Isn't it ironic

The Apple and Linux operating systems don't get much attention when it comes to virus warnings and outbreaks. That's the upside of having such small market share ... no one dreams of infecting less than 15% of the machines out there. So I guess it's a badge of honor that infection rates among Windows 7 PCs is now estimated at 4 PCs per 1,000. Not surprisingly, Vista PCs are infected at a rate of just under 8 per 1000. That nightmare OS is just not as secure or robust as its younger brother. Also unsurprisingly, XP infection rates fell; XP is no longer a tantalizing target.

Big market share gains for Windows 7

At this point, no one can claim to be surprised by today's announcement that Windows 7 was running more computers than Apple OSX. The data was compiled during the past weekend (November 21-22) by Net Applications and showed that Win7 was running 5.07% (daily average) of the PCs that were connected to the internet. Apple OSX was running 5.0% of the computers, so the difference does not appear, at first, to be all that significant. But considering that the number of PCs worldwide passed the 1 billion mark over 15 months ago, that 0.07% difference equates to more than 700,000 computers.

Granted, this is a small window to measure and one would expect that the advantage will swing back and forth over the coming months, we already know how the movie will end. Apple's ability to exploit the bad dream that was Vista is fading quickly. And although Apple certainly won over a non-trivial segment of the marketplace, (After all, 5% of all the PCs worldwide is 5,000,000 machines) Microsoft is well on their way to reestablishing their position of dominance of the personal computing market.

Read more at ComputerWorld

Microsoft's planned foray into retail - why??

Microsoft has announced plans to open retail locations in the US. According to the news story, "With the retail strategy, Microsoft said it hopes to articulate and demonstrate its innovation and value proposition." (source: Microsoft Plans Stores) In doing this, I suspect that Microsoft is looking for something ... anything ... to steal some buzz from Apple. December saw Apple approach 10% of personal computer sales while Microsoft Windows' market share by a full percentage point for the second consecutive month.

In the grand scheme of things, I don't see this as being as big a deal as some the trade press is making it out to be. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised to see the main-stream press pick up on the story as though it's some grand shift in the PC landscape.

• First of all, Windows will continue to decline in market share, and these stores won't change that. Businesses are not replacing PC's as quickly, for entirely predictable financial reasons.
• Secondly, Vista has been, and continues to be, a nightmare for the company. The result is that corporate buyers are either waiting for Windows 7, or starting to explore the alternatives. At least some of those who explore alternatives won't come back.
• Finally, at the end of the day, Microsoft does not sell computers. They sell a few devices, like the Zune and the XBox, but that's not enough of a product line to make a retail store a destination. If anything, the Apple stores will look even more exciting and more compelling by comparison.

In the end, I predict that this will be a "phase" Microsoft goes through. It will last 5 or 6 years and then quietly fade from view.

Microsoft Corporation: MSFT (NASDAQ)
Apple, Inc.: AAPL (NASDAQ)

Microsoft putting Vista in the rearview mirror

One of the industry's worst-kept secrets is the unauthorized beta release of Windows 7. For all the safeguards that the company supposedly has in place, they haven't done much of anything to slow the download of their next operating system. The operating system can be found on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, and apparently it has been downloaded thousands of times.

Why do this?
It seems pretty obvious to me that the company is doing everything it can to dampen the success that Apple's year-long PC vs. Mac campaign has generated. Like the rest of the tech industry, they realize that Vista is their most visible flop since WinMe. So if they can get experts talking about something else, then they will consider the earlier-than-planned beta release as a reasonable cost of doing business.

I haven't looked at Windows 7, yet. I'm not a big fan of early generation releases, so I'm waiting until mid-first-quarter before loading onto one of my old boxes. Stay tuned.

Microsoft issues emergency patch

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is planning to release an out-of-band patch for Internet Explorer on Wednesday to address a critical security vulnerability that's being actively exploited. Microsoft Security Response Center researchers Ziv Mador and Tareq Saade said in a blog post, "Based on our stats, since the vulnerability has gone public, roughly 0.2% of users worldwide may have been exposed to websites containing exploits of this latest vulnerability." While that percentage may seem very small, it means that 1 out of every 500 IE users has the potential for being infected. According to reports, the exploit seems to have been sourced on sites hosted in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

This is the second time in 2008 that Microsoft has released an "out of band" patch, with the last coming just 3 months ago (it was the subject of my Oct 23, 2008 blog: Urgent Security Patch from Microsoft).

This issue first came to light on Dec 9, 2008, when Microsoft issued a very limited Security Advisory. At the time, the company indicated that they were "ware only of limited attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability." Since then, however, the alert has been updated at least four times, expanding the list of affected software to include several versions of IE... including IE7, IE6, IE6 SP1, IE5.01 SP4 and IE 8 beta 2. Virtually all of the versions of Windows installed by most users are affected... XP SP1 and SP2, Sevrver 2K3 SP1 and SP2, Vista with and without SP1, and Server 2K8.

At some point over the next couple of days, PCs that are set for automatic updates will get the patch and likely be rebooted. If your firm has not recently reviewed your strategy for managing Operating System updates, please contact me. It is well worth a small investment to have a good handle on these kinds of events.

Urgent Security Patch from Microsoft

Microsoft announced that a security patch was released today, several weeks ahead of the normally scheduled "second Tuesday" patch release. A restart will be required, according to the posting (see link below). Apparently, there is a recently discovered vulnerability that is serious enough to warrant this step. The threat affects Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP (critical), as well as Windows Vista and Server 2008 (important).

This is a rare occurrence, with the most recent out-of-band patch release coming in April 2007.

No details regarding the specific nature of the vulnerability were included in the notification. The patch was scheduled for release at 1:00 pm EDT on Thursday, 23 October. However, as of the time of this blog post, only one of my PC's have detected any updates from the mother-ship.

Microsoft's announcement: Advance Notification for Out-of-band release

Apple gets stronger

According to a press release issued today, Apple sold 2,496,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter just ended. That's a 41% jump over the same quarter last year. To me, this result is a combination Microsoft's Vista blunder and Apple's brilliant ad campaign which capitalized on that blunder. Combined with really strong iPhone sales - almost three-quarters of a million units shipped in the quarter - we could be witnessing the makings of a sea-change in corporate desktop computing.

It's not just consumers buying those machines, after all. And when the CEO buys an iPhone, she's going to demand that it work seamlessly with her laptop. We saw this start to happen a few years ago, but Windows XP was still the gold standard for desktop operating systems. So, the conversion stalled. But now, Vista has opened the door for IT departments to rethink their O/S strategies. And once they overcome their fear of supporting a mixed environment, anything could happen.

Apple's press release can be found here: Apple Reports Record Third Quarter Results