Margaret Walsh

If there is a silver lining to the frustration caused by Microsoft's new Ribbon menus, it is this: the company has created a program geared to end user training of Office 2007 and Windows 7 comprised of more than a dozen (mostly) free tools. A Softie friend of mine, a salesperson for Microsoft, filled me in on the details. Microsoft calls this program "Cultural Adoption of Software in the Enterprise" or CASE (as in, "making the CASE" for new software, or maybe "get off my CASE" - I'll leave that interpretation up to you.) 7 tools to ease your Windows 7 rolloutSecrets of Windows Server 2008 R2 The program was developed by Redmond's global sales team, though you don't have to be a global enterprise to get most of these tools. Essentially CASE is a collection of training items such as step-by-step videos, instructional pamphlets and ready-made SharePoint sites, training presentations and more.

I joke about the pain of the Ribbon menus (and several training tools are dedicated to it), but the truth is, after rolling out new PCs or software, IT professionals naturally want to see a great return on that investment. There are also a few fee-based items, but most of these are available as a Software Assurance benefit, for those who  have an SA contract. That doesn't always happen quickly. This is unavoidable. A lag in productivity occurs while users figure out how to use the new software even when IT provides training.

People have different ways of learning (audio, visual, tactile) and different speeds at which they assimilate information (immediately, with some practice, with much repetition). Traditional classroom training also puts IT at risk for the increased expense of more help desk calls. By offering users a wider variety of training types and beginning the "training process" before you even roll out the software, you can limit this lag time and reduce help desk expenses. To add insult to injury, after rollout, IT often spends time fielding requests for features and functionality that already exist. Below are a list of the training freebies that Microsoft is giving away. Pre-rollout stuff: Office 2007/Windows 7 Posters and Booklets - These are intended to build excitement for the product by showing off the new features. It includes the links where you can access the item directly, if it is available on one of Microsoft's public Web site.

A "Buzz Day Event" - something your Microsoft sales team would help you set up prior to rollout to help you build excitement for the new software. Microsoft Technology Center - part museum, part training, part sales pitch, this is a Silicon Valley facility where you can come in and play hand-on with the latest enterprise technology. Yes, it sounds somewhat dorky, but getting people eager for their new tools is a big part of the psychology of training. You'll be briefed on how Microsoft engineers would roll out a complex solution for your network. Ask your sales rep about it.

After rollout A Windows 7 introductory video (four to five minutes) - can be included with the standard image and it has a customizable shell so that companies can insert their own information. Tips and Tricks Webcasts and podcasts - includes instructional videos on specific tasks, such as "How to create a 15-minute presentation (with graphics) in one hour." Enterprise Learning Framework (ELF) - A TechNet resource that maps out an enterprise training program for individual Microsoft products. OneNote Training Notebook - puts training materials about every Office product into the user's OneNote Notebook. (Make sure your users are trained on OneNote before using this.) SharePoint Productivity Hub - A Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 site collection that offers training materials for end users. Ranges from one-month prior to rollout to after-deployment support and guides you to the videos and other resources Microsoft has available for training on a products specific features. It includes a social component.

You can control the site completely. Users can blog about their favorite new tricks and you can set up a designated "coach" where someone can answer training questions. It can also be linked with your internal training systems. I've linked to the Excel one, but there are Get Started Tabs for other Office products. Get Started Tabs* - add-on links to demos and training.

Office 2007 Presentations for Trainers - all packaged and ready to go. A six-minute training video on the Office's new UA. (Microsoft actually does have an answer that question, too, by the way. Up to Speed Training Courses (20 to 30 minutes) Help with the Ribbon menu Why the Ribbon? You'll have to watch the video yourself to find out.) Search Commands - An Office Lab tool that lets users quickly find commands used in Microsoft Office 2007. I need to point out there's a whole third-party market of tools that do away with the Ribbon menus and return the classic menu. Just search on Replace Office Ribbon Menu in your favorite search engine.

