ShadowRAM: March 15, 2004

Last week, it was Yukon's (er, I mean SQL Server 2005's) turn to slip. Neither Yukon nor Whidbey (aka Visual Studio 2005) will see the light of day in final form this year. And the company has long given up predicting any kind of time frame for Longhorn, the OS pie-in-the-sky it's been touting for years. But VARs who shrug off Longhorn delays as no biggie say the same is not true of Yukon. Many are wearily conveying the bad news to customers.

Gartner analyst Betsy Burton says it's no wonder Yukon hasn't shipped, given that over its three years of development, Microsoft has promised all the security, scalability, availability, reliability analysis, OLAP, ETL (insert favorite tech buzzword of the moment here) that any organization of any type or size will ever need. Sooner or later, the company is gonna have to focus.

A big problem is that Microsoft's next generation of tightly integrated technologies requires groups at the company to actually work together. Cooperation and collaboration has not, ahem, been a hallmark of the Microsoft culture. Imagine toiling away on your precious piece of code only to have it broken by the guy in the next building who produces hairball. You say integrated innovation, I say an endless spiral of delays and patches. Tomato, tomahto.

Meanwhile, a mere 300 percent-plus growth in white-box sales by Intel system builders may not be enough. Intel channel managers in Las Vegas last week exhorted Premier Providers to sell even more Centrino-based notebooks. More than one system builder pointed out, with some chagrin, that all the Intel folks were checking e-mail on IBM ThinkPads. Intel execs said that was a corporate IT decision made because of global support issues. At least, they weren't using Dells, said Steve Dallman, director of North American channel sales.

Intel prez Paul Otellini, who will be the next CEO when Craig Barrett retires, should be a weatherman because he certainly knows which way the wind blows. Asked what his strategic priorities as CEO will be, Otellini replied with a laugh: "Whatever Craig wants."

Look for Mark Tebbe, former top dog at Lante, to re-surface with a company targeting the digital home.

The XChange Solution Provider confab last week in Nashville, Tenn., featured everything from honky-tonk bands to mechanical bulls. CMP Channel Group boss Bob Faletra (dare we say no John Travolta and also no stranger to bull) even tried the contraption.