The Life of a Silicon Valley Rockstar

Microsoft announced this morning that their new virtualization platform, Hyper-V, has launched. NetworkWorld leaked the story last night (don’t they have an NDA??) and published a full story this morning. This dovetails with the buzz I started at NetworkWorld yesterday afternoon by claiming Hyper-V will kill VMWare. That started a religious war in the blogosphere overnight and there’s a great discussion going on over at BroadDev.

John Furrier called VMWare out while John Casaretto did a deep dive on his experience with VMWare and wondered if Hyper-V was all hype. Taken from my NWW article, “Hyper-V is a LOT more friendly for Windows admins and it doesn’t require any of the core Linux skills that installing and tuning an ESX server does. The combination of easy to use and free has been Google’s trademark strategy. Microsoft may have taken a page from their book on this one and I think it’s very likely to succeed.”

 Since the UCStrategies UCSummit I’ve been working with John Furrier on a new project around Unified Communications, Virtualization, Security and Web 2.0. Together we launched BroadDev which stands for Broadband Developments. I’m excited about the launch and encourage my readers to jump over there and check it out. I’ll be posting anything topical there while maintaining this blog for personal and opinion ideas around whatever I’m thinking about at the time.

John and I will be working with a select group of bloggers for an always on technical and editorial experience. Dive in as we explore and hopefully clarify the worlds of UC, web 2.0 and convergence.

Amazon.com suffered outages on June 6th and 9th. Worst case scenario, you can’t spend your hard-earned money on books and trinkets. However an outage in the SaaS world could have widespread economic impact both for individual companies and the economy as a whole. Google had just such an outage earlier this week. …and it wasn’t the first time

Google wants companies to bring all their tools to the google cloud. From Microsoft Office replacements to email and who knows what other enterprise apps are next. It’s a great idea and leveraging the great power of the Google datacenter sounds great… until it breaks. How does a CFO explain to wall street that they missed their numbers because some cloud app had an outage at quarter end?

It’s not just limited to Google. Microsoft has a similiar solution that includes a limited version of Office Communications Server, Exchange and Sharepoint in their HMC 4.5 offering. That said, somehow I trust Microsoft knows how to keep Exchange running more than I trust Google to keep a hurried app designed for both individuals and coroporations up and running at 5 nines. Part of the problem is Google tries to be everything to everyone. All of its apps are directed to all classes of users from individuals through enterprise. Different classes of users have different needs, different requirements and different tolerances for learning curve. Simply put there is no single solution for everyone. Despite the hype, until Google realizes this they’re doomed to be a novelty in the business market.

Google, try not to fail, we’re all watching -

The menu looked promising and I got excited about the event. I should have known that was a bad sign. I had high expectations and unfortunately this dinner didn’t live up to them. The menu is below along with my thoughts at the bottom. I will say however, meeting Elizabeth Faulkner was by far the highlight and saving grace of the evening. She came by our table as she was leaving, in street clothes, and was very pleasant and humble.

Onto the meal, but first… cocktails

touch of evil
“The strangest vengeance ever planned” ~1958
  bourbon, mint, lemon juice,
absinthe, rhubarb syrup

I started off with a cocktail. Seemed simple enough and everyone on staff was bragging about the mixologist. This drink tasted like watered down absinthe with a squeeze of lemon. The other flavors didn’t mesh well and were nondescript. Big disappointment as I’m always on the lookout for new mixed drinks with absinthe.

In the Beginning

Sweet Peach and Lobster
grilled peaches and spiced lobster gazpacho

Minted Marble
right gin, manzanilla sherry, mint, lemon, syrup

First

Broiled Hamachi
apricot, smoked pork belly, puffed black rice, togarashi

Fairly Jaded
right gin, kubler absinthe, ceylon tea, pineapple, lemon, mint

Second

Whole Roasted Duck Breast
plum and duck confit tart, peppercress, pistachio

Amber
right gin, aperol, dubonnet rouge

Intermezzo

Summer Snow
white peach and lychee soup, lemon verbena sorbet, kubler absinthe foam

In the End

The Golden Forest
rainier cherries, dark chocolate, cinnamon, kirsch, gold

Smokey Quartz
right gin, smoked cherry syrup, coffee

Executive Chef Elizabeth Falkner

Chef de Cuisine Ryan Farr

Mixologist Jacqueline Patterson

The first course was the sweet peach and lobster gazpacho. Looks GREAT on paper. When it was brought to the table I felt like the guy in the “what is this, elf food?” commercial. It was a very small wedge of peach, thinner than my pinky and a single piece of lobster tail meat the size of a 50-cent piece. To whichthe waiter poured a light gazpacho. It had great flavor, I just wish there was more than one bite. The minted marble was mediocre, forgettable and very disjointed from the dish. Almost a poor attempt at a gin mojito.

