Stravinsky's Sizzlin' Shack

Yesterday, when I went over to checkout Microsoft's Middle East Security Management Road Show 2006 at the Sheraton Hotel in Bahrain, I grabbed the opportunity to get one-on-one with Microsoftie - Desmond Nair who's the Server and Tools Business Group Manager for Microsoft Middle East. Desmond who was a Microsoft Product Marketing Manager in South Africa and now is based in Dubai, took some time off the conference sessions to answer some 'interesting' questions and also fired up his take on Vista, Firefox and Open Source. Read on!

Angelo: In your presentation a few minutes ago, you mentioned that Microsoft (MS) just got honored in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) a month back for being the most trustworthy company in an opeinion poll. Could you please tell me what rank you guys got placed at, because according to Forrester Research, of the 4,732 US households surveyed in September and October 2005 to determine users' trust in 48 technology brands, MS ranked 20th out of 22. Any ideas Desmond?

Desmond: Well am being awfully honest whenI say that I’ve no clue about that survey, but when it comes to trusted computing, Microsoft (MS) did get honored by WSJ for being the most trustworthy company in the world and for example in in Japan, the most trustworthy company was Toyota.


Angelo: Why did MS introduce tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer 7 (IE7)? Had Firefox anything to do with it?

Desmond: We introduced tabbed browsing in IE7 mainly to increase productivity. I mean today, it's all about browsing and searching online and no one likes to keep opening new windows to view content, it's time-consuming and that's why we came up with tabbed browsing for IE7 in order to enhance a user's browsing experience online. Secondly, it's not a question of Microsoft going head-to-head with Firefox, competition will always exist. Now I've heard a lot about Firefox, and been meaning to install it but never got around to doing so. I think Firefox is loosing it’s community these days due to the management and people who designed the browser.

Angelo: You mean Blake Ross who's the creator of FireFox?

Desmond: Well not really but I do know that there’s a lot of complaints going in against them from their very own forum users as I’ve been reading in the past few months.


Angelo: Ok, and here in Bahrain, do you think that MS has been getting the expected response from customers that are using some of your products or do you think that the Middle East & Africa user base has a long way to go in utilizing MS solutions to it's true potential?




Desmond: Well at MS, we have taken a keen interest in students because that’s one of our target markets and as you would know, students are better at playing with our stuff and coming up with a better way to do things. That said, MS in the Middle East, strives to build uppon students' skills in using MS solutions and we also develop them on the whole while simultaneously running traning programmes which specialize in various tracks. The guy in charge of this whole project is based in Dubai. And every year, MS Middle East hosts a code competition between students out of which, the best make it to working at MS. This is a project which we've been running for the past 3 years, and it's been very successful since.

Angelo: Can you please tell me about Microsoft's relationship with Linux?

Desmond: We have a stong relationship with Linux that exists at the customer level which means we support all kinds of client environments, may they be Linux, Solaris, etc., there's no differential treatment as such given Linux users and all those stories you've heard about Microsoft throwing over a damp blanket on users who are currently operating within a Linux environment is totally false, what we do is work with people to get the best out of their user environment, and tomorrow you'll know why what I'm telling you right now is true, MS in Redmond are coming out with an exclusive press release on R2's flexbility with other platforms. ;-) [PressPass came out with the MS Exclusive release 5 minutes ago (03/04/06) - Microsoft delivers Linux support and makes Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 available to customers as a free download]



Angelo: Windows Vista is set to release in November this year as stated by MS in various news outlets, could you please tell me if this would be the same release date for Bahrain and the rest of the Middle East? I'm sure you know how this region usually is the last one to recieve some tech products, are we going to see a repeat here by MS?

Desmond: Yes and No really:-), YES! Vista WILL be released worldwide at the same and in all languages as well. So you can count on it being released in Bahrain during November 2006! And NO the region won't get Vista late.

Angelo: Well Desmond, I've also heard that although Vista is set to release in November, MS will be releasing it to just corporate clients and not home users, could you confirm this?

Desmond: Your're right Angelo, MS corporate clients will get Vista in November and somewhere in January 2007, home users will get their hands on Vista.

Angelo: Do you know what the reason might be behind this delay of releasing Vista to non-corporate users? To me it sounds a bit unfair, don't you think so, it's like saying if you got the $$$, then you're getting Vista!

Desmond: Well, this is one of the hardest decisions that MS took, because originally we wanted to release Vista to home users in December, as that month in the US is when sales hit a peak due to major price drops, but due to the fact that computers are manufactured in China and there's a 4 weeks wait on shipping and the like, MS decided that we’ll sit on it and work together with the hardware folks and release Vista in the New Year to home users. Now, you've talked about fairness and big bucks but realistically speaking, corporations aren’t going to sit around until computers are shipped, which is why they get vista before home users do, we’re looking more at quantity of computers being used by a corporate client than by a home user, I think we’re talking about the difference of 2 computers purchased by a home user in comparison to possibly more than a thousand by a corporate client.


Angelo: In early 2005, just after the tsunami aftermath, a source with MS Belgium stated during a relief operation, that MS would be going open source in the last quarter of 2007, Can you please confirm that as actually happening given that it's been more than a year since that statement was mentioned?

Desmond: To my knowledge, MS has no plans to go completely open source, however, we already have certain code released as shared open source under something called the MS Shared Community License. And let’s not forget we just offered developers the full version of MS Visual Studio Dot Net 2005 Express Edition free for a year.

Angelo: Right, but that’s not the same as open source now....

Desmond: Well all I can say is that, there defininitely is a place for open source, but what is really needed is support for products that do go open source and this isn’t something that we’re seeing much of right now. Regarding MS going open source, I guess the right people to to talk to are the guys at MS Dynamics.


Angelo: Desmond, a final question: have you got any advice for the geeks out there? Any more MS road shows hitting the Gulf region in the near future?

Desmond: Well, this information isn’t released yet on the MS website, but yes there’s a major geek conference in Dubai on April 30th called the Gulf Developers Conference 2006 (GDC 2006) which is a completely free event, a whole day sorta’ thing, where it’s going to be patronized by developers, coders, hackers, I'm saying a major coder event and details of it is going to soon be live on the website, not released to the press yet. You will practically be seeing geeky t-shirts flashing around you and if you’re into coding, web services and know or think you’re a geek, then this is one conference you can’t afford to miss out on!

See you at GDC 2006 in Dubai!