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Twitter data visualisation for Windows Phone
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:40:10 GMT
I admit it, I'm starting to really want to put my hands on a Windows Phone 7 series. But I wondered, if I was alone. There have been many positive reviews and few question marks, but given the pool of searchable twitter comments out there it can be a poll for what people (well largely tech enabled and savvy people) are talking about.

Caveat: Only 27% twitter users are actually active

There are some excellent ways of reading, managing and viewing tweets (I personally like this simple search and display -visible tweets) but after reading "Four Ways of Looking at Twitter" I thought i would give some twitter analysis a go.

Of course there are many sites out there - See "17 Ways to Visualize the Twitter Universe" - but the following I found the most useful:

Like Scott I then looked at Twitter Spectrum, a similar tool that compares two search terms and shows which words are most commonly associated with each term

A more basic tool, TweetVolume, presents a more telling picture.

Finally a StreamGraph can show for the latest 1000 tweets of a given search term. I found this misleading as much of the information is re-tweets.

How relevant this information is is questionable, but one things for certain, real time data visualisation is going to be important for businesses to gauge response, impact, feeling and momentum.

If the trends map is anything to go by the twitter verse in Australia is filled with students and TV/Radio.
Warum man jetzt auf Office setzen sollte- die Upgradeoption
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:57:00 GMT
Neulich hatte ich zwei interessante Gespräche mit Bekannten aus meinem Umfeld zum Thema Microsoft Office. Wie immer gibt es zweigeteilte Meinungen bezüglich Nutzen und Fortschritt. Einer meiner Gesprächspartner ist mit der Office 2003 Edition seiner Meinung nach bisher gut gefahren und betrachtet ein Upgrade auf eine der höheren Versionen eher mit kritischem Blick während der andere es kaum erwarten kann, seine eigene Office 2010 Lizenz in den Händen zu halten.

Auf Nachfrage meinerseits beim kritischen Gesprächspartner warum das so ist stellte sich heraus, das die veränderte Benutzerführung durch die Office Fluent Oberfläche als entscheidendes Kriterium zum tragen kommt. Ich ermunterte meinen Gesprächspartner dazu, einfach selbst einmal für sich zu testen, wie viele Wege man für bestimmte Funktionen in der betagten Office Version zurücklegen muss und das mit unserer aktuellen Office 2010 Suite gegenüber zu vergleichen. Er wird sehr schnell merken, welche Vorteile sich aus dieser Neuanordnung für ihn ergeben.

Als Freund von anspruchsvollen Designs konfrontierte ich ihn zudem mit den neuen, zahlreichen Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten, die mir persönlich seit Version 2007 deutlich entgegen kommen. Ich erklärte, wie viele und aufwändige Schritte man in Grafikprogrammen tätigen muss um einen Effekt, den ich mit nur einem Mausklick in Office 2007 oder 2010 realisieren kann nachzuempfinden. Neben den Vorzügen der gestalterischen Möglichkeiten gesellen sich zahlreiche weitere Neuerungen wie zum Beispiel die für den Dokumentenaustausch.

Das ist auch einer der Gründe, warum mein zweiter Gesprächspartner es kaum erwarten kann, seine eigene Office 2010 Suite in den Händen zu halten. Um so erfreuter war er, als ich ihm von den Sparmöglichkeiten erzählte, die im Zusammenhang mit unserer aktuell gestarteten Technical Guarantee stehen. Denn dort kann man ab sofort eine Office 2007 Version erwerben und später bei Verfügbarkeit kostenfrei auf die dann aktuelle Version Microsoft Office 2010 upgraden.

Weitere und ausführlichere Informationen erhalten Sie hier:

Das Microsoft Deutschland Blog zu Office 2010

Microsoft Office 2010-Technologie-Garantie: Häufig gestellte Fragen

Es gibt keinen Grund mehr zu warten- einen kleinen Überblick zum neuen Office 2010 erhalten Sie auch auf unserer Blog Sonderseite:

Sonderseite zum Thema Office 2010 des Education Blogs.

Norbert Schumann, Microsoft

Pech gehabt …

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:49:17 GMT

Just nach der Basta hat es mich erwischt. Beim Badminton, nach einem zugegebenermaßen nicht gerade lehrbuchhaften Abwehrschlag von der Grundlinie, hat sich meine Achillessehne verabschiedet. Glatter Abriss. Inzwischen ist es wieder zusammen genäht worden (sieht aus, wie der zugenähte Bauch einer ausgestopften Weihnachtsgans ;-))

Irgendwo habe ich gelesen, dass eine solche Achillessehne bei einem erwachsenen Menschen bis zu einer Tonne Zugkraft aushält. Da kann man mal sehen, was Hebel so alles bewirken. Jedenfalls bin ich in den nächsten 6..7 Wochen sehr immobil.

Ab nächste Woche werde ich dann aber wieder etwas mehr zum neuen VSTO schreiben, sowohl hier für den Blog als auch für einen neuen Artikel im dotNet Magazin.

Ich werde versuchen, alle Fragen, die in den letzten 3 Wochen eingegangen sind, bald zu beantworten.

Das ist übrigens die neueste Fussmode für Achillessehnengeschädigte. Das Gute daran ist, es ersetzt den sonst üblichen Gips vollständig und kann bei Bedarf abgenommen werden.
Die Aussicht, damit 8 Wochen auskommen zu müssen, ist allerdings weniger erfreulich.

Séminaire Windows Azure Editeurs de Logiciels - 22 mars 2010, Campus Microsoft

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:37:00 GMT

Nous avons le plaisir de vous inviter à un séminaire sur Windows Azure organisé par Microsoft pour les Editeurs de Logiciels avec la présence exceptionnelle de Doug Hauger, General Manager Windows Azure, Microsoft Corporation, et Georges Abou Harb, Directeur General Adjoint, Logica Management Consulting.

Windows Azure est la plateforme de Cloud Computing de Microsoft. C’est le plus gros virage stratégique de Microsoft depuis le client/serveur. C’est aussi une formidable opportunité pour les éditeurs de logiciels.

Vos équipes ont-elles eu le temps de regarder la plateforme Windows Azure ?

Cette offre est particulièrement adaptée aux éditeurs de logiciels car elle vous permet de:

Vous concentrer sur l’édition de logiciel et non la gestion de serveurs et de datacenters
Augmenter votre chiffre d’affaires/réduire les coûts via un modèle de paiement à la consommation
Exécuter du code et stocker des données sur des ordinateurs situés dans des datacenters en Europe et dans le monde, opérés par Microsoft
Etre flexible et de ne payer que ce qui est consommé (idéal pour les scénarios avec des variations de charges)
Capitaliser sur les compétences existantes (l‘environnement de développement est .NET ou Java ou même PHP)
Vous tourner vers l’avenir en réfléchissant au Cloud Computing et en particulier au SaaS

Venez nous retrouver le lundi 22 mars pour une présentation de cette plateforme pour les éditeurs de logiciels.

Pour vous inscrire, merci de contacter Morgan Denis en me mettant en copie et en précisant vos noms et prénoms, société, numéro de téléphone et adresse e-mail.

Voici l’agenda détaillé de cette session :

Début	Fin	Présentation
9:00	9:30	Accueil
9:30	10:30	Présentation Azure, marché/business/produits: mettant en lumière la plateforme Windows Azure pour les éditeurs de logiciels Stéphane Crozatier, Conseiller Technologique Editeurs de Logiciels
10:30	11:00	Pause
11:00	12:00	Présentation technique: découverte de la plateforme Windows Azure Michel Hubert, Architecte S.I., Logica Management Consulting
12:15	12:45	Questions & Réponses Doug Hauger, Windows Azure General Manager, Microsoft Corp. Georges Abou Harb, Directeur General Adjoint, Logica Management Consulting

Pour vous inscrire, merci de contacter Morgan Denis en précisant vos noms et prénoms, société, numéro de téléphone et adresse e-mail.

Lieu :

Microsoft France – Séminaire Azure pour les éditeurs de logiciels

39, quai du Président Roosevelt – 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

Date : le 22 mars 2010

Horaires : 9:30 – 12h45

En espérant vous y retrouver, et dans l’attente de vous aider à étendre vos applications « dans le nuage »

Silverlight & DeepZoom – Nouvelle Megane
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:18:53 GMT
Un nouveau site Renault pour la nouvelle Megane par Tequilarapido qui utilise habilement Silverlight & Deepzoom pour proposer une expérience très sympa.
Speaking at MIX!
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:18:00 GMT

Sunday I leave to Vegas to attend my first MIX. It’s exciting to finally attend this event that has such an air of mystique around it. I’ll be speaking on how you can use MEF in SL4 to partition your applications across many XAPs in a fairly seemless fashion. My talk is short, but it’s going to be very focused. If you’ve heard of MEF but are not sure what to do with it, or you know MEF and want to see some new ways it can help you make your Silverlight apps offer a better user experience, come to this talk.

Microsoft Silverlight Optimization and Extensibility with MEF

Glenn Block in Lagoon B on Tuesday at 3:35 PM

Wouldn't it be nice if your team could add new features to your applications without all the headache they have to deal with today? With the Managed Extensiblity Framework (MEF) in 4.0 you can bolt your apps together dynamically on the fly. Adding new modules and features is as simple as deploying a new binary, you don't have to touch the existing code. You can even deploy those features as separate XAP files which can be loaded on-demand! Come to this talk for a quick tour of what MEF is, and learn how you can use it to beat out your competition.
Bending T4 to be a textual DSL host
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:10:52 GMT
The estimable MVP and T4 enthusiast, Kathleen Dollard has a new post where she's using T4's ability to spit arbitrary text as a host for a textual DSL.

