"Mojave Experiment"

Wow!

It's really difficult to describe the Mojave Experiment, but I'm pretty sure that as I viewed this page with my jaw on the floor, I would have said "Wow!" if I could have spoken.

How bad are things for Windows Vista if Microsoft has to trick people just to get them to try it? Yes, that's right, Microsoft can't get people to even give Vista a quick look, so they have taken to disguising it as "Mojave", the "next Microsoft OS". And they have of course highlighted some positive responses and they threw in one skeptic to make it seem realistic.

And by the way, I was also surprised when I wasn't prompted to download Silverlight before I could view the site. I've been holding out and still don't have Silverlight on my main workstation, so I expected to see a prompt before the page loaded. Instead, it loaded seamlessly because Microsoft used Flash for this site instead of their own technology. Hmmm...

I'm glad I'm not part of Microsoft's marketing team trying to dig out of the hole they have found themselves in.

VMware ESXi Now Available Free

VMware ESXi licenses are now available at no charge. If you aren't familiar with ESXi (or ESX), it is VMware's hypervisor offering. Whereas VMware Server or Workstation would be installed on top of a full operating system, a hypervisor installs directly on your bare hardware and eliminates the need for an operating system on your virtual machine host hardware. This saves a bunch of overhead on your hardware because the hypervisor allocates resources directly instead of leaving it up to the base operating system installation. IN addition to better performance, this also allows for advanced administration features, such as those in Infrastructure and other tools.

With Microsoft making so much noise about Hyper-V, it seemed inevitable that VMware would have to revisit pricing, but this change in licensing availability was sooner and more dramatic than I had expected. With Paul Maritz replacing Diane Greene, I wonder what other surprises may be in store for us.

New Age of Innovation

I've had my eye on a book, The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks, for a few weeks now. I haven't bought it yet though because I have a ton of stuff going on right now and won't have the time to read it just yet, but the preview stuff I've seen has this at the top of my list right now.

I'm not quite sure what the exact association is, but InformationWeek is now pushing the book through a New Age of Innovation Think Tank Road Show. It's a free event, but only for qualified attendees, which they define as "Senior level executives such as Vice Presidents and C-level executives interested in finding out about the cultural forces and emerging technology trends shaping the business environment."

I've been "lucky enough" to be approved and I'm looking forward to attending in October. If you aren't familiar with the book or the road show, you may want to take a look.