Enterprise Technology – Billwil.com

Don’t Panic about Windows on Arm (WOA); There’s Still Choice

Before this becomes the biggest non-story story of the month, I wanted to point out a couple of things regarding the manageability of Windows on Arm. I think that all businesses, when given the choice, are going to choose more management over less management all things being equal, right? Two points, though. First, all things are not equal. Second, our customers WILL have this choice for more vs. less management, no matter what more we find out about WOA. I’ll explain my thoughts on each.

All things are not equal: I say this because it appears, from what we know, WOA is a subset of functionality compared to Win 8 on x86. This is likely not arbitrary. What I mean is, there are likely good reasons that this disconnect from the past was specifically decided on. I can “speculate” on a few, including eliminating legacy virus and malware threats, dramatically increasing battery life (because all apps are either Microsoft written or metro-style apps), running well on less powerful hardware, reliability, etc. This break from the past eases the step into the future to compete well with mobile devices, like the iPad, Galaxy Tablets, phones, Kindle Fire, etc. These will likely include small, very long battery life devices that do a subset of what a full-fledged PC can do (no matter the platform), but does those things well. I personally think that’s where WOA will sit…in direct competition with these, but with a few really key advantages (that we know of so far) such as running the full Office 15 suite, running the exact same metro apps that can be run on full-fledged Win8 PCs, etc. Yes, it won’t run everything that Windows 7 runs. No, it likely won’t be as manageable as full-fledged PCs. That’s not what they are for…these are mobile devices, and for the time-being, may need to be managed as such. That leads me to my second point…

There is still Choice: If a business really needs the advantages of Win8 for touch, metro-style apps, whatever, but doesn’t want to give anything up, they will have this option…on Intel. Intel is moving forward as well, dramatically increasing battery life and power efficiency with their new chipsets, and Windows 8 will make such strides in the area of battery life that I wouldn’t be surprised (although I obviously don’t know this for sure) to see iPad-length battery life with Windows 8 on some Intel-based devices, and maybe even better on WOA. I would imagine that an Intel-based tablet or other type of device will generally be a bit more expensive than it’s WOA cousins, but that is a price for having a true PC, not just a mobile device. Windows 8 will be the only platform to provide this choice, so as long as customers are properly educated on the differences (and some of these differences are yet-to-be-known) they choose properly based on their various users’ needs, this should be a non-issue. There is a big difference between choosing a WOA device (which is a mobile device) and choosing an Intel-based Windows 8 machine (which is a true PC, and replaces, it doesn’t add to, an existing PC). The choice is there, and this is not a sky-is-falling scenario; in my mind, this is a huge opportunity for Microsoft, and for Microsoft’s customers, who have never had this much choice to provide the right devices to the right people on a unified platform (at least unified in the future-oriented areas where it makes sense, such as Metro-style apps and Office 15). Keep in mind, too, that WOA will surely evolve, hopefully quickly, to include more features that make sense…and these could include additional manageability features that may start to make the clean break of WOA more of a no-brainer for even traditional business users…especially as the Windows Marketplace gets more and more stuffed with apps after launch.

For more information (a lot, actually) on WOA, take a look at Steven Sinofsky’s blog post on the “Building Windows 8 Blog” on this subject. Also, Paul Thurrott has a very interesting take on WOA and it’s NT roots along with the apropos “history repeats itself” theme.

Let me know what you think about the differences that we know about so far between WOA and Windows 8 on Intel.

Change of Scenery

Wow. It’s been a whirlwind couple of months, to be sure. I need to get some things updated here. Shortly after my last post my and my family’s lives changed quite a bit. In that time, I took a step along my career path, we rented out our house in Arizona, bought a new house in Southern California, and moved. The dust hasn’t even settled yet, but I’ve got some things rolling around in my head that I’ve got to get out on the blog, so I need to get up to date here so I can get to the good stuff. I won’t talk too much about the move here because I’ve got some footage, and intend to get more, on our experiences, our thoughts and emotions, and more importantly, the adventure of relocating and discovering a whole new lifestyle in a new place, and will likely put it on YouTube or otherwise get it out there (I know my Friend not Fish buddies are saying, “Ya, right” at this point).

