Don't you think you have somewhat misrepresented the CDW survey?

Their Number 1 Key Finding is that 63% of IT decision makers plan to upgrade. Yes mathematically equivalent to your 37% have no plans to upgrade, but you don't mention that only 70% of the survey respondants have a preference for Windows Server. That means that 90% of Windows Server users have the intention to upgrade.

As for "Nearly 40 percent of IT decision makers see Virtualization as the most important benefit", where in the survey does it say that?

It says that 35% think built-in virtualization is important (not MOST important), and indeed is regarded as the 4th most attractive feature - security being no 1.

Anyone interested in the survery can find it here: http://www.cdw.com/shop/tools/surveys/survey.asp?SurveyKey=4644C3AFAAD8494C9ABF69AB4ACC18ED

I do generally agree that launching 3 products where only one is actually complete is just asking to be ridiculed.

I have serious concerns about the delayed release of SQL Server 2008. This tells me that the software defects are so severe, even by MS standards, that releasing it now would damage the company's reputation even furhter. The fact that MS cannot ship new releases of their enterprise products that integrate well tells me that the company is simply broken from an organizational standpoint.

JM, you have every right to your concerns about the delay in Sql Server 2008, but it is worth noting that Microsoft have shipped a "feature complete CTP", which you can download and review to discover exactly how warranted your concerns are.

The CTP is here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/prodinfo/download.mspx

When you say SQL Server 2008 will be RTM 2nd half of 2008, do you mean 3rd quarter of 2008?

server core = yawn.

sql server 2008 is a complex beast. I am glad they are waiting until it is baked. They did the same for Windows Server 2008 (aka "The first Windows Server that won't need a service pack" aka haha).

Let me be the first to say it: I do not intend to upgrade to Server2008 until Hyper-V SP1 ships!

To Buff Swami. I believe you are misinterpreting the report. The 63% you speak of is not of the 100% of those polled. The 63% is of the 70% who have a Windows preference. Thus 44.1% (63% of 70%) of those polled have plans to upgrade to Windows 2008. Why do I believe that to be so? Simply put you don't upgrade from Linux/Apple or Unix you "migrate". So if you are upgrading you are currently using a Windows server and thus fall into the 70% of those who have a Microsoft preference. Truth be said you also have to consider at least part of the 5% who has a Multiple OS Environment. We could set the value at 75% for those having a Windows Server infrastructure. Leaving the number at say 47% of those polled have plans to upgrade.

SQL 2008 comes 3 years after the release of SQL 2005. A 3-3,5 years time to release a product as complex as an RDBMS can be today is a fine record on my standards...

Migration to Server2008 is going to be a slow, deliberate process because there is no - or almost no - upgrade path from Server2003. IT managers will have to buy new iron, install the new OS, then migrate applications.

This won't be fast or easy, so planning/testing is the phase we are in right now. And it could last a year.

Gerardo: The breakdown in the report is of the total respondants, and not the just those with a preference for Windows. The commentary says "The percentage of participants planning to upgrade correlates well with the percentages of organisations that currently prefer Windows Server operating systems".

VMWare?!?! Ready?!?!? Huh?!?!?

None of the leading virtualization technologies are ready and precious few enterprises are.

According to VMWare officials, they are not ready at all and one stated, "we are providing “experimental” support for Windows Server 2008 at this point, with “official” support slated for some time in the third calendar quarter of 2008."

Mary Jo Foley pressed this question home today and got the got the response quoted above.

I agree, SQL 2008 should not have been included in the launch as it has not shipped.

Hyper-V, VMWare ESX, and Citrix XenApp aside, enterprises have other issue to consider before deploying Virtualization technologies - namely edge and perimeter devices that are not yet suited for virtual hosts. Similarly, many enterprise applications are not ready - not to mention enterprise backup and other essentials.

I am sure many people who responded to this and other related survey questions answered "yes" to virtualization, but I am equally sure that fewer of them will actually us VT any time soon. It's a sexy term with some buzz around it for many and that won't change until a great many bits of hardware and enterprise software are ready.

I do assess Microsoft is well ahead of the pack and on its way to providing their end of VT based solutions, but it will take a bit more before we see this in any significant numbers - much less commonly.

Buff, I wouldn't be so sure about those claims. First off the last slide indicates that the 772 polled already has a skew towards being familiar to Vista. Secondly the "Status Quo" slide (no 4) clearly states "Note: Multiple responses were allowed", but doesn't clarify which nor does it group them. So somebody could have answered Windows Server 2k and 2003 and another SBS and 2k or 2k and Linux. Leading to inflated values in some columns. Some more irregularities plague that slide:

- The sum does not add to 100% it adds to 98% even when there is an option for "Other"
- There is an option for Multiple OS Environment. What is the purpose of this? Isn't that like selecting multiple responses? Which that question did allow!
- Why is Linux/Open Source grouped into one? They should have placed BSD there. Some may have both and selected both options.
- Why is Unix grouped into one? Why not put the major vendors there too? Just like with the previous point, in a multiple select question this benefits the OS with the most options on. That would be Windows.

