Microsoft

Microsoft and Verizon may need to learn a thing or two about customer service from IBM's Informix, according to a report released Wednesday by market researcher VendorRate.

Among IT professionals questioned, Microsoft's customer satisfaction ratings for the second quarter dropped in three key areas.

Out of a score of 100, Microsoft's server and infrastructure software rated 55, a 17 percent decline from the first quarter; its operating systems scored 67, down 9.5 percent; and its applications came in at 64, an 18 percent dip.

"Microsoft was cruising along with satisfactory scores in earlier reports, but it simply fell off a cliff in this quarter," Rick Schaefer, CEO of VendorRate, said in a statement.

Of all vendors measured, Verizon Communications came in lowest as an overall company for customer satisfaction, scoring 61 out of 100. Sprint Nextel and AT&T Wireless also came in near the bottom, at 64 and 67 points, respectively--a reflection of the telecom industry's poor showing overall.

(Credit: VendorRate)

"Once again the telecom sector sinks to the bottom of all lists," Schaefer said. "Either telecom vendors don't get it, or they don't seem to care."

However, not all of telecom is broken. Telecom equipment maker ShoreTel made it into the No. 2 slot of vendors with a rating of 92.

IBM's Informix scored at the top of the list with a rating of 96. Formed when IBM bought the Informix technology in 2001, it specializes in online transaction processing, an automated system used by banks, airlines, and other industries to interact with customers.

(Credit: VendorRate)

"IBM Informix was among the top rated vendors for the fourth straight quarter," noted Schaefer, "and this is the first time that ShoreTel made it into the top rankings."

Still, not everything that IBM touches turns to gold. IBM Global Services ranked near the bottom of consultants with a rating of 66.

VendorRate gathers ratings and reviews from IT and business professionals. For its second-quarter report, the company surveyed more than 1,500 IT professionals at trade shows, conferences, its own Web site, and "virtual events."

Those questioned by VendorRate ranked nearly 350 companies on 10 criteria, including customer service, reliability, integrity, budget, and effectiveness for a cumulative score of 100. The ratings were collected from April 1 through June 30.

Microsoft on Wednesday launched a new data center in Dublin, describing it as the largest it has built outside the U.S.

The site is what Microsoft calls a "mega data center", a class the company has constructed previously only in the U.S. The company plans to open another mega data center in Chicago on July 20, it said in a blog post Monday.

Microsoft's Dublin data center

(Credit: Microsoft)

Both new sites are intended to support Microsoft's online services, including its Azure hosted services and the recently introduced Bing search engine.

The Dublin facility covers 303,000 square feet, Arne Josefsberg, general manager of infrastructure services at Microsoft's Global Foundation Services, wrote in the blog post. It can provide 5.4 megawatts of power now, expandable to a total of 22.2 megawatts, he added.

Josefsberg said the building was constructed to take advantage of Ireland's cool climate.

"The facility makes extensive use of outside air economization to cool the facility year-round, resulting in greater power efficiency with a resultant reduction in carbon footprint," he wrote.

The Chicago facility covers more than 700,000 square feet, with 30 megawatts of power initially available, expandable up to 60 megawatts, Josefsberg said. Two-thirds of the facility is intended to house containerized servers -- shipping containers full of servers that can be cooled more efficiently than a conventional building.

The units can be made operational within hours, allowing quick expansion of capacity, and their server density can be more than 10 times that of a traditional data center, Josefsberg said.

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, said recently that the growth of online services would lead to more data centers being built outside the U.S., citing the need for data centers "everywhere on Earth."

Matthew Broersma of ZDNet UK reported from London.

It's been quite a while since Paul Allen worked to make Microsoft's products better, but he's doing just that.

While he hasn't rejoined the software maker he left more than 25 years ago, Allen is backing an effort to improve Microsoft Outlook. Allen's Vulcan Ventures announced on Monday the launch of its Xiant subsidiary and a beta of its first product, Xiant Filer. It is available as a free, 60-day trial, and Vulcan plans to eventually sell downloads of the product directly as well as through other Web sites.

(Credit: Xiant)

"It's a return of sorts to Paul's roots," Vulcan Vice President Chris Purcell said in a statement. "Xiant Filer started as a personal project to help Paul keep up with heavy e-mail traffic. It worked so well we all started using it, which led us to take it to market."

Allen has been involved in a number of projects in and out of the tech world since leaving Microsoft. However, he has generally been in areas that steer well clear of Microsoft. Vulcan has also backed Gist, another Outlook ad-on.

With Xiant Filer, Allen is wading into competition with Microsoft and several companies that make their own Outlook add-ons. The product sounds similar in concept to Xobni, another tool for better managing an Outlook in-box. Xobni exited beta earlier this year.

Microsoft will allow only limited rights for those who buy a Windows 7 PC to go back to Windows XP, according to an analyst who said he has been briefed on Microsoft's plans.

According to Gartner analyst Michael Silver, Microsoft plans to only allow the downgrade option to those who buy PCs during the first six months that Windows 7 is on the market (see update below). After that, Microsoft's proposed licensing terms would allow buyers of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate only to go back to the comparable Windows Vista edition.

