Category: Uncategorized

I’ve just watched a documentary called King of Kong: A Fistful of Dollars, about the battle to be classed as the World’s #1 Donkey Kong Player.

A documentary about 80’s video games perhaps isn’t to everyone’s taste but, in my opinion, this is a great film that you should definitely watch if you’re at all interested in Arcade games. To be honest, I think even if gaming isn’t your thing, this film is still worth watching…it does a great job of making you have real feelings (for and against) the main protagonists and I really cared about the outcome of the high-score battle. Seeing inside the world of competitive gaming is very interesting; it’s a lot more cut-throat that I previously imagined 🙂

This film is entertaining, engaging, very well made and highly enjoyable…this, my second post on a film, urges you to go and watch it…but keep an eye out for barrels on the way to BlockBuster 😉

For a few disputed facts, see Wikipedia here (but do it after you’ve watched the film!)

It seems that October will bring some pretty great updates to 2 key Microsoft products: App-V & MED-V.

A Service Pack for App-V 4.5 will allow it to work with the task bar and jumplists found within Windows 7 as well as enabling the virtual applications to offer full federated search, just as if they were on the desktop.

MED-V 2.0 will be released in October 2009 (so next month) rather than the “sometime” during Q1 2010 that Microsoft initially stated. This will give support for 64bit desktop OS’s among other things.

See a bit more over at The Register.

Asset Inventory Service (AIS) is one of the core components of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and, as the name suggests, is aimed at helping customers to manage their assets.

Why Manage Assets?

Software Asset Management (SAM) should be a key part of a businesses processes these days, as ensuring software compliancy is a big thing. In a nutshell, SAM is making sure you have the right number of licences for the number of users you have and making sure they were purchased correctly. Licence Compliancy is a big thing for Microsoft and they, as well as most other major software vendors, have a dedicated SAM team to help customer (and partners) with this process.

Even with the best will in the world it can be hard for customers to remain compliant, if they don’t have a SAM system in place. I recently visited a customer who, through one person deploying an incorrect system image a number of years ago, have found themselves under-licensed by a substantial amount, which must now be corrected-and that has a not-insignificant cost attached to it.

Microsoft AIS is a SAM system that can help customers keep track of their assets:

Ensure compliance to reduce risk:

By getting the most complete view of the software installed on enterprise PCs, you can determine whether licenses have been deployed. You can also tell whether all software is compliant with license agreements, key industry standards such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, and corporate policies. By identifying applications that are out of date or that don’t comply with corporate policy, Microsoft Asset Inventory Service can help IT staff find unapproved applications that may be causing conflicts.

Improve forecasting and budgeting:

Data can be gathered on all software assets in a single query without consuming the IT Dept’s time or interrupting users.. AIS captures a comprehensive list of all the applications installed on each machine which is then reconciled against the AIS Application Knowledgebase. This contains hundreds of thousands of software titles, to create a detailed inventory of the software that is in use in your organization. This information can be transformed into browser-based reports that help your IT staff manage software assets and forecast future needs. The service also analyzes how Microsoft Volume License agreements are deployed to help you more easily manage true-ups, renewals, and license reallocation.

As well as under-licensing, enterprises can also determine if they’re over-licensed; this can happen if a number of people leave and so you have Office licences in reserve for example…many companies automatically purchase a new licence for each new starter-AIS can help stop them over-spending.

Software Asset Management-Not this SAM 😉

It’s been one of the greatest “Will they, won’t they” relationships of all time…(perhaps beaten only by Mulder & Scully)

 and now it turns out, (like nearly all cheerleaders in horror films), that yes they will:

Microsoft & Yahoo are inked a 10 year deal to combine their search businesses.

Taken from the official site for this announcement:

The term of the agreement is 10 years;

Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;

Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.

Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.

Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.

Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.

Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.

• Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.

At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.

The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

The bold and underlining is mine to highlight some of the key points. It looks like the awesomeness of Bing was a driving force behind showing Yahoo that this deal made sense and it certainly looks like the balance sheets will be healthier after all this!

Another point to note is:

“The agreement does not cover each company’s web properties and products, email, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously”

so at best, MS & Yahoo are Frenemies 🙂

I haven’t delved into the depths of this partnership and who will earn what when etc, but there is more info on that over at the official site:

http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx

ps: I’ve consciously stayed away from using the term “MicroHoo” 🙂