Google Fiber divides users into 'the fast' and 'the furious'

Google's fiber push is making the 'have nots' mad. That's a good thing.

Every day is a beautiful day in the fiberhood.

The chosen ones in Kanas City, Austin and Provo are getting Internet connections that are 100 times faster than average at very low prices, thanks to Google's Fiber project.

Unfortunately, you and I don't live there. So we're stuck in a bandwidth backwater.

As Internet trolls like to say: U mad, bro?

If you don't live in one of these cities, you should be mad. Google's Fiber project demonstrates that very high Internet speeds are possible and nobody except Google has the vision or courage to make it happen.

One Internet bandwidth provider has admitted the ability to provide much faster speeds to consumers, but has decided not to. Time Warner Cable CFO Irene Esteves said in February that Time Warner is perfectly capable of "delivering 1 gigabit, 10 gigabit-per-second" Internet connectivity to consumers, but that the company just doesn't "see the need of delivering that to consumers." I believe Esteves' statement accurately represents the thinking of most existing Internet providers.

Now are you mad?

The issue isn't really that consumers don't want faster Internet speeds. And it's not that cable providers don't care.

It's really a chicken-and-egg problem.
Why your Internet is so slow

Average U.S. Internet speeds rank 12th or 13th in the world, which is pathetic for the country that invented the Internet and contains Silicon Valley, Hollywood and data-hungry Wall Street and a $15 trillion annual GDP.

Other countries are pulling away. A Sony-backed service recently announced 2Gbps download speeds in Tokyo for $51 per month -- twice the speed of Google Fiber and 200 times faster than the U.S. average and at a lower price than Google Fiber.

Now are you mad?

Gigabit fiber Internet access is affordable, but only if everybody gets it. But everybody isn't going to get it unless it's affordable.

And that's why we can't have nice things.

At least, that's what Esteves really means when she says that users don't want faster speeds. Providing consumers with the faster speeds Time Warner currently provides to some business customers is very expensive because only a few customers pay for it all.

It's not that Time Warner Cable's customers don't want fast Internet. They don't want Time Warner Cable's price for fast Internet.

However, if you lay fiber to every home in a city, and if a majority of homes sign up to use it, the cost can come way down. And that's what Google Fiber is all about. It's about making a bet on the future and investing heavily to bootstrap widespread use and high demand.

Google's Fiber project involves the actual digging of trenches and the actual laying of fiber optic cables all the way to homes. There are innumerable logistical and legal hurdles to overcome for each city.

Google is already providing the service in Kansas City, and is still expanding into new neighborhoods there. The company recently announced that it would roll it out to Austin, Texas, then Provo, Utah.

Google offers consumers three "plans." The first is Internet comparable in speed to ordinary broadband, and it's free. The second is 1Gbps speeds and 1 TB of Google Drive space for $70 per month. The third adds TV plus a 2TB DVR box for a total of $120 per month.

Getting Google Fiber service is just like getting cable Internet service (except 100 times faster). You get a Wi-Fi capable router, and you plug your PC into it via Ethernet for the full-speed experience.

Google is spending $84 million to build the infrastructure necessary to serve 149,000 Kanas City customers. That's $563.75 per customer, for you math majors. (If that sounds like a lot of money, consider that the infrastructure gives you 100 times faster Internet for the rest of your life for the price of an iPad. Still, customers don't have to pay for it up front -- Google is doing that.) And it gets cheaper per customer with each new person that signs up.

Goldman Sachs estimates that it would cost $140 billion to deploy Google Fiber nationwide.

To put that in perspective, that one-time investment would give entrepreneurs in every state of the union a radical advantage globally, ignite an economic boom comparable to the nationwide deployment of electricity 100 years ago and enable incredible new services -- all for less than what the U.S. loses each year in offshore tax havens.

Now are you mad?
Why mad users are the best thing about Google Fiber

It's unlikely that Google will lay fiber to every city in the US, and less likely still that Google will do that Internationally. And it doesn't need to.

Google Fiber is already "inspiring" ISPs to boost speeds and investment. Google may be triggering an arms race for high-speed Internet connectivity, because it's re-setting expectations about how fast the Internet should be.

This increasingly matters as HD movies and TV becomes more mainstream. Right now, Netflix alone consumes one-third of all the download bandwidth in the U.S. at peak times.

Hollywood and other movies-on-demand services had better get busy offering compelling services. More than half the upload bandwidth in the U.S. is consumed by BitTorrent.

I think the minority of providers who figure out how to offer vastly higher speeds at very low cost will survive, and the Time Warners will get out of the ISP business for good.

No, AT&T didn't announce gigabit fiber in Austin

Hours after Google announced that Austin would get the Google Fiber treatment, AT&T (which is headquartered in Dallas) announced that it would build a gigabit fiber network of its own in Austin.

Or, at least that's what the news reports would have you believe. But if you look at the press release, it was really a passive-aggressive bit of whining about Google getting special treatment from Austin authorities.

Instead of announcing a plan to build fiber optic connectivity in Austin, AT&T actually announced that "it is prepared to build an advanced fiber optic infrastructure in Austin," according to the announcement press release.

"Prepared to build" does not mean "plans to build."

Then the whining began: AT&T's plans "anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives."

The release ended with this zinger: "Our potential capital investment will depend on the extent we can reach satisfactory agreements."

In other words, the whole reason for AT&T's press release was not to announce the intention to build fiber optic gigabit Internet connectivity, but instead to complain about preferential treatment of Google by local authorities.

AT&T has a point. Local, state and government regulations and restrictions are a big part of why our Internet speeds are so slow. And that's yet another reason why Google Fiber is so brilliant.
Google is simply smarter than AT&T

Rather than approaching individual cities and begging them for permission to lay fiber, Google held a big contest and said, in effect: "OK, we're going to pick a city to gain a massive economic boost. You want it? What are you going to do for us?"

Then they started choosing from among the 1,100 applicant cities based on which ones were most serious about making Google Fiber possible.

In fact, Google Fiber triggered a gold rush of entrepreneurial investment and activity.

One enterprising local even rents their Google Fiber-connected home at a premium on AirBnB, and calls it "Hacker House."

Google Fiber is creating a lot of hype and attention. It's making people realize that affordable, ultra high-speed Internet connectivity is possible.

It's making people look at their local governments and ISPs and ask: Why can't I have this?

But mostly, Google Fiber is making people mad. And that's the right emotion in the face of the incredible waste of time and money and opportunity that takes place every day that goes by while we're held back by yesterday's Internet speeds.

But let's not just get mad. Let's get fiber.

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Windows 8 Update: transition from Android to Windows Phone made easier

Windows 8 Update: transition from Android to Windows Phone made easier
Also, iPad keyboard/cover to rival Surface, 8-inch Windows 8 tablet

UPDATE: Microsoft has delayed availability of its Switch to Windows Phone app until sometime next week.

