Steve Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft

The New York Times reported that Microsoft Windows head Steven Sinofsky has left the Redmond-based company after a “mutual decision by Mr. Sinofsky and Steven A. Ballmer.” Julie Larson-Green will take over Sinofsky’s position.

Steve Sinofsky

Microsoft described the departure of Mr. Sinfosky, a 23-year veteran of the company, as a mutual decision by Mr. Sinofsky and Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive of the company. Julie Larson-Green, another Microsoft veteran in its Windows division, will take over the leadership of all engineering responsibilities related to Windows. Tami Reller, the chief financial officer of the Windows division, will run business and marketing for the group.

This is a similar situation to Scott Forstall leaving Apple earlier this month. Sinofsky joined Microsoft in 1989, where he rose to become head of the Windows division in July 2009. Much like Forstall, he was an integral part in the development of Microsoft’s core products. The Microsoft veteran gave the following statement:

“It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company.”

Ballmer added:

“I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company. The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft. We’ve built an incredible foundation with new releases of Microsoft Office, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface, Windows Server 2012 and ‘Halo 4,’ and great integration of services such as Bing, Skype and Xbox across all our products. To continue this success it is imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings.”

WinSuperSite obtained Synopsky’s letter:

Some might notice a bit of chatter speculating about this decision or timing. I can assure you that none could be true as this was a personal and private choice that in no way reflects any speculation or theories one might read-about me, opportunity, the company or its leadership.

The Verge obtained Ballmer’s letter to the Microsoft team:

Over the past few months we have delivered the foundation for a new era for Microsoft. From Office to Bing to Windows Phone and Windows Azure, to Xbox and of course Windows and Surface and everything in between, we’ve unleashed a huge wave of devices and services that people and businesses love. I simply couldn’t be more proud of the effort you have all put in to get us here and to set the foundation for our future. At the Windows launch in New York, at the Windows Phone event in San Francisco, and again at the Build event on Redmond campus, I was struck that while externally many people look at these events as the finish line, they really represent the starting line of a new era.

As we enter this new era, and with the successful launch of Windows 8 and Surface behind us, Steven Sinofsky has decided to leave the company. Steven joined Microsoft in 1989 as a software development engineer and has contributed to the company in many ways from his work as a technical advisor to Bill Gates, to leading the evolution of the Microsoft Office business, to his direction and successful leadership of Windows and Windows Live as well as Surface. I am grateful for the work that Steven has delivered in his time at our company. Effective immediately, Julie Larson-Green will lead Windows engineering. She will be responsible for all product development for Windows and Windows Live, in addition to Surface. Julie has been a stalwart leader of building compelling “experiences” from her time on Internet Explorer, through the evolution of Office and most recently to the re-imagination of Windows. Her unique product and innovation perspective and proven ability to effectively collaborate and drive a cross company agenda will serve us well as she takes on this new leadership role. All of the current Windows engineering teams will report into Julie, and Julie will report to me.

Tami Reller will lead business and marketing strategy for Windows including Surface and partner devices. She will provide broad stewardship to our PC marketing efforts while managing the line business functions for Windows. Her work on Windows since 2007 has been exemplary and her strong talents in working with internal groups and partners will also serve us well. Tami also will report to me.

We are facing a time of great opportunity. What we have accomplished over the past few years is nothing short of amazing, and I know we have more amazing in us. I am excited about our people, I am energized by our ability to change and grow, and I look forward to the success which lies ahead. Thank you for all you do, and please join me in congratulating our new leadership and celebrating all that we have accomplished so far.

Cloud Computing Architecture

When talking about a cloud computing system, it’s helpful to divide it into two sections: the front endand the back end. They connect to each other through a network, usually the internet. The front end is the side the computer user, or client, sees. The back end is the “cloud” section of the system.

The front end includes the client’s computer (or computer network) and the application required to access the cloud computing system. Not all cloud computing systems have the same user interface. Services like Web-based e-mail programs leverage existing Web browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox. Other systems have unique applications that provide network access to clients.

On the back end of the system are the various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the “cloud” of computing services. In theory, a cloud computing system could include practically any computer program you can imagine, from data processing to video games. Usually, each application will have its own dedicated server.

A central server administers the system, monitoring traffic and client demands to ensure everything runs smoothly. It follows a set of rules called protocols and uses a special kind of software called middleware. Middleware allows networked computers to communicate with each other. Most of the time, servers don’t run at full capacity. That means there’s unused processing power going to waste. It’s possible to fool a physical server into thinking it’s actually multiple servers, each running with its own independent operating system. The technique is called server virtualization. By maximizing the output of individual servers, server virtualization reduces the need for more physical machines.

If a cloud computing company has a lot of clients, there’s likely to be a high demand for a lot of storage space. Some companies require hundreds of digital storage devices. Cloud computing systems need at least twice the number of storage devices it requires to keep all its clients’ information stored. That’s because these devices, like all computers, occasionally break down. A cloud computing system must make a copy of all its clients’ information and store it on other devices. The copies enable the central server to access backup machines to retrieve data that otherwise would be unreachable. Making copies of data as a backup is called redundancy

by Jonathan Strickland
www.howstuffworks.com

The Clouds are Gathering (about cloud computing)

You probably have heard this term a number of times and have wondered what it could mean. What? Cloud computing? It is interesting to know that this has been around for some time now, but all thanks to a number of concerns/fears. However, it seems to be set to explode and transform the IT industry. For good? this is left to be seen. Now let’s say you’re an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities include making sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. Buying computers for everyone isn’t enough — you also have to purchase software or software licenses to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you have a new hire, you have to buy more software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It’s so stressful that you find it difficult to go to sleep on your huge pile of money every night.