She's set up a small DSL for describing contract interfaces for a MEF framework:
```
         new Interface()
```
```
         {
```
```
            Name = "ISearchModelBase",
```
```
            Scope = Scope.Public,
```
```
            CompositionInfo =
```
```
            {
```
```
               new Property() {Name="TargetType", PropertyType="Type"}
```
```
            },
```
```
            Members =
```
```
            {
```
```
               new Property() {Name="DisplayName", PropertyType="string"},
```
```
               new Property() {Name="DataName", PropertyType="string"}
```
```
            }
```
```
         }.Output() 
```
Hosting this in T4 with a couple of lines of wrapper code spits out the following output, codifying her standard implementation pattern for MEF contracts and custom attributes:
```
Option Strict On
```
```
Option Explicit On
```
```
Option Infer On 
```
```
 
```
```
Imports System
```
```
Imports System.Collections.Generic
```
```
Imports System.Linq
```
```
Imports System.ComponentModel.Composition 
```
```
 
```
```
public Interface ISearchModelBase
```
```
   Property DisplayName As string
```
```
   Property DataName As string
```
```
End Interface
```
```
public Interface ISearchModelBaseComposition
```
```
   Readonly Property TargetType As Type
```
```
End Interface 
```
```
 
```
```
< MetadataAttribute() > _
```
```
< AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class, AllowMultiple:=False) > _
```
```
public Class SearchModelBaseAttribute
```
```
   Inherits ExportAttribute
```
```
   Implements ISearchModelBaseComposition 
```
```
 
```
```
   Public Sub New( ByVal targetType As Type)
```
```
      MyBase.New(GetType(ISearchModelBase))
```
```
      _targetType = targetType
```
```
   End Sub 
```
```
 
```
```
   Private _targetType As Type
```
```
   Public Readonly Property TargetType As Type Implements ISearchModelBaseComposition.TargetType
```
```
      Get
```
```
         Return _targetType
```
```
      End Get
```
```
   End Property 
```
```
 
```
```
End Class 
```
Fascinating stuff, especially when you see that these days, populating such a structure in C#4.0 is such a snap with the new initializer syntax.
Peeking under the covers, at the attachment to Kathleen's blog entry, the code combines the DSL structure definition with the code output for VB in a way that's a bit too printf-ish for my personal taste, so I was tempted to T4 it up a bit.
The original template passes a StringBuilder down the call tree and builds code using AppendLine():
```
 private void AppendOpen(System.Text.StringBuilder sb)
```
```
      {
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("Option Strict On");
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("Option Explicit On");
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("Option Infer On");
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("");
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("Imports System");
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("Imports System.Collections.Generic");
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("Imports System.Linq");
```
```
         sb.AppendLine("Imports System.ComponentModel.Composition");
```
```
      }
```
Instead of this, I wanted to use regular T4 syntax with a class feature block:
```
      private void AppendOpen()
```
```
      {
```
```
#>
```
```
Option Strict On
```
```
Option Explicit On
```
```
Option Infer On
```
```
 
```
```
Imports System
```
```
Imports System.Collections.Generic
```
```
Imports System.Linq
```
```
Imports System.ComponentModel.Composition
```
```
<#+
```
```
      }
```
However, this code is inside a nested class, so the underlying Write statements needed by T4 aren't present. To get around this, I whipped up a trivial base class that supplies all of the necessary plumbing for T4 to be happy. This works because this part of T4 doesn't rely on a specific type, rather it just expects access to the members it needs and any class will do. In my implementation I simply delegate all of the calls back out to the main T4 template.

The only changes necessary to the DSL definition classes are to derive from my DslBase class and to add a trivial constructor to supply the main template to each DSL class instantiation:
```
public class Interface : DslBase
```
```
{
```
```
    public Interface(Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating.TextTransformation outer) : base(outer)
```
```
    {
```
```
    }
```
I've attached the base class code and a modified version of Kathleen's template for you to play with here. Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: T4,Textual DSL
String.Unformat: I've created a monster
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:00:00 GMT
I don’t know if you’re the same, but when coding away I often find myself wishing for a String.Unformat function – call it the evil twin of String.Format. With String.Format I can build up strings like this;
```
var result = String.Format(
     "http://{0}:{1}/{2}",
     "localhost",
     "12345",
     "TestPage.aspx");
```
... which will return "http://localhost:12345/TestPage.aspx".

But what if I want to do the opposite; split out the contents of this URL, in one easy statement, much like String.Format? What if I could do this...?
```
string input = @"http://localhost:12345/TestPage.aspx";
object[] results = input.Unformat(@"http://{0}:{1}/{2}");

CollectionAssert.AreEquivalent(
    new object[] { "localhost", "12345", "TestPage.aspx" },
    results);
```
Of course something similar is already possible with Regular Expressions, but I find them much more unwieldy, they result in longer code, they’re overkill for what I’m trying to achieve, and they’re difficult to remember the syntax (oh, and even harder to get it right when coding late at night!). Take this equivalent example and judge for yourself;
```
string input = @"http://localhost:12345/TestPage.aspx";
string matchingformat = @"^http://(?<C1>.+):(?<C2>.+)/(?<C3>.+)$";

Regex expression = new Regex(matchingformat);
Match match = expression.Match(input);

Assert.AreEqual<object>("localhost", match.Groups["C1"].Value);
Assert.AreEqual<object>("12345", match.Groups["C2"].Value);
Assert.AreEqual<object>("TestPage.aspx", match.Groups["C3"].Value);
```
To get around this I have created my own String.Unformat function... all it does is take a simple format string and convert it into a regular expression by applying a number of transforms to it. And how do we do these transforms? With regular expressions, of course J

Now before we dive in here, I must make a point. This is not a replacement for regular expressions. It will be difficult to get the precision you need for anything complex – I’m only after a quick and simple solution to the basic case problem. Knowing this, read on...

How it does it

My sample code (and a bunch of demonstrations in the form of unit tests) is attached. Basically there are five phases to the code;

1.       It escapes any special Regular Expression characters (e.g. ^, [, ], $ and so on) with a backslash so that they don’t accidentally affect the matching... they are assumed to be literal in the input string.

2.       It replaces the {0} match syntax with regular expression (?<C1>.+) syntax.

3.       It adds begin (^) and end ($) markers to the match string.

4.       It performs the match.

5.       It loops through the results, extracting matches and adding them to an object array to return.

Have a look in the attached and see what you think.

But...

The regular expressions I’m using are compiled where possible... but of course I’m applying multiple transforms (i.e. regular expressions) to a string just to do a simple match.

What does this mean? It means this will always be slower than if you just wrote a regular expression yourself (check out here and here if you want to)... so if performance really is that key to your code, or you’re doing this in a long loop, you might want to avoid it. If on the other hand you can see a great use for this when performance isn’t key – give it a go and let me know what you think!

I have also not had time to write a full suite of real unit tests, so if you find a bug shout up.

Conclusion

What do you think? Have I created a monster, or cooked up a treat?

After writing this I came across an interesting conversation here... it seems I have not been alone in my desires for String.Unformat.

Originally posted by Simon Ince on 9 July 2009 here http://blogs.msdn.com/simonince/archive/2009/07/09/string-unformat-i-ve-created-a-monster.aspx
New Competitive Guide - Netsuite
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:39:29 GMT
Hi

Here’s the new compete guide NAV vs Netsuite

NetSuite vs Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Steve Farr
Download details: Accessibility Guide for Educators
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:34:26 GMT
Just spotted these great accessibility related guides that

“…provides information about Accessible Technology initiatives and resources that are available to educators to ensure that all students have equal access to electronic information”