From the Desert to the Beach. That said, the quick story is we moved to San Diego (actually, the north county area near Carlsbad), and we’re trying to adjust, get settled, etc., all while I’m starting a new job and trying to transition out of the old.

What’s Next? I’m pumped, though. Not even as much about our beautiful new surroundings because I don’t even think that’s sunk in yet (and we’re certainly not doing many “fun” things yet). It’s more about the new job. I’m focusing now on Windows client and all of the things around Windows, including devices, apps, security, and of course, the enterprise side of it all. It’s especially exciting right now because of what’s happening and about to happen with Windows 8. The Consumer Preview was just released and we’ve learned a great deal around Windows 8 in the last week. I believe that this is one of the biggest risks that Microsoft has ever taken, and I’m confident that it will pan out. It’s just exciting to be a part of it.

I’ve also got a lot of new, interesting customers that I’ve never worked with before, and I’m really excited about that as well. I get to work with a lot of really smart, talented people both at Microsoft and at my customers. I get to learn what these customers are really good at, what is important to them, and hopefully help them do it even better.

Yup…I’m stoked. You’ll probably see a lot more information here that pertains to Windows, especially Windows 8, because it’s my professional life now. I absolutely loved what I was doing before…and I’m excited to take this step into specialization as well. Bring it on.

If You Use an Android Phone, Please Take Me Out of your Contacts…

I know that sounds harsh. Especially so considering the large usage share that Google’s Android mobile OS enjoys. Everyone knows someone with an Android phone. In fact, chances are, at least a plurality of your friends are using the platform on their phones. There are somewhere around, I don’t know, a gazillion or so different handsets on the market sporting Android. There is no question it’s popular right now. Even though I am partial to another platform (in fact, I proudly work for the company that produces my mobile OS of choice), I don’t begrudge the search giant their success in numbers right now. And for my friends and colleagues who use such phones, I respect your choice.

Just take my personal information out of your contact list. Please.

You see, the Android ecosystem is a mess, and it’s not hurting just the Android users. As many have found out, when you buy and start using a smartphone, you’ve bought not just a device, but you’ve bought into an ecosystem of sorts. A modern smartphone OS is a platform, just like Windows or MacOS, on which applications, utilities, even companion desktop software is built. So while you purchased a Motorola, or a Samsung, or an HTC (or other) device, you also bought a platform. And part of that platform is a huge collection of “apps”, or applications. That’s one of the beautiful things about a smartphone (or any healthy technology platform); it will be able to do more tomorrow than you realized today it can do. That’s the magic of software.

These applications are usually found today in marketplaces designed for the platform. Each mobile OS has it’s own marketplace. In the case of Apple’s iPhone, it’s called the Apple App Store. For Microsoft’s Windows Phone, it’s called the Windows Phone Marketplace. And for Android, it’s, well, a bit more confusing. I’ll revisit this in a moment.

History (not for the easily bored, skip to ‘The Goodies’ below if you’re in a hurry)

A little background may be in order here. There are several different approaches being taken today for smartphones by their creators, but history plays a role in getting to where we are, so I’ll cover that quickly.

The original battle as smartphones started to exist was between Microsoft’s original mobile platform and, first, Palm, and then Blackberry. This played out through the early to middle part of the last decade. Microsoft’s approach was to license the OS, which was highly flexible and complicated, to the OEM phone manufacturers, and let them do with it what they wanted to. They could include certain modules, leave others out, create the hardware any way they wanted, use different sizes and shapes of screens, etc. Also, back then, there was no official place to get apps; each OEM and each user were on their own. RIM (the creator of the Blackberry) took a different approach. They owned the hardware AND the software, as well as enterprise server products to manage these for companies. They had the beginnings of a “walled garden” in which they owned everything from the device to the OS. They released a line of phones that became quite popular with business users. But, they had a problem. They were competing with a platform (eventually to be known as Windows Mobile) that had devices proliferating like crazy. Their walled garden was attractive to businesses (IT departments were in control), but inevitably, the single-vendor approach, while successful, didn’t garner the market-share that the many devices, one (sort of) platform approach could. I remember seeing a statistic back in maybe 2004 or so (don’t quote me, I can’t find it right now) that more Windows Mobile based handsets were sold that year than the whole current, at that time, user base of RIM’s handsets.

