ShadowRAM: December 19, 2005

If there&'s any doubt that IT security is a mainstream, if not mundane, topic, here&'s proof. Harrison Ford&'s new star turn will be in a movie called “Firewall.” The plot seems to be about a security expert charged with breaking into his own bank.

Industry execs love their sports metaphors, but some don&'t translate. David Booth from HP&'s Technology Solutions Group is Canadian. So at Avnet&'s HP partner event, he told solution providers to keep moving the puck. Most figured he was talking hockey, but about all they know of the sport is that it&'s one period too long. But Monte Rector, TSG Western area VP, took the stage and promised to be quarterback and Frank Rauch, another TSG VP, said he&'d play free safety on solution providers&' behalf. Anyone keeping score?

Now that every tech exec and her brother are blogging, they&'re getting some of the rants usually reserved for newsroom folks. To wit: “It&'s sad how one can be misquoted and then for that misquote to be picked up by someone else with both then making a spin of the events to support their position,” wrote IBM software guru Grady Booch on his blog. “How silly is that?”

Booch was referring to MetaCase CEO Juha-Pekka Tolvanen and Microsoft&'s Steve Cook, who jumped on a remark by Booch that he throws away unified modeling languages used by codeheads. Cook, who mocked Booch on his blog, prefers to use domain-specific modeling. Booch suggested that was a “toy language.” Little did we know that mocking a method of software development was fighting words.

Prepare for sticker shock if you thumb through the Microsoft Partner Handbook on “Implementing a Comprehensive Managed Services Solution.” Suggested MSP pricing models start at $500 per server, per month to deliver managed antivirus, backup, one hour of tech support with an hour of flex time, and on-site support that arrives in three hours. Add managed OS upgrades and unlimited support and the price doubles to $1,000 per month, per server—yes, per server. This is about 50 times more expensive than the per-server cost of equivalent managed services using an MSP platform from (insert practically any popular MSP platform vendor).

Congrats to Ascentium. The Bellevue, Wash., Microsoft partner was named by Inc. to its list of fastest-growing private companies, the only Microsoft partner apparently to garner such distinction.