Soon, there may be an alternative for executives like you. Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you’d only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job. Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It’s called cloud computing, and it could change the entire computer industry.

In a cloud computing system, there’s a significant workload shift. Local computers no longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands on the user’s side decrease. The only thing the user’s computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing system’s interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud’s network takes care of the rest.

There’s a good chance you’ve already used some form of cloud computing. If you have an e-mail account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, then you’ve had some experience with cloud computing. Instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account doesn’t exist on your computer — it’s on the service’s computer cloud.

What makes up a cloud computing system? Find out in the next Post.

Do Yourself a Favor – Make a Backup

Information Technology has become part of our daily lives, we have become so used to it that we often times feel incomplete if some of our gadgets are not in our possession for one reason or another (laptops, Phones, etc). I can say that we have seamlessly infused them into our lives.

However, with technology comes responsibility, we have all been affected by what I call an undesirable occurrence. It happens even more often than we expect or even desire, yet we don’t take steps or develop strategies to mitigate it. It is called “Data Disaster/Loss”.

This happens on any electronic data processing device of any sort. The bad news is that, it is normal, it must occur one way or another. I have had a number of instances where a friend’s laptop is stolen and in so much pain I hear them say something like “If they could only bring back my hard disk”. This suggests that they have had very important data stored in there, but have now been thrown off tangent because they’ve got no way/where to retrieve these data. It is indeed heart breaking. There are still worst scenarios where another man’s life depends on the said data. The good news is that you can prepared against the evil day.

Any document, database, website, application, statistics, spreadsheet, or other types of files are at risk of being permanently lost if it exists in only one location. Hard drive malfunction and computer viruses, as well as things like fire, human error and even sabotage can and do happen to computer systems. When these problems occur, weeks or months of work can disappear in an instant, lost forever. The best protection from such a disaster is to have multiple versions of the data, including at least one copy stored in an alternate location. This is the basic principle behind all backup strategies.

Many businesses have a backup procedure already in place. However, they may not be aware of the alternatives to their current expensive, manual, archaic, tape-based backup processes. With business operations so reliant on information technology, it is vitally important to identify alternatives that can eliminate vulnerabilities. In addition, it is important to utilize an effective data protection service that will allow you to quickly restore business operations.

Cases in View

• More recently the second floor of the Secretariat of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria was affected by fire in the early hours of Saturday, September 26, 2009.  Initial report from the Security Guards on duty, revealed that the fire started at about 1.25 am following the restoration of electricity supply by Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) after a period of power outage.  The fire was restricted to the second floor due to the timely intervention of the Federal and Lagos State Fire Services, as well as Fire Service Units of some corporate organisations like Union Bank Plc. and Eko Hotel and Suites for which the Institute is immensely grateful.

The offices affected were: Research and Technical Directorate, Computer room,   Director, Membership Affairs and Corporate Affairs. I leave you to ponder on the amount of data that was lost.

• In 2007 the offices of the National Agency For Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Kaduna and Lagos were both gutted by fire in close succession.  This incident destroyed facilities worth millions of Naira but most importantly it was said that the value of the data/information destroyed could not be quantified in monetary terms (to describe the importance of the data destroyed).

From the above cases, without an effective backup system, the data will be lost for good and hundreds or even thousands of hours of work would’ve been lost.

The above are just two instances out of the many we hear on a daily bases.

ONLINE OFFSITE DATA BACKUP

Does your company still trust the backup of your most vital resource – data – to a fragmented and often ineffective policy of distributed USB disks, CDs, tape devices, manual routines, and manual offsite poorly planned storage? Or have you tried to use some “unlimited” consumer-based online backup solution, only to find that you cannot get your data back for a week (or never!) when the time comes that you need it? Lynxx Systems & Communication Technology LTD provides a business-class online offsite backup service that addresses the drawbacks of the fragmented USB disks, CDs, tape-based approach to backup with a unique service offering that is built specifically to handle the urgency of your business:

• Fully automated process with backups held on disk for rapid file restoration.
• Secure online transfer of fully encrypted data to an online offsite data center, ensuring regular backups are stored safely and remotely.
• Sound basis for business continuity planning – whatever happens, your data is safe.
• Cost-effective solution with an all-inclusive monthly service charge.
• 24 x 7 live customer support
• Immediate access to restore data when you need it

OFFLINE OFFSITE DATA BACKUP

Offsite Data Backup allows users to back up data to a remote, offsite location. This gives your organisation the ability to implement a data protection strategy that includes offsite storage of a backup of your data. This will require a well defined backup plan/schedule where we will be required to come at regular intervals and backup all your official data for offsite safekeeping.  This will ensure that at any point in time you request for your data to be restored in an instance of any data disaster, giving you easy offsite data protection.

The option you choose will depend on first, the nature data + other conditions.

We are specialists, we definitely can HELP!!!

Adamu Fun Bala CSA; MD/CEO Lynxx Systems & Communication Technology LTD; 08035158065