“Microsoft CTO used a BlackBerry” - BlackBerry Cool.
Entries categorized as ‘Windows’
Ray Ozzie on the BlackBerry and Mobile Computing
December 29, 2005 · No Comments
Categories: Windows · business · mobile computing
Exchange 2003 SP2 mobility features against BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
December 3, 2005 · No Comments
Older post: What’s under the hood of Exchange 2003 SP2. How are the new features a real challenge to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server? Could it potentially convince users of Exchange 5.5/2000/2003 + BES to switch over to Windows Mobile devices instead? I would love to know.
- New Mobility features in Exchange Server 2003 SP2 [Microsoft.com].
- Exchange 2003 SP2 has been released [RIMarkable.com].
An update: In order to work with Windows Mobile clients, Exchange 2003 with SP2 maintains a HTTPs connection with each client. It is over this secure connection that new email is ‘push’ed to the handheld as it arrives. From “Exchange Server 2003 support for mobile devices“.
New with Exchange Server 2003 SP2 is Direct Push Technology, enabling a seamless push e-mail experience for compatible devices. Exchange ActiveSync uses an encrypted HTTPS connection established and maintained between the device and the server to push new e-mail messages, schedules, contact information, and tasks to the device. Synchronization is much faster with enhanced data compression translating to a faster experience when sending and receiving messages. The Exchange ActiveSync protocol also provides for control over mobile devices, including new abilities in SP2 to provision and enforce device security policies.
Exchange 2003 SP2 will now also have many of the remote management and security enforcement features that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server offerss. For example, administrators can now enforce the degree of security for Windows mobile passwords for every device connected to the Exchange server. See “Better Together: Windows Mobile 5.0 and Exchange Server 2003“. If I read correctly, a Https connection (over the existing wireless data connection) will still be initiated by the client and will be ‘kept alive’ - which leads to obvious questions on efficiency and scalability. This set of add-ons is enough to make an Exchage 2003 administrator to decide for the free SP2 addon instead of BES.
If it were to come down to which platform is a better option, Windows Mobile just steals the edge. Windows Mobile OS is supported by Microsoft, there are several applications available for the platform, the platform is available on a variety of devices. In contrast, BlackBerry technology is available primarily on the BlackBerry handset which comes in two standard flavours. Both flavours have greater appeal amongst prosumers (when compared to Windows mobile), but fail to match the wider feature set available with Windows mobile devices. For reasons unknown, RIM has yet to introduce expansion slots, voice recognition technology and other premium features for the BlackBerry. GPS navigation is only available with Sprint/Nextel’s 7520 (see “GPS navigation with your BlackBerry“). Partner devices including the Nokia 9300 with BlackBerry technology on-board were only recently made available in the U.S (see “BlackBerry on the Nokia 9300“). The hope is that these devices will fill in the void for prosumers who demand such features. At this time, the 9300 is the only partner device announced by RIM for the U.S handheld market.
Now for some speculation. It is not hard to see that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile leadership would look to level the handheld market such that the BlackBerry device is no longer perceived as a niche (read mobile email) device. Such a market would be driven simply by the number of productivity applications offered by every type of handheld (for example a PDA, or phone first). If the device were to lose it’s existing aura, BES cannot compete against the free handouts that Microsoft will distribute with Exchange 2003. These enhancements are also a great temptation for established corporate networks running with Exchange 5.5.
My hope is, RIM will continue to innovate and maintain leadership in terms of technology and alliances with other technology partners. It will continue to offer a wider range of applications that leverage advancements in wireless data connections (and not just mobile email).
Categories: Windows · mobile computing
Hack my PC
November 14, 2005 · 1 Comment
My Dell Windows XP PC had a sticker on it that say “Please hack me”.
Well, I didn’t see the sticker. Not for a while. I read a very basic article on hacking by Roger Grimes at Infoworld. He talked about passwords sniffed from wireless networks. Their encryption broken in a matter of seconds. I thought it was too easy, it couldn’t be. I had to try it myself. I hopped over to insecure.org downloaded Cain & Abel installed it and was ready to go. Cain is a sniffer + cracker. I had to see for myself.
It took me less than five minutes to sniff the traffic on my private network, send it to the cracker and launch a dictionary attack on the SMB traffic collected. I found two vulnerable accounts, “Administrator” and “Guest”. Both accounts had *no* passwords. The Administrator account was especially worrisome - it never showed up under the account list in my XP control-panel. I never even knew it existed. I had never logged into it (XP offers to create a user account with administrator privileges at install-time). The Administrator account is also my system ‘root’, pardon my reliance on Unix jargon.
Dissapointed in myself, I quickly peeled the sticker off by disabling the two accounts. Maybe I can fix the vulnerability comprehensively by eliminating my dependence on Windows entirely.
Categories: Windows · networks · technology
Ray Ozzie at Microsoft
November 12, 2005 · No Comments
His memo on Internet Services adoption in Microsoft.
Bill Gates’ views on Ozzie and his role at Microsoft.
– Ozzie’s Online Charge [Business Week]
Categories: Windows · business · programming
Gates stop’s by University of Waterloo, Canada
October 16, 2005 · No Comments
The only stop Bill Gates will be making in Canada is the University of Waterloo [uwaterloo.ca].
Two thousand students listened attentively yesterday morning as Bill Gates talked about how the world got to the present state of technology — and how the most exciting things lie just ahead.
The Humanities Theatre, which seats 700, was filled with listeners who had managed to get the coveted tickets to hear the Microsoft founder, computing guru and reputed “richest man in the world”. Just as rapt was an audience of several hundred more who covered the floor in the Student Life Centre great hall to hear the talk (and see Gates’s videos) on a specially installed big screen.
And in the Davis Centre, hundreds more packed the lobby, while spectators lined the balconies on the second and third levels like birds crowding on a wire. Most were, in Gates’s phrase, “avant-garde practitioners of the digital lifestyle.” Among them: the blogger of Studentlifecentre.com, who posted a minute-by-minute report on Gates’s talk and the audience reaction.
Incidentally, founder of RIM, Dr. Mike Lazaridis is the Chancellor of UWaterloo [uwaterloo.ca].
Someone asked what he thought of Mike Lazaridis, co-founder of Research In Motion and UW’s chancellor, whom he had met for the first time earlier in the day. Gates said he was very impressed with the Waterloo man, describing Lazaridis as having tremendous vision for the research development he supports, and adding that he is “very impressed with his generosity to Waterloo.” Asked about a business issue for Microsoft — whether RIM, maker of the popular BlackBerry, has an “insurmountable lead in the wireless handheld devices” field — Gates simply stated that in his thinking, “the field is open . . . we’re in the field and will do the best we can.”
UWaterloo is also widely regarded as the best overall university in Canada.
During a wide-ranging interview with members of the print media in the Humanities building yesterday, Gates praised UW several times as a university that is at the top in terms of talented people, recognition and acclaim.
He singled out the number of interesting “R&D collaborations” MS has with Waterloo, saying that “really stands out for us” as a positive arrangement. As well, he noted that year in and year out Waterloo is probably the top pool for people and talent that Microsoft dips into.
“In terms of scale, Waterloo stands out on a global basis,” he said. “There are many years Waterloo is the number one place we hire from in the world,” he went on, and it’s always in the “top five” of places that Microsoft comes to for talent. He again lauded the co-op program as worthy of special praise, and wondered aloud why other institutions don’t follow the same model because his company can hire top students year-round under the Waterloo system.
Categories: Windows
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