Microsoft figures customers will be more likely to switch from Android smartphones to Windows 8 phones if it makes it easier to find the same or similar apps for their new phone as were on their old phones.

Microsoft is introducing Switch to Windows Phone, an application that finds identical or replacement applications for Windows Phone 8 in the Windows Store to replace their old Android apps.

The new application, which is being released today, is not available for iPhones.
Switch to Windows 8 inventories all the applications on the Android phone and sends that inventory to the Microsoft SkyDrive cloud. When customers log in to the same SkyDrive account from the Switch to Windows 8 app loaded on their Windows Phone 8, the app finds the same set of applications. If there are no exact replacements, the app recommends similar ones, according to Guru Gowrappan, executive vice president for products at application search firm Quixey.

Quixey supplies the apps-search engine within Switch to Windows 8. The engine uses descriptions of apps, reviews of apps, trouble reports about apps and other metadata it gathers from the Web to recommend substitute applications to users, Gowrappan says. The goal is to make them as close as possible to matching the app on the Android phone.

In the case of Switch to Windows 8, the Quixey search engine goes through the 135,000 Windows Phone 8 applications in the Windows Store seeking direct matches – such as the Windows Phone 8 Facebook app to replace the Android Facebook app – or to find applications that perform as close to the same function as possible, he says.

The search engine can also look for applications based on what customers want to do. So a customer could enter “cook Italian food” into the engine and would get a list of apps such as Tuscan Chef and Italian Video Recipes.

Sprint Zone and Sprint Digital Lounge use Quixey’s engine to find apps as does ask.com for searching Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Blackberry applications.

Keyboard for iPads mimics Surface
Logitech is selling a thin, fabric-covered keyboard/cover for iPads that give the Apple tablets similar functionality to Microsoft’s Windows 8 Surface tablet/laptops.

Called FabricSkin Keyboard Folio, the keyboards attach magnetically to iPads and flop down to convert from being a cover to being a keyboard. The device includes a prop to hold the screen at a slant for better viewing when typing. It can also fold over to allow use of the iPad as a tablet.

At $150, that puts iPads with keyboards on a price par with some models of Surface tablets with keyboards.

Some differences: Surface supports Office applications and a file system, something iPads lack. Surface draws power from the computer battery; FabricSkin Keyboard Folio has its own rechargeable battery. The Surface keyboard communicates with the tablet via direct electrical connection; FabricSkin Keyboard Folio uses Bluetooth.

8-inch Windows 8 tablet
Acer is coming out with an 8-inch tablet running Windows 8 if a leaked photo is to be believed.

Windows 8
The photo here was posted by the site minimachines.net but taken down at Acer’s request.

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Microsoft may backtrack on Start button in Windows 8

Analysts urge company to recant design ideology as nod to customer complaints

Microsoft may recant its Windows 8 design theology, bloggers reported Tuesday, by offering Windows 8 users an option to bypass the "Modern" UI and by restoring the Start button and menu to the beleaguered operating system.

A pair of longtime Microsoft hands, Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet and Tom Warren of The Verge, citing unnamed sources and messages on Windows discussion forums, said Microsoft was considering those tweaks for an upcoming update, called "Windows Blue" by some and "Windows 8.1" by others. The upgrade, the first of a planned faster development and release tempo, is allegedly slated for an October debut.

Warren pointed to evidence that Microsoft might allow boot-to-desktop with Windows 8.1. Foley added that the Redmond, Wash., developer was also pondering a return of the Windows Start button and associated menu.

Analysts welcomed the news, assuming it's accurate.

"I don't see this as a defeat but as a good thing," said Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy. "It's shows you're willing to make changes based on customer feedback."

The tweaks would be a concession for Microsoft. Publicly, the company has repeatedly maintained that its design decisions were correct and its executives have suggested that users would, in time, learn to live without a Start button and grow to appreciate the Start screen.

Today, Microsoft declined to comment on the reports.

But contrary to Microsoft's assertions that the dual user interfaces (UIs) in Windows 8 were "fast and fluid," customers have barraged the company's blogs and the Web in general for more than a year with complaints.

They were most upset about the disappearance of the iconic 17-year-old Start button and menu, but also griped that they weren't able to boot right to the "Classic" user interface (UI), or desktop, rather than first hitting the tile-style Start screen. Both issues have been sores spots among longtime Windows users, and at the top of virtually everyone's most-hated lists.

Even Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen took Windows 8 to task, calling it "puzzling" and "confusing" when last year he urged the company that made him a billionaire to offer an option that set the desktop as the default mode on boot.

And they voted with their wallets, either by staying away from Windows 8 -- and shying from any new PC purchases -- or if forced to the new OS, by supporting a cottage industry of third-party add-ons that restored both boot-to-desktop and the Start button. StarDock, for example, claimed earlier this year that its $5 Start8 add-on had been downloaded 3 million times, with thousands of people trying it daily.

Even with that on the line, StarDock CEO Brad Wardell applauded Microsoft's presumed move. "I hope Microsoft adds back the Start button and a boot to desktop option," said Wardell in an email Tuesday. "While we would miss the short-term revenue boost of Start8, it is important to keep the Windows software ecosystem healthy and growing."

The talk today suggests that Microsoft has rethought not only the design of Windows 8, but also its strategy.

"The feedback they've had should tell them that people are not ready to live in the Modern UI, so they need to make [Windows 8's desktop] as good as, if not better, than Windows 7," said J.P. Gownder, an analyst with Forrester Research. "When the tipping point happens, perhaps in a couple of years as the Windows Store fills up, when all the key apps are there, then they can rethink."

And withdraw the Start button yet again, Gownder meant.

Most outside Microsoft believe the company's decision stemmed from a misguided touch-first doctrine, fueled by the belief that only if customers were forced to run apps would they buy apps, and that only by coercing them could Microsoft quickly create a pool of users large enough to attract app developers to the new platform.

Gownder understood that thinking, even appreciated it, but still said it had been wrong.

"I understand Microsoft wanting to drive charms," Gownder said, referring to the set of persistent icons for chores such as searching, sharing content or accessing the OS settings. "There is an argument toward design purity, to reimagine Windows, and that people must become comfortable with the charms. That's legitimate. But the overwhelming feedback was that perhaps the train was taking off a little too early."

Moorhead argued that backpedaling wouldn't significantly hurt Microsoft's push toward an app ecosystem.

"This is very positive, because it doesn't take away from the experience of 'Metro,' " he said, using the older term for the Modern UI. " It just gives users a way to get back to Metro that's obvious. It doesn't say anything about Metro, doesn't say it's good or bad. It doesn't change that argument at all."

Gownder urged Microsoft to backtrack on the boot-to-desktop and Start button controversies, noting in a longer blog post Tuesday that the horse had left the barn -- users were already adopting Start button emulators -- and that the company should accept the inevitable, if only to keep its enterprise customers happy.

"Microsoft needs to step back and do this," Gownder said. "Enterprises are not about to support one of these workarounds. For them, this [functionality] needs to be in the OS layer."