Download details: Accessibility Guide for Educators

Rob

Technorati Tags: Accessibility

Mini-Microsoft
Microsoft FY10Q2 Results
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:35:00 +0000
Time for another Microsoft earning announcement. I'm going to be missing you, Mr. Liddell, and your New Zealand accent. With so many tech companies reporting good numbers and with Windows 7's success, I dare say that we're expecting a rosy quarterly earning report. And, if that's the case and knowing Mr. Ballmer's past record, he'll say something financially scary soon to rain on the parade.
Places I track for news on earnings include:
- Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Beta News (Joe has been on fire lately with all of his postings - one reason I've been quiet here is that when I think of something to write about, Mr. Wilcox already has it written up and posted)
- Mr. Todd Bishop over at TechFlash's Microsoft Blog
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org.
What questions do you expect or would you like to come up during the call? And if they don't come up during the conversation with the analysts, what Q&A do you want to send Mr. Ballmer's way during our upcoming Town Hall meeting?
- Windows 7 continued success: how does that turn into profits and what kind of projections are we looking at?
- Entertainment and Devices re-org: how does that align for future success and avoidance of being one big huge money pit?
- Windows Mobile 7: we so dropped the ball in our early phone OS presence that now it seems like it's a losing battle to have a dog in this fight. But WinMo7 is out there. To me, I can imagine this becoming like the Zune HD: well praised and all, but not making a dent in the market because everyone has already moved on to the iPhone platform.
- Bing: % of market share on track?
- Efficiency: are back to our "we always fire the bottom 10% every review cycle" line of B.S. or are RIFs and layoffs still in effect? Given that the tech market at least seems to be turning around with-respect-to hiring (at least looking at the internal openings in Microsoft and how often I get pinged by recruiters), does Microsoft need to close down on the layoffs loudly and publically for both morale and recruitment's sake?
- iPad iPad iPad! So what, the techie echo-chamber screams for the iPad? I'll be quiet happy with my Kindle for now, just because I do need it for lots of book reading vs. momentary goofing around with apps and browsing. Still, it does extend Apple's reach into the Windows market. What 'cha gonna do about that, Microsoft? How come you never thought of something like this? Or a book reader? You had what and what? Wow...
- Ballmer: seems as though people are questioning Mr. Ballmer's continued CEO-ship. How much longer did he say he's in for being CEO?
Going back to the layoffs: first of all, this round does need to wrap up by end of FY10. The stress of possible layoffs will continue to have a negative effects on Microsoft, let alone recruiting. We should have one last big flush and then call ourselves done. I'm tired of the layoff rumors as much as anyone else. Probably more so, given the comment fear-mongering. To paraphrase a commenter here: Mini-Microsoft has correctly predicted 12 of the last 3 layoffs.
One commenter made a good point in that it is going to take a while to work through the fat, though, because Microsoft dug itself into such a deep, undisciplined hole that when layoffs were needed, no one knew how or where to start and certainly didn't realize how bad it had become.
(later...)
Thanks to the deferral $s, it was a break-out quarter. Some follow-ups:
- Joe Wilcox: Microsoft reports $19 billion quarter, lifted by $1.71 billion deferral Betanews
- Todd Bishop: Windows 7 sales lift Microsoft to record revenue, strong profits and PC Windows sales strong, but other Microsoft units struggle
- Joseph Tartakoff: Microsoft Blows Past Analyst Estimates paidContent
- Mary Jo Foley: Earnings take-away Microsoft is still powered by Windows All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
- Brier Dudley: Brier Dudley's blog Microsoft earnings report includes CFO's hush deal Seattle Times Newspaper
- Nick Eaton: With Windows 7, Microsoft kills Wall Street with record quarter and Breaking down Microsoft's Q2 earnings
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT -- Comments
Microsoft Layoff 2009 Completes Last Milestone and Ships!
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:33:00 +0000
With today's 800 Microsoft layoffs, Microsoft Layoff 2009 has reached its final milestone and shipped, exceeded expectations of 5,000 with 5,800 reduced positions.
Err... yay?
Last week during the Town Hall Mr. Ballmer confirmed there would be one more iteration on the layoffs. And after that? Who knows. More to come? Maybe. Booga booga!
You know, we have people working for Microsoft (or, at least did, I don't know, maybe no longer) responsible for driving executive leadership education and growth at Microsoft. This is their friggin' job. Develop Microsoft Leadership at the executive and L68+ levels. So, has anyone hemmed and hawed in-front of Mr. Ballmer and mentioned that this nickel and diming layoff approach is at the worst case end of the layoff management scale?
The looming threat of continuing RIFs and layoffs indicates that Microsoft is just too big for its leadership. It is beyond their capabilities to wrap their minds around everything Microsoft is doing. It has gotten away from them. What needs to go? Hell, I don't know even what all these people do, and you want to decide who stays and goes?
Yes.
Cut deep. Cut once. Get on with it and say, "We're done. We have aligned our company to be efficient and effective within this new global economic climate and are ready to focus on returning to profits and market share growth."
Done.
Coverage I've noticed today on the outside:
- Mr. Brier Dudley's blog Microsoft cuts 800 more jobs, including 200 in Puget Sound Seattle Times Newspaper
- Mr. Joe Wilcox: Is there any sense to Microsoft's 800 layoffs Betanews and Former Microsofties, Can I Tell Your Story « Oddly Together
- Mr. Nick Eaton Microsoft laying off 800 more
- Ms. Mary Jo Foley Are the Microsoft layoffs over now All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff Microsoft Cuts 800 More Positions paidContent
On Don Dodge:
- Mr. Michael Arrington: Microsoft Loses Don Dodge. This Is A Huge Mistake
- Nick Eaton Startup guru Don Dodge among Microsoft layoffs
- John Cook Startup guru Don Dodge among those let go in Microsoft cuts
And, bummers for me given that she interviewed me for Microspotting, Ms. Ariel Stallings tweet about being caught up in this layoff round.
Coverage from the inside? No email. Quiet. Quite dysfunctional. There was something linked off of the MSW site and it also had a FAQ document that had to be one of the worse FAQs I've ever read. There is an "A" portion to an FAQ and in this case some of the questions were great but the answers looked like they were generated from some sort of English obfuscation Perl script 3rd place prize winner.
So, I'm going through about sixty comments now on the older post. I think it was necessary for Microsoft to have layoffs due to the mismanaged growth and lack of focus and direction our Senior Leadership Team has given us. But it should have been twice as much, done all at once. Now we dither.
Were you affected by the layoff or know someone who was? I'd be interested in knowing which groups and organizations are affected.
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments
Windows 7 and a Grab Bag of Microsoftness Before FY10Q1 Results
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:18:00 +0000
October 22nd 2009. Windows 7. The circle is now complete.
What is Windows 7? There's a lot that Windows 7 is (oh, it's faster, it has an improved task bar, peeking, snapping, homegroupin', stable drivers and some pretty freaky desktop pictures) but the big thing that it isn't is that Windows 7 is not Vista. It didn't suffer Vista's raging dysfunctional mismanagement and broken windows. It didn't require a reset. Sure, it wasn't perfect and there's a lot of improvements yet to be made in focus and team productivity, but the Windows team delivered. So toot that damn horn, because this here train is arriving on time.
With FY10Q1 announcements coming this week and along with Windows 7, I hope we have a lot of good things to talk about with the analysts. Google and Apple and Yahoo! certainly did. Usually we release our quarterly earnings on the appropriate Thursday afternoon, after closing. It is unfortunately disturbing that we've decided to release our FY10Q1 earning results instead on this Friday morning before trading. I say disturbing only because the last time we did this, a whole bunch of Microsofties were pulled into a layoff. Now... hopefully this earnings report is delayed so that we can have this Thursday the 22nd be all about Windows 7 and not our financials. And I can not imagine that we (and by "we" I mean the Microsoft Senior Leadership Team) would be so dumb as to release our flagship product on a Thursday and turn around and fire a bunch of people the next day.
So, anyway, what's in the mix as the financials come up this week?
Windows 7: check. Thank goodness for SteveSi. I certainly hope he gets paid a lot more than Robbie Bach this year.
Within the Windows 7 reviews, there's going to be a point-of-view that the operating system is dead, which is, ah, kinda dumb. Your web browser isn't going to bootstrap that Intel CPU on its own. What might be dead is rich applications, which is a fair argument and Microsoft is failing to provide much in the way of new rich applications. In fact, we are cutting them one by one (Money, Encarta... Streets, you best watch your back). Sure, there's a transformation to online replicated services and all, but we really need to convince our consumers that there is a strong worth in having a Windows 7 on your laptop so that it's not a fancy glowy brick when the internet is down.
Kindle? Wouldn't it be sweet if we had a nice ebook reader application? We could call it... mmm, Reader?
Windows Live is supposed to help with building value via rich applications. Live has been broken out of Windows to free it from the consent decree and all ('cept for sneaking a Win7 component out early, wink-wink). Messenger, Mail, Photos, Movies, and an awkward online service. And Live Writer (though rumored a dead-man walking per comments).
It's a fair start, and if I had my druthers OneNote would move out of Office and into Windows Live to be the essential authoring companion to the Windows experience. Windows Live Essentials is a good start, but to add some joy into owning a Windows machine, what we need just as urgently is Windows Live Non-Essentials.
Joy. There's a concept just asking for a planning pillar. How strangely would your coworkers look at you during spec reviews if you asked how joyful the feature happened to be?
Windows 8: speaking of planning! The Sinofskyfication of Windows continues, along with alignment around his good lieutenants.
Office: hey, hey, hey, there's a Beta on the way. The Office train lost its conductor but it mostly seems to be still on track. Though trust me: Office wants its Steven back. Bad.
Mobile: Holy. Crap. I don't think we have any unbruised skin left on our body to take any more lumps regarding our mobile strategy. The Microsoft Mismanagement theory is in full force as we throw any willing body into the Mobile effort. Something good has to come out of those typing monkeys, rights? Windows Mobile Phone 6.5 or whatever the hell it's called didn't win any "Wows" and I discovered 1:1 the worst question to ask is, "So, can I upgrade it to Windows Phone 7?"
Look. Let's talk about device loyalty. I first started with owning PocketPCs. An HP Jornada. I loved it. When upgrade time came, HP had bought Compaq and abandoned the Jornada for the iPAQ (what, they had the iThing first?). So, unable to upgrade to the next CE, I cursed a little and bought one of those iPAQs. But HP decided not to allow it to be upgraded. So I switched to Dell to get their latest Axim PocketPC. Dell would be a safe bet, right? And Dell gave up on the line. My latest act of company loyalty: getting a powerful HTC WinMo 6 device. It was cut-off the 6.5 train, and soon, I'm going to be buying a new phone.
And I'm going to buy an iPhone.
I hate it. I hate to think that I'll be installing Apple software on one of my computers because their PC software is so inelegant and buggy (check Watson). I hate that I've been so loyal to the PocketPC platform and Windows Mobile but I've finally had my chain yanked for the last time. I'm not buying a 6.5 device only to have it abandoned when 7 comes out. Microsoft is doing nothing to convince me that it's going to get any better. We suffer through rumors that Pink is imploding and issues with Sidekick data doing disappearing acts while our CEO has conniption fits over Microsofties sporting iPhones. Dude, this is why.
In this case, Microsoft is going to have to earn me back and convince that not only do they have a better experience and better quality phone but that they also won't kick me off to the side of the road when a new release comes along, spinning a sad tale that the carriers make all the decisions.
Dev Div: If I had to sit down tomorrow and write a casual application for the PC, my mind would fork itself in about five different directions. Native with ATL? WPF? Silverlight? An HTA? And what's up with XNA? If I want to write an app for the Zune (which Zune?) what do I do? And can it run on some future mobile device? And the PC? And Xbox?
And how do I share it? How do I sell it? And, ah, crap, you mean you just released a whole new version of C# / Silverlight / XNA that I have to go and relearn? Maybe those free Starbucks coffee dispensers wasn't a good idea...
If anything, I'd probably be pretty damn tempted to invest time learning Adobe AIR. And I'm thinking that while smack dab in the middle of the Microsoft bubble. There are a lot of Partners in Dev Div, and I'm not seeing any benefit from their concentration. The Windows client should be the premiere development platform. It's not. What am I missing?
Are We There Yet? Are the layoffs over? Has Microsoft stabilized? Of course, I'd be satisfied with another 10,000 or more positions being eliminated. But I want it done in one fell swoop, like all the conventional wisdom out there dictates, so that the remaining work force can align itself and get to work and not constantly worry if their group is next. If we're going to continue this quarterly rhythm of maybe-layoffs, maybe-not then morale is going to get seriously poisoned. Let's finish this round and call it done.
Ballmer: well, Mr. Ballmer, if you ever wanted to leave on a high-note, this is it. I'm frustrated because when you hear Steve 1:1 you know that he gets it. He knows some key strategies and things that need to get done. But then Yahoo! happens. Vista happens. Over-exuberant hiring happens. Layoffs happen to shed off the over-hiring. And a flat stock price happens. So something is seriously not connecting between (a) when you hear Steve talking and (b) when he makes major decisions. Hmm. Maybe it's something about guys named Steve having localized reality distortion fields.
