• Follow via:
  • RSS

IBM

Natalie Gagliordi

Until 2021, Natalie Gagliordi was a senior writer for Red Ventures based in Louisville, Kentucky, covering business technology for ZDNET.

Latest Posts

"Almost everybody uses Exchange, they just don´t know it"

"Almost everybody uses Exchange, they just don´t know it"

Channel9 is featuring its first-everinterview with an Exchange guy. Some great quotes in there: "Almost everybody uses Exchange,they just don't know it" "So far we've given developers42 different APIs...developers have found that confusing""My e-mail server might be down....yup,it's down"Yet at the endthey come back and say that Exchange is stable.  heh.Seems like a lot of the "innovation" in Exchange 12 is catch-upwork -- full-text search, incremental backup, typeahead addressing in OWA. All this requiring a hardware upgrade, dropping or stabilizing allexisting APIs, and dropping active/active clustering.  At least ayear away. As for "almost everybody uses Exchange", the speaker quotes Gartneras saying that Exchange runs more than half of all business e-mail mailboxes. I haven't ever seen a report like that.(Thanks, Bruce)

November 23, 2005 by in Microsoft

Exchange 12 64-bit: Gartner, Directions on Microsoft, and a new Ferris blog entry

Exchange 12 64-bit: Gartner, Directions on Microsoft, and a new Ferris blog entry

Can I claim dibs on being the first non-MSperson to say this sounded like a bad idea?  I guess maybe I'm a littlemore biased than these...Peter Pawlack of Directions on Microsoftis quoted in InformationWeek, Analyst Criticizes Microsoft Making Exchange 12 Only 64-Bit :"Onlya small subset of the Exchange customer base needs the kind of scalabilitythat 64-bit provides," he said. "I think Microsoft is creatingas many problems as it's solving with Exchange 12. If there was some capabilityavailable only in 64-bit, such as a much greater level of security, thenthat would be an acceptable reason for going solely with 64-bit. Thesame article quotes Gartner's Matt Cain and Stephen Kleynhans:"Thechange will make the typical Exchange version migration slower and morecomplex" and on the same story, FerrisResearch's blog features an alternate viewfrom Richi Jennings (and input from Julie Farris): ...it'sillustrative of the fact that Exchange scales relatively poorly in thereal world. This is because it requires quite high disk I/O bandwidthsto read and write its message store database.A bettingman would say that this is a decision that won't stick... like so manyother things the Exchange team has announced in the last five years.

November 23, 2005 by in Microsoft

7 days to join the Mac crowd

7 days to join the Mac crowd

A few weeks ago, I wondered whether itwas time to buy a Mac.  I was on the fence, trying to decide whetherto wait for the Intel chipset, whether it was the right machine, etc.  Well,my daughter made the choice simple.  When we went into the local Applestore, she sat down at the iMac G5 and played for 20 minutes straight,with almost no help from me or anyone else.  3½ year olds don't alwaysfeature that kind of attention span, but I could see she was really intoit.  Thus, the decision was done.  The fact that it has all sortsof goodies which will help dad's photography, audio collection, and everythingelse multimedia certainly helps. So, next Wednesday, day before the US Thanksgiving holiday, I'll be pickingup the new machine (thanks, Bob!).  The question now is, besides Dorathe Explorer, what are the other "must have" software programsfor the first few days of Machood?  I figure posting this today willgive me enough time to get ready -- especially since I won't be able torun to the Apple store (or CompUSA or whatever) on Thanksgiving for newstuff.

November 18, 2005 by in Apple

More on Exchange 12 64-bit only news from around the blogs

More on Exchange 12 64-bit only news from around the blogs

I wasn't the only one who said "wow"when the earth moved under Microsoft Exchange the other day (ref: Exchange12: 64 bit only?).  Someother blogger views:AndrewPollack:Exchange12 will do what every previous version of Exchange has been targeted todo. It will have enough new features and bug fixes along with performancegains that users will want to move to it, and in order to move to it newoperating systems will have to be sold by the truckload. Microsoft is and has always been aboutLEVERAGE. To run the newest THING you need the new OTHERTHING, which meansthe new OTHERSTUFF.....etc...etc...etc...AlexScoble:Firmsthat are already on decent hardware and have Exchange 2003 will find thishard to swallow. ...At any rate, this will probably pushcompanies that are looking to upgrade their collaboration infrastructureto look at other packages such as Scalix or Open Xchange.orperhaps Lotus Domino, Alex?FerrisResearch:64-bitsupport makes great sense and is good for everyone.Youcan read my comments on Ferris's site for why I don't agree with that. (Also picked up by TomDuff).Some other responses are linked in the previousthread.  Net net -- I'm gladNotes/Domino still stands for investment protection, not rip-and-replace.

