Clearly, I've got to stop sleeping, if I'm ever to stop waking up to such amazing news...but anyway, in no particular order, at least not until the end of the list...

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Microsoft and virtualization have had an on-again, off-again relationship, especially regarding Vista. Users were originally told they could only run virtual copies of the higher-end editions of Vista, which cheesed off a lot of people, especially those running Intel-based Macintosh computers and wanting to run Vista alongside Mac OS X. Then, Microsoft said it would expand Vista's virtualization options - but didn't. Sigh.

Now, Microsoft has deigned to allow users of Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium to run those offerings on virtual machines. In addition, Microsoft has acquired privately held start-up Calista Technologies, which offers software that enables delivery of virtualized desktop environments to remote computers. Terms were not disclosed.

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So, which browser is more secure – Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), or Mozilla’s Firefox?

Well, the answer is the industry analyst/pundit’s favorite gambit – that depends.

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As Network World news editor Paul McNamara posted in his Buzzblog (on Thanksgiving Day, no less!), Microsoft's recently fired CIO Stuart Scott (not the one from ESPN) starts a new job today, at a wholesale mortgage lender based in Florida. The news release accompanying Mr. Scott's new job was, as Paul wrote, effusive in its praise, but opaque in terms of providing any details about the reasons for Scott's firing.

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Just about two weeks after releasing a first-pass "preview" Vista Service Pack (SP) to members of its private beta program for that software, Microsoft has begun making available SP3 for Windows XP. That new SP reportedly includes numerous bug fixes - and also boosts performance of Microsoft Office by as much as 10 percent over Windows XP with SP2, according to independent tests performed by Devil Mountain Software and reported widely, including on the exo.performance.network (XPnet) blog supported by the company's staff and engineers.

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Well, well, well. Microsoft, searching for an effective enterprise search strategy, has discovered/remembered the time-tested truism, "free is good."

As reported in Network World by John Fontana on Tuesday, the company has decided to offer a free search engine for companies, Microsoft Search Server Express 2008. A preview that runs atop Windows 2003 is available for download even as you read this. By sometime in the first half of 2008, the software, and a fee-based upgrade called Microsoft Search Server 2008, should both be generally available, John wrote.

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Finally, we can stop speculating about the gPhone. Instead, we can gleefully anticipate letting a thousand gPhones bloom, so to speak.

Google announced its Android software platform for mobile phones and other devices. Google will give developers the software for free, under what Google chief Eric Schmidt promised would be some of the most permissive software licenses available. Google also announced an impressive passel of 33 supporting partners, from chip-makers to carriers. So developers get two primary objections, costs and industry support, addressed immediately. (You can check out an informative Network World FAQ about Android here.)

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Just how many "faces" can one company have? With Microsoft, at least three.

Face the First: Microsoft, unified communications, and VoIP, continued.

Face the Second: Microsoft, Facebook, and online advertising .

Face the Third: Microsoft, RFID, and IT-enabled business infrastructures.

Say what?

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Face the First: Microsoft, unified communications, and VoIP, continued.

Face the Second: Microsoft recently paid $240 million for 1.6 percent of Facebook, the social networking site that's not MySpace (now owned by Rupert Murdoch and Fox).

Now that most of the screaming, wailing, and gnashing of teeth has died down over the implied $15-billion-plus valuation of Facebook, let's look at what Microsoft's investment is most likely really about: advertising.

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Sigh. Where to begin? And where does it all end? Microsoft and unified communications, Microsoft and Facebook, and Microsoft and...RFID?? Why, it's almost scary - and on Halloween, no less!

Face the First: Microsoft recently announced a bunch of stuff related to unified communications, as ranted about here previously. As I said then, I have a bit more to say about that.

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As John Fontana wrote for Network World this past Tuesday, Microsoft is going after the unified communications (UC) market big-time, and Chairman Bill Gates opines that UC will spell the ultimate death of the PBX.

I applaud Bill's optimism, but would point out that the mainframe's been "dying" for some 30 years now. Also, there are still one or two minor hurdles in the way of achieving this admittedly promising vision.

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So Steve Ballmer's rattling the sabers again, saying that Red Hat is violating Microsoft intellectual property , and that Red Hat customers should pay for the privilege. More of the same old song, but slightly more than, to quote James Brown, "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin.'" That's because Microsoft seems much more interested in forcing -- I mean, "persuading" -- open source solution providers to forge relationships with Microsoft than it is in actually suing customers. We'll just have to see what happens if and when one or more Linux or open source solution providers refuse Microsoft's kind offers of alliance and cooperation.

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Last time out, I raised some fundamental "big picture" questions about Microsoft's evolution and ultimate areas of primary strategic focus. I think. Anyway, there's another, perhaps larger and definitely more amorphous question that I think needs to be asked: Can Microsoft be trusted, by business IT decision-makers and/or by its current and necessary future business partners?

If the business marketplace increasingly insists on solutions that are based upon and fully support truly open, industry-supported standards and interfaces, will Microsoft do the right thing?

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So what business or businesses is Microsoft in, anyway, and what business or businesses will it be in next year? In two years? In five years?

These time frames are almost intolerably long in what's been referred to as "Internet time." I prefer the perspective uttered, as I remember, by Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." That is, "It's not the time - it's the mileage."

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Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft.

Is there any other modern company that inspires so many intense and varied reactions among so many? Doubtful.

Microsoft's actions likely touch the lives of everyone reading this, at home, at play, and/or at work. The primary focus here will be at work, but it's impossible to look closely and carefully at Microsoft's actions without at least acknowledging the effects of and upon the company's activities in other areas.

This is because Microsoft is evolving, and that evolution raises several key challenges, many of them interlocking and interdependent in interesting, sometimes non-obvious ways.

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