This week, as we celebrate Windows 7, you do see an undercurrent of knife-sharpening while examining Mr. Ballmer.
- Ballmer takes center stage with Windows 7 by Bill Rigby at Reuters. This week's award for damning praise: "He hasn't destroyed the company, but it clearly is not at the top of its game." Yikes. Is that on Mr. Ballmer's commitments? "FY10: do not destroy the company..." I should have added that to mine.
- Forecast for Microsoft: Partly Cloudy by Ashlee Vance at the New York Times. It almost wants me to say, "Hey, no, we are the Evil Empire here! Not Google! I. AM. THE. EMPIRE. Don't you put us in that corner!"
- NY Times all but says it: Ballmer must go by Fake Steve. This is the highlight reel of the NYT story above, with scary graphs charting Microsoft stock performance compared to Apple and Google. Two follow-ups: Why the Borg's copycat business model no longer works and Why won't the Times just come out and say what they mean about Fester?
The biggest question still out there: just who would you replace Ballmer with? If a shareholder revolt was to actually happen (shyeah, right) who would be the right choice to lead Microsoft? There is no heir apparent. And no obvious motivation to find one. But wait. Maybe, just maybe... you know, we'll have to wait and see and discover if Steven Sinofsky's upcoming book One Strategy! has a chapter on 'How To Become the CEO of a 100,000 Employee Company' (hopefully followed by the chapter 'More With Less - How To Transform a 100,000 Employee Company Into a 70,000 Employee Company').
Any fireworks you're expecting this week of Windows 7 and Quarterly results?
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments
Quick Thoughts on the Microsoft 2009 Company Meeting
Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:05:00 +0000
Some quick comments on this year's Microsoft 2009 Company Meeting.
First, how did my six hopes for the Company Meeting hold up?
1. Steve Ballmer comes out first to set the context for the meeting in light of a pretty awful FY09 Q3 and Q4: Zilch.
2. Practical vision: well, Craig and Ray did seem to focus on the practical aspects of product groups, research, and inbetween the technology transferring power of the labs groups. Seemed practical. But then there was that whole Avatar assistant thing that no one around me felt like was real: one-half.
3. Demos are short, sweet, powerful... sorry, but Elop's demos sucked the life out of entire stadium. Some were good, and some were really really short. So: one-half.
4. Show us the new stuff. Hey, we did get to see some new stuff. Bing. Zune HD. Map goodness. No Halo. New ad cuteness. But it was still conservative. Hmm. How about: three-quarters realized.
5. New simple review system? Phffft. Not unless thwacking balls w/ your avatar is our new review system. 160 for that. Zero for this.
6. Serious wrap-up by Ballmer. Zero.
Add that up and we get 1.75/6.00 - hey, almost one-third realized.
Now, I'm not going to go into revealing anything all that interesting that happened in the meeting. Just my general impressions of the day.
Kevin Turner was first and, well, I'm kind of tired of the "ThankYou"s by now. He did take on the job of addressing the tough year and I believe he said some things that really surprised me. Growth hides mediocrity being one of them. That we over hired. Sure we all thought it, too, but to now go and put on the 20/20 glasses and speak it in front of the company gives me hope (hmm, need a new word) that it won't happen again. Same with the realization that you shouldn't start up doing work in good-times that you know you'd drop and cut during bad times.
Dr. Qi Lu might be my favorite techie right now. I was impressed with what he's brought together for Bing and what's coming and how he has focused the team and adopted some of the new technology that Satya was showing. Who the hell thought we'd be feeling so good about our ~~search~~ decision engine? Ever?
Elop. Steven. Baby. Dynamics. XRM. Really? What did I do to you to have that forced down my eyeballs? I'm pouring another glass of wine right now hoping I can kill whatever brain cells are still connecting this demo memory together. Geez. Did anyone give you advice that this was a bad idea? If so, keep listening to them. If not, you're seriously lacking good reports willing to give you honest feedback.
Robbie Bach did okay, but I can't say the demos blew me away. The table-top demos were full of slick sparkly presentation but... it was all stuff I've seen one way or another so nothing new there. He missed a golden opportunity for Microsoft-Fan-Boy love to go and have someone play Halo:ODST on stage or show some great Zune HD apps.
Bob Muglia. What did he talk about? I remember the real cool tech for traces and then WinDiff. Did he talk about how we're losing the edge on client development for Windows and how it's all a confused multi-SDK technology mess centered around everything being .NET based?
Sinofsky went pretty fast - when in doubt, load up the stage with a bunch of new, cool technology and play with it. I loved the reveal on the Mac Air case ("It's aluminum!"). And I think Steven gets the best line for when the train let loose its blaring whistle he said something along, "This is where someone mentions about the trains running on time."
Craig and Ray: it was nice that they switched up their presentations - that added some energy. But not enough. It seemed a lot more practical this year, other than what I mentioned previously about the whole very well staged Starfire demo. I hadn't seen that in like... over ten years.
And then Steve Ballmer. I've got say, at this point in the day I was pretty much in a "Where's mai KoolAid" funk until Mr. Ballmer came on stage and started presenting. I feel this is a big transitional year for Microsoft. I've said we've turned the corner, but that doesn't mean we're out of the bad neighborhood yet, nor are we incapable of making bad decisions all over again. The second half of FY09, and what we are still enduring as part of the economic crisis, has provided a certain level of alarmingly crisp clarity to refocus, and I believe Ballmer's presentation served for about as much focus we're going to see in the near term.
And I like how he ended his presentation. How do we feel? He reflected on how Microsoft is not a normal company and that its employees have an unnatural emotional attachment to it (yep, that's true - it can cause them to have all sorts of crazy reactions and do crazy, passionate things). How do you feel? Steve, well, he wants you to feel good about where we are, what we're doing, and where we're going.
I must feel good, because I have hope.
(Oh, by-the-way, if you see Mr. Ballmer walking your way: hide you iPhone. Trust me on that one.)
Additional links:
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments
Six Hopes for This Year's Microsoft Company Meeting
Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:50:00 +0000
(Updated below for the Extra-Long-Labor-Day-Vacation-Layoff of September 3rd 2009)
I'm one of the biggest Microsoft Company Meeting fanboys *evah*, but even I'm surprised that we're having a full-blown Company Meeting this year at Safeco Field in Seattle. I thought it and MGX were going to be cut without a second thought given the economic reset we are all enduring. I'm wrong. Given that it is happening, it's my opinion that this year's Company Meeting sure can't be a clone of last year's. I mean, last year's was great and everything... but now our everything is different.
I think about the context around this year's Company Meeting. There is what the crowd brings, what the crowd expects to see, and what the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) wants to accomplish with this meeting. Look, against this current economic tide the Microsoft SLT is putting on the Company Meeting. There has to be a pretty big goal they are shooting for, not just rah-rah party-demo time.
Because there are two very large elephants sitting down front and center with the hand-picked floor crowd. Two grumpy elephants with very good memories, one of January 22nd 2009 with 1,400 Microsoftie layoffs and the other with May 5th, 2009 and 3,600 further Microsoftie layoffs. Folks are going to come into Safeco, grab their box lunch, sit down with their co-workers and friends and as they fold their pink paper airplane, they are going to remark, "I can't believe they are spending all this money for today. <<Fill name in the blank>> and more could have kept their job if they just cancelled this horse and pony show."
These folks might have on their Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters buttons, but they've scratched out the Proudly part. They are staring at the grumpy elephants, and are looking to the SLT for some serious L.
I'm just imagining what corporate baggage people are bringing in during the Company Meeting. Maybe they were part of the original 1,400 and had to scramble through interview loops to find a new Microsoft position. To be clear: I wanted cut-backs when we were in the 50,000 range of employees, let alone approaching 100,000. 100,000, man. That's crack-pipe craziness. Had we been more prudent and efficient over the years, we wouldn't have reached the stage where the light bulb went off over Ballmer's head and he said, "I know... layoffs!" We got bloated and we cut, and we should cut more. But our leadership shouldn't have gone down that crack-pipe path to begin with.
Anyway, looping back to the 2009 Microsoft Company Meeting, some of my hopes and expectations:
One: I expect Steve Ballmer to come out front first, before any other Microsoft leadership, to speak the truth about the last year and where we are now. He must acknowledge it starkly. We had layoffs. We had inefficiencies. Positions had to go due to the economy being unable to sustain those parts of the business. There are people missing this year that, last year, were some of the biggest Microsoftie fans.
And, there are people here this year that will not be in the audience next year.
Take that in.
With success in the middle of hardship, this is a rare opportunity to enact change in Microsoft culture and recalibrate to being efficient and streamlined. I want Ballmer to get out front and say, "Today, we're celebrating our success of Windows 7. From this success we are learning and we are acting. We're learning why it was a success, how to do even better, and then taking those lessons and putting them into practice. In Windows. In Office. In Dev Div. In all of Microsoft. The rest of today we will not only tell you where we are and where we are going, but we're also going to discuss honestly how we're changing to be an efficient, streamlined company that smartly uses its successes to leverage good change. For the benefit of the company, our customers, our shareholders, and our employees."
Two: Any vision this year has to be practical and realized with one, two, or at most, three years. And, closing the loop on accountability, there's a discussion and a review of how the vision of the past has brought us to practical results. The pie has come down from the sky and now it's time to eat.
Three: demos are short, sweet, powerful, and made especially for a crowd of some of the smartest (plus good looking) people on earth.
Four: if it's new and hot, we get to see it now. That new Halo game. Zune HD. Stuff that even Beta testers haven't seen yet. Give us some reward for actually working for Microsoft and being excited about seeing things that are new and known by very few. Hell yes we'll tweet and blog about the coolness. And to assuage any anxiety over that: happy, enthused Microsofties sharing their enthusiasm for Microsoft with the world == a good thing in this day and age.
Five: a short introduction by LisaB of the new, efficient, streamlined review system: a simple Word document that let's you cover what you were responsible for, how you did, and your manager's assessment. Hey, I can dream.
Six: wrap-up by a serious Steve Ballmer. No running around high-fiving people or shaking his fists in the air to get a "YeAAAH!" from the crowd. But rather a serious Ballmer who covers what we've been through, how we're going to change, and a re-enforcement for the success at Microsoft being something that has to spread through-out the teams.
After the Company Meeting, I intend to sit down at Pike Brewing and ponder over: what did the SLT intend to accomplish this year at the Company Meeting? How are the Microsofties attending better for having been there?
My concern is that the template for the meeting this year is the same as it ever has been, with some comedic hijinks, Kevin Turner covering all the "gooood" results that we should be fired up about, music, Liddell's financial review, an opaque speech by Ozzie, very late arriving busses full of people wondering why we can't figure out traffic control, rambling demos of misbehaving and barely competitive technology, paper airplanes smacking the back of my head, and a big cheerleader Ballmer at the end, all screaming and full of gusto... and totally passing over the hardships of this year.
I hope that all doesn't happen, but if it does, later I'll just sit at the bar between the grumpy elephants and drop some tears into my beer while still musing over what the SLT's intentions and goals might be.
What goals and expectations do you have for the Company Meeting?
Addendum: as of September 3rd 2009 it looks like it might be two large grumpy elephants and a little baby elephant:
- Ms. Sharon Pian Chan "Microsoft laying off 27 employees in Redmond and Bellevue" Seattle-Times
- Mr. Nick Eaton "Microsoft to lay off 27 from Redmond, Bellevue" Seattle-PI
Weird. How much more than 27? And just who is affected? I don't see it on the WARN site yet. Snippet from Ms. Chan's post:
Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said the company is making cuts across the country, but he did not elaborate on how many more jobs in the U.S. were affected.
"I can confirm that part of our effort to reduce costs and increase efficiencies involved 27 job eliminations here and in other regions across the country. While job eliminations are always difficult, we are taking these necessary actions to realign our resources against our top priorities."
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments
Microsoft Annual Review 2009
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:48:00 +0000
Just a quick post: some of you enjoy posting information relevant to your review, both looking at numbers and a critical view of the message given to you. It has started to happen a bit in the last post so I'm just going to capitulate and put this small post up for the 2009 Annual Review share and compare.
Oh, and obviously grab yourself a few grains of salt. Folks seem to like this format:
- L# (promo'd?)
- (Exceeded|Achieved|Underperformed) / (20|70|10)
- Bonus $K
- Stock $K
- (Promo $K)
- Optional comments about Division / Group, discipline, impression of review
