David Coursey

In what were assured isnt a bid for lifetime tenure, Windows boss Jim Allchin “enjoyed” a crow lunch on March 21, announcing that the most important version of Windows Vista will miss its most important deadline. No, Virginia, there wont be Windows Vista under the Christmas tree—unless, of course, that tree is in the office. […]

Windows Vista may approach the reliability levels usually associated with Unix-based operating systems. So says my friend Rob Enderle, and he makes good sense. According to Enderle, an industry analyst and consultant known for his uncommonly good insight, Microsoft is pushing hardware vendors to spec ECC memory (error-correcting code memory) in Vista hardware. Why? Because […]

After my recent Jim Allchin column ran, I got an interesting call from an ex-Microsoft person: “What makes you think Vista will actually ship this year?” my friend demanded, then adding a list of hurdles the operating system faces before it can RTM—release to manufacturing—and, after that, spring upon the world at-large. “Because Jim Allchin […]

I will start by stating flatly that I like Jim Allchin, who runs Microsoft Windows development. A lot. When he retires at the end of the year, the company will have lost one of its all-time great technology leaders and a very decent guy. I am writing this column after a 90-minute meeting that eWEEK […]

Is it just me does the idea of Steve Jobs being the largest shareholder in Walt Disney seem a little odd? Do you suppose hell host a movie program on TV, like Walt and, later, Michael Eisner did? And if the kiddies dont like the movie, will Steve scream at them? While Jobs will be […]

What is that saying about the curse of having your wish come true? I am thinking about that and imagining some government lawyer receiving a set of tapes listing every URL accessible through Google. That and a log of every Google search request for a full month. Imagine how much data that must be, and […]

One of the questions for IT managers looking at Windows Vista and Office 12, whether together or separately, is how badly they want to support the new user interfaces and technologies the software presents. Most IT departments Im familiar with are still running a mix of Windows 98, 2000 and XP, each with its own […]

My column waving goodbye to Massachusetts state CIO Peter Quinn drove a fair number of people nuts, at least if my inbox is any indication. I can appreciate that people for whom Quinn is a folk hero are a bit touchy about his resignation. I still find myself wondering: Why did the Massachusetts state CIO […]

If I were a competitor and had just heard that Google was “getting into the hardware business,” Id be ecstatic. What better way for an advertising-supported media company, like Google, to wash through a few billion dollars and see the attention of executives diverted away from the companys main play—whatever that turns out to be. […]

Well, we dont have Peter Quinn to kick around anymore. Published reports say the Massachusetts state CIO, best known for his plan to move all state documents to the OpenDocument file format, has resigned as of January 9, 2006, about a year before his edict was to become effective. Before you shed too many tears […]

Fifteen years ago this week, the world received what has turned out to be a most wonderful Christmas present: WorldWideWeb, the very first Web browser. Actually, the program was a combined browser-editor, devised by Tim Berners-Lee, a Briton working in Switzerland at the time. WorldWideWeb was, in 1990, the only way to view the Web, […]

New Vista Beta? Bah, Humbug! The problem is not with your eyes. That is, if youve looked at our 37 slides depicting the latest and best version of Windows Vista and arent too terribly impressed, its not your eyes that are fooling you. Youre looking at whats there and reacting quite reasonably. After seeing our […]