All Things Digital

Microsoft (MSFT) kicked off its annual Tech·Ed conference in Orlando, Fla., this morning–not that anyone’s noticed. And who could blame them, really. The Steve Jobs Show is always a tough act to follow, tougher still when it features a special appearance by Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 3G, OS X Snow Leopard and .mac replacement MobileMe.

So as engaging a speaker as he might be, Microsoft’s Bob Muglia had his work cut out for him today delivering a Tech·Ed keynote on the evolution of the corporate data center. “The IT industry is evolving at a rate like never before–driven by changing user needs, globalization, shifting economic pressures, increasingly faster processing speeds and more,” Muglia said. “We truly believe this change represents an opportunity for IT professionals to move the needle at their companies by employing new solutions and technologies to boost the agility and speed of their IT systems, ultimately making these systems more dynamic. We call this Dynamic IT.”

Sadly, Dynamic IT doesn’t necessarily imply dynamic keynote address. Although, to be fair, Redmond’s Server Virtualization Validation Program, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate and Identity Lifecycle Manager 2, beta 3, just don’t lend themselves to those “wow” moments the way the iPhone does.

With its curvier edges, stylish silver trim, half-VGA 480-by-320 pixel screen and improved iTunes compatibility, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) new BlackBerry Bold should be a big hit with IT operations professionals convinced the iPhone isn’t an enterprise-class mobile device but driven to near-aneurysm by discontented employees demanding them.

The device is largely as expected–an iPhonish-looking thing with both GPS and Wi-Fi, 1GB of permanent flash memory, a 2-megapixel camera, full HTML browsing, 3G support on GSM networks with HSDPA access and, of course, the BlackBerry’s one-trick killer app: instant, secure email. That’s a compelling combination for business users and casual ones not easily swayed by the iPhone’s hype juggernaut as well. Indeed, Citigroup analyst Jim Suva says it could boost RIM’s quarterly shipments by 200,000 to 400,000.

But perhaps not without a bit of struggle. The BlackBerry Bold won’t ship until as late as August, which means Apple (AAPL) could beat it to market with the enterprise-friendly 3G iPhone it’s rumored to be uncrating at its Worldwide Developer’s Conference in June. Which has got to worry RIM. After all, the first-generation iPhone had claimed a 28% market share by the fourth quarter of 2007. That’s still less than the BlackBerry, which holds about a 41% market share, but the iPhone hasn’t even been on the market a year.

Now that venture capitalists are so taken with green tech, perhaps they can push some VC dollars toward the development of a greener data center. Because according to consultancy McKinsey, data centers are fast becoming the Superfund sites of the tech industry. McKinsey found that data centers are responsible for 0.3% of the world’s carbon-dioxide emissions. That’s about half of what the airline industry generates–and by 2020 it will surpass it.

“The more you look, the more you find that the entirety of the IT stack, from the CPU up, is very inefficient,” said William Forrest, the associate principal for IT at McKinsey. “Data centers are becoming a major business issue. We think it’s going to become a regulatory concern that will drive scrutiny not just in (corporate) boardrooms but with regulators as well.”

So what’s to be done? McKinsey proposes that corporations at least double the efficiency of their data centers by 2012 and adopt its Corporate Average Data Efficiency metric, a sort of fuel efficiency standard for IT. Said Forrest, “It’s miles per gallon for data centers.”

Get this: A new report from the Standish Group claims that FOSS–free and open source software–is decimating the software market. To wit:

Open Source software is raising havoc throughout the software market. It is the ultimate in disruptive technology, and while to it is only 6% of estimated trillion dollars IT budgeted annually, it represents a real loss of $60 billion in annual revenues to software companies.”

Quite a claim. A contentious one too, since, according to research outfit IDC, Linux software actually contributed $10 billion to the market and is expected to contribute $31 billion by 2011. The 2011 forecast for spending on the entire Linux ecosystem? More than $49 billion.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, a Web search for “Standish Group”+Microsoft+”sponsored by” didn’t return any documents.