The promotion budget is significantly less this year meaning that if you got promoted you're really at the top of the heap. If you didn't, well, you're going into a long line.
And as we know: no merit raises this year (though you will get a raise if you're promoted). But bonus and stock awards are the same, ensuring we have the flexibility to reward our top performers.
I would expect that the Underperformed Microsofties have already been managed out. If you are an Achieved/10% then I'd expect you're given a very short term idea of what success looks like and can expect to be closely managed. Great time to update that resume and see what else is going on.
I found a bunch of old reviews of mine recently. Flipping through the review forms started with refreshing simplicity from over a decade ago, rapidly turning into confusing churn (company value ratings and all that crap), to now a fragmented collection of task-driven thoughts. While it's nice that the review form has pretty much stuck to the current form now and we don't have new components coming and going (yeah schema?) it really doesn't compare to the first couple of reviews I did at Microsoft.
Of course, I had great managers who knew how to give concise feedback, both daily and as part of my review. Where you don't have demonstrated collective excellence, you have process.
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments
Microsoft FY09Q4 Results
Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:12:00 +0000
This is it. The wrap up of FY09, coming fresh to us Thursday July 23rd. I'll put this up a bit early in case there are any initial questions, thoughts, or insights regarding how FY09 is closing.
Some of my favorite places to track insights and opinions on MSFT quarterly results:
- Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Betanews.
- Mr. Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog at TechFlash.
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org
Topics I'm interested in:
- Description of efficiency so far and an enumeration of which groups are going to get Sinofsky'd.
- Assessment of further financial risk at the hands of the EU Commission.
- Oh, any more layoffs? If not, it would be wise for the SLT - for the sake of employee morale - to close the door on this now.
Given how negative Ballmer has been about the economic reset, I can't imagine any rosy picture painting just yet, even if Intel looks like it has bottomed out and Apple is frantically trying to create as many iPhones as it possibly can.
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT
Microsoft Has Turned The Corner
Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:32:00 +0000
I've got to say: in my opinion, Microsoft has turned The Corner.
You know The Corner.
The one that gets us off of pothole ridden Vista Avenue (one street over from Lincoln in Blue Velvet). The Corner that requires Microsoft to shed some of the fat it has layered on recently just to make the turn without flipping. The one that requires a bit of humility for past failings (the aforementioned Vista, Xbox losses & red-ring, Zune's market performance so far, WinMo asleep at the wheel, no coherent brand strategy, search lagging behind for so long, the abandonment of IE after IE6, a confused developer story, a bungled Yahoo! acquisition attempt, etc etc etc).
The Corner that perhaps doesn't get us out of the bad neighborhood, but is at least pointing us in the right direction. What has helped make the turn?
- Windows 7
- Bing
- Silverlight
- IE EU chutzpah
- ...and award worthy, coherent ads that aren't a demonstration of how best to destroy millions of dollars quickly.
Redemption takes a while. Time is needed to allow perception to change and to re-earn trust and respect. Once Microsoft was the scrappy underdog playing catch-up against many competitors. Later Microsoft was the dominating OS and application suite, so drunk and arrogant on its own power (pre-monopoly designation) that it made some truly dumb, strong-armed moves (and even worse, did sloppy "nuh-uh!" cover-up maneuvers). After that, Microsoft went from getting beat-up by the US government to the dot-com bust to the development of Vista, reset after the huge effort of XP SP2. The Evil Empire became The Bungler, hatred turning to scorn and frowning distaste. And the EU hurried over to slip in a few kicks to the wallet.
While all of that could have been avoided with competent senior leadership, it at least served as a hard enough whack to the side of the head that even our mediocre leadership took action to aright the ship.
Now we have the potential to start shaking this off and achieving solid, if not stellar, results.
This is happening, too, while the shine on Google is dulling. Rather than pulling an Apple on us anymore, Google has picked up the nasty habit of pre-announcing technology. Guys, you stole the wrong playbook. And, uh, we don't want it back. Plus the government's gaze has moved from the fallen-working-on-redemption of Microsoft to the obvious domination of Google in search and information strong-arming. A dose of the medicine Google's now getting:
- Why Google Is Stealing Apple's Ideas (Googlers, you do not want the Apple fan boys mad at you. Trust me on this.)
- Google's Microsoft Moment
- Google OS: TechCrunch dubs Linux a 'big ol’ bag of drivers' If you add an OS to Chrome, it's an OS
- Google OS: Let's all take a deep breath and get some perspective (truly a landmark in the Return of Fake Steve Jobs).
Anyway. Let us enjoy this success of Microsoft turning The Corner, all while being a wee bit smaller and more efficient. 5,000 jobs eliminated so far and a declaration from Ballmer that efficiency is his key focus right now. Wall Street likes how that blood in the water tastes so far.
I'm going to start my whole "and we can cut a whole lot more positions" screed in a second. But first a moment to reflect on the flesh and blood people caught up in the layoff mess we've gone through so far. There is certainly a sobering perspective on this within the abundant comment stream of the last post.
It's not their fault they were part of the layoff. It's not their fault that their position was considered part of the inefficient part of the company that was eliminated. I certainly don't blame anyone for wanting to work for Microsoft. Large parts of Microsoft are magical, exhilarating places to be. In its bones, Microsoft is a great company with amazing potential. It's just turning The Corner and directing itself to where it can focus on efficient, lean-mean, profit making products that engage and delight Microsoft customers.
At Microsoft a lot more positions still need to go to achieve efficiency and focus. 15,000 more is my magic number. It's not personal. But to achieve efficiency and resolution of what to focus on with determination, we need a whole lot less people and to publicly admit there are opportunities we will focus on and others we are okay walking away from. ("That's right, Adobe: you can charge as much as you flipping want for your Photoshop line of software.")
For efficient product development: Yahoo!'s Carol Bartz has a good point when she swears like a sailor over having way too many program managers vs. actual developers (overloaded with one program manager for every three developers). <<edit edit edit - this went quickly into the weeds - let me sum up some quick thoughts>> Looking across groups, I still see exceptionally inefficient use of broad, front-loaded thinking and design locked into a 1970s waterfall model that leads to reality and focus coming way too late and a bunch of frantic, mediocre consensus driven crap floating like chunks into an end product. Kaizen. Kaizen. Kaizen. Efficiency is not going to happen as long as we continue rewarding people for this status quo. Shedding a respectable chunk of the company would bring an exceptional amount of upfront focus to our teams and result in high-quality features end-to-end, vs. what we see in misshapen compromise that we can fit in.
Microsoft has turned The Corner. But our car's suspension is still wobbling from the load we're carrying, and while some fine spots of leadership has gotten us around this bend, it doesn't take much for the remaining mediocre leadership to assume that the pressure is off and to get their grubby hands on the wheel and start turning us back towards Vista Avenue. The job isn't done. It's just beginning. We iterate again.
(Oh, and hey, here's a question for you: if you could create a new Microsoft leader based on the best attributes of our current leaders, what would you create? For instance, I'd start by combining the efficient layer-busting profit focused philosophy of new President Steven Sinofsky with the campus design skills of President Robbie Bach. Ideas?)
Administrivia: to subscribe to all comments here, use the following: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default . While I enjoy providing the freedom of unmoderated comments over in The Cutting Room Floor, I had to turn off anonymous comments for the time being. You can still post unmoderated comments, you'll just need to provide a Blogger ID / OpenID.
CRF: unmoderated comment thread: Microsoft Has Turned The Corner (plus a snippet of what I deleted from this post).
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft -- Comments
Microsoft Layoffs - Cinco de Fire-O
Tue, 05 May 2009 15:05:00 +0000
Well, if ever you wanted to console yourself with some tequila, today might be your day. Phase Two of the big Microsoft 2009 layoff engages today.
Is this it? Will there be more? From Mr. Ballmer's email:
With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010.
Strangely, Ms. Brummel have asked folks to avoid emailing each other today because the last layoff's email volume was so distracting. Gee, sorry to be a bother while people are trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Let's see... how to avoid that... I know, tell people what the hell is going on and which people / groups are affected. Oy.
Please, if affected by today's events, note which group you're in and any messaging about things going forward (as appropriate and proper).
(And please, Ms. Brummel, if you talk to the troops about this, don't share how people affected by the layoff are thanking you - that just seems creepy.)
Dropping moderation for today, but as usual: be responsible. I will delete comments later that are off-topic, along with any other comments that react to the deleted comments. If in doubt, go visit the CRF parallel thread: http://minimsftcrf.blogspot.com/2009/05/comment-stream-microsoft-layoffs-cinco.html
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT
Microsoft FY09Q3 Results
Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:47:00 +0000
Last time we did quarterly results, it was a doooozy. Immediate layoffs for 1,400 Microsofties and sometime-in-the-next-18-months layoffs for 3,600 more. Of course, the layoffs were offset somewhat by continued crazy hiring for Live Search (should we expect a work of Shakespeare to pop out of there sometime soon, too?).
What kind of questions do you want to be asked during the conference call? Some off of the top of my head:
- So... how's that, ah, layoff... thingy.. going?
- Which groups and products are specifically being affected by layoffs?
- What other cost-cutting measures are in effect?
- What are the causes in drop of revenue and what are the expectations going forward (will Microsoft give guidance this time)?
- What bright spots are there in profits?
- How is gaining share going?
- The EU seems to be pulling its leg way back for a full-on kick to Microsoft's financial groin. How does the defense against EU charges look to protect shareholder money for additional EU fines?
- What does a financial geek have to do to get a beer at The Commons?
And you know, speaking of The Commons: I trekked over there today (meh, not the sunniest day) and I have to say it's an impressive space. I walked around admiring the scope of the project, thinking "This is what Windows built. This is what Office built." I then reflected on the irony that it's Mr. Robbie Bach's Entertainment and Devices moving into the new campus with The Commons. Windows and Office funded this extravagant place for the folks who managed to burn through $8,000,000,000USD+ on the Xbox, be shown how it's done right from Nintendo with the Wii, dash the Zune against the juggernaut iPod, and have the iPhone drop-kick WinMobile to Mars.
Microsoft Senior Leadership Team is rewarding something here moving these people into such a great place, but it's not anything that I could make sense of while I wandered the new campus...
I'll update this post later with commentary about the quarterly results. In the meantime, some of my favorite places to track insights and opinions on MSFT quarterly results:
- Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Microsoft Watch.
- Mr. Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog at TechFlash.
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org
Update: closing the loop here a little bit later than I wanted (sorry, I was bounced off the grid for a while):
Wow: have a plunge in profits and get rewarded by your stock shooting up 10%+ in one day! Sweet! And by "Sweet" I mean none of this makes a lick of sense except to look at an article like Cost-cutting saves Microsoft stock after rough 3Q and realize that the market is supposedly rewarding the stock price and recognizing appreciation for the reduction in overhead and expenditures.
So now, we must have a plan to have constant announcements about reduction of expenditures.
Announcement #1: No more Company Picnic. Ever. Next?
What would be on your short list of things to cut back on? MGX? The Company Meeting? Beer at morale events? Soda? The Company Store? Whole product groups? Your group? Yeah, I don't know how often that last one makes the list. Though I have friends who have sniffed the way the FY10 wind is blowing and are getting the hell out of groups that have spent more time talking about what they are going to do than actually doing anything or - get this - shipping something to actual customers. You know, the type of groups that make Yahoo's Carol Bartz slip in the F-bomb.
I'm surprised to learn from Ms. Fried's Company Picnic article above that The Company Meeting is still on. As much as I love the Company Meeting, it was totally dead and gone to me in my mind. Talk about the most challenging Company Meeting ever. Yes, we'll have Win7 and coming in close Office 14, along with other emerging products. But how in the world to you manage to pull off a great Company Meeting within our current environment? You have to take the big issues head-on, and part of that will be looking at the upcoming MSPoll numbers and actually sharing with Microsofties who they hell were let go as part of the layoff. And why.
The Company Picnic boggled my mind just looking at the logistical nightmare it had turned into. Tell you what: if we reduce the company size back down to something reasonable, we should bring it back. But for now, I'll be happy with my group renting space for a family morale team event at Vasa Park.
CRF: unmoderated comment thread: Microsoft FY09Q3 Results.
Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT

The Microsoft Security Response Center

March 2010 Security Bulletin Release

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:02:03 GMT

Today we are releasing two Important security bulletins addressing eight vulnerabilities in Windows and Microsoft Office. Both bulletins have an aggregate Exploitability Index rating of “1” so we recommend that customers deploy these updates as soon as possible. The Microsoft Exploitability Index provides additional information to help customers prioritize deployment of monthly security bulletins. A summary of today’s security updates can be found on the Microsoft Security Bulletin webpage.

MS10-016 addresses one vulnerability in Windows Movie Maker. Both Windows XP and Windows Vista ship with affected versions (2.1 and 6.0 respectively). Version 2.6 is also vulnerable and can be freely downloaded and installed from the web. Customers who install 2.6 on any supported platform, including Windows 7, will be offered the update. In order to take advantage of the vulnerability, a user would need to open a specially crafted Movie Maker project file. These are files with the .mswmm file extension.

The MS10-016 bulletin also calls out Microsoft Producer 2003 in the affected products list. Producer 2003 is a free download with limited distribution. At this time, we are not offering an update for Producer 2003. Our standard approach is to produce updates that can be deployed automatically for all affected products at the same time but Producer 2003 does not offer a means for automatic update. Based on our investigation, we determined that the best way to protect the vast majority of customers was to release an update addressing the components that shipped with Windows. While we continue to investigate Producer 2003, we recommend that customers either uninstall the application or apply an available Microsoft Fix It to disassociate the project file type from the application to add an extra layer of security.

MS10-017 affects all currently supported versions of Microsoft Office Excel. It also affects Office 2004 and Office 2008 for Mac, the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, supported versions of Excel viewer and SharePoint 2007. As with most Office vulnerabilities, a user would have to open a specially crafted file in order to be exploited.

