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Mitchell Ashley
Microsoft's Delicate Balancing Act Between Cloud and Data Center
Written on Tue, 11/10/09 - 10:04am
TechEd's focus on Exchange 2010 this week is all about the efficiency gains through improved productivity, lower power consumption (thanks to Windows Server 2008 R2) and decreased storage costs of Exchange 2010. Thank the economy for the focus on efficiency gains. Upgrades like Exchange 2010 will get...
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Net Neutrality - Somebody Get John McCain A VoIP Clue Phone
Written on Mon, 10/26/09 - 9:56am
Net Neutrality vs. John McCain. Consumer vs. Ignorant Politician. Party affiliations aside, anyone proposing we allow carriers to clamp down and determine what content we can run through our Internet and ISP connections probably still has their secretaries print out emails for them. Would you allow Verizon...
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If The Cloud Were Really The Cloud Then Outages Would Be Rare
Written on Wed, 10/14/09 - 2:01am
Do we really have a cloud or just offsite Microsoft, Cisco and Linux hosting centers? I'm struck by what seems like a near constant barrage of news about cloud outages and service downtime.
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Microsoft Overreacts And Drops Anti-Stimulus Financing Package On Partners
Written on Mon, 06/08/09 - 4:12am
Last week Microsoft stunned its partner channel by significantly changing the terms of Microsoft financing for customer deals. Previously Microsoft offered partners very favorable terms, almost too favorable some would say, by only requiring one Microsoft license in any deal financed. Deals could have...
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Conficker & Our "Cold War" View of Malware
Written on Wed, 04/01/09 - 2:28am
Conficker. How and why has it spread so successfully? If there's any kind of IT security threat service providers and businesses are prepared for, it's the mass infection worm or virus that overloads networks, mail servers and desktop computers with malicious consequences.
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CS Degree? Constant Learners and Self-SysAdmins Are Required
Written on Tue, 03/31/09 - 10:22am
I enjoy the conversation sparked by the Network World article Does A Computer Science Degree Matter Anymore? I've hired lots of software developers and IT professionals and whether they have a degree or not isn't usually a top factor. When you can, developing a technical screening questionnaire...
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Windows 7 Post-Beta Leaks - Why You Should Care
Written on Fri, 03/06/09 - 2:00pm
If you're a BitTorrent user you might have noticed that another Windows 7 post-beta build (7048) has been circulating in the wild for curious downloaders.
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OCS 2007 R2 - Time To eBay The PBX
Written on Wed, 02/04/09 - 2:57am
Is it here? Has convergence finally arrived? You know... replacing those arcane devices we call PBX's with an all software VoIP solution. Well, I don't know if I'd put the PBX on eBay quite yet, but we may actually be at a nexus point where this is possible. Two key features in Microsoft...
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Cisco still foggy about cloud services
Written on Wed, 08/20/08 - 10:56am
NWW Cisco Subnet has a post about bloggers writing prolifically about Cisco and cloud services. Setting the Cisco WebEx acquisition aside for the moment, Cisco could and probably will offer some type of software-as-a-service or cloud software service themselves. I would expect the best SaaS opportunities...
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Meet up at Black Hat
Written on Mon, 08/04/08 - 5:49am
This week I'll be attending Black Hat in Las Vegas, the annual security show that brings in security practitioners and n00bs alike from all over the world. Xen Hypervisor, Cisco gear, Wi-Fi, browsers, Google Gadgets, DNS and more, are all expected to come under the hacking microscope to expose the...
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Linux Not The Savior For Our Economy
Written on Thu, 07/17/08 - 3:46am
You knew the argument had to come up sometime: survive the economic downturn by using open source to help you save money. Now ComputerWorld blogger Steve Vaughan-Nichols makes that claim in his Linux Will Save Us blog post. The title almost has religious overtones. I found Steve's article thanks...
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Citrix CTO Simon Crosby Scheduled for Podcast Interview
Written on Wed, 06/25/08 - 12:20pm
Well, I'm happy to inform you that I've been contacted by Citrix Virtualizaiton CTO Simon Crosby's PR person and Simon is scheduled to record a podcast early next week. I'm excited to have Simon on so we can talk Xen, Red Hat, oVirt, Hyper-V and VMware. If all goes well, it's possible...
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Citrix Virtualization CTO Disputes Red Hat Hypervisor Strategy
Written on Wed, 06/25/08 - 4:07am
My recent blog post "Red Hat Takes Hypervisor Control Back From Citrix" appears to have elicited a response from Simon Crosby, CTO for Virtualization at Citrix. I say appears because the comment isn't verified so I can't attest for sure it was posted by Simon, so keep that in mind...
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Microsoft / Nortel Move UC To The Cloud
Written on Wed, 06/18/08 - 11:42pm
We're now seeing the fruits of Microsoft and Nortel's alliance with this week's joint announcement to offer hosted unified communications. Looks like Nortel chose not to skip over Microsoft on this one, like Nortel did with the Social Security Administration deal. And this new announcement...
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Microsoft MIA From Nortel SSA Deal
Written on Fri, 05/30/08 - 5:56am
Alliances, like Microsoft's and Nortel's, aren't always what they're supposedly cracked up to be, even more so between corporate titans. Innovative Communications Alliance is slow to yield fully baked solutions but that's not holding Nortel back. Nortel is blasting forward, for...
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Microsoft & Citrix Accidently Create Virtualization Battleground
Written on Wed, 05/21/08 - 2:01am
Introducing the Citrix Branch Repeater from Microsoft and Citrix. Next... the brouter and the Ethernet vampire tap. I thought I'd slipped into a Star Trek time wrap when I read the news Microsoft and Citrix introduced their Branch Repeater Tuesday... star date, circa 1988? I wonder how much money...
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Why 1984 won't be like 1984 for HP/EDS
Written on Wed, 05/14/08 - 11:53am
Electronic Data Systems is giving the process a go again, this time being acquired by HP. I lived through the General Motors acquisition of EDS back in the 80's as a Systems Engineer at EDS. The EDS back then was a much different EDS than exists today. Most notability, EDS was still Ross Perot's...
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Is Cisco Unloading To Pump Up The Numbers?
Written on Thu, 05/08/08 - 1:13pm
Just what's going on at Cisco? And is this a sign of things to come? Brad Reese has a stunning post today with his observation that Cisco may be over pushing product into their channels to help pump up the short term numbers. Brad's got some interesting data that shows it could be as much...
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Hypervisors - Repeat of the Blu-ray Wars
Written on Wed, 05/07/08 - 2:21pm
Things are heating up in the hypervisor and virtualization software space with Microsoft's release of the Hyper-V within Windows Server 2008 and adding VMware support to Microsoft System Center products. (The standalone Hyper-V release is a few months out.) My son Phill is working with Windows...
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End-To-End Trust Leaves Us Short
Written on Thu, 04/10/08 - 2:55pm
I think most observers, including myself, were pretty taken aback by Microsoft's lead announcement at RSA, of their End-To-End Trust industry call to action. I'm not sure it was so much shock as it was confusion -- no one expected it, especially from Microsoft.
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About Converging on Microsoft
Mitchell Ashley has a diverse background in software development, network engineering, information security, mobility, collaborative technologies, and IT management and operations. An early adopter of social media in business, he began blogging about security and information technologies in 2006 at theconvergingnetwork.com. Mitchell is VP of Information Technology at CableLabs in Louisville, CO, and previously held positions as CIO, CTO and VP Engineering at prior companies.
 

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