Good for that stubborn user. Interactive Guide - Maps the commands in Office products from 2003 to 2007 Items covered by Software Assurance Microsoft also offers a few options that are available for a fee, but may also be covered as a Software Assurance benefit. Other items for a price Quick Start Guides - similar to the Quick Start guides included with boxed software but these are ordered from a company called Brainstorm. These include Training Vouchers and eLearning Courses as well as a few ways to let employees buy and be trained on products for use in their home offices. And, if you are really called forth to root for the team, maybe you'll want some Office logo T-shirts or pens from the Office Shop. (Then again, maybe not.) Originally published on Network World's Microsoft Subnet community. Follow Microsoft Subnet on Twitter, @microsoftsubnet

IBM's mainframe business has over the years been somewhat of a steamroller, rarely slowing down to take a look at the little things in its way it may have crushed. NetworkWorld Extra: How to really bury a mainframe 15 genius algorithms that aren't boring Not to diminish what is a preliminary DOJ investigation but the background to this one sounds little like things are just going in a circle. Word today that the Department of Justice has begun a preliminary investigation into whether IBM has abused its monopoly in mainframe computers will likely fall under the category of things the Big Iron slowed down for but ultimately ran over anyway.

To start, published reports say the Computer and Communications Industry Association, had complained to the DOJ recently about some unsavory IBM IBM's behavior. One of those rivals was T3 Technologies, which just last week lost civil suit it had filed against IBM. According to the Financial Times, the judge said T3 did not have a case to make because IBM had licensed the technology in the past to two of the company's suppliers, rather than to T3 directly. Thus the DOJ began asking for information about the mainframe market to IBM rivals. He added that the suppliers, which had brought complaints of their own, also lacked a case, since IBM had acted within its rights to stop licensing its old software when it moved on to a new generation of technology. But T3's IBM angst runs deeper. T3 Technologies has an ongoing antitrust complaint against IBM with European regulators as well.

The company was a strong supporter of fellow IBM mainframe clone maker Platform Solutions (PSI), a privately held company with whom Big Blue had traded lawsuits with over Big Iron technology until 2008 when IBM had enough and just bought the company outright. The DOJ abandoned a 1956 antitrust consent degree against IBM in 2001, but said that IBM could be subject to a new antitrust lawsuit if it engaged in anticompetitive behavior. Long time IBM critic CCIA also weighed in at the time calling the IBM/PSI acquisition a black hole: "It sucks the life out of the market and destroys the matter. " The deal transforms a market with potential for competition into one "with little prospects for anything but complete domination by IBM," said CCIA President and CEO Ed Black. "When it comes to violations of competition law, IBM appears to be an unrepentant recidivist," he said. As in the new case, rivals say IBM has shut out other mainframe vendors by ending support for older mainframe systems and not licensing its mainframe software to rivals. Will all of this hurt IBM? Seems unlikely.

CCIA's complaint against IBM alleges that the company has refused to issue licenses for IBM's mainframe OS to competitors, as required in a 1970s antitrust consent decree with the DOJ that was terminated in 2001. In some cases, IBM has yanked the OS license from customers trying to switch from IBM mainframe hardware to a competitor's," charges Black. According to a recent study of 300 end users by researchers at IDC nearly one-half of said they plan to increase annual spending on mainframe hardware and software. The study says IBM's strategy of building specialty processors for the mainframe, such as the Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) for ERP and CRM transactions and z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) processors for Java and XML transactions are key to ongoing success of the platform. Many mainframe users reported that they can plan another wave of investments in the System z platform over the next 2–5 years, citing the system's high availability, reliability, and security for mission-critical applications as major drivers, IDC stated. IBM has engaged in some price cutting to make some of these processors more palatable though. IBM acknowledged "new pricing" for the IFL processors, but did not offer specific numbers.

According to a Network World article IBM has cut in half prices for some specialty Linux processors. Another source said the price changed from $90,000 to $47,500 for IFLs running on the System z Business Class mainframe. This summer IBM reported that System z mainframe server revenue decreased 39% year-over-year in the second quarter, while overall company revenue declined 13%. But IBM's mainframes haven't been immune to the economic downturn.