Redmond has done 180-degree turns before. When customers howled about Windows Vista's intrusive User Account Control (UAC), the prompts designed to warn of risk when installing and running software, Microsoft dramatically reduced UAC's impact in Windows 7 three years later.

Now it has an advantage, as it's committed to a faster release cycle -- one executive called it "continuous" -- and assuming the leaks are correct, can modify Windows 8 in a third of the time.

"Microsoft misstepped a number of ways with Vista," Gownder said. "But they did change it. They have an established market and a lot to offer, and [Windows Blue] is, by no means, the last chance for Windows 8."

What a reversal will not do is magically turn around depressed PC sales, on which Microsoft is reliant for Windows 8 sales. Offering options to boot to the desktop or restore Start functionality won't change the dynamics of the industry, where consumers in particular are buying less expensive touch-enabled tablets rather than replacing older Windows computers.

But what if? What if Microsoft's design ideology had been more flexible before it shipped Windows 8? Would it have made a difference? Would Windows 8 devices be flying off shelves?

Not likely.

"Had Microsoft added the option of restoring the Start button and boot-to-desktop, they would be in a slightly better position than they are today, but not much," said Moorhead. "In fact, Metro app development would be behind the curve had they added the options."

The UI mistakes, Moorhead added, were secondary to a more fundamental misreading of the market and the available technologies. "In retrospect, Microsoft should have marketed and built a more pervasive and high quality touch pad experience. "They misjudged the number of touch-based devices that would be out, and under-emphasized the quality experience of a good touch pad."

Apple, for instance, has ignored touch-based computers thus far, instead depending on larger touch pads built into their notebooks and on the gesture support they've integrated with OS X.

Had Microsoft taken that approach for Windows 8, it could have avoided the entire touch screen issue -- shortages caused by low yields, and corresponding high prices -- Moorhead asserted.

"Unlike touch display functionality, which can add $100 to the [bill of materials], a quality touch pad may cost as little as an incremental $5," Moorhead said.

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70-236 Microsoft Exchange Server 2012