Great plan, right? Well, if you know anything about the history of smartphones, that open, free-for-all approach ended up backfiring on Microsoft, and they’ve lost almost all of that market share. How? Simple. The ecosystem, while ultra-flexible, was a mess. Meanwhile, RIMs end to end approach may have slowed “innovation” a bit, but it kept the platform from becoming a mess, and this paid of big with businesses. RIM ended up surpassing Microsoft in the latter part of the decade based on this idea of control and order.

Then the iPhone was released, and everything changed.

Here was a brand new platform being released that was innovative, desirable, beautiful, and completely closed. In fact, it was as closed as the so-called “dumb phones” are still today. There were no third-party applications available at all; everything that was able to go on the phone was put there by Apple explicitly. The inventors of the platform wanted to keep it pristine, so no one else could play in the sandbox. So, it was the “walled garden” taken to the extreme. And, as it turned out, a lot of people wanted one. It was an amazing leap in both handheld technology and market acceptance of certain practices (especially when it came to carrier control).

Eventually, even Steve Jobs and Apple loosened their stance on third party apps when it was demanded by the market, but they took the unprecedented step of creating a marketplace (known as the app store) that was itself a walled garden, cultivated and pruned by Apple themselves so as to have the last word on keeping their new platform as pristine as they could. So not only did Apple approach this market as they had (with varying market success) the PC market by controlling the platform from the hardware and software standpoint, they took the next step of controlling even the third party software by creating an approval process and payment processing all wrapped into one. And there was no other official way to get apps onto on iPhone. All roads to the iPhone went through Apple. Oh…and they took a 30% cut (but also dealt with all the payments, bandwidth, etc., for developers). And then, over 400,000 apps were released.

Everyone quickly began to realize that there was a lot of potential value in running an app store, or marketplace, for a growing or popular platform, so everyone had to have one. In fact, all the major players in smartphone platforms clamored to duplicate what Apple had done with their app store.

Microsoft, with the Windows Phone Marketplace, also closed it up and only allows approved apps to be installed. But Microsoft, like Google with Android, doesn’t make hardware, so the OS has to be licensed by OEMs or hardware companies (like Nokia, Samsung, HTC, etc.). Microsoft, though, had learned from their mistakes the first time they were in this market (and dominated, actually). This time they gave the hardware makers criteria around the hardware (called the Windows Phone Chassis Spec), kept control of much of the platform, what could be installed, and required all of the OS to be on the device. This would help keep the platform uniform and from becoming a mess, as before. More importantly for the sake of this article, it left Microsoft in charge of the software, the marketplace, the apps, etc.

Google, on the other hand, has an open source platform. In other words, Android is free to the OEMs, they have the source code, and they can implement it any way they want. Google is ONLY in control of their marketplace (the Android Market). The difference is that there are many other marketplaces, and because nobody is in control of the software on the device…applications can be installed from anywhere. Add to this the fact that Google doesn’t really police their market very well, and we have pretty much pandemonium going on. Applications on Android have far, far more control over the OS than third party applications can possibly have on an iPhone or a Windows Phone. It’s more like being an administrator on your Windows PC and installing an app; you tell it once that it has full control, and the app can pretty much do whatever it wants. This is what led to the epidemic of viruses and malware on Windows at the turn of the century before Microsoft caught the religion.

The Goodies (Bringing it Home)

This is exactly the state of Android today. Anyone can create a marketplace. A user can “side-load” any app they download from anywhere. And apparently anyone can upload really scary stuff even into the official Android Marketplace. Also, these applications have access to virtually everything on the phone or tablet, including contacts, email, etc. Add to that the proliferation of Android into so many hands, most of whom are not technical and don’t fully understand the frightening underbelly of technology with it’s privacy and security issues, easy theft of identities, and even worse. This malware is not just from some 13 year old in his parents’ basement anymore either; most of it is produced by very sophisticated information gathering illegal organizations and is sometimes even state sponsored (by countries such as China and Iran).

And on Android…it’s everywhere. McAfee, a well-known anti-malware software company who runs a virus lab, says that Android (and only Android) is being widely affected by malware…and it’s on the rise. In this report by McAfee researchers for Q3 2011, they noted that in the mobile space only Android has had any threats. It reads, in part:

“Last quarter the Android mobile operating system (OS) became the most “popular” platform for new malware. This quarter Android became the exclusive platform for all new mobile malware.”