In the software business, quality is often left behind in the rush to be latest and greatest. ICSA Labs, a unit of Verizon Business, provides third-party testing and certification of security products. Security products are no exception, according to a study released Monday by ICSA Labs. The company examined 20 years of its testing data to create the "ICSA Labs Product Assurance Report". The report indicates that nearly 80 percent of security products fail to perform as intended when first tested, and generally require two or more cycles of testing before achieving certification.

Also see Broken Windows Revisited: Why Insecure Software and Security Products Hurt the Global Economy ICSA found the most common reason why a product fails during initial testing is that it doesn't adequately perform as intended. ICSA studied data from their seven certification programs; anti-virus, network firewall, Web application firewall, network IPS, IPSec VPN, SSL VPNs and custom testing, which are customized testing programs designed for specific clients. Across the seven product categories, core product functionality accounted for 78 percent of initial test failures. The failure of a product to completely and accurately log data was the second most common shortfall. Examples include an anti-virus product failing to prevent infection and firewalls not filtering malicious traffic, ICSA noted in a release on the findings. Incomplete or inaccurate logging of who did what and when accounted for 58 percent of initial failures.

According to the report, logging is a particular challenge for firewalls. The report findings suggest that logging is often considered a nuisance and is undervalued. Almost every network firewall (97 percent) or Web application firewall (80 percent) tested has experienced at least one logging problem. Security testing issues range from vulnerabilities that compromise the confidentiality or integrity of the system to random behavior that affects product availability. Rounding out the top three, said ICSA, is the finding that 44 percent of security products had inherent security problems.

Other issues identified in the study include poor product documentation and patching. ICSA officials said only 4 percent of the products tested in their labs pass their rigorous certification process in the first round.

AT&T on Friday accused Google of violating the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules by blocking Google Voice calls to some rural areas. By doing this, Google can reduce its access expenses, according to AT&T. The FCC in 2007 prohibited traditional carriers from blocking calls because it said the practice might degrade the reliability of telecommunications networks, Quinn wrote. In a letter to the FCC, the carrier said Google is claiming an advantage over other telecommunications providers by blocking calls, a cost-saving measure that traditional carriers are prohibited from using. "We urge the Commission to level the playing field and order Google to play by the same rules as its competitors," wrote Robert Quinn, a senior vice president for AT&T's federal regulatory issues, in a letter to the FCC. Google systematically blocks calls to certain areas from consumers using Google Voice, AT&T said, citing press reports.

AT&T charges that Google's call blocking violates the fourth principle of the FCC's Internet Policy Statement, which says consumers should be able to reap the benefits of competition among network, application, service and content providers. And even if it's an application and not a phone service, Google Voice is still governed by that principle because it covers application providers, the letter said. Though Google has claimed that Google Voice is not a traditional phone service, it effectively is, AT&T says. The carrier also accused Google of violating the fifth principle of the Internet Policy Statement, on nondiscrimination, which says one provider can't block fair access to another. Google itself is discriminating when it blocks calls to certain local exchange carriers, AT&T said.

Have some extra USB hard drives you'd like to put to a good use? Though marketed primarily as a media-sharing device, the forthcoming second-generation Pogoplug is a cool and useful tool for sharing business information as well. How using them to create an Internet storage cloud for your company, yourself, or your family? The device was introduced earlier today.

It provides a hardware device and online service that together provide secure file access and sharing. Here's the pitch: For $129, Pogoplug gives you the ability to connect USB hard drives directly to the Internet. Scheduled to ship next month, Pogoplug 2 (as I am calling it) is optimized for Internet viewing and sharing of multimedia files. Because the Pogoplug service keeps track of stored files-indexing across multiple hard drives-it allows users to share files without having to upload them. It can, for example, stream video to an iPhone, which can also upload and download files from the storage cloud the Pogoplug creates. Optional Windows and Mac desktop apps provide local access to Pogoplug-managed storage.

The new model offers four USB connections, allowing multiple drives to be connected without the need for a USB hub. There is no monthly charge for the online service, included in cost of the device. Other new features include better transcoding and wider support for streaming movies on the Web or to an iPhone app. There is also tighter integration with Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, as well as automatic organization of your music, photos, and videos. The new software also provides the ability to automatically sync photos, music, videos, and other content from apps such as iTunes and iPhoto.

