Microsoft to developers: We’ve built it, they will come

At Microsoft’s developer conference, Steve Ballmer talked ecosystem, not tech.

It’s day one of Microsoft BUILD, the company’s major developer conference. Traditionally at these things (this is only the second BUILD, but before it there were almost 20 years of PC conferences that served a similar purpose) the keynote presentations are developer-heavy. The speakers tend to talk about Microsoft’s latest developer tools and operating system platforms, do some programming live on stage (always a crowd-pleaser), and show off new testing and source control features—playing to the audience.

But today was different. BUILD’s opening keynote was presented by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer was in top form. Thanks to certain videos, the man’s presentation style has developed a certain reputation: over-confident, volume cranked up to 11, bombastic, and, it must be said, sweaty.

Today, he was none of that. He was composed, funny, natural, and overall tremendously likable. He was, as always, excited about the products Microsoft is delivering, but where sometimes that excitement comes across as almost scary, today it was infectious enthusiasm.

Steve Ballmer is plainly a person who believes very strongly in the products that Microsoft has built, namely the recently-released Windows 8 and Surface and the imminently available Windows Phone 8. He believes in the underlying vision, and today, in his keynote, that’s what he was selling to the thousands of assembled developers in a giant tent on Microsoft’s campus, and many thousands more watching streams online.

The vision once had a name—”three screens and a cloud”—but that terminology appears to have been left on the scrapheap of history alongside the term “Metro”. Even without this name, that is the vision that Ballmer was selling. Three Microsoft platforms: the PC/tablet (because for Redmond, the latter is just one kind of the former), the smartphone, and the TV-connected console-cum-media player. All three are unified with a common design and aesthetic, have a (somewhat) similar development platform, and are tied together with cloud services.

That vision still isn’t fully realized, but it is manifest today in a way that it never has been before. This is Microsoft’s platform, this is Microsoft’s future, and what it needs from developers is simple: it needs them to buy into the platform and develop applications. It needs new applications, Metro-style applications, for Windows 8 and for Windows Phone 8.

Ballmer’s job today was to sell that platform to developers. He had to get them engaged and excited, and most important of all, to convince them that the audience is there; he had to convince them that if they built their apps, there would be tens and hundreds of millions of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 users to buy them. Build the apps and the customers will come.

How will Microsoft get those customers? A range of hardware spanning any usage scenario, from 10-inch tablets to 82-inch monster touchscreens including touch-screen Ultrabooks, all-in-one family PCs, and even powerful workstations, is a good start. This, coupled with a saturation marketing campaign, will be all but unavoidable.

For Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is betting big on Windows 8. With its common look-and-feel, the company is counting on Windows Phone 8 being the natural smartphone choice for Windows 8 users. Windows Phone 8 will be the smartphone that feels familiar to Windows 8 users, and thanks to cloud services like SkyDrive and Xbox Music Pass, it’s the phone that will be best integrated and best connected.

Will developers respond? The response at BUILD was enthusiastic, but this is arguably to be expected. At BUILD, there’s a certain degree of preaching to the choir—you don’t generally attend a Microsoft developer event unless you’re invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. The real test will be in coming months, when we’ll see if developers are taking Redmond’s platform seriously from the apps they produce. And the onus is also on the software giant to deliver the users it promised. Microsoft has built it, so will they come?


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NASA launches smartphone satellites — downloading images may be an issue

However, NASA is not the first group to launch Nexus Ones into space.

NASA on Monday launched three 2010-vintage Nexus One smartphones into orbit via an Antares rocket, saying that the Android devices would be among the cheapest satellites ever devised.

The devices are part of the administration’s PhoneSat program, which is designed to ascertain the suitability of consumer smartphone processors as cheaper satellite brains.

Michael Gazarik, NASA associate administrator for space technology, said in a statement that there’s no shortage of possible applications for the space-going Android phones.

“Smartphones offer a wealth of potential capabilities for flying small, low-cost, powerful satellites for atmospheric or Earth science, communications, or other space-born applications. They also may open space to a whole new generation of commercial, academic and citizen-space

The devices contain much of the hardware needed for basic satellite functionality, including reasonably modern processors, cameras, GPS receivers, radios and a host of other small sensors.

The phones are housed in four-inch cubesat structures, and will attempt to take photos of the Earth via their onboard cameras.

The PhoneSats are also part of an elaborate game, as they transmit packets of data back to Earth, where they can be received by amateur radio operators. While some packets are simple status reports, others are tiny fragments of the Earth pictures being captured from orbit, which can be reassembled into complete photographs.

Interestingly, however, NASA is not the first to undertake this type of project – a privately-held British company called Surrey Satellite Technology Limited launched a Nexus One into space aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s PSLV-C20 mission in late February. However, the STRaND-1’s price tag – “about as much as a high-end family car,” according to SSTL – is likely significantly higher than NASA’s PhoneSat, which cost less than $7,000.


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Windows 8 Update: transition from Android to Windows Phone made easier

Windows 8 Update: transition from Android to Windows Phone made easier
Also, iPad keyboