03.26.09
On Microsoft Products That Don’t Arrive and Others That Die on Arrival
Summary: “SideShow” pretty much dies quietly and Microsoft’s identity management gets delayed for at least another year
THERE ARE MORE SIGNS of weakness at Microsoft and some readers say they appreciate knowing about them, so here is a quick roundup.
Last week we saw Microsoft shutting down yet another product/service. It is part of an ongoing process or trend (cost-cutting). It appears as though another quiet death that almost nobody noticed is Vista’s “SideShow”. Does anyone even remember SideShow?
In the run-up to Vista’s launch, industry observers and journalists expressed a great deal of interest and even excitement about the concept. But then a funny thing happened: Manufacturers didn’t add SideShow displays to their products. With rare exceptions (such as one Dell XPS desktop), they ignored it outright.
[...]
It’s not that the PC industry is resistant to change; it just doesn’t appear to want to follow Microsoft’s lead. The most significant change in the shape or function of personal computers in recent years — cheap, ultra-light “netbook” laptops — not only didn’t happen on Microsoft’s watch, it outright threatens Microsoft, since so many of these machines run the open-source Linux operating system.
Eventually, GNU/Linux sort of took over where Microsoft had failed. For example, here is a something very recent:
The device, manufactured by mini-box.com, also has Linux drives that work with LCDproc, a software package that pioneered Sideshow-like concepts by using small LCDs to display bits of information through a variety of plugins.
Going back to the news, Mary Jo Foley has identified a product that Microsoft sort of hid and failed to deliver on time.
Microsoft identity-management product running a year late
Microsoft is telling customers and partners that it has pushed back the final delivery date of its “Identity Lifecycle Manager 2 from early 2009 to the first quarter of 2010.
Why is nobody else covering this major delay?
Well, while Microsoft AstroTurfs Twitter using Waggener Edstrom and using Federated Media it pretty much controls what people think about and talk about. The Inquirer is not terribly impressed by it, either. Yesterday it published:
Twitter takes the Microsoft shilling
WIBBLESOME HOME OF SMALL UTTERANCES, TWITTER has taken Microsoft money to launch a web site called ExecTweets.com
When will Microsoft join the ranks of honourable companies that do not AstroTurf? This only shows that there is no “new” Microsoft. █
Related:
- LawMedia Group May be Another Confirmed Microsoft AstroTurfing Agency
- The Microsoft Connection with Dewey Square Group and DCI/New Media
- Microsoft ‘Bribes’ Mac Bloggers to Slam Apple, Gartner Hosts Google FUD
- Microsoft, TCS, DCI, Edelman, and Those Fake Letters About IP/SCO/Monopoly
- James Plamondon: Microsoft Guerrilla
- FullSIX and Mr. Youth LLC May Be Ruining the Web (AstroTurfing) on Microsoft’s Behalf
- Microsoft: 800 lb. Guerrilla
- Astroturfing Examples: Learning How Microsoft Tames the Internet
- Waggener Edstrom, Maureen O’Gara and Other Microsoft Shills
- Partial Index: Summary of Bribed Sites, Journalists, and Bloggers (Vista 7)
- Waggener-Edstrom Behind the 2008 Laptop Bribes, Edelman Behind 2006′s
- Manipulation, Astroturfing, and What Governments Can Do
- Beware the OOXML AstroTurfer: “The Wraith”, “multivac1”, “hAl”, Among Other Nyms
- Microsoft May Have Bribed India for OOXML Pressure
- Microsoft Has Been Rigging Votes/Polls for Ages
- Gary M. Stewart (aka “Flatfish”) About Microsoft AstroTurfing: “It’s made me A LOT of money….”
- Former Microsoft Shill Openly Confesses, Alleges Microsoft Still Does This
- Respecting AstroTurfers?
- Some New (But Very Old) Microsoft AstroTurfing Examples
- Joe Barr, Linux.com Editor – My Obituary
- Joe Barr Knew Microsoft’s Tactics All Too Well
- 66 Pages of Microsoft Evilness
- Another AstroTurf Scam Exposed?
- Quick Mention: Sony is AstroTurfing, Just Like Microsoft
- Memo to Novell: Leave YouTube Alone
- Microsoft Blast from the Past: Ads Banned for Spurring Violence
- Is YouTube’s “NovellVideo” a Novell AstroTurfer?
- Microsoft/Munchkin ‘Breaks’ the Web to Break Open Document Standards (Again)
- Rob Enderle Guarantees “Amazing Numbers”, Show E-mails to Microsoft
- Microsoft Agents from Waggener Edstrom Airbrush Wikipedia, Glorify Paymaster
- Microsoft Unleashes Proxies at Journalists to Defend Vulnerable Vista
- Microsoft’s OOXML Viral Marketing Reaches YouTube