The broiled hamachi was good, but there’s no way it was broiled. Pan roasted more than likely but it lacked the crust created when broiling under high temperature. Great taste and doneness just not what I expected from the description. The apricot was outstanding but the pork belly was really lacking. IMO it needed to be cooked longer and better seasoned. The fairly jaded was again forgettable with the anise flavor of the absinthe taking over any other complexity.

Ahhh, my favorite course of the night. The duck breast was cooked perfectly and the confit tart was perfect. I could have had 5 plates worth of this easy. The Amber paired well and complemented the dish. I’d come back for a full portion-sized version of this dish.

The white peach and lychee soup reminded me of the fruit salad dessert often served at japanese restaurants. It was okay, but certainly nothing special.

The chocolate mouse “finger” for dessert was rich and tasty, however the cardamom ice cream was horrible. Second only to the drink that accompanied this course. The smokey quartz was so bad I couldn’t even swallow. I don’t think a tenderloin tranny could have swallowed. Who’s idea was it to ever make tobacco syrup and put it in a drink? Uggh, left a bad taste in my mouth all night, literally.

I might go back sometime but would skip the special dinner. The regular dishes coming out of the kitchen looked quite good and seem worthy of a second visit.

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. There’s been a lot going on, and unfortunately because of NDAs much of it I can’t talk about. I already got blasted by a few folks for my NetworkWorld post on the new iPhone. However, I did finally sign the contract for my new book. It’s slated to come out in Q12009 and tentatively titled “Office Communications Server 2007 Unleashed”, based on the upcoming OCS 2007 R2 code. I’m also replacing the current Cisco CallManager solution of a client with OCS as their sole VoIP solution. Should be interesting…

That aside, I’m also trying to have some fun. Life can’t be all about work and stress. I played in the “Old School” Harbor Beach Open tournament over the weekend and had a great time. Greg and I pulled the “Gonzo’s” in the first round and got trounced but followed up with a strong, but mostly fun, rest of the day. The great food from El Palomar and free beer doesn’t hurt either!

Finally, Why I’m Never Having Kids. A.P. Taylor wraps up completely my chief reasons for never wanting to have kids. Sex is important, mmm kay. It’s one area where more is almost always better

According to an internal memo posted by boingboing and wired, Cisco sees China’s repression as a business opportunity. “The document is the first evidence that the networking giant has marketed its routers to China specifically as a tool of repression.” (wired) Understandably Cisco is backpedalling as fast as they can.

“It is very regrettable that one of our engineers quoted directly from Mr. Runsen Li, the Chinese government’s head of IT for the Golden Shield project in this internal presentation,” said Terry Alberstein, a senior director of corporate communications at Cisco. “They do not represent Cisco’s views, principles or its sales and marketing strategy or approach. They were merely inserted in that presentation to capture the goals of the Chinese government in that specific project, which was one of many discussed in that 2002 presentation.”

I’d file this under “We’re sorry we got caught”. Cisco is well-known for their aggressive sales tactics but no golden shield will protect them from the moral fallout on this one. I think the Chinese media blog said it best:

At the end of the day, though, Cisco has done a lousy job at explaining itself. We are left with many question marks. Their behavior and statements to date have given us little reason to believe that they care in any meaningful way about human rights.

My buddy Zep found a cool tool that integrates FireGPG seamlessly with Gmail and posted a great description on his blog. As if there weren’t enough reasons to move your personal account to Gmail, for many of us this is something we’ve been clamoring for for awhile. In an age where identity theft is an everyday occurrence there’s no reason not to encrypt your email. Personally, I send most client correspondence encrypted for obvious privacy reasons.

I’m really impressed how easy it is to use. There’s a dashboard with a Gmail tab that’s pretty much idiot-proof. I say that with a smirk, but it’s important. If only us geeks use it then there’s not much to be gained. We probably would have found another method anyway. The beauty of this solution is in its simplicity and ease of use.

It’s a Firefox extension and pushes itself right into Gmail. I wish they’d make a solution for IE7 as well since for better or worse it’s still the de facto standard web browser. You’ll note I said it’s a firefox extension. It’s not a key manager. For that you’ll need to download GNUPG or my preference, GPG4Win which also has a file encryption plugin GPGee and an Outlook 2003 plugin, GPGol.

Although I haven’t tested it, I’d guess this will work Google Apps hosted mail as well. That makes it an ideal solution for small business users that don’t have, or want, in house encryption expertise or to bring in expensive consultants.

What are you waiting for? All the tools are free and available with 2-3 quick downloads. I’ve walked a few very non-technical clients through this process already so if you have any questions please leave a comment or contact me directly.