Since both of today’s bulletins require user interaction, we give them both a “2” on our deployment priority scale:

Our Severity and Exploitability Index slide offers additional guidance to help customers prioritize this month’s bulletins:

In the following video, Adrian Stone and I give a brief overview of today’s bulletins:

More listening and viewing options:

Today we also re-released MS09-033 to add Virtual Server 2005 to the affected products list. Customers who have already installed the update for affected products do not have any additional actions.

Additionally, we continue to to monitor the threat landscape around Security Advisory 981169 regarding a vulnerability in VBScript that could allow remote code execution. We are not currently aware of any active attacks but encourage customers to review the advisory and apply the suggested workarounds where possible. Customers that are running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Vista are not affected.

Please join us tomorrow for a public webcast where Adrian Stone and I will go in to detail on these bulletins and answer customer questions with the help of the engineers who worked to produce them so please plan to join us.

Date: Wednesday, March 10
Time: 11:00 a.m. PST (UTC -8)
Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032427711

Thanks!

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Security Advisory 981374 Released
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:28:00 GMT
Hi everyone,

Today we released Security Advisory 981374 addressing a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 8 is not affected by this issue. Customers using Internet Explorer 6 or 7 should upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 immediately to benefit from the improved security features and defense in depth protections. Additionally, Internet Explorer 5.01 on Windows 2000 is not affected.

At this time, we are aware of targeted attacks seeking to exploit this vulnerability against Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer Protected Mode in Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows Vista helps to mitigate the impact of this issue. Additionally, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 runs in a restricted mode that is known as Enhanced Security Configuration. This mode sets the security level for the Internet zone to High. This is a mitigating factor for Web sites that you have not added to the Internet Explorer Trusted sites zone. Please review the Security Advisory for additional workarounds which include modifying the Access Control List (ACL) on iepeers.dll (the affected component), setting the Internet and local Intranet security zones to "high", configuring Internet Explorer to prompt before running Active Scripting, and enabling Data Execution Prevention (DEP) where possible which makes it difficult to successfully exploit the vulnerability.

As always, we are investigating this issue and will take appropriate action to protect customers when we have finalized a solution. This may include providing a solution through our monthly security update release process, or an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.

Anyone believed to have been affected can visit: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/support/default.mspx and should contact the national law enforcement agency in their country. Those in the United States can contact Customer Service and Support at no charge using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-727-2338 (PCSAFETY). Additionally, customers in the United States should contact their local FBI office or report their situation at: www.ic3.gov. Customers should follow the guidance in the advisory and our Protect Your PC guidance of enabling a firewall, getting software updates, and installing antivirus software (learn more by visiting the Protect Your PC web site). International customers can find their Regional Customer Service Representative http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

We are also working with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), the Microsoft Security Response Alliance (MSRA), authorities and other industry partners to help provide broader protections for customers. Together with our partners, we will continue to monitor the threat landscape and will take action against any web sites that seek to exploit this vulnerability.

The Security Advisory will be updated with any new developments so if you are not already subscribed to our comprehensive alerts, please do so in order to be alerted by email when new information is added.

Please review the advisory for additional details and if the situation changes, we will provide an update here on the MSRC blog.

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*
March 2010 Bulletin Release Advance Notification
Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:44:56 GMT
Today we are providing advance notification to customers that we will be releasing two bulletins this month affecting Windows and Microsoft Office products. Both bulletins are rated Important and address a total of 8 vulnerabilities.

We recommend that customers review the Advance Notification webpage and prepare to deploy these bulletins as soon as possible. To provide additional guidance for deployment prioritization, customers should note that both bulletins will address issues that would require a user to open a specially crafted file. There are no network based attack vectors.

We’re also continuing to monitor the situation with Security Advisory 981169, the VBScript issue disclosed on Monday. There are no known attacks but we encourage customers to review the advisory and apply the suggested workarounds where possible. Customers that are running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Vista are not affected.

As always, we will be hosting a public webcast where we will go in to details about the bulletins for March and where customers can ask questions. We will have a room full of engineers on hand to answer those questions live during the webcast. Here are the details:

Date: Wednesday, March 10
Time: 11:00 a.m. PST (UTC -8)
Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032427711

A couple of months ago, I started including information about products that are reaching the end of their product lifecycle. It is extremely important for customers to move to supported platforms because after the dates below, those products/service packs, will no longer receive security updates.
- Windows XP Service Pack 2 will no longer be supported after July 13, 2010. Many customers are still on this version, so we encourage upgrading to Service Pack 3 or to Windows 7 as soon as possible.
- Windows Vista RTM will no longer be supported after April 13, 2010. Service Pack 1 will still be supported until July 12, 2011 but we recommend customers update to Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 at this time.
- Extended support for Windows 2000 will also be retired as of July 13, 2010. After that time, we will no longer provide security or any other updates for Windows 2000.
Hope to see you at the webcast!

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*
Update: MS10-015 security update re-released with new detection logic
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:11:00 GMT
Hi,

I am writing to let you know that we have revised the installation packages for MS10-015 with new logic that prevents the security update from being installed on systems if certain abnormal conditions exist. Such conditions could be the result of an infection with a computer virus such as the Alureon rootkit. If these conditions are detected, the update will not be installed and the result will be a standard Windows Update error. If a user receives this error, they should go to the following landing page for additional help:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/updates/015

At this time, we have resumed offering the update to all affected systems via Automatic Updates.

We have also released a Microsoft Fix It as a standalone scanning tool that reports on the compatibility of a system with the MS10-015 update. The scanning tool can also be deployed through enterprise deployment systems allowing administrators to detect compatibility with the update before deploying broadly. The Fix It and deployment information are available at Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 980966.

Customers who believe they have experienced a restart issue after installing MS10-015, are encouraged to visit our Customer Service and Support page at https://consumersecuritysupport.microsoft.com or call 1-866-PCSafety (1-866-727-2338). International customers can find local support contact numbers here: http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

Update: note that the update will not be re-offered to those who have already successfully installed the update.

Thanks,

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*
Security Advisory 981169 Released
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:04:13 GMT
Hello again,

Today we released Security Advisory 981169 to address the VBScript issue involving Windows Help files that we blogged about yesterday. To reiterate what we said in that post, we are not aware of any active attacks at this time and the following operating systems are not affected by this issue: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista.

Our investigation is ongoing. Users on older versions of Windows should review the Security Advisory for mitigations and workarounds for this issue. Additionally, our Security Research & Defense team provides a detailed analysis of the issue and the available workarounds on their blog. User education is a key factor in this scenario given the amount of user interaction required to reach the vulnerability.

Our teams are working to address the issue and once we complete our investigation, we will take appropriate action to protect customers. This may include releasing an update out-of-band. We will provide further updates as they become available.

Thanks,

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*
Investigating a new win32hlp and Internet Explorer issue
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:15:31 GMT
Hi everyone,

On Friday 2/26/2010, an issue was posted publicly that could allow an attacker to host a maliciously crafted web page and run arbitrary code if they could convince a user to visit the web page and then get them to press the F1 key in response to a pop up dialog box. We are not aware of any attacks seeking to exploit this issue at this time and in the current state of our investigation, we have determined that users running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista, are not affected by this issue.

The issue in question involves the use of VBScript and Windows Help files in Internet Explorer. Windows Help files are included in a long list of what we refer to as “unsafe file types”. These are file types that are designed to invoke automatic actions during normal use of the files. While they can be very valuable productivity tools, they can also be used by attackers to try and compromise a system. To help customers better understand unsafe file types, we have published a white paper on the topic which you can find by clicking this link.

Once we have completed our investigation, we will take appropriate action to protect customers. To minimize risk to computer users, Microsoft continues to encourage responsible disclosure. Reporting vulnerabilities directly to vendors without further disclosure helps ensure that customers receive comprehensive, high-quality updates before cyber criminals learn of – and work to exploit – a vulnerability. Responsible disclosure protects the computer ecosystem and individual computer users from harm.

Anyone believed to have been affected can visit: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/support/default.mspx and should contact the national law enforcement agency in their country. Those in the United States can contact Customer Service and Support at no charge (for computer security related issues) using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-727-2338 (PCSAFETY). Customers outside of the United States can visit http://support.microsoft.com/international to find local support information.

We continue to encourage customers to follow the “Protect Your Computer” guidance of enabling a firewall, applying all software updates and installing anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Additional information can be found at: www.microsoft.com/protect.

We will provide more information on this issue as it becomes available.

Thanks,

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Update - Restart Issues After Installing MS10-015 and the Alureon Rootkit

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:29:00 GMT

Hi,

We wanted to provide you with an update on our ongoing investigation into the “blue screen” issues affecting a limited number of customers who installed MS10-015. We have been working around the clock with our customers, partners and several teams at Microsoft to determine the cause of these issues. Our investigation has concluded that the reboot occurs because the system is infected with malware, specifically the Alureon rootkit. We were able to reach this conclusion after the comprehensive analysis of memory dumps obtained from multiple customer machines and extensive testing against third party applications and software. The restarts are the result of modifications the Alureon rootkit makes to Windows Kernel binaries, which places these systems in an unstable state. In every investigated incident, we have not found quality issues with security update MS10-015. Our guidance remains the same: customers should continue to deploy this month’s security updates and make sure their systems are up-to-date with the latest anti-virus software.