And they noted that the amount of Android malware this quarter almost doubled from the previous quarter, and more than quadrupled since Q3 of last year, which was 2010’s most attacked quarter. Again, note that according to McAfee, there were zero (that’s 0, zilch, nada) malware attacks on Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone platforms during that same timeframe, and almost 100 NEW virus and malware programs for Android.

McAfee is not alone. Other virus labs, including Kaspersky Labs, Juniper Networks, and Symantec all agree that Android malware is on the rise. They each of released reports basically echoing the same sentiments. Those reports are here, here, and here, respectively.

What’s more, as you can read In this MSNBC.com article, it is reported that Android customers just don’t care yet (There are some other good data points in that article as well, so if you’re interested, I encourage you to read it). This has been my experience as well. In fact, a friend of mine who has a small android device showed me a fish background app that she had installed many months ago. When I told her that I had read that there was Android malware going around that did that, she thought for a minute, shrugged, and noted that it was cool anyway. I instantly thought, “Well, can you take me out of your contacts, then?” I can’t remember if I said it out loud or not, but while this was quite some time ago, it was the origin of this article. Recently, though, it’s gotten so bad on Android, that I had to finally write this. Oh, and all the anti-virus software that these companies are selling, it’s not going to fix this problem. In fact, unless you buy from a reputable company (including those linked to in this article), you’re likely installing more malware on your phone. Also, even the reputable companies offerings are very limited. Gizmodo did a report on this here.

So, you may be wondering what this malware does. According to the sources I’ve linked to in article, it can and does do a lot of things. Anything from simply sending texts to for fee numbers (so they can collect on those fees) to actually recording your phone calls. It’s scary, scary, stuff, actually. If you use an Android phone, I highly encourage you to click on these links and do a little reading. You may not think you’re being affected now, but with Android malware increasing an alarming 472% since July (MSNBC.com article), you probably will.

Personally, I wouldn’t touch Android with a 10 foot, sterilized, pole in these current conditions, but what worries me, beyond having bad things happen to my friends who do use it, is that this can ruin my day, too. Significant personal information of mine is being carried around in a lot of phones. I‘m not the most popular guy in the world (or probably even on my block), but I would guess my address, phone numbers, email addresses, and maybe even my kids names, etc., are on at least dozens of Android handsets. If any one of these gets infected, which is becoming more and more likely every day, that information could easily be shipped off to who-knows-where, to who-knows-whom, for them to do who-knows-what with it. I can guarantee you, whoever it is, they’re not going to send me a gift basket with that data. Well, I don’t want them to have it.

So that leads me to my premise. I love you guys, but if you’re using Android, take my personal information off your phone. Please. Better yet…when it’s time for you to get a new phone, don’t chose one based on Android unless this mess is corrected by then (but I wouldn’t hold my breath). Then we can text and stuff again. I’ll be waiting.

Windows 7 Had a Secret

Indulge me for a bit of background. Less than a week ago a colleague and I were talking about the possibilities of a virtualization system that would allow future versions of Windows to forgo all of the baggage of compatibility with, well, everything that has ever been written for Windows. One of the necessary evils of being the vendor of the world’s most widely used client operating system is that each new release needs some form of compatibility with software meant for previous versions. This is especially true with business applications that must run on the new OS before an organization can roll out the new platform. This was a major problem for Windows Vista when it was first released over two years ago; many applications weren’t compatible yet. This has largely been fixed by the vendors of those applications, but it was a formidable barrier to adoption of Windows Vista. Even if an organization or an individual wanted the benefits of Windows Vista, if an essential application that they needed was not compatible, those benefits had to generally be forgone, at least without some technical gymnastics that involved dual booting, running some additional OS virtually and managing two PCs in a virtual way, etc., solutions that are not for regular people.