An address book remembers e-mail addresses with which you've shared content for future sharing. If not, Seagate's DockStar is a somewhat less expensive device, based on Pogoplug technology. The first version, introduced in January at CES, had but a single USB connection and was pretty utilitarian in appearance. (Here is our review). The new Pogoplug is fairly attractive, if you like bright pink. The hitch? Storage is, after all, a terrible thing to waste.

After the first year, Pogoplug service will cost Seagate customers $29.95-a-year. (The DockStar is one of our "25 Top Tech Gifts" for 2009). Meanwhile, Pogoplug's maker, a company called Cloud Engines, said it will "soon" enable additional features, such as "backup, file synchronization, photo printing and more." My take: I didn't think the first Pogoplug was useful enough the buy one, but having recenty discovered a half-dozen extra USB drives around my office, the device suddenly seems almost necessary. I will probably order one online, that is if I can get past the obnoxious self-starting music and videos on the Pogoplug Web site. With the product features now improved, maybe the site can be fixed, too. It keeps repeating over and over. David Coursey tweets as @techinciter and can be contacted via his Web site.

You probably already know that many Black Friday bargains are available online too. Save the Kevlar vest for another day. Rather than brave the elements or risk being trampled at 5 a.m., it's much more pleasant to shop from the comfort of home.

We asked a few expert bargain-hunters how online shoppers can score the best deals on Black Friday. Retailers often say they won't sell doorbusters online, but that's not always true. Here's their advice: Dan de Grandpre, editor in chief of dealnews: Doorbusters, those incredibly cheap deals designed to get people in the door, may be available online too. Last year, for instance, Wal-Mart offered all of its doorbusters online-but not until later in the day on Friday. Many Black Friday deals aren't in fact great deals.

Don't give up the savvy shopping techniques you'd use all year just because it's Black Friday. You'll find better prices online. Michael Brim, president of Black Friday deal site BFAds : Some retailers jump the gun and start their online sales as early as midday Thanksgiving. Use price-comparison sites like PriceGrabber and Shopping.com to be sure you're getting the best deal. Yes, while you're eating. (You could always excuse yourself from the table to nab that $78 Blu-ray player.) Then again, many sales start between midnight and 3 a.m. (Eastern) on Friday.

Be aggressive. If you have trouble staying up, try a quick nap after dinner. You can't wake up at noon Friday and expect everything to be in stock. Well, you could reload a retailer's page for hours. How do you know when online sale goes live?

Another option is to monitor Black Friday sites like BFAds. John Dunkin, founder of iBlackFriday.com: Plan ahead. They'll let you know when sales are live. Go to a retailer's site early, pick out everything you want, and add it to your shopping cart. You can get pretty much everything you want online.

Next, log into your account on Thanksgiving Day to see if your products are available at Black Friday prices. If you don't need a doorbuster item, don't bother going to the brick-and-mortar store. Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com.

The storage software market showed signs of rebounding in the second quarter, but is still falling short of the pace set last year. Within the storage software market, revenue for replication products grew 5% compared with the first quarter of this year, and data protection and recovery revenue was 3% higher than in the first quarter. Worldwide, storage software vendors raked in $2.8 billion in revenue in the quarter, down nearly 10% vs. the second quarter of 2008, according to an IDC report issued last week.\ However, some positive signs emerged.

Revenue for device management and archiving software has also grown slightly since the beginning of 2009. "The storage software market is slowly starting to recover with positive growth over the first quarter of 2009," IDC analyst Michael Margossian said in a press release. Globally, revenue for external disk storage systems was $4.1 billion in the second quarter, an 18% decline year-over-year. However, IDC cautioned that growth between the first and second quarters is typical, so the year-over-year comparisons are more significant. 9 data storage companies to watch   While last week's report covers storage software, IDC this month also reported that storage hardware sales continue to struggle. The network disk storage market declined 15% year-over-year. EMC led the storage software market with 22.4% of revenue in the second quarter, ahead of Symantec (18.5%), IBM (11.5%) and NetApp (8.5%). EMC also leads the external disk storage systems market with 21.5% of worldwide revenue.

This was the third straight year enterprise storage systems revenue declined in the second quarter.