Customers continue to emphasize the importance of quality updates, and that high quality updates encourages quicker deployment. While the issue customers are experiencing with MS10-015 was caused by a malware infection and not a problem with the security update, we wanted to use this event as an opportunity to explain why this issue was not caught during testing, and how we respond to reported issues in our security updates.

This issue was not caught as part of our testing because oftentimes when malware is present, infected systems are put in an unstable state. These types of infections often leave the machine in such an unstable state that it cannot be reliably tested. This is because Malware writers use unsupported and potentially destabilizing methods for compromising machines because they want to keep their malware hidden from anti-malware software. In the particular case of Alureon, malware writers modified Windows behavior by attempting to access a specific memory location, instead of letting the operating system determine the address which usually happens when an executable is loaded. The chain of events in this case was a machine became infected, during which the malware made assumptions as to the layout of the Windows code on the machine. Subsequently MS10-015 was downloaded and installed, during which the location of Windows code changed. On the next reboot the malware code crashed attempting to call a specific address in Windows code which was no longer the intended OS function.

Microsoft has taken steps to deter tampering with the Windows Kernel using technologies like Kernel Patch Protection (sometimes referred to as PatchGuard) and Kernel Mode Code Signing (KMCS), both of which are enabled in 64-bit systems. These technologies make it possible to detect when integrity checks fail. The different versions of Alureon that we have investigated only infect 32-bit systems and would fail to infect 64-bit systems. That said, it is important to note that running as a standard user instead of using an administrator account is a best practice that in most cases will prevent kernel mode malware from infecting a system. Similarly, keeping anti-virus signatures current will also prevent most malware from infections. Additionally, since we have determined that 64-bit systems are not affected, we are opening Automatic Updates for these platforms.

Customers who are interested in additional technical details of what the Windows Kernel is can learn more here.

Even after security updates are released, the Microsoft Security Response Center’s job is not done. In conjunction with Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS), we monitor forums and track customer calls to ensure we respond to reported issues as quickly as possible. On Wednesday, February 10^th, we became aware of reports regarding Windows XP SP2 and SP3 systems becoming unable to restart successfully after the installation of MS10-015. The reports were first identified by the MSRC’s monitoring of various online community support forums, a spike in support call volume and telemetry from our Consumer Security Support Center. After reviewing the information we had available, we stopped offering Automatic Update distribution of MS10-015 in order to minimize the potential for widespread customer impact while we investigated these reports. Even though we have stopped distribution through Automatic Update, we have seen a large number of deployments as customers can still deploy the update through Windows Update, WSUS or SMS.

In this situation, our teams needed to get information directly from the affected systems in order to understand the cause. Because we had so few reports and needed to examine the state of the affected systems, the CSS team even drove to customer locations to retrieve machines for analysis.

This past weekend, we worked with the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC) on the systems that were delivered to Redmond last Friday, and confirmed that all of the affected systems had the Alureon Rootkit installed. The Windows Engineering team then began working to build a test matrix to determine if the malware was related to the reports we have been receiving. To ensure we had identified the root cause of the issue, Windows Engineering tested machines using the test process covering all 32 bit versions of Windows. While this issue could impact any 32bit Windows system that was infected with the malware, since reports are predominately on 32bit versions of Windows XP this test process is described at a high level focusing on that version in the below table:

Phase	Actions	Result on Test Machines
Debug Phase 1	Install Supported Versions of Windows XP Install all previous updates to bring the Windows Kernel prior to the version updated by MS10-015 to version 5.1.2600.5857. Install the Alureon Root Kit. Install MS10-015 / KB977165 Kernel Version 5.1.2600.5913	The system enters a repeated reboot / blue screen
Debug Phase 2	Install Supported Versions of Windows XP Install all previous updates to bring the Windows Kernel to version 5.1.2600.5857 Install all previous updates to bring the Windows Kernel to Current Version prior to the version updated by MS10-015. Install the Alureon Root Kit.	Successful boot
Debug Phase 3	Install Windows XP SP3 Install all previous updates to bring the Windows Kernel to version 5.1.2600.5857 Install the MS10-015 security update the Kernel version to version 5.1.2600.5913 Install the Alureon Root Kit.	Successful boot
Debug Phase 4	Install Supported Versions of Windows XP Install all previous updates to bring the Windows Kernel to version 5.1.2600.5857 Install MS10-015 to bring the Windows Kernel to version 5.1.2600.5913 Install the Alureon Root Kit. Uninstall KB977165 setting the Kernel to version 5.1.2600.5857	The machine goes into a rolling reboot

As indicated in the table, the presence of Alureon does not allow for a successful boot of the compromised system. The Windows Engineering team continued testing different configurations, as well as retesting several third party applications, leading to our firm conclusion that the blue screen issue is the result of the Alureon rootkit.

A malware compromise of this type is serious, and if customers cannot confirm removal of the Alureon rootkit using their chosen anti-virus/anti-malware software, the most secure recommendation is for the owner of the system to back up important files and completely restore the system from a cleanly formatted disk.

For instructions on how to back up your files in Windows, visit here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Back-up-your-files

For instructions on how to reinstall Windows, visit here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/install-reinstall-uninstall

Customers who believe they are experiencing this reboot issue after installing MS10-015, or require support removing it or repairing their systems, are encouraged to contact their Customer Service and Support group by either going to https://consumersecuritysupport.microsoft.com or by calling 1-866-PCSafety (1-866-727-2338). International customers can find local support contact numbers here: http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

While we cannot predict how malware writers will author or modify their code, we are committed to finding new ways to detect issues like this on infected systems. We’re also working on a simpler solution to detect and remove Alureon from affected systems which should be released in a few weeks, as are several other third party vendors.

We will keep you updated here on the MSRC Blog as we have more data and information on the malware and automatic remediation tools.

Mike Reavey

Director, MSRC

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Update - Restart Issues After Installing MS10-015
Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:23:00 GMT
In our continuing investigation in to the restart issues related to MS10-015 that a limited number of customers are experiencing, we have determined that malware on the system can cause the behavior. We are not yet ruling out other potential causes at this time and are still investigating. Please review our blog post from yesterday for additional information.

One of the key components when investigating issues like this are obtaining memory dumps from computers experiencing the problem. In order to get the information we need to fully analyze the issue, some of our support engineers have actually driven to customer locations and picked up affected systems so we can get the needed crash data directly and help inform our investigation. For more information about memory dumps, please see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254649.

We encourage customers to follow our “Protect Your PC” best practices and always have up to date anti-virus software running on their systems to help prevent malware infections. For customers who do not have anti-virus software, you can either scan your system using our online tool at http://safety.live.com or you can install Microsoft Security Essentials for free.

This can be a difficult issue to solve once a computer is in an un-bootable state so we encourage customers who feel they have been impacted by this to contact our Customer Service and Support group by either going to https://consumersecuritysupport.microsoft.com or by calling 1-866-PCSafety (1-866-727-2338). International customers can find local support contact numbers here: http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

Keep an eye on this blog for more updates as we have them.

Thanks,

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

February 2010 Security Bulletin Webcast

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:31:33 GMT

Hi everyone,

As we do every month following our public webcast, we have posted the questions and answers (which you can find here) and the recorded webcast below.

This month there were no particular themes that emerged in the questions. They ranged from wanting clarification of what it means when we say something is “public” to questions like “Will applying Enable_SSL_Renegotiate_Workaround.js cause IIS 7 to break SSL VPN connections?” You can find the answers to these and many other questions at the link above.

More listening and viewing options:

Earlier today I made a post about a potential issue with MS10-015. We are still investigating this but I wanted to provide some additional clarity on what I mean when I said we stopped offering the update via Windows Update. To be more precise, we basically turned off the Automatic Update system for this bulletin. This means that computers that have our recommended setting to automatically look for, download, and install high priority updates, will not pull this update down. They will still get all the other relevant updates. You can still go to Windows Update and manually select and install the update and you can still obtain the update package from the Download Center.

Please check back here for more updates on this issue as we will post additional information as it becomes available.

Thanks!

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Restart issues after installing MS10-015
Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:07:27 GMT
Hi everyone,

I am writing to let you know that we are aware that after installing the February security updates a limited number of users are experiencing issues restarting their computers. Our initial analysis suggests that the issue occurs after installing MS10-015 (KB977165). However, we have not confirmed that the issue is specific to MS10-015 or if it is an interoperability problem with another component or third-party software. Our teams are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. We also stopped offering this update through Windows Update as soon as we discovered the restart issues. However, those using enterprise deployment systems such as SMS or WSUS will still see and be able to deploy these packages.

As you may recall from previous blog posts, MS10-015 is an Elevation of Privilege that would require the attacker to have valid credentials in order to be able to leverage the vulnerability in an attack. Several other updates in this release were identified as having a high priority for deployment and we continue to encourage customers to thoroughly test the updates and deploy them immediately. At this time, we are not aware of any issues with the other updates that were released this month and we continue to encourage customers to install them as soon as possible in order to help ensure that they protected from the vulnerabilities they address.

While we work to address this issue, customers who choose not to install the update can implement the workaround outlined in the bulletin. CVE-2010-0232 was publicly disclosed and we previously issued Security Advisory 979682 in response. Customers can disable the NTVDM subsystem as a workaround and we have provided an automated method of doing that with a Microsoft Fix It that you can find here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979682.

Customers who are experiencing issues after installing any of our security updates can get help resolving the issues by either going to https://consumersecuritysupport.microsoft.com or by calling 1-866-PCSafety (1-866-727-2338). International customers can find local support contact numbers here: http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

Thank you,

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

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