November 17, 2005 by in Microsoft

Matthew White: Eating the opposition´s dogfood

Matthew White: Eating the opposition´s dogfood

Matthew White has recently been using Outlook/Exchangeand has some observations about what differs from Lotus Notes...overthe years I have been spouting the line that Notes was a great mail clientwithout ever having actually used Outlook / Exchange (my employers havealways been rather enlightened). The idea was that I would use Outlookand get to know the opposition. Now let me say from the outset I have tried,I really have, to be as objective as possible. Obviously things were goingto be a bit painful at first because I know Notes so well and there areall sorts of habits which I would need to break. But after 3 months oftrying I have finally given up, Outlook is just not for me and I am genuinelyconfused as to why anyone would actively choose to use it over the Notesclient.Check out Matthew's detailed comments on specificfeature areas.Other than the infamous F5/F9 refreshkey sequence (something which MS reversed in Outlook 2003 anyway), it'shard to find specifics for reasons users find Outlook so much better.  AlanLepofsky recently pointed me to this "Whywill Lotus Notes not die?"rant, also doesn't have many specifics.  UI has always been a beauty-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder,I can remember these kinds of discussions going back to Windows 3.1 cc:Mailclients.  Some things just never seem to change.

November 17, 2005 by in Microsoft

Network World: New Lotus boss sailing tricky seas

Network World: New Lotus boss sailing tricky seas

Saw Network World's John Fontana just outsidethe Lotus office in Cambridge last week...knew that something good wascoming up.  And here it is...IBM/Lotus chief MichaelRhodin this week will quietly finish his first 100 days at the helm, butit is the coming months that will tell if he is the one who can align Notes/Dominowith IBM's Java-based collaboration strategy and validate customers' continuedinvestment in the Lotus platform.   The first order of business willbe to reveal that new versions of Notes/Domino will extend past Version8, which could ship by the end of 2006. Some discussionabout the entire Workplace portfolio...Notes and Dominois not going away, which is good because we have a huge investment in that,"says Sinstead, who also has deployed to 150 users the Workplace ManagedClient, a server-managed collaboration environment that works online andoffline. While the managed client has yet tomatch the rich feature set of Notes, it lets him extend collaboration toolsto retailers, who don't have IT departments, desktop support or broadbandconnections. The Workplace Managed Client itself isn'tintended to "match" the rich feature set of Notes.  Notesis built in 7.0 to be a plug-in in the WMC environment; in future versions,more and more Notes innovations will be available using the same Eclipse-basedframework.  Notes is still Notes, and WMC doesn't replace it or offeran alternative -- since Notes also runs within WMC.Link: NetworkWorld: New Lotus boss sailing tricky seas>

November 15, 2005 by in Enterprise Software

PCPro UK Real World Computing: Notes just keeps going and going

PCPro UK Real World Computing: Notes just keeps going and going

This fits somewhat with my comments theother day about how Notes has a halo effect but is sometimes perceivedas outdated simply for being old.The fact that the Notesdemo concluded without interruption while the UMTS one fell over at thecrucial moment didn't seem to matter - there's marketing power in acronyms(and a lack of it in any 'old' product). This is despite the fact thatUMTS is still struggling to get off the ground, choked by dubious receptionquality and astronomical charges for volume of data moved, while Noteshas an unbroken - and still expanding - 20-year history of solid deploymenton top of ever unreliable, ever overextended communications pipelines.Link: PCProReal World Computing: Magic Moments(scroll down to story) > (Thanks, Mike)

November 15, 2005 by in Hardware

Microsoft Watch: Exchange 12 slipping?

Microsoft Watch: Exchange 12 slipping?

Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft isagain describing Exchange "12" as a "late 2006/early 2007"deliverable.Microsoft execs announced earlier this yearthat Exchange 12 would ship in 2006. Now Microsoft is back to saying toexpect Exchange 12 in late 2006 or early 2007.That willmake more than three years between releases, meaning that customers whobought Software Assurance at the time of Exchange 2003 will be left withnothing to show for it.  I suspect the same will happen for SharePoint2003.  The same did happen for SQL Server 2005, and it soundslike SteveBallmer is quite proud of it. Is there any major Microsoft server product that is delivering valueover a three-year period? As long as I'm on that point, Gartneris advising customers to wait until 2008 to deploy Windows Vista. In the meantime, they'll have paid six years of Softwware Assuranceon Windows desktops -- and in all likelihood, procure new PCs that comepre-bundled with Windows Vista licenses, anyway.  Don't see much ROIthere. Link: MicrosoftWatch: Microsoft Hedging Its Exchange 12 Bets> (Thanks, Bill)

November 15, 2005 by in Microsoft

All the flight attendants represent

All the flight attendants represent

On the ride to Washington National on Friday,the hotel's shuttle bus was shared with a flight crew from an airline Idon't typically fly.  After that ride, I'm glad I don't.  Theseairline employees in uniform spent the entire fifteen minute ride complainingabout their work environment.  Especially interesting was how theflight attendants referred to their colleagues/management as "them"(as in an us vs. them mentality).  I was so tempted to remind thiscrew that when they travel in uniform, they are representing their employerin public.  Disparaging comments don't do much for the company's image. I've seen this happen aboard my primary airlines as well -- flightattendants in the galley devolve into a gripe session (or worse).  "Shoptalk" has its place in any organization, I just don't think that placeshould be within earshot of customers. In other travel news, American Airlines has announced a couple of nonstopEagle flights from Chicago to New York's JFK, starting December 15.  Forthose not in the Chicago area, this announcement might be surprising inthat it seems like a route that would have existed for 40 or 50 years. Well it hasn't for many years, except for one Delta Express flighta day.  Chicago travellers who want to connect to a JFK flight haveto fly to Laguardia and connect via bus or taxi.  Why is this interesting? JFK is one of the most competitive interantional travel gatewaysin the country.  I believe that the airlines deliberately made itdifficult for passengers from Chicago to get there, in order to protecttheir higher-priced international flights out of Chicago.  It willbe interesting to see how the new flights affect international travel optionsand prices from Chicago in the future.  It should lead to lower pricesand increased options -- supply/demand economics at its finest.  (See,I was paying attention in E104 back in college!)

November 14, 2005 by in After Hours

Ironic props to Mr. Ozzie

Ironic props to Mr. Ozzie

Every time Mr.Ozzie is in the news, my blogdiggerfeed for "Lotus Notes"takes off.  It continues to be standard practice to acknowledge Rayin the press and blogs as the creator of Lotus Notes.  I think it's kind of funny and ironic that Ozzie's contribution to LotusNotes is always mentioned as his biggest claim to fame... often by thesame bloggers, journalists, and pundits who love to bash Notes, claim Notesis dead, criticize the Notes architecture and user interface, etc.  Ican't quite reconcile the almost reverent tones used to describe Ozziewith the usual conventional wisdom criticism of the product he's laudedfor creating.  This is nothing personal about Ray, it's about howthe market continues to validate his halo around being one of the creatorsof Notes while often taking pot shots at the product itself. As for the "leaked" memo itself, I've been asked several timesto comment on it this week.  Honestly, after reading it -- and wonderingwhat company executive has so much time on their hands that they can writesuch long-winded memos -- my thought was, OK, so he wrote a great memo. Let's see what comes of it.  I also consider PaulThurrott's observation (foundvia Peter)quite insightful:That Microsoft needs to move more quicklyand begin innovating should be obvious. What I want to know is why thereis such a regular failure of leadership and direction at this company.Does Microsoft really need to be rebooted every five years to keep thecompany competitive?Thurrott, who has made his namewriting about Microsoft, has been increasingly critical of the companyfor the last 6-12 months.  It's refreshing to see him apply a criticaleye rather than simply drink the kool-aid and rally around the flag.

November 14, 2005 by in Microsoft