Contents
Preface xvii
Foreword xxi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 A decade and counting of Exchange deployments 1
1.1.1 The way we were 2
1.1.2 The protocol wars 2
1.1.3 Ever increasing mobility 4
1.1.4 Third-party products and management 6
1.1.5 Some interesting projects 6
1.1.6 The not so good points 7
1.1.7 Exchange’s connection with the Active Directory 10
1.1.8 Reviewing predictions made in 1996 11
1.2 Microsoft’s themes for Exchange 2007 12
1.2.1 The happy prospect of a migration 18
1.3 Preparing for Exchange 2007 20
1.4 Installing Exchange 2007 22
1.4.1 Modifying and removing servers 27
1.4.2 Validating the installation 27
1.4.3 Third-party software 28
1.5 Server roles 28
1.5.1 Services 32
1.6 Licensing 36
1.6.1 Version numbers 40
1.6.2 32-bit Exchange 2007? 41
1.7 Support 42
1.8 Challenges for Exchange 2007 42
1.9 Into the future 45
vi Contents
2 Exchange, Windows, and the Active Directory 47
2.1 Active Directory and Exchange 47
2.1.1 Domain Designs 48
2.2 Active Directory replication 50
2.2.1 Replication basics 51
2.2.2 When Active Directory replication happens 53
2.2.3 Active Directory naming contexts 55
2.2.4 Transforming Domain controllers into
Global Catalogs 58
2.2.5 USNs and replication 60
2.2.6 Urgent replication 64
2.2.7 Intrasite and Intersite replication 65
2.2.8 High-watermark vector and up-to-date vector tables 68
2.2.9 Changes in Active Directory replication in Windows 2003 70
2.3 Exchange’s Active Directory Topology service 71
2.3.1 DSAccess (or ADAccess) 72
2.3.2 How many Global Catalog servers do I need? 75
2.3.3 Where are my Global Catalogs? 76
2.4 Recovering deleted Active Directory accounts 78
2.5 Exchange and the Active Directory schema 80
2.5.1 Updating the schema with an installation 80
2.5.2 Changing the schema 82
2.5.3 Active Directory custom attributes for Exchange 85
2.5.4 Updating the schema to allow Ambiguous
Name Resolution 86
2.5.5 Exchange-specific permissions 87
2.5.6 Exchange property sets 88
2.6 Longhorn and Exchange 2007 90
2.7 The very important LegacyExchangeDN attribute 91
2.8 Brain surgery for the Active Directory: ADSIEDIT 93
2.8.1 LDP and LDIFDE 96
2.8.2 Active Directory for Exchange 98
3 The Basics of Managing Exchange 2007 99
3.1 Exchange Management Console 100
3.1.1 The importance of filters 104
3.1.2 Managing mixed organizations 109
3.1.3 Running EMC remotely or on a workstation 112
3.1.4 No more AD Users and Computers 113
3.1.5 Changing columns 115
Contents vii
Contents
3.1.6 Visual effects 116
3.2 Why some options have disappeared from EMC 118
3.2.1 Coping with change 122
3.3 Changes in the Exchange delegation model 124
3.4 Customized Recipient Management 128
3.4.1 Adieu RUS 130
3.4.2 Recipient types 132
3.5 Moving users 133
3.5.1 Moving mailboxes 134
3.5.2 Logging mailbox moves 138
3.6 Using distribution groups 140
3.6.1 Forming groups 142
3.6.2 Group changes in Exchange 2007 145
3.6.3 Expanding distribution lists 147
3.6.4 How many objects can I have in a group? 148
3.6.5 Managing group membership 149
3.6.6 Protected groups (and users) 152
3.7 Using groups for permissions 154
3.7.1 Managing distribution groups from Outlook 154
3.8 Dynamic distribution groups 156
3.8.1 Changing filters and conditions for dynamic
distribution groups 157
3.8.2 A note on OPATH 159
3.8.3 A new UI for dynamic groups 160
3.8.4 Creating New dynamic groups 162
3.8.5 Using dynamic Distribution groups 167
3.9 Mailbox quotas 168
3.9.1 Setting mailbox quotas 170
3.10 Email address policies 173
3.10.1 Mailbox moves and email address policies 178
3.10.2 Queries that drive email address policies 178
3.11 Address lists 183
3.11.1 Upgrading Address Lists to Exchange 2007 format 187
3.12 User naming conventions 188
3.13 Server naming conventions 192
3.14 Moving from the basics 194
4 The Exchange Management Shell 195
4.1 EMS: Exchange’s management shell 197
4.1.1 Working with PowerShell commands 199
4.1.2 Exchange shell commands 204
viii Contents
4.1.3 Command editing 208
4.1.4 Getting at more information about something 210
4.1.5 Using common and user-defined variables 214
4.1.6 Identities 217
4.1.7 Working in a multi-domain forest 219
4.1.8 Profiles 221
4.1.9 PowerShell in batch 223
4.1.10 Execution policies 224
4.1.11 Sending email from the shell 226
4.2 Learning from EMC 229
4.3 Using EMS to work with mailboxes 232
4.3.1 Creating a new mailbox with a template 232
4.3.2 Setting and retrieving mailbox properties 234
4.3.3 Other ways of interacting with mailboxes 244
4.3.4 Get-Recipient 245
4.3.5 Moving mailboxes 245
4.3.6 Accessing another user’s mailbox 249
4.3.7 Different commands and different properties 251
4.3.8 Contacts 252
4.4 Working with distribution groups 253
4.4.1 Working with dynamic distribution groups 257
4.4.2 Advanced group properties 262
4.5 Delegation through the shell 265
4.6 Creating efficient filters 267
4.7 Bulk updates 270
4.7.1 Creating sets of mailboxes 273
4.8 Reporting mailbox data 275
4.8.1 Special properties 282
4.9 Using the shell for other management tasks 284
4.10 Command validation 287
4.11 Working with remote servers 290
4.12 Working with non-Exchange 2007 servers 291
4.13 Testing Exchange 2007 292
4.13.1 Client connections 294
4.13.2 Mail Flow 295
4.13.3 Miscellaneous test commands 297
4.14 PowerShell for Exchange administrators 297
5 The Store 301
5.1 Introducing the Store 301
5.2 Differences in the Exchange 2007 Store 306
Contents ix
Contents
5.2.1 Are 64 bits that important? 307
5.2.2 Trading memory for I/O 312
5.2.3 The decrease in storage costs 317
5.3 No more streaming database 318
5.4 Tables and items 320
5.5 Storage groups 323
5.5.1 Creating a new storage group and database 327
5.5.2 Working with storage groups and databases 329
5.6 Transaction logs 331
5.6.1 Circular logging 335
5.6.2 Creating new transaction logs 337
5.6.3 Reserved logs 338
5.6.4 Transactions, buffers, and commitment 339
5.6.5 Transaction log I/O 341
5.6.6 Protecting transaction logs 341
5.6.7 Transaction log checksum 342
5.6.8 Maximum database size 343
5.7 Database portability 345
5.7.1 Zero database pages 349
5.8 MAPI connections and logons 349
5.9 The Deleted Items cache 350
5.9.1 Cleaning the Deleted Items cache 356
5.9.2 Recovering items and mailboxes 357
5.10 Background maintenance 360
5.10.1 Background tasks 364
5.10.2 Tracking background maintenance 367
5.11 Fixing failed databases 368
5.12 Exchange 2007 content indexing 375
5.12.1 Using content indexing 380
5.13 Public folders 383
5.13.1 Public folders and Exchange 2007 384
5.13.2 Changes in public folders administration since
Exchange 2003 386
5.13.3 Calming replication storms 388
5.13.4 Managing public folders with Exchange 2007 392
5.13.5 Permissions on top-level folders 405
5.13.6 Referrals 405
5.13.7 Migrating public folder content 406
5.14 Removing database size limits 408
5.15 Backups 408
5.15.1 NTBackup 410
x Contents
5.15.2 Other commercial backup products 410
5.15.3 Creating a backup strategy 413
5.15.4 Backups and storage groups 415
5.15.5 Checkpoint file 421
5.15.6 The future of streaming backups 426
5.16 Moving from the Store 427
6 Exchange Transport and Routing 429
6.1 The evolution of routing 429
6.2 Change through experience 430
6.2.1 Hidden administrative and routing groups 433
6.3 Exchange 2007 transport architecture 435
6.3.1 The critical role of hub transport servers 438
6.3.2 Receive connectors 440
6.3.3 Send connectors 447
6.3.4 Linking Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 453
6.3.5 Multiple routes into Exchange 2003 458
6.3.6 Decommissioning Exchange 2003 routing groups 458
6.3.7 Handling Exchange 2003 link state updates
during migration 458
6.3.8 Foreign connectors 459
6.3.9 Authorization 460
6.3.10 Accepted domains 460
6.3.11 Transport storage 461
6.4 Routing ABC 464
6.4.1 Resolving multiple paths 467
6.4.2 Most specific connector 467
6.4.3 Connector cost 469
6.4.4 Closest proximity 469
6.4.5 The role of hub routing sites 470
6.4.6 Site link costs versus routing costs 471