Enter Windows XP mode for Windows 7, announced recently by the Supersite for Windows and validated by the folks on the Windows 7 team blog. For details on the technology see these entries; I’ll be talking about the ramifications here, not the minutia of the feature which is being covered by others. Okay, a little more background is necessary. Microsoft, for some time, has had a set of products available for larger organizations to manage their desktops in an efficient way. These tools are generally geared for organizations with large numbers of desktop PCs running Windows XP or Windows Vista to help reduce the cost of said management. The tools are part of a package known as Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and includes 6 distinct products. One of these products is called Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MEDV) which was added to the group within the past 6 months. This product addresses the OS/Application compatibility issue outlined above by allowing an organization to deploy a virtual machine running a different (usually a previous) version of the OS, and allow some applications to run in this virtual environment, while optionally hiding most of the virtual environment from the end user. Essentially, this let’s a user run an application that is not compatible with Vista on Vista. This is very important functionality for organizations to allow them to deploy a new OS even when not ALL of their applications run on it yet.

But, what about a typical small business user or an advanced home user? The Windows 7 team has just announced that functionality very similar to MEDV is being released as a free download for future users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions. This feature, called Windows XP Mode, essentially allows a user to be able to install and use virtually any software that works in XP in Windows 7. The ramifications of this technology, and future versions of technology like this, are huge. Let me explain.

Windows, over time, has had to continue to grow as features were added, libraries and APIs were changed and added, etc. Because of the vast user base for Windows and the importance of backward compatibility, some technical tricks have been done over the years to try to keep new versions of the OS compatible as much as possible with old versions of software. Microsoft has been fairly successful doing this for quite some time, but this has come at a cost. Some of these costs are listed here.

Change has been slowed. Even good changes have sometimes been cancelled or slowed because of the ramifications of compatibility.
Continually growing compatibility layers (software in the OS that can trick applications into running in an OS that they are not compatible with have been added to each new version of Windows).
Advancements in Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have to bring along historical baggage of the old APIs (deprecated) to ensure compatibility with older software.
Increasingly complex code base has to be maintained because of all of the above.

There are others…but you get the idea. Using virtualization is a big win for the OS because a cleaner break can be made between each release, if necessary, while still allowing the much needed compatibility. Because this can be achieved through virtualization, these other tricks can be at least partially abandoned which will result in new versions of Windows being cleaner, smaller, lighter, and more secure. This isn’t a panacea, though, as there are downsides to this type of compatibility as well.

Additional resources, especially memory, are needed to make this type of virtualization feasible; you won’t generally be able to do this well on, for example, a low-end netbook.
Even though much of the additional virtual OS is hidden from the user, it doesn’t mean it is not there. This leads to some questions of how that additional OS will be patched, if necessary, and weather or not it increases the attack surface of the computer.
There is a question as to whether this type of technology will confuse end users.

Almost all of the downsides of this type of compatibility can be addressed by good implementation. The only one that can’t is the issue of additional resources needed to run the virtual OS. I believe that in most cases, this will be a non-issue going forward. We have already reached a point where increasing the power of the processor in a computer and increasing the amount of RAM available will have diminishing returns for MOST users. As the prices of hardware continue to decrease, we may have found a very good use for that extra power that almost all new PC’s have; virtualization. In addition, this extra horsepower is only needed when one of the “incompatible” applications is running. With most applications it won’t even be an issue.

So that leaves all of the possible drawbacks that actually can be minimized by a good implementation. A direct hit by Microsoft for this technology will be something that is easy (and automatic) for an end user to keep patched, and when installing Windows XP mode, or any applications that need it, a seamless and expected experience. We already know what the experience is like when running an application virtually like this, and it is quite good (i.e. the experience is essentially the same as running any other application). I am very interested in getting a chance to test this functionality from the perspective of an end user, and you can bet I will update this blog with my results. I’m very encouraged by what I see at this point, though.

So to bring this back around, I asked, and I received. This functionality has come earlier than I had expected, which doesn’t happen very often. Since I have only heard of the feature recently, I thought we would not see it until perhaps Windows 8, so I’m sure you’ll understand how pleasantly surprised I was to find out we would be beta testing this very soon. Here is a screenshot from the Windows Blog of an application running in this mode, and its icon in the start menu.

Make no mistake, this is big news for Windows 7, and the Windows platform in general. If the team working on this implements this well, it can, and will, change a lot of things going forward. Time will tell, but so far this looks like a big win for Windows users.