That could put users, particularly small businesses, in a bind. That's because many businesses want the right to go to Windows 7 without having to pay more, but will need longer than six months to test the new operating system.

"This becomes an important issue," Silver said, noting that many businesses haven't been running Vista at all and plan to jump from Windows XP to Windows 7. "The ones that skipped Windows Vista need to be able to run Windows XP and later run Windows 7 and would like to not have to pay Microsoft for that (on new machines that they are buying)."

Businesses that have volume license deals for Windows or a software assurance contract would be able to move back to Windows XP even if they bought their Windows 7 PCs after six months, Silver said.

A Microsoft representative was not immediately available for comment (see update below). The company had said it would allow downgrades with Windows 7, but has not gone into great detail.

Downgrade rights, though they also existed with Windows XP, came into prominence with Windows Vista as a broad array of users, from consumers to small and mid-size businesses to corporations, all looked to buy new machines that could run Windows XP.

Silver said he doesn't expect as many people will buy Windows 7 machines with the intent of permanently staying on XP, but he said businesses need more than six months to make the move.

"I think it will be more temporary than with Vista," he said, referring to the downgrade phenomenon. "With Vista, a lot of people brought in machines with XP and had no intention (to move to Vista) or eventually lost that inclination to upgrade to Vista."

Silver also said the six-month rule will create a huge administrative headache for businesses trying to determine which of their machines can legally run XP.

Update, 5:00 p.m.: A Microsoft representative said late Tuesday that the company has decided to extend the period for which Windows 7 machines will be eligible to downgrade to XP. Rather than a six-month window, as originally planned, the window will extend to either 18 months from the Windows 7 launch or until the release of the first service pack of Windows 7, whichever comes first.

Microsoft reiterated that this policy applies to the Windows license that comes with new PCs. Businesses with volume licenses or software assurance that covers Windows can go back to XP or even earlier versions of Windows regardless of when they purchase a Windows 7 machine.

With Windows Vista, PC makers counted on their ability to sell machines with the right to go back to Windows XP, in some cases even pre-loading the older operating system.

(Credit: CNET)

Microsoft plans to announce next month more of the business details behind its Windows Azure operating system.

The software maker unveiled the cloud-based operating system at a developer conference last year. It has said that some of the services, currently in free testing, will be released in final form this year. The company has said that it will run Azure applications in its data centers and will charge users based on the computing resources they need.

Watson

(Credit: Microsoft)

In an interview on Monday, Corporate Vice President Allison Watson said that the company will get concrete about the financial details and say how partners can help sell Azure at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference which runs July 13-16 in New Orleans.

Until now, Microsoft has said merely that it plans to be "competitive with the marketplace" when it comes to pricing Azure.

Microsoft has also talked about perhaps having partners run Azure data centers in other locations, but Watson said that announcements on that front are probably further out.

"The economics of running a giant hosted business are different," Watson said. "They are interesting."

Microsoft is still trying to figure out exactly which businesses it wants to be in and which should be left to partners, she said. When Microsoft announced Azure, it said that all of the applications would be run from its data centers. However, Watson said the company is also looking at ways that partners can host cloud-based solutions.

"We've had some interesting conversations," Watson said.

Microsoft already competes directly with its hosting partners in other parts of its services business. For example, Microsoft offers online versions of SharePoint and Exchange, but also has partners that host their own copies of those products for customers.

Even in a world where Microsoft is selling services as much as software and using the Internet to deliver many of those products, Watson says that partners remain key to Microsoft's strategy.

"Partners have been our secret ingredient for how we grow and how we get things done," Watson said.

She noted that some of the key growth areas of technology--virtualization, mobility, and unified communications are places where customers need the skills of a partner as opposed to buying a software or service "off the shelf."

Even many of Microsoft's longtime competitors, folks with big internal sales efforts like IBM and Oracle, are starting to place more emphasis on the role of partners, she said. Even Google, she said, is starting to get in the partner game, announcing a program earlier this year.

For Microsoft, it continues to invest in that area despite the economy, Watson said.

While Microsoft has cut some from its internal field sales ranks, Watson said the company has actually added some to its partner sales channel in hopes that third parties might be able to pick up some of the slack on the sales front.

And while the overall enterprise software business is projected to be roughly flat this year, Watson notes that rate is better than on the hardware side. Since last October, Microsoft has been trying to convince partners that selling Microsoft's software can be a bright spot in an otherwise tough economy.

As for the Azure push, Watson didn't want to give away too much more. In the mean time, below is an interview I did with Ray Ozzie when Azure was unveiled. He also spoke about his cloud-based vision in a recent speech at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.

Demand has risen among businesses seeking better ways for its employees to communicate and work together, especially in this virtual world. To address that need, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft announced plans at Interop Las Vegas on Tuesday to expand their existing partnership to offer enhanced communication tools and services to customers.

Frontline Partnership, the collaboration between HP and Microsoft, was set up 20 years ago to ensure that products from both companies would work together. A new four-year expansion of that partnership will spend up to $180 million to develop new tools and technologies for Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC). UCC is an industrywide initiative designed to help business employees communicate and work with each other more effectively, both inside and outside the office.