6.4.7 Instructing mailbox servers 472
6.4.8 Bypassing some connections 472
6.4.9 Protocol logging 473
6.4.10 X.400 support 474
6.4.11 Bifurcation 475
6.4.12 Header firewalls 476
6.5 Transport configuration 476
6.5.1 Transport configuration file 481
6.5.2 Routing logs 483
6.6 Queues 485
Contents xi
Contents
6.6.1 The Queue Viewer 488
6.6.2 The Unreachable queue 491
6.6.3 Poison messages 493
6.7 Back Pressure 494
6.8 Delivery Status Notifications 496
6.8.1 Customizing DSNs 501
6.8.2 Postmaster addresses 504
6.9 Transport agents 505
6.10 Transport summary 506
6.11 Edge servers 506
6.11.1 Edge or hub? 508
6.11.2 Basic Edge 510
6.11.3 Edge Synchronization 511
6.11.4 Basic Edge security 518
6.11.5 Fighting spam and email viruses 518
6.11.6 Defense in depth 522
6.11.7 Microsoft’s approach to mail hygiene 523
6.11.8 Forefront for Exchange 528
6.11.9 Mail Hygiene Agents 533
6.11.10 Agent logs 535
6.11.11 Connection filtering 536
6.11.12 Sender filtering 538
6.11.13 Address Rewrite agent 539
6.11.14 Sender ID agent 541
6.11.15 Content filtering 547
6.11.16 Content Filter updates 550
6.11.17 Per-user SCL processing 553
6.11.18 Safelist Aggregation 554
6.11.19 Sender reputation 557
6.11.20 Recipient filtering 559
6.11.21 Blocking file attachments 560
6.11.22 Attachment filtering 562
6.11.23 Edge transport rules 563
6.11.24 Available Edge 565
6.12 Client-side spam suppression 567
6.12.1 Outlook’s Junk Mail Filter 568
6.12.2 Postmarks 573
6.12.3 Restricting OOF and other notifications 574
6.13 Routing onwards 580
xii Contents
7 Clients 581
7.1 Outlook 583
7.1.1 Outlook web services 585
7.1.2 Understanding Outlook’s relationship with Exchange 591
7.1.3 Deploying cached Exchange mode 596
7.1.4 Address caching 599
7.1.5 MAPI compression and buffers 600
7.1.6 Conflict resolution 602
7.1.7 Preventing MAPI clients from connecting 603
7.1.8 Outlook 2007 and Exchange 5.5 607
7.2 Offline and personal Stores 608
7.2.1 Personal folders 609
7.2.2 Mail delivery to personal folders 611
7.2.3 Configuring PSTs 615
7.2.4 PST archiving 617
7.3 Offline folder files 619
7.3.1 OST synchronization 621
7.3.2 When things go wrong with your OST 623
7.4 Out of Office changes 624
7.4.1 The big question: Is Outlook 2007 worth the upgrade? 625
7.5 The Offline Address Book (OAB) 626
7.5.1 Downloading the OAB 627
7.5.2 OAB files on the PC 628
7.5.3 The evolving OAB format 630
7.5.4 OAB and cached Exchange mode 632
7.5.5 OAB generation and distribution 634
7.5.6 Creating a customized OAB 640
7.5.7 Allocating OABs to users 642
7.6 Outlook Anywhere 645
7.7 Outlook Web Access 650
7.7.1 New features in Outlook Web Access 2007 652
7.7.2 Outlook Web Access Light 658
7.7.3 International versions 662
7.7.4 Accessing legacy data 664
7.7.5 Managing Outlook Web Access 666
7.7.6 Authentication 667
7.7.7 Segmentation 671
7.7.8 Notifications 675
7.7.9 Controlling attachments 677
7.7.10 Themes 680
7.7.11 Client settings 684
Contents xiii
Contents
7.8 Internet client access protocols 684
7.8.1 IMAP4 685
7.8.2 The Exchange 2007 IMAP server 689
7.9 Mobile clients 694
7.9.1 Selecting mobile devices 696
7.9.2 Server-based ActiveSync 698
7.10 Windows Mobile 6.0 and Exchange 2007 702
7.10.1 ActiveSync policies 706
7.10.2 Managing mobile devices through EMC 711
7.10.3 Moving mailboxes to Exchange 2007 and ActiveSync 713
7.10.4 Estimating network traffic for mobile devices 715
7.10.5 Analyzing ActiveSync logs 717
7.10.6 Wiping mobile devices 719
7.10.7 Debugging synchronization 721
7.11 Comparing Windows Mobile and BlackBerry 723
7.11.1 Processing the mail 725
7.11.2 Other messaging options for Windows Mobile 730
7.11.3 Power management 731
7.11.4 Input flexibility 732
7.12 Unified Communications 735
7.13 Unified Messaging 737
7.13.1 Client Access to voicemail 741
7.13.2 Dealing with voicemail 745
7.13.3 Voice synthesis 747
7.13.4 Pure voicemail 748
7.13.5 The magic of SIP 749
7.13.6 Speech Grammars 752
7.13.7 Phonetic names 754
7.13.8 Cross-forest UM 756
7.14 Special mailboxes 756
7.15 Clients and users 759
8 Managing Users 761
8.1 Room and equipment mailboxes 762
8.1.1 Managing properties of room and equipment mailboxes 765
8.1.2 Converting old mailboxes to rooms 770
8.2 Helping users to use email better 771
8.2.1 Eliminating bad habits 771
8.2.2 Disclaimers 779
8.2.3 Out-of-Office Notifications 781
8.2.4 The last few bad email habits 781
xiv Contents
8.3 Customizing display templates 782
8.4 Exchange 2007 and compliance 787
8.4.1 The growing need for compliance 789
8.4.2 Transport rules 792
8.4.3 Using a rule to add disclaimer text to outgoing messages 794
8.4.4 Capturing selected messages 795
8.4.5 Becoming more complicated 797
8.4.6 Creating an ethical firewall 800
8.4.7 Transport rule storage 803
8.4.8 Rules and the shell 804
8.4.9 Journal rules 808
8.5 Messaging Record Management 815
8.5.1 Managing default folders 818
8.5.2 Managing custom folders 824
8.5.3 Allocating managed folders with policies 826
8.5.4 Applying policies to users 827
8.5.5 The Managed Folder Assistant 829
8.5.6 Logging Managed Folder activity 831
8.5.7 Using Managed Folders 833
8.5.8 Harvesting information from managed folders 835
8.6 Message classifications 837
8.6.1 Adding intelligence to classification through rules 844
8.7 Copying user mailboxes 848
8.7.1 Auditing 853
8.8 Free and busy 853
8.8.1 Looking at free and busy data 855
8.8.2 Free and busy in Exchange 2007 861
8.8.3 Changes in Outlook 2007 863
8.8.4 Cross-forest free and busy 866
9 Hardware and Performance 867
9.1 Moving toward 64-bit Exchange 867
9.2 Buying servers for Exchange 2007 870
9.3 The storage question 876
9.4 RPC pop-ups 881
9.5 Clusters and Exchange 882
9.6 Continuous replication and Exchange 2007 888
9.6.1 Concepts 889
9.7 Deploying Local Continuous Replication (LCR) 892
9.7.1 How LCR works 897
9.7.2 LCR operations 900
Contents xv
Contents
9.7.3 LCR restrictions 903
9.7.4 LCR database transition 904
9.8 Deploying Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) 906
9.8.1 Comparing CCR and traditional clusters 910
9.8.2 CCR in practice 912
9.8.3 CCR failovers 915
9.8.4 Lost Log Resilience 919
9.8.5 The transport dumpster 921
9.8.6 Standby Continuous Replication 924
9.9 Continuous Log Replication: Good or bad? 924
9.10 Virtual Exchange 925
10 More useful things to Know about Exchange 929
10.1 Automated analysis 929
10.1.1 SSCP 932
10.1.2 Microsoft’s Release to Web (RTW) strategy 933
10.2 The Exchange Toolbox 935
10.2.1 Updates 936
10.2.2 Database Recovery Management 937
10.2.3 Database Troubleshooter 942
10.2.4 Mail Flow Troubleshooter 943
10.3 Messaging tracking logs 945
10.3.1 Generating message tracking logs 947
10.3.2 Log sizes and ages 950
10.3.3 Keeping track of message subjects 951
10.3.4 Accessing message tracking logs 951
10.3.5 Using the Troubleshooting Assistant to track messages 952
10.3.6 Tracking messages with EMS 956
10.3.7 Message delivery latency 959
10.4 Management frameworks 959
10.5 Utilities 963
10.5.1 Performance testing 963
10.5.2 The MFCMAPI utility 965
10.5.3 MDBVU32 968
10.5.4 ExMon—Exchange User Monitor 968
10.5.5 PFDavAdmin 971
10.5.6 LogParser 973
10.5.7 Outlook Spy 978
10.6 Bits and pieces 978
10.6.1 Where the Exchange team hangs out 978
10.6.2 Online Forums 979
xvi Contents
10.7 Conferences 979
10.7.1 Magazines 980
10.7.2 How Exchange uses registry keys 980
10.8 Good reference books 981
A Appendix 983
A.1 Message Tracking Log Format 983
A.2 Events noted in Message Tracking Logs 985
B Important Exchange PowerShell commands 987
B.1 Recipient management commands 987
B.2 Exchange server administrative Commands 990
B.3 Databases and Storage Groups 993
B.4 Address Lists and Email Policies 995
B.5 Queues and Messages 995
B.6 Edge Synchronization 996
B.7 Routing 997
B.8 ActiveSync 998
B.9 Public folders 999
B.10 Transport and journal rules 1000
B.11 IMAP and POP 1001
B.12 Active Directory commands 1002
B.13 Testing Exchange 2007 1003
B.14 Basic PowerShell 1004
B.15 PowerShell control commands 1005

