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While I was at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference last month, I finished Merrill R. Chapman's book In Search of Stupidity. In the book, from the perspective of an insider, he lays out the mistakes other companies have made to contribute inadvertently to the dominance of Microsoft. While our views differ as to how significant some blunders were in certain cases, in general Chapman does a good job documenting why many of these companies failed and why Microsoft succeeded...

The mechanical mouse that relies on a trackball will be first to go, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, who said that, in the near future, only the cheapest of computers will still come with a mechanical mouse. The optical mouse and the wireless mouse will become the standard in just 18 months, he predicted.

Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) is a relatively unique event in the industry. Unlike other conferences of its type, this one is largely staffed by Microsoft programmers -- the same kind of people who generally attend these things. People tend to connect better with those who are similar to them, which makes this kind of conference vastly more powerful than those that are staffed by marketing types talking to developers about what the company will do for them in the future (but often having no actual clue about what is really going on at the company)...

Industry analyst Rob Enderle told the E-Commerce Times that, in essence, Microsoft has decided to use the same sort of collaborative process that the open-source community uses in developing products. He said the company took a good look at how the open-source community operates and then copied those components of the process that made sense in the context of its own business model...

In my column last week -- "Pros, Priests and Zealots: The Three Faces of Linux" -- I divided the folks who have been writing to me about Linux into three groups. The most controversial statement I made in that column was a comment about the last group: I wrote that I was having trouble differentiating between terrorists and the glowing example of humanity I call the Linux Zealot...

Industry analyst Rob Enderle told the E-Commerce Times that Microsoft's efforts to open its source code do not necessarily represent a shift in the software giant's corporate culture, even though Microsoft has made it clear in internal memos that have been made public that it sees open-source software, such as Linux, as a major competitive threat...

Behaving badly -- by attacking, lying or bullying -- is only bad if someone on the other side does it. Many of the Zealots seem to be unemployed. It is hard to believe that they can stay with any one company for more than a few days by behaving as badly as they do. Were I an IT executive, the apparent fact that these Zealots are walking human-resource disasters would probably keep me up at night. I've watched these people fabricate stories about my own job history and events that I've written about -- as they were happening. These Zealots have been the primary reason that I've come to believe SCO will likely win its lawsuit -- because if the Zealots are lying about facts I know to be true, they must be lying about facts I don't know about. This group owes its roots to similar groups that existed around OS/2 and the Apple platforms. The Zealots are generally seen as being part of the cause when the related platform fails or goes into decline. The Linux Zealots are similar to religious zealots and political extremists. Zealots and Terrorists I have a hard time seeing the Zealots as any different from terrorists because of the nature of their threats. I expect one of them -- or perhaps a group of them -- will go too far at some point and do significant damage to the open-source movement, the ongoing litigation with SCO or their employers. I strongly believe that if September 11th showed us anything, it was that zealots of any movement represent a huge risk to that movement because they do not consider the repercussions of their actions. In the end, I think we are all defined by how we are perceived. Our perception is 100 percent of our reality and doesn't have to have any connection to facts to be real to us. Perhaps more of us -- and I include myself in this comment -- should look underneath our perceptions and challenge their foundations regularly. Whether it is in the Microsoft or open-source software communities, there are people who have good hearts and honest motives. Helping those people to succeed -- while mitigating zealots regardless of where they work or whom they support -- is in the best interest of everyone. Rob Enderle, a TechNewsWorld columnist, is the Principal Analyst for the Enderle Group, a company founded on the concept of providing a unique perspective on personal technology products and trends. ...

Analysts agreed that without a new file system in the Windows XP operating system, Microsoft had little choice but to revamp and incorporate WinFS into Longhorn. "They have to do it now," industry analyst Rob Enderle told TechNewsWorld. "There is no choice." Enderle said it ma...

It might surprise you to know that, by survey, Microsoft has about 120 million happy customers. I'm guessing that, if you are reading this column, you probably aren't one of them. ...

Industry analyst Rob Enderle told the E-Commerce Times that Microsoft has been forced to redouble its security efforts in an effort to remind industry partners and customers that it continues to move forward with improvements. Company founder Bill Gates announced a sweeping security initiative called Trusted Computing last year, only to have the SQL Slammer and Blaster worms ravage the Internet, using Windows machines as vectors, months later...

More and more, engineers, developers and designers are being asked to work from a remote site or customer location, and lugging around a workstation isn't their idea of a good time, industry analyst Rob Enderle told TechNewsWorld. "However, because these environments are often hostile and the data on the machines critical, increasingly we are seeing the use of hardened -- ruggedized -- products to address these problems," he said...

I spend a lot of time listening to lots of folks complain that they don't have a choice, that big, bad Microsoft has come in and made their lives a living hell and that someone should do something about it. If you are one of those folks, today is your lucky day. I'm going to start telling you how to fix this problem. In this week's column, I address the "other" platforms. Next week, my column will be about how to use Microsoft products successfully...

Recently, a letter from the Linux community to SCO supposedly addressed the concerns SCO has created in the industry about open-source software ...

Industry analyst Rob Enderle told TechNewsWorld that while Microsoft is often viewed as most threatened by Linux and open-source software, Sun Microsystems and Apple might be experiencing more pain from the penguin "Apple is no longer the only alternative," he said. "In the pa...

Linux remains overmatched in the 32-bit world on the desktop. There is just too large a base of Windows users and related applications for Linux to dominate the market in a reasonable period of time. However, transitions breed change, and the industry is about to take a big step into the 64-bit world, where the playing field is either level or actually might favor Linux...

Industry analyst Rob Enderle confirmed that Microsoft is hoping to make it clear to enterprises that their investments in Windows and Office are highly valuable -- not only as productivity tools as traditionally used, but also as platforms for more customized offerings. "If t...

Still, not all users will be so stubborn in the face of legal action, according to industry analyst Rob Enderle. "Some will stop, some will be safe because of where they live or who they are, and some will find safer ways to do this," he told the E-Commerce Times. Regardless, "it will reinforce the message that this is theft and comes with risk."

step out of the box and quickly provide an acceptable solution. This last tactic would do the most in terms of enabling Microsoft to hold its position and perhaps even kill the trend. But it would require the company to step sharply away from its current platform and assemble or acquire something much more like Unix. Windows 2005, also known as Longhorn, might be that product, but two years is a lifetime in this business -- and it isn't clear that the company even has two months. When governments start setting strict standards, there is cause to be concerned that the market might become hostile to most vendors. When governments start building products in a segment, it might be time to pack the bags and look for another industry. Rob Enderle, a TechNewsWorld columnist, is the Principal Analyst for the Enderle Group, a company founded on the concept of providing a unique perspective on personal technology products and trends. ...

Microsoft's decision to publish the warnings underscores its tenuous position with regard to the security of its products, which are a favorite target of hackers because of their ubiquitous and high-profile nature, industry analyst Rob Enderle told the E-Commerce Times. "If t...

The other day I was asked what the odds were that SCO would win against IBM. On the basis of how the two parties were behaving, I offered a range of between 55 and 65 percent. I've spent a lot of my life watching litigation, and I believe that you can better tell the outcome by trying to determine what the parties believe and how believable they are than if you just try to dig through their rhetoric...