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éléments par Andy Gowen

BetaNews.Com

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  Bring Your Own Device and Windows 10

  Publié: août 17, 2015, 12:40pm CEST par Andy Gowen

  

  Over the last decade and particularly in the tablet age, business and academic organizations have slowly transitioned to a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model, where employees/students buy their own IT and then link it to the network. This has never been a security friendly way of doing things but the cost benefits have usually won the day. With Windows 10, this may well change

  We have all been reading the stories about the new End User License Agreement (EULA) in W10 that gives Microsoft the right to view huge reams of your personal information, including information in private folders. This may be a non-event for some home users but in an age of BYOD, where company and academic data may be copied or synchronized onto private IT, it should be seriously considered as a business threat. I have no doubt that Enterprise licenses will be locked down fairly tight but a BYOD is not an Enterprise license.

  Businesses and academic institutions will need to carefully examine the W10 EULA and understand it in detail before allowing W10 BYOD equipment to join their network; if they allow it at all. Right now, we are only starting to see the sort of data that W10 phones home to Microsoft and we don’t know who Microsoft allows to see that data or how that data can be analysed or mined. We simply don’t know enough to be able to adequately risk assess this.

  Take an example; many businesses commission universities to carry our research and testing on commercially sensitive projects. If a student or member of academic staff uses a BYOD laptop or tablet to work on that data, then when they get home and connect to the family Wi-Fi, what happens to that data as a result of the W10 EULA? Who has access to that data?

  Other BYOD wrinkles also jump to mind. If you connect to the business Wi-Fi, will W10 share the key with your contacts? What happens with Windows Update bringing-in downloaded updates on a BYOD machine and then pushing them to other BYOD machines on the network?

  Until I have a firm grasp of this, I certainly can’t see my company allowing W10 devices onto our network; the risk (still unquantified) to commercially valuable data is just too great.

  With W10 BYODs already in use, has your business or university started work on this yet?

  Photo credit: Sarawut Aiemsinsuk/Shutterstock

  Andy Gowen is a compulsive buyer of the latest and brightest tech. He has managed UK regional IT projects, has a successful consultancy business and is a Director of MontiDots Limited, a publishing company specializing in the games sector. Andy is an associate lecturer at the University of East Anglia teaching market strategy and leadership.

  
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  Windows 10: 'Free' can potentially cost a lot

  Publié: mai 4, 2015, 11:05am CEST par Andy Gowen

  

  It's been about a year since I’ve felt prompted to write anything; but the recent Microsoft announcements about Windows 10 has brought on the urge. I'm not really interested about the pricing or upgrade options for consumers as they have all been commented to distraction. My interest is the concept of the Operating System as a service.

  Whenever anyone changes the goalposts on a supplier-customer relationship, it piques my business interest as there is no such thing as a free lunch -- particularly not from the likes of Microsoft or Apple.

  I wouldn’t be writing even now, if it was not for an underhand trick that Microsoft has pulled on Windows 7 and 8 users. Microsoft has recently used Windows Update to sneak KB3035583 onto most systems as an optional patch. Microsoft states that this "update enables additional capabilities for Windows Update notifications in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1". What it actually appears to do is create four folders intended to help push Windows 10 adverts to W7/W8 machines close to the release date. In other words, it looks like adware. To say that hiding this intent falls far short of a trustworthy company is an understatement. It is certainly not a security or stability update worthy of the 'recommended' description.

  I got to thinking. If Microsoft is willing to push hidden adware onto my Windows 7 machine, for which I bought a perpetual license, what are they willing to do to Windows 10 when it is being sold as 'a service'?

  I have no doubt that Windows 10 will be released very much as the Insider Preview suggests, with a few tweaks and perhaps some bells and whistles added. My concerns are after the 'free' upgrade period has passed. The trigger for this interest is the announcement that 'additional features' will be added as the OS develops (remember the "additional capabilities" of KB3035583?). It is here that the OS as a service comes into play. Wayne Williams (Windows 10 will be free for Windows 7) noted that Terry Myerson, Microsoft's Executive Vice President of Operating Systems, said "Windows 10 changes the rules of the game and redefines the relationship between us and our customers". In his blog, Myerson goes on to say "with Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service". No one really took notice of the new features as the 'free' element dominated the articles. Mark Wilson was right that the ease of upgrading to Windows 10 all but guarantees its success (together with the price tag!); but this is a one-way journey -- once you upgrade to W10 your old Windows license evaporates to nothing. That said, to most people 'free and easy' is difficult to resist.

  It has been a staple of apps for some time now that there is an ad-supported free version with an ad-free paid-for option available. Here's a thought; what if, after the initial free upgrade period, Microsoft adds a 'feature' that delivers advertisements to the desktop? The OS would still be free to use (with ads) and Microsoft could provide an option to go ad-free for a small monthly fee. That would certainly meet the OS as a service concept and provide Microsoft with the business model they want. It is then an easy step to move to a rental OS with W11.

  The underhanded delivery of KB3035583 does not give confidence.

  From Microsoft’s point of view, a monthly subscription model works best as it generates a regular and predictable income stream (avoiding the chasms of W8 lost income), it keeps everyone on the same OS page (easier to maintain), it makes the OS cost transparent to hardware OEMs and best of all, it keeps the stockholders happy.

  There is no such thing as a free lunch and I will want to look at the W10 license agreement very closely before moving away from my current Windows 7 install; but remember, license agreements for apps are regularly 'updated' and there is nothing to stop Microsoft adding the advertising clause at a later date.