Preface

By their very nature, every book that seeks to describe how technology works face challenges during its creation. Dealing with beta software and attempting to resolve the difference between how the software works and how the developers say it will work in the final version is a problem faced by any author, which is one reason why it is often best to wait to finalize text after you have a chance to work with released software. Looking back at this project, in some ways, this has been the hardest book of the seven that I have written about Exchange. I think that there are four reasons why this might be so. First, Exchange 2007 marks the boundary for substantial architectural change within the product, so it is similar to the degree of change that we experienced when we moved from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000. Second, the nature of software is that it becomes more complex over time as the developers add new features and this is certainly true of Exchange 2007. The new features have to be considered, probed, and documented, all of which takes time. Third, the Exchange development team has done an excellent job since 2004 to document all aspects of Exchange in a more comprehensive manner than ever before.
The Exchange 2007 help file, TechNet, MSDN, and the excellent Exchange team blog at http://msexchangeteam.com/ default.aspx are interesting and productive hoards of information for authors to mine. Unfortunately, there is often too much material (a good complaint to have) and the material needs to be interpreted and analyzed in the light of your own experience with Exchange. Engineers write great blogs, but the scourge of cognitive dissonance often means that they omit some detail that makes all the difference to a newcomer in understanding why a component works the way that it does. Last but not least, you should not underestimate the degree of cultural change that Microsoft has incorporated into Exchange 2007 in the transition from a predominantly GUI-centric approach to server management to the use of the PowerShell scripting language as the basis of many management operations. The need to understand and appreciate the change has to occur before you can adequately document and describe the benefits and this increases the effort required to write the book. I must admit that it took me time to realize the full benefit of interacting with Exchange through the shell, but now I am at the point where I wonder why Microsoft never provided such a powerful interface in the past! The degree of change that exists in Exchange 2007 means that it is diffi- cult to cover everything in one book. I have therefore elected to cover the parts of Exchange that I think are of most interest to the majority of administrators and have left other components for you to discover through the material that Microsoft publishes or perhaps another book, written by me or someone else. Please accept my apology if I have not covered something that you think is important and treat this as a challenge and opportunity for you to write about the topic yourself. There are many magazines, blogs, and other ways of spreading information about Exchange. From time to time, I wander back down the path to consider some aspect of Exchange 2003. While this book is firmly focused on Exchange 2007, the vast majority of companies that will deploy Exchange 2007 will do so by migrating from Exchange 2003 and will therefore run both products alongside each other for some period. For large organizations, the period might extend to a year or more as it is unlikely that few will complete their migration to a pure Exchange 2007 environment quickly. With this in mind, it is fair and reasonable to document how things work with Exchange 2003, especially when these servers operate with Exchange 2007. So what is in the book? To set the context, Chapter 1 starts with an overview of the development of Exchange from 4.0 to 2007 and then describes the themes that Microsoft employed to focus the development priorities for Exchange 2007 and some of the changes that occur in this release. All successful deployments of Exchange since Exchange 2000 operate on a solid Active Directory foundation, so Chapter 2 reviews some of the critical intersection points between Exchange and the Active Directory including replication, the schema, and Global Catalogs. Chapter 3 goes into the basics of managing Exchange 2007 through the Exchange Management Console. Chapter 4 takes the management topic further by exploring the ins and outs of the new Exchange Management Shell, perhaps the most fundamental change to the product that Microsoft has made in Exchange 2007. Chapter 5 goes to the heart of Exchange and reviews how the Store works including topics such as databases, storage groups, and transaction logs to content indexing and backups. Chapter 6 looks at how the new transport system routes messages and includes topics such as the Edge server and anti-spam protection. Chapter 7 explains how clients from Outlook to Outlook Web Access to mobile devices allow users to work with their mailboxes. Chapter 8 then moves on to consider some elements of user management, including the important topic of compliance and records management. Chapter 9 addresses one of the more

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Google-led group warns of 'patent privateers

BlackBerry, Red Hat, Google and EarthLink say businesses use patent trolls as mercenaries to harass the competition

Patent trolls are increasingly becoming a weapon some companies can use to harm or harass their competitors, according to public comments jointly submitted today to the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department by lawyers for Google, Red Hat, BlackBerry and EarthLink.

The comment detail what the companies say is a rising tide of so-called "patent privateering" and called for a large-scale government probe of the matter. The term refers to the practice of selling patents to a patent-assertion entity (or patent troll), which enables the troll to turn around and sue a competitor without the original company having to expose itself to negative publicity or countersuits.

Google senior competition counsel Matthew Bye explained why the process works in an official blog post.

"Trolls use the patents they receive to sue with impunity - since they don't make anything, they can't be countersued. The transferring company hides behind the troll to shield itself from litigation, and sometimes even arranges to get a cut of the money extracted by troll lawsuits and licenses," he wrote.

What's more, according to the companies, patent privateering can be used to circumvent fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing agreements - exposing businesses that made good-faith decisions to create products based on a given technology to infringement suits by trolls.

Google and its co-signers urged an FTC investigation into the practice, saying that the extent of patent privateering and its effects is difficult to quantify without additional information.

"The secrecy in which PAEs cloak their activities exacerbates all of these concerns and leaves the public without information needed to access the likely competitive effects of patent outsourcing practices," the companies said.

Google recently announced an Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge, saying that it will agree never to sue over the use of some designated patents unless attacked first. The first 10 patents in the program all relate to MapReduce, a big data processing model.

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Windows XP decline stalls as users hold onto aged OS, flaunt 2014 deadline

A third of all Windows users could still be running XP when Microsoft pulls patch plug in 53 weeks

The decline in usage share of Windows XP, which is slated for retirement in 53 weeks, has slowed significantly, hinting that millions of its users will hold onto the operating system much longer than some, including Microsoft, expect.

Data published monthly by California-based Web analytics company Net Applications indicates that XP's long-running slide has virtually stalled since Jan. 1.

In the past three months, Windows XP's monthly drop in share has averaged just 0.12 of a percentage point. That's less than a fifth as much as the 12-month average of 0.68 percentage points.

Other averages point to a major deceleration in declining usage share: XP's most recent six-month average decrease of 0.42 percentage points was less than half the 0.94 point average for the prior six months.

Likewise for longer timespans. In the last 12 months, Windows XP has dropped an average of 0.68 percentage points, while in the 12 months prior it fell by 0.83 percentage points.

In other words, in the second half of a 12-month stretch, XP's decline slowed by 55%; in the second year of a two-year span, it slowed 18%.

