundit or analyst I can find, both inside and outside of IDG. So if Gregg, or Paul – or even Ed Bott or Ina Fried – want to quote my stuff, I’m thrilled.
 
  Fortunately, with InfoWorld mired in a “race to the bottom” (as Doug calls it) of the tabloid journalism barrel, there really should be little overlap between the kind of hard, data-driven research I’ll be publishing through my own blog and the “push their buttons again” format that seems to best fit InfoWorld’s mad grab for page views (quality be damned). Call it synergy. :)
 
RCK

4. Galen’s Second Reply:

From: Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 11:13 PM
To: rck@xpnet.com
Subject: Re: Story Idea - Browser Trends

That was the idea.
 
And I take exception to the "race to the bottom" comment. Doug of all people should know that's not true. Otherwise, there would be no Test Center, never mind the massive investment it takes relative to its page views. That's a quality play. And even our populist features are good quality, not throw-away commentary.
 
You can push buttons based on real issues and concerns -- your Windows 7 efforts in 2008-09 showed that -- not on Glenn Beck-style crap.
 
If we wanted to go the "race to the bottom" approach, believe me, there'd be no Test Center, no features, and no blogs like yours, mine, McAllister's, Prigge's, Venezia's, Bruzzese's, Grimes', Heller's, Samson's, Rodrigues's, Lewis's, Marshall's, Linthicum's, Tynan-Wood's, Knorr's, Babb's, or Snyder's -- oh, wait, that's 90% of what we publish. Most of the other 10% --
Cringely and Anonymous -- are populist but hardly low-brow. That leaves the weekend slideshows from our sister pubs in the "race to the bottom" category. 
-- 
 
Galen Gruman
Executive Editor, InfoWorld.com
galen_gruman@infoworld.com
(415) 978-3204
501 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94107

 

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So far, I’ve demonstrated that Galen Gruman was intimately aware of the nature and structure of Devil Mountain Software, Inc., the exo.blog and my relationship to both. However, he wasn’t alone. Editor in Chief Eric Knorr was equally familiar with DMS and all aspects of my research publishing activities outside the IDG fold. Which is why, when he heard of the controversy over the infamous Windows 7 “memory hog” article at CW – an article that quoted Craig Barth extensively and made absolutely zero mention of Randall C. Kennedy – his first reaction was to send me the following email:

From: eric_knorr@infoworld.com
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 11:43 AM
To: randall_kennedy@infoworld.com; Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com;
Doug_Dineley@infoworld.com

Subject: seen this?

 

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=7389%20&tag=content;wrapper

 

Is it war?

All of which begs the question: If Eric was as ignorant of the Craig Barth ruse as he claims to be, why would his first reaction to reading a story about some controversy involving Craig Barth and the exo.performance.network be to contact me?

The answer is simple: Because he knew. Just as Galen Gruman knew. They both were complicit in perpetuating the myth of the Craig Barth persona. And since they represent two-thirds of the senior editorial brain trust at InfoWorld (Doug Dineley was never clued in), this means that, for all intents and purposes, the publication known as InfoWorld was directly supporting my efforts to obscure my relationship to the exo.blog - the very same exo.blog they both keep commenting on in the above email exchanges - by allowing me to put forth a fictitious character as the CTO of DMS.

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And here, to address the inevitable conspiracy theorist challenges to the validity of the above email record, is the header info for this particular message. The message was sent as a response to me, Randall C. Kennedy (rck@xpnet.com) from Galen Gruman (Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com) on February 10th, 2010.

Return-Path: <Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com>
Delivered-To: rck@1878842.2041975
Received: (qmail 21591 invoked by uid 78); 10 Feb 2010 18:12:51 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO cloudmark1) (10.49.16.95)
  by 0 with SMTP; 10 Feb 2010 18:12:51 -0000
Return-Path: <Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com>
Received: from [66.186.113.124] ([66.186.113.124:49966] helo=usmaedg01.idgone.int)
by cm-mr20 (envelope-from <Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com>)
(ecelerity 2.2.2.41 r(31179/31189)) with ESMTP
id A4/73-22117-327F27B4; Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:12:51 -0500
Received: from usmahub02.idgone.int (172.25.1.24) by usmaedg01.idgone.int
(172.16.10.124) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 8.1.393.1; Wed, 10 Feb
2010 13:11:52 -0500
Received: from USMACCR01.idgone.int ([172.25.1.25]) by usmahub02.idgone.int
([172.25.1.24]) with mapi; Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:11:57 -0500
From: <Galen_Gruman@infoworld.com>
To: <rck@xpnet.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:12:45 -0500
Subject: Re: Story Idea - Browser Trends
Thread-Topic: Story Idea - Browser Trends
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Message-ID: <C798371E.20D5A%galen_gruman@infoworld.com>
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Enjoy the carnage!

RCK

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Figure 1 – Get This and Similar Charts at www.xpnet.com

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(Trends): Windows 7 Doubles Market Share in Q1

Windows 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 Windows XP, which saw its usage share drop by over 3 percentage points. Windows 7’s immediate predecessor, Windows Vista, took a similar hit, dropping nearly 3 percentage points in Q1, 2010. Over the past six months, Vista has dropped nearly five percentage points, again mostly due to heavy adoption of Windows 7.

Figure 2 - Community OS Share on 1/4/2010

That Microsoft’s new OS could make these kinds of inroads, in such a short period of time, is testament to product’s popularity. If this trend continues, Windows 7 will easily overtake Windows Vista as the second most widely installed desktop OS by the end of 2010, and could potentially displace Windows XP atop the OS usage share heap by sometime in early 2012.

Since this will also be the timeframe in which Microsoft begins ramping up the “Windows 8” hype machine, it will be interesting to see if the company ends up facing a similar situation to the one it faced with XP vs. Vista: A wildly popular OS that everyone is satisfied with and that nobody feels any urgent need to upgrade from. When that happens, the wheels may once again come off the Windows upgrade treadmill, forcing Microsoft to find even more creative ways to convince its customers that, while Windows 7 is great, they really do need the “next big thing.”

Note: The above statistics were generated from the over 240 million system metrics records collected from the over 24,000 registered, active xpnet.com users. If you’d like more information about the exo.performance.network, including how to reproduce the above chart object (for free) on your own site or weblog, please visit our web site: www.xpnet.com.

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