HP and Microsoft plan to invest in new UCC products and services and to join forces on sales and marketing. They see the initiative as a way for businesses to cut down on costs, especially for travel and telecom. "Together, we are offering the extensive breadth of capabilities of our respective technologies to deliver a truly unified communications and collaboration solution to help our customers improve business productivity," said Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft Business Division.

Products that will be touched by the expanded Frontline effort include Microsoft's Office SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, and Office Communications Server, as well as HP's ProCurve networking gear and dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC.

The demand for UCC is expected to continue growing. A February 2009 report from market research firm Forrester sees the UCC market hitting $14.5 billion among businesses in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific by 2015, a growth rate of almost 36 percent each year. However, the report noted that customers want to see the benefit and return on investment before committing the money and resources.

HP and Microsoft face stiff competition from other firms vying to provide UCC tools for customers. Last year, IBM said that it would invest $1 billion in this area over the next three years. Networking giant Cisco is also seen as eager to compete with Microsoft in key areas, notably UCC.

Microsoft introduced the second beta of its Geneva identity-management server platform on Monday, with new features including compatibility with SharePoint 2007 and Microsoft Federation Gateway.

The announcement was made at Microsoft's TechEd conference, which is being held in Los Angeles this week. The first beta was announced in October 2008, with a final release scheduled for the second half of 2009.

Geneva is designed to be an open platform for providing user access to applications and systems, whether they are located on an organization's own premises or on remote infrastructure. It is based on standards such as WS-Federation, WS-Trust and the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0.

The goal of such systems is for users to be able to use the same identity information to access both local applications and cloud-based services, which have grown in popularity in recent months.

The new beta introduces federated access to SharePoint servers and adds one-click federation between Geneva Server and Microsoft Federation Gateway. Federation allows users to use the same identity information across different authentication systems.

The beta also improves provisioning of identity tokens, introduces a new claims transformation engine and expands support for SAML.

Microsoft said it will collaborate with CA, Novell, SAP, and Sun for interoperability testing on the latest beta.

Last month Microsoft said it was testing the Geneva technology in Washington State schools for secure access to grades and class schedules.

Microsoft's RoundTable has found a white knight.

The software maker will stop selling the Microsoft Research-developed panoramic video camera. Instead, Microsoft said this week, it will license the Webcam technology to teleconference gear maker Polycom, which will take over sales of the device.

Microsoft plans to stop selling its RoundTable Webcam. Instead, Microsoft will transfer the technology to Polycom, which will sell the product under its brand.

(Credit: Microsoft)

It's unclear whether Microsoft will get a lump sum payment or receive per-unit royalties. It's also unclear how it will be compensated for the technology.

"Microsoft and Polycom are not discussing the financial terms of the deal, but profit is not the focus for Microsoft in distributing the RoundTable device," the company said in a statement to CNET News. "Microsoft RoundTable was developed by Microsoft Research over five years ago and broadening the availability of the product, and the relevant IP, has always been a part of Microsoft's (Unified Communications) strategy for the device. With a global leader such as Polycom, RoundTable will now be available to more people in more countries with strong support options."

Originally developed as RingCam, the panoramic Webcam made frequent appearances in Microsoft Research demonstrations. Microsoft launched RoundTable commercially in October 2007, but will stop selling it next month, once Polycom starts selling its version, dubbed the Polycom CX5000. It will carry a list price of $4,300 in the U.S. and be sold in 27 countries, the companies said. Microsoft will support the devices it has sold, while Polycom will provide front-line support for the units it sells.

While Microsoft is not making major changes to its businesses, the company has been trimming its product lines at the edges. Among the changes announced in recent weeks, Microsoft is planning to shutter Encarta and is scrapping plans for a Web analytics program that had been in beta. The company is also discontinuing a standalone business intelligence product and is halting its paid Windows Live OneCare antivirus program.

Microsoft announced on Thursday that the next version of the Exchange server, Exchange 14, will have a few useful new features including, finally, full support for browsers other than Internet Explorer.

A Microsoft demo video shows full Web access to the Exchange e-mail server from Firefox running on Vista, and Safari on OS X. The Web access product is now called Outlook Live. University users of Microsoft's free hosted e-mail service (Exchange Labs) will get the beta of the service shortly. It appears that corporate users, who know of Web access to Exchange servers as Outlook Web Access, will get it when their companies upgrade to the Exchange 14 platform. Exchange 14 is expected either late in 2009 or in 2010.

Outlook Live will also give users a threaded conversation view, useful for tracking e-mails that get more than a few replies. And the online app will integrate IM (as Gmail does), although it will likely only connect to users of Microsoft instant messaging servers.

Since corporations are generally very conservative in their upgrade plans for electronic mail platforms, business users (like my CNET co-workers) should not expect access to Exchange 14 until, at the earliest, several months after the release of the product. Until then, users who want full-featured access from a Web browser to their Exchange e-mail servers are advised to keep a copy of Internet Explorer handy on their desktop.