The slowdown paints a picture that must depress Microsoft, which has been banging the upgrade drum at Windows XP users for nearly two years, and has repeatedly warned them that free security updates will stop after April 8, 2014.

Net Applications' data can also be used to roughly plot XP's future usage share.

If the average decline of the last 12 months holds, XP will still account for 30% of all personal computers at the end of April 2014, or 33% of all systems expected to be running Windows at that time.

Recent estimates of XP's future by analysts, however, have been more conservative, with experts from Gartner and Forrester Research predicting that 10% to 20% of enterprise systems will still be on the aged OS when support stops.

Microsoft has not pegged XP's current corporate share, but the Redmond, Wash., software developer clearly knows it's large: In January, during the company's last quarterly earnings call, CFO Peter Klein said 60% of all enterprise PCs were running Windows 7.

Since few businesses adopted Windows Vista -- and with Vista's usage share now under 5%, some that did likely ditched it -- the remaining 40% must, by default, largely be Windows XP.

Windows XP will not suddenly stop working 53 weeks from now; it will boot, run applications and connect to the Internet as it did before. But it will not be served with security updates. Minus patches, and knowing how frequently cyber criminals uncover vulnerabilities, security experts expect hackers to exploit XP bugs that users will have no way of quashing.

Those same experts have split on whether Microsoft will extend Windows XP's support to protect what increasingly looks to be a major chunk of Windows users. But Microsoft has not signaled any desire to do so.

Granted, Microsoft will have supported XP for 12 years and 5 months, or about two-and-a-half years longer than its usual decade. That will be a record, as XP this month tied the previous Methuselah, Windows NT, which received 11 years and five months of support.


But Microsoft could still rethink its XP policy, and mimic rival Apple, which has continued to support OS X Snow Leopard, an operating system that, like XP, maintains a robust usage share.

Apple, which has never spelled out its security update policies, typically has stopped supporting "n-2," where "n" is the most current edition of OS X, around the time it releases "n."

Snow Leopard -- "n-2" in that formula, having been superseded by Lion and Mountain Lion, the latter representing "n" -- has continued to receive security updates, most recently on March 14, or about eight months after Mountain Lion's launch.

By continuing to update Snow Leopard, which powered 27% of all Macs last month, Apple patched 91% of all Macs last month.

Microsoft could do even better -- cover 96% of all current Windows PCs -- by continuing to support XP after April 2014.

But one expert thought that very unlikely. "I think they have to draw a line in the sand," said John Pescatore, then an analyst with Gartner, now with the SANS Institute, in an interview last December. "They've supported XP longer than anything else, so they'd be pretty clean from the moral end."

To track how long XP has before retirement, users can browse to an online countdown clock maintained by Camwood, a U.K. firm that specializes in helping businesses migrate to newer operating systems.

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For Microsoft, going private may not be such a bad idea

What does Microsoft have left to gain by being public when the stock is at a standstill?

Should Microsoft go private? Don't dismiss the question, it's a valid one, even if it would be extraordinarily difficult.

The stocks of most of the old guard of the tech industry have been stagnant for years, even though the companies have done reasonably well or even very well in some cases. Yet they get no appreciation from Wall Street and are taken for granted. A recent Seeking Alpha blog asked if Microsoft was good for anything other than its dividend. At this point, they have to ask what they gain by being public.

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I'll say it up front so you don't have to: going private would not be easy for any of these companies. Their stocks are heavily diluted and they would need a ton of outside money to buy up enough stock to go private. It would be very, very difficult and I acknowledge that. That doesn't mean it's not worth considering.

You take a company public for a variety of reasons. My very first gig out of college was as a financial reporter. One of the conventional wisdoms I learned back then was you didn't go public because you needed money to survive. Companies that did that were likely a bad investment to begin with. You went public for the big cash infusion and also as a lure for top talent.

Well, that day is over. We all know about the three Microsoft billionaires (Gates, Ballmer, Allen) and thousands of millionaires the company made, but those were early employees. Trust me, no one hired in the last decade became a millionaire on their options.

You go public to have shares to trade for acquisitions. Most of the acquisitions made by Microsoft are actually very small, strategic purchases. Its only big ones have been Skype and aQuantive, and boy was the latter one an utter failure.

You go public to get the attention of institutional investors and build brand equity. Does anyone NOT know what Microsoft is?

On the flipside, though, are the headaches. A public company spends millions of dollars per year on compliance rules, such as the inane Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). SOX has been directly cited as the reason for the drop in initial public offering (IPO) activity in the 2000s while IPOs rose in foreign countries, including hundreds of American firms going public on the London Stock Exchange.

Also, back in 2005, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation reported going-private transactions made up 25 percent of all public takeovers. In other words, public companies were taken over by private ones, and were subsequently taken off the market. That was double the pre-SOX level and the trend was largely blamed on SOX.

More important than compliance headaches is the complete monomania of Wall Street. It cares about a single thing: growth. If you don't have a growth story, they don't want to hear it. No company ever earned a Buy rating because it increased employee healthcare coverage or improved customer service.

Microsoft has a complicated, multi-year strategy to execute. It needs time and patience, something people clearly do not have with Windows RT. What better way to execute than to do it outside of the impatient eyes of Wall Street analysts who only care about next quarter's projections. It's not easy to implement a multi-year strategy when four times a year you have to hear 'what are you going to do for me next quarter?'

Don't tell me HP couldn't benefit from this. Meg Whitman is doing her best and seems to be slowly righting the ship, but because people take the quarter-to-quarter view, and not the long view like a CEO with an ounce of vision has to take, she can't get a break.

Intel's stock is exactly where it was when Paul Otellini took over the firm in 2005. Back then, it was a $38 billion company, its products had lost major ground to AMD, it was under SEC and EU investigation and was being sued by AMD. Intel is now a $54 billion company, its revamped chips have laid waste to AMD so badly it's no longer a competitive company, and all of the legal headaches are gone. And this is the thanks he gets for it.

Microsoft would similarly be well-served to operate in quiet for a while. The company has its own transition and transformation to address and it would be nice to do it without the quarterly dog-and-pony show. It won't shield Ballmer from the criticism he has coming in response to Windows 8, but it would give him a chance to take a long view and actually execute on it without constant interruption.

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Amazon.com upgrades Cloud Drive with file syncing

Amazon's cloud storage service adds a feature included in Dropbox and Google's Drive

Amazon.com has added a file-syncing feature to its online storage product, Cloud Drive, putting the service on par with competitors such as Dropbox and Google's Drive.

The syncing feature will allow users to view an up-to-date file across several devices. Cloud Drive is a desktop application for Windows and Mac, and Amazon.com also has a version designed for Android, just for photos. Amazon.com also offers a Web-based upload panel if users don't want to download the desktop application.

Online storage applications are a very competitive market segment. The services allow users to spread the same version of a file across several computers and prevent the loss of a file in case a computer is lost or stolen or breaks. But it is also an area where technical glitches and performance issues are a concern.