  So far, I’ve not seen any 'killer' reason why I should upgrade to W10 and with the 2020 end-of-life date for W7 being a good distance away, I don’t feel in any rush to make a decision. The gaming community may well see this differently if the preliminary benchmarks for DirectX 12 hold to the final OS release. I will need a guarantee that a W10 upgrade will not leave me sleepwalking into a subscription to remove an unwanted ads feature; and I will need that guarantee from a company that has to first recover the trust lost with the KB3035583 'update'.

  Photo credit: Ron Leishman/Shutterstock

  Andy Gowen is a compulsive buyer of the latest and brightest tech. He has managed UK regional IT projects, has a successful consultancy business and is COO of Extremis Technology; a company that develops communities for people displaced by disaster. Andy is an associate lecturer at the University of East Anglia teaching market strategy and leadership.

  
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  The Start menu -- cause or effect?

  Publié: septembre 5, 2013, 3:03pm CEST par Andy Gowen

  When Windows 95 was released there was a lot of fuss about the Start menu and debate about whether it would catch-on. It was a significant departure from icon shortcuts in program groups; or superficially at least. In reality, it was simply the program groups (folders) put in a hierarchical order and rather wisely, the option to place folders, icons and shortcuts on the desktop remained (to this day).

  The Start menu developed; it grew out of the logic of the program shortcut and built upon that logic. It was not intended to abruptly impose a new paradigm but to slowly replace the shortcut as customers became comfortable with the concept. That journey never really ended, as the icon shortcut was not phased-out -- why would it be?

  There is no good reason to withdraw functionality that provides another easy avenue for the user to achieve their desired goal. The Start menu became the paradigm for Windows; indeed, to many, it was Windows. There it remained -- from Windows 95 all the way through to Windows 7 -- a 17 year (and counting) fixture.

  So why was the Start menu unceremoniously dumped with the introduction of Modern UI? Why was the continuous story of the shortcut, to Start menu, to Modern UI broken; and why (if this break was needed) did the older shortcut icon survive? I think at least part of that story can be traced to Bill Gates stepping down as chief software architect in 2006, removing his vision and historical design anchor point; effectively leaving Steve Ballmer with the vision control. By 2006, the groundwork for Windows 7 was already in place, so its eventual release in 2009 followed the basic Start menu paradigm but with some bells and whistles added; nothing radical, just another incremental step along the path.

  Ballmer is, by trade, a business manager (and a darned good one) but he did not bring Gates' programming and software development skills to the party. Combine this with Microsoft’s historic and continuing berating and confrontational management style and you find an environment where everyone (even the boss) is forever trying to prove themselves by leading change -- regardless of whether that change is needed/necessary, or not. Such an environment does not reward brilliantly managing what you already have; it only values something new that kicks away the old. That is an accident waiting to happen; change for its own sake and almost regardless of external demand.

  In short, the answer was that Microsoft stopped listening to its customers and started dictating to them. The mantra of a common interface that ran through the new Microsoft culture has been allowed to overcome the more important and influential voice of the consumer (the one with the money). Microsoft left a version of the command prompt (cmd.exe – from the 1980s!) in place, for goodness sake, so keeping legacy code obviously was not a problem. The Start menu decision was management dogma, pure and simple.

  Stepping back for one second, the basic marketing question that comes to mind is; "what harm would it do to give your customer the choice of Modern UI or Start menu?" Why not follow the successful adoption process from Windows 95? After all, if Modern UI is as good as Microsoft claims, then people will naturally migrate to it as they see the benefits outweighing their archaic old Start menu. Again, the answer is wholly within Microsoft; managers need to bring change in order to prove self-worth to the company. If Modern UI and the Start menu were allowed to coexist, then there was always the risk that the Start menu would win the popularity contest and the change would fail; along with the sponsor’s career. On the back of that risk, the Start menu had to go.

  Personally, I have no opinion on whether Modern UI is better or worse than the Start menu; it is an otiose argument. The deciding factor is the context. To my mind, Modern UI is superior on a touch screen and the Start menu is better on a desktop. Your views may (and almost certainly will) differ. The underpinning point is that Microsoft could (and should) respect your opinion and let you have that choice; it just decided not to do so.

  (You may recall that prior to Windows Phone 7’s release in 2010, there was Windows Mobile 6; a mobile OS based on the desktop paradigm. Put simply, it was dire. You can’t impose a desktop OS on a mobile device -- or the other way around. There are simply different beasts.)

  The Modern UI/Start menu debate is only happening because Microsoft made a terrible marketing decision based on internal company problems. It decided to remove functionality that could easily be left in place and which a good proportion of its customers demanded. Any decision that reduces or alienates a proportion of your customers is a bad decision, unless you can squeeze more profit from the slice of business that is left. This is not Microsoft’s natural stomping ground and it was a critically bad decision. Microsoft is not about disruptive change or dictating to customers (I can hear the laughter!). It was and should be about development, choice and response to customers.

  As any great leader will tell you; no decision is final and mistakes must be rectified quickly and with minimal fuss. There is still time for Microsoft to become the company of customer choice and embrace the diversity of preferences of its users. There just needs to be the will to do it. As an aside, reorganizing the company’s department structure cannot magically make-up for removing choice and it definitely will not bring success to a failing strategy.

  The Start menu is just a symptom of the underlying problem at Microsoft -- bad management practice. If the leader can’t change a bad strategy, then it is time to change the leader. It seems, judging from last week's announcement, that Microsoft agrees.

  Andy Gowen is a compulsive buyer of the latest and brightest tech. He has managed UK regional IT projects, has a successful consultancy business and is COO of Extremis Technology; a company that develops communities for people displaced by disaster. Andy is an associate lecturer at the University of East Anglia teaching market strategy and leadership.