Indeed, having Cloud services complement and augment a local infrastructure can be a good idea. However, most public cloud providers aren't doing this, and are bypassing the local infrastructure completely (assuming one exists in the first place). Hybrid and private clouds can make a lot of sense, but managers don't make the distinction.

And the question of productivity isn't being addressed. Many cloud systems are severely limited in performance, to the point that they can't compete with local systems. It isn't a 1:1 equivalence between LAN and Cloud. But business managers just hear Cloud and can't wait to jump. And then they become trapped in low performance closed systems, and it takes a major event for them to roll back and rebuild their local systems.

Against

Second parragraph (in essence, putting numbers to the "amount" of climate change):

Yes, MS offers discounted versions of Windows and Office, but they're not cheap enough when competing with free alternatives, and many times not include all the functionality you want the users to learn (or there is a pirated old version available w/o DRM restrictions and enough functionality, which might be obsolete, but gets the job done, but also means that the student is not really being trained in a current product, so MS loses in both fronts: no license purchased, and the user won't promote its products when he/she becomes an employee of a company that can afford it). Also, prices didn't use to be as affordable as they're are now. If I remember correctly (it's been a while), the savings use to be in the 10% to 20% range, and there wasn't that much of a distinction between the commercial and academic version. Now the academic version is heavily discounted (seems about 50% or more) and you get extras like Encarta and other resources, but it might be too little too late.

And in their rush to make "affordable" editions of Windows and Office, MS has fragmented it and made it too confusing (to the point that users don't know what they need or have). Before, you had Windows and Office, and you pretty much knew the capabilities of your setup, and knew that you had everything you needed, you just had to click around the help files and figure it out. It makes sense to have up to 2 editions (maybe 3 stretching it), with minimal differences between them (ie advanced features, not complete applications missing). You could go for the low end to economize, knowing you could unlock more features, but now with all the editions and variations, you can't tell what you have. And then they introduce competing apps and suites (Outlook Express vs Outlook, and Works vs Office), further fragmenting the name.

You have corporate users doing diagrams in Excel or doing graphics designs in Powerpoint (instead of using Visio o Publisher), partly because of ignorance (ie, not knowing that there is a better program for that), and because the more suited application is not included with their edition of office, or what is worse, because someone in their team actually put thought into it, and opted to use the less optimal app in order to make it easier to distribute the documents even when their team had the budget for the full Office Suite (or their IT could install an Office viewer for the unsupported format). Instead of making it easier, it is just more complexity.

Maybe if MS were to give away started editions, with more features (maybe also forego activation on starter editions, and on older versions - if a user is stuck with XP or Office XP, let them, not even bother them with activation, even offer the old version for free on the web site). Getting students and home users hooked on an old version is better (for MS) than letting them go to a free alternative on another OS.

I don't really have a solution for MS: it just might be too late. The Vista debacle (and other MS missteps, like repeatedly failing with Tablets and Phones) and Apple and Google push for moving everything tot he network have cut short MS window to remain relevant by years (decades?). It's only option now is to hit a home run with Windows 8, and maybe remain relevant for a few more years, but it will be difficult to regain momentum. In a best case scenario, it might actually get what it wants: with thin clients (and W8 on arm), and most everybody will end up running its apps remotely (using RDP RemoteApp) on the cloud, and it will be sure that most anybody running its SW will be a legal user (since its on the cloud, there will be a stronger control on illegal copies). However, it will still only have a shrinking user base, with more and more users opting for less restricting options w/o DRM being recommended by their younger relatives or newly hired coworkers.

Complex applications require that people know how to use them, and it takes time and investment for people to get trained.An growing expert user base is the best advertising that you can get. Having your SW out there, in the hands of students and young people trying to figure out how to use it helps it remain relevant as they go to work for companies that end up purchasing the SW.

IMO, more than open source and the Internet and hosting (paradigm shift), this is what is actually killing off Microsoft. It used to frown on piracy, and fight it mostly to scare up business that could afford to pay, but more or less allowed for the general population, since ensured that new users would have an easier time finding its SW, and that would encourage them to remain on the Windows platform. With XP and its activation scheme, MS didn't stop piracy (ie, determined users that aren't going to pay you anyway will either break it, or use alternatives), but made it harder for new users (students and home users) to get into its products, and with he rise of alternatives, and the Vista fiasco, it is relegating itself to oblivion ("the harder you hold on, the more you lose").

There is also the logic that these companies see new users as a source of revenue, not only as licenses, but as requiring training. So instead of giving away their SW to people that would self-train, they expect them to pay to get trained. With companies not wanting to send employees for training, and with motivated individuals unable to pay for it themselves, this IMO is a losing strategy (it generates short term revenue if your product is an industry standard that most be learned, but you lose out on dedicated people, and your user base tends to erode and eventually your product becomes irrelevant).