It’s sounds like a bastard apple product, but MicroHooBook won’t be announced at the Apple developers conference. John Furrier was the first to put 2 and 2 together and get Microsoft’s new strategy; buy only what they need of Yahoo and acquire Facebook.

No one has mentioned what I thought would be the key buzz. Buying Facebook makes Microsoft “cool” again. Arguably not since NT4 has Microsoft really been seen as cool or hip. Vista was supposed to be the trendy infusion Microsoft needed but fell flat. Facebook has so much market momentum Microsoft is hoping the platform can carry the whole company into the hearts of the internets. Buying only a portion of Yahoo gives Microsoft infinitely more value per dollar without the liability on Yahoo’s other properties that wouldn’t really synergize with Microsoft any way. So, the Yahooligans are happy.

This seems like a win all around, even for our buddy Carl Icahn who is likely to see a pretty good short term return on his Yahoo investment. It may not be the whale he expected if Microsoft purchased all of Yahoo but if he chooses to hold his shares he can use that leverage to help drive Yahoo in Asia where it is doing very well.

In the same vein, Kara Swisher published the full communication regarding Yahoo’s view of Microsoft’s view of Yahoo. Doesn’t this seem a little bit like a mouse asking a cat it’s thoughts right before it gets eaten. Yahoo being the mouse, Microsoft is batting at it like a toy prolonging the fun before it moves in for the kill.

Update: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook won’t be sold. However doth he protest too much? “You can tell, from our history and what we’ve done, that we really wanted to keep the company independent, by focusing on building and focusing on the long-term.” He’s already talking about Facebook being independent in the past tense. Thankfully John Furrier has more time than me today and is following the story realtime like CNN in Iraq during the “anyone named Bush” era.
Update 2: Facebook has ceased its search for a new CTO to replace Adam D’Angelo. Hmm, under what situation would they not need a CTO?

Robert Modavi passed away today at the age of 94. He was a true pioneer in the California wine industry and the first to make a big splash with international partnerships in his Opus One venture with Baron Phillipe Rothschild. Robert Mondavi Winery is still, by far, the most visited winery in Napa valley in spite of now being owned for years by giant Constellation Brands.

In fact Robert Mondavi was the first place I visited on my 21st birthday. I still remember my first “legal” glass of wine being the Mondavi Moscato D’Oro. It’s still one of my favorites to this day, maybe for sentimental reasons alone. I won’t go into a laundry list of all my Mondavi stories, but one special story springs to mind. In the middle of a wine tasting trip in Napa I decided to stop in for a late lunch around 3 at Mustard’s Grill in Yountville. After my salad I saw an older man come in and sit down. I didn’t recognize him from the back, but it was Robert Mondavi. I couldn’t decide between two wines and as I was contemplatign both bottles showed up… courtesy of Mr. Mondavi. I went over to thank him and almost stumbled over myself realizing who had sent them. I tried to thank him, but he would have none of it, politely asking me to enjoy and thanking me for coming over. It wasn’t dismissive the way you might think from a man of his stature. He was genuine, even humble. It was a refreshing change from the usual pompous Napa air.  

Cheers to you Robert Mondavi. You began my love affair with wine and changed me in a positive manner. I salute and thank you for your contribution to the wine industry and more personally, to me.

…And that move is Checkmate. On top of of the official Yahoo response to Carl Icahn’s letter, Jerry Yang felt the need to add his 2 cents. His advice? Ignore it and it’ll go away! Taken from his email to all employees:

What can employees do?
We ask you to continue to put aside all rumors and speculation you may be hearing.

Kara Swisher has been on this since the beginning and has a great analysis of CARL ICAHN’s intial letter of intent to Yahoo with the best part being:

Nonetheless, I must ask: What are you smoking over there on the Left Coast?

When someone dangles more than $40 billion to anyone on Wall Street, we’d throw our mother under the wheels of the bus if we needed to to get it. Frankly, we would do it for $12.43.

In any case, your break with reality is my golden opportunity.

Regardless of Yahoo’s Roy Bostock’s posturing it seems Roy, Jerry and the rest of the board are soon to be in the unemployment line. Michael Arrington put it most bluntly in his post “Dear Yahoo: You’re Fired“. The key is, he’s dead on. Valleywag’s analysis of who own how much of Yahoo shows Bert and Ernie, I mean Roy and jerry, are virtually powerless to stop Carl from doing whatever he wants; including bending them over a table while Steve Ballmer comes in for the kill. (In the picture on the left, Steve and jerry do their best impression of playground “mercy“. photo credit to Kara Swisher and Boomtown)

Is Ballmer playing the role of Icahn’s puppeteer or is it just a convenient alliance in light of a win-win situation involving billions of dollars? I’d vote the latter, but they do make a formidable team!