Where does that leave the correlation? Looking at it this way it totally trashes it. All slide 4 says is "the sum of all the checkboxes with some Windows OS divided by the sum of all the selected check boxes equals 70%"

Added to that if you read the bottom "Base" value we have 547 for "Status Quo" and 111 for "The Path to Upgrade". If 547 participants, which could have had multiple options selected, are being compared to 111 participants( which seem to have allowed only one response). Are we talking about the same population here or said in other words are some of the "non Microsoft" participants left out?

If the 111 are a well distributed sub set of the 547 then all is well. If not then we could very well be talking about those who selected at least one "Windows" option in Slide 4 and thus have a Windows server working already (you know, to upgrade). In such a scenario it is like I said and it would be 63% of the 70%. Whatever that 70% means now under the light of the "multiselect" question.

And don't forget it is not even shipping the full Windows Server 2008. Hyper-V is a well-known missing component, but just as the IIS team claims (iis.net) that IIS7 is the main reason for WS2008 adoption, IIS itself has huge holes: the WebDAV and FTP modules have to be downloaded, because they had no time to include them, and SMTP is so old that you still need the IIS6 admin interface to manage it (also needed if by mistake you install the obsolete FTP as included on that Windows Server 2008 DVD).

This needs to be said again:

"JM :
I have serious concerns about the delayed release of SQL Server 2008. This tells me that the software defects are so severe, even by MS standards, that releasing it now would damage the company's reputation even furhter. The fact that MS cannot ship new releases of their enterprise products that integrate well tells me that the company is simply broken from an organizational standpoint."

Function follows form when it comes to humans and Microsoft is showing just how it works based on the shapes it has taken since the dotcom bust. Something is tripping them up and anybody who thinks a company who can apply any degree of resources to the problem needs to buy bonds and quit sticking your hands in the sausage maker.

What's the matter with them Joe? What do you think is sticking in their craw? They really don't want this kind of thing to be all that public and now it's being noticed. I think. We'll have to see what follows Ozzie onstage at MIX08. If it's a puppy, then I'll cry along with Robert Schoble. If it's a dog, somebody better get the flea-collar because there's going to be a whole lot of scratching and getting no satisfaction.

This whole thing with this fumbled "Launch" opportunity has me so flustered I forgot to finish. This is like waiting to see a Space Shuttle launch and they roll out this roman candle and it sputters like a poorly done Science Fair papier mache volcano complete with baking soda and food coloring. God, all we need now is for Ozzie to piss some vinegar on Mount Baldy and we're going to bring back the real age of the dinosaurs.

I meant to say "anybody who thinks a company who can apply any degree of resources to the problem " can't come up with a resolved product with all the time they've had to do so "needs to buy bonds and quit sticking your hands in the sausage maker...".

If there is an organizational crevice there is obviously a disconnect between engineering and management. And I'll bet you'll find a lawyer grasping tight to the lapels of each side of the canyon like Whiley Coyote about to do that whistle down to ground level, a little puff of dust, and a poot.

THIS IS WHAT MADE SCHOBLE CRY? Is he on lithium? Maybe a battery up the colonesquo? Did somebody sing "Danny Boy" during the demo? Jeez Robert, pull yourself together. It must be the squishy sunset life at Mavericks and its got you as affected as a Fort Funston drama queen on ludes.

I love Half Moon Bay myself, but as Groucho told a contestant couple his view on birth control on his game show 'You Bet Your Life'. After hearing this child would be only another in an already long line of babies, Groucho removed his cigar from his mouth and told he husband standing next to his obviously pregnant wife, "Sir, I love my cigar. But sometimes I take it out of my mouth."

Bob,...bubala... you're supposed to use probing inquiry instead of gushing bull$#@!. Granted Joe Wilcox is writing with the benefit of looking into his rear view mirror, but, DAMN, now, EVERYBODY sees you laying in the middle of the journalistic highway with a puff of smoke diffusing over your head.

Joe's really wondering what the hell is going on with Microsoft being inept at software shipping.

I want to know what the hell you SAW. Was it something they really can't show? Because they really laid a crabcake in the boxers on this "launch".

This was no rockets. This was rickets.

Server Core is a bit botched. It's supposed to be a version of Dimdows Server that leaves out the GUI so that it can run "headless". Unfortunately, so many server-side Dimdows features turn out to be GUI-dependent that you end up losing them as well.

Ironically, one of the things you lose is PowerShell. Microsoft's fearsome answer to the Linux folks who point out the power and flexibility of the command line over the GUI, is to offer a command line that cannot actually work without help from a GUI.

And if you change your mind afterwards and want to put back the missing services, you can't just add them on like you would a bunch of extra packages in a normal Linux distribution; you have to do a complete reinstall.

That's because any one part is three times better than the "competition"!