Late last month, Google Drive suffered three service problems that prevented some users from accessing their files and applications. One of those outages lasted three hours and affected about a third of requests to the service. Effects included error messages, long load times and timeouts.

Dropbox, which uses Amazon's Web Services for its infrastructure, had problems with syncing and uploading files in January.

Amazon.com's Cloud Drive desktop application is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8, and Mac OS X versions 10.6 through 10.8. Cloud Drive offers 5GB of free storage, with annual subscription packages going up to 1,000GB for US$500.

The company has incorporated Cloud Drive into its Kindle Fire tablet. Photos uploaded to Cloud Drive will appear in the Kindle Fire's Photo library as well as the Cloud Drive Photos application on an Android device. Photos that are uploaded from an Android device are also copied into the Cloud Drive folder on a desktop computer.

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Microsoft to Make Leaps in the Mobile Enterprise

Shocking developments in the mobile enterprise race show the market's incredible volatility, according to a new survey by Aberdeen Group. The survey looked at mobile app deployment plans by platform--Apple iOS, Android, Windows 8/Windows Phone and BlackBerry--covering both tablets and phones.

"The plans for mobile app deployment in 2013 were a big surprise," says Aberdeen research director Andrew Borg. Aberdeen plans to release its official findings next week, but gave CIO.com a sneak peek.

The data shows Microsoft Windows Phone 8 and Surface tablets poised to make a profound leap, as CIOs hope to retake control of the mobile enterprise. Apple iPhones and iPads may be reaching a point of saturation. Google phones and tablets are holding steady, but will users let loose the reins?

As for BlackBerry, the future looks bleak.
Aberdeen surveyed 348 organizations about their mobile strategy in November and December last year. The chart above shows the percentage of respondents currently deploying apps on a given mobile platform, as well as the percentage of respondents planning to build apps on the platform for the first time in 2013.

Here's a breakdown of what's behind the numbers.

Microsoft, Don't Call It a Comeback
Microsoft was the big winner with 35 percent of respondents planning to develop apps on the Surface tablet over the next 12 months, in addition to 8 percent currently deployed. Windows Phone fared well, too, with 25 percent planning to develop apps on Windows Phone, in addition to 26 percent already deployed.

"The data shows that IT is holding out hope that Microsoft's mobile strategy will be well-integrated with their overall data center and cloud strategy," Borg says. "You might say IT has been waiting for Microsoft to make its enterprise mobile play."

Microsoft, though, might have already disappointed respondents. The Aberdeen survey was conducted late last year before all the criticism of Surface RT, well, surfaced and before the Surface Pro was even released. At the time, there was hope that Microsoft would deliver a completely integrated strategy.

But the Windows 8 user interface consistency from smartphone to tablet to desktop did not extend to the back end. In other words, the primary criticism of Surface RT is that the apps are not compatible with the rest of Windows 8. Surface RT is not in the same app ecosystem as Windows 8.

"IT and lines of business were looking for a point of consolidation and integration with backend services," Borg says. "This lack of integration from IT's perspective is a disappointment."

Microsoft blew the branding and messaging opportunity, Borg explains. The average consumer didn't grasp the difference between Surface RT and Surface Pro. Many simply and wrongly expected Surface RT to be a Windows laptop replacement.

It's too bad, because Surface RT is a pretty slick device with a nice industrial design and user interface, Borg says. Among all tablets, Surface RT boasts the best integration with Office. It shouldn't matter that it's not tied to Windows 8 applications on the desktop. Apple iOS apps aren't compatible with OS X, nor are Android apps with Chrome OS.

March of the Androids
Google Android smartphones and tablets are steadily marching into the enterprise. According to the Aberdeen survey, 23 percent of respondents plan to develop apps on Android tablets over the next 12 months, in addition to 40 percent currently deployed. And 17 percent plan to develop apps on Android smartphones, in addition to 55 percent currently deployed.

These numbers show incremental growth for the platform, which is nothing unexpected.
However, this doesn't mean that Android will continue to plod along. The survey was taken before Samsung announced the Galaxy S4 smartphone, which is expected to be released in late April. For the enterprise, the most compelling feature is KNOX, a dual-persona solution at the kernel layer. If the dual-persona concept takes off, then Android platform adoption in the enterprise could spike.

But dual-persona acceptance on the smartphone is far from a sure thing. For starters, dual-persona has been in the market for at least a year and has had negligible adoption in the enterprise. While dual-persona allows end users to securely separate personal data from work data on a corporate device, we're living in a Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, world.

"With BYOD, the company is going to put its data on your device and borrow some of your assets that you bought--RAM, memory, processor--all of which may decrease performance of your device," Borg says. "Will end users permit that? It's unclear."

Apple's Microsoft Problem
Apple's iPhone and iPad have been enterprise sensations, but there are signs pointing to challenges ahead. In the Aberdeen survey, 15 percent of respondents plan to develop apps for the first time on iPhone and iPad over the next 12 months, with 63 percent and 61 percent currently deployed, respectively.

"We're a little surprised that the numbers show it to be slowing down," Borg says. "Granted, three-quarters of the organizations are still developing for the platform, greater than any other platform. But it could be getting to a saturation point."

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As the dominant mobile enterprise player with the biggest app store and the largest percentage of developers, Apple seems to be sitting in the catbird seat. The danger is complacency and lack of innovation. Think: Microsoft during its reign on the desktop.

Today, iOS is looking long in the tooth. Microsoft and BlackBerry have more advanced operating systems. Samsung has shown innovation advancing the Android OS. Where art thou, Apple? iPhone and iPad apps don't talk to each other, don't share data. In comparison, Windows Phone 8 supports inter-app communication, which makes for a fluid user experience.

"If Apple does not innovate on the OS, it may impact enterprise acceptance and continued commitment to deploy apps on the Apple platform," Borg says.

Storm Clouds Over BlackBerry
And then there's BlackBerry. The Aberdeen survey showed a paltry 6 percent of respondents plan to develop apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook over the next 12 months, with only 15 percent currently deployed. On the BlackBerry smartphone, 5 percent plan to develop apps, with 49 percent currently deployed.

"This data does not speak optimistically for BlackBerry's outlook," Borg says. "There are definitely storm clouds over Canada."

Borg does expect the smartphone number to creep up given the release of BlackBerry 10, which appears to be a solid product, but not by much. Meanwhile, the PlayBook outlook is looking worse, as BlackBerry hasn't announced anything of significance with it.

The problem, of course, is that BlackBerry has lost its credibility. It didn't keep its promises, in terms of timeframe delivery. BlackBerry 10 was delayed time and again until its launch earlier this year. The result is that businesses--once, BlackBerry's biggest advocate--have all but abandoned the platform.

"From the data perspective, BlackBerry has significant challenges in 2013," Borg says. "There's a loss of momentum and a lack of confidence in their future from end-users. In addition, BlackBerry has isolated itself from advocates, including analysts. How this all will play out in 2013 remains to be seen."

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