I seem to recall Windows 2003 was branded "Windows .Net" for a short while.

Indeed, legacy business apps are living far beyond the lifecycle of the underlying technologies, many times thanks to virtualization, and because business are reticent to re-engineer old apps (virtualization is allowing them to stay with old tech a lot longer).

I dislike profoundly the concept of desktop WOA, but it might make sense for some. MS is looking to drastically simplify the platform. If they get rid of most legacy APIs (and old ways to do things) and make it easy for consumers and enterprise users and IT to just install a light client (ie, WOA), they might have something. Having WOA for the endpoint might make sense because you can always provide the good old legacy apps using RDP and RemoteApp, getting the best of both worlds (as long as you have a connection, disconnected laptop users be dammed). MS will be charging for 2 licenses per user: one for the WOA device, one -or many- for the RDP server client licenses.

As for the list of tools: Delphi might make it. Embarcadero is pushing cross platform development with their FireMonkey framework in the XE2 line of products (ie, Delphi and C++). They already support WIndows, OSX and iOS, and there are plans to support Android (blog posts hint at a beta sometime this quarter or next).

FireMonkey is not a direct Delphi VCL (or even OWL) replacement, so it's not like you'll be able to just recompile your old Delphi apps, but you at least get a starting point, and Delphi component vendors seem to be taking notice and creating components for the framework. It remains to be seen how much vapor and how good it is, and how many organizations are willing to port their Delphi apps.

So for native cross development for iOS and Android, there might be a few options in the horizon:
* Xamarin monoTouch and monoDroid, at $400 each (for single developer license)
* Embarcadero FireMonkey XE2 products (when it supports Android)
* Qt

And these support WIndows x86, and will likely support WOA.

Yes, MS logging sometimes is overly obtuse and opaque. There seems to be a generalized aversion of putting data into the log, maybe trying not to disclose sensitive information with the error, but it leads to useless error messages in general.

I use to think the same: I would recommnend to virtualize everything but SQL and maybe Exchange and Terminal Services (depending on how they were used), but as hardware assisted virtualization has become prevalent, it's many times possible to virtualize even the more demanding loads, as long as you take special care.

It depends on the design. By virtualizing, you could afford to use a good disk controller (with a large enough cache and BBU), and use separate LUN(s) -with high speed disks and preallocated space- for performance demanding VMs. This is specially true if you use a SAN with really good disk controllers (and VMDq capable network cards). You can use better and more complex hardware more and better, and at the same time, hide the complexity from the guest systems (so the abstraction seems simple).

There is also the fact that guests have become more cooperative (ie, Xen and Hyper-V "enlightened") and can help the host to perform better, and that OS virtualization (Virtuozzo) can also make a considerable difference (ie, knock down the overhead of virtualization so you get near native performance).

Rather than MVC, I think he is referring to Master pages. MVC came some time after .Net 2.0, while Master pages were included in this version (and can be considered more of a template than the inline code execution/replace that we've had since ASP classic).

Whenever I would hear Colbert joking that Obama was a secret muslim, I would joke to my friends that he was a secret republican

To me, moderates are willing to reach a middle point. They will compromise - that dirty word that is all but gone from politics.

When it comes to negotiation, the Reps tend to be unmovable, and get rewarded for it in the long term. Their ideology is -nearly religious- dogma and can't deviate from it, and leaders that are certain regardless of any facts are regarded as the ideal. The Dems tend to listen to arguments (and accept things like science and studies and that other people might disagree and contribute to the process) and tend to give up when they can't justify standing firm on principle. It's the reason why they are dubbed spineless (and why American center politics have been drifting right in the last 40 years).

Democracy assumes that reason will prevail, that both sides will debate and recognize facts and points from their opponents and attempt to reach a happy medium. However, both parties tend to stick to their ideology and re-interpret facts and events so they advance their point of view, w/o any room for intellectual honesty to move to a compromise. In theory, moderates would be willing to at least listen and understand their opponent's views, to maybe reach a consensus.

The second place gets VP is dangerous. In Mexico's history, most of the 19th century is filled with second place VPs rising armies to depose the president after the election didn't go their way. The executive branch has to be a "winner takes all" or it quickly devolves into anarchy.

IPv6 is very popular in Asia, and you have a large number of Eastern languages sites that are only reachable on IPv6 (some only have IPv4 for western visitors if their content applies).

And on ISPs. Cox and Time Warner (Road Runner) started running consumer IPv6 pilots this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if other ISPs also started.

The limiting factor is going to be the home routers. But as more ISPs begin offering the option (maybe bundled with a "higher performance tier" that will tie in with net neutrality), we'll likely see home routers advertising IPv6 support as if it was a new type of faster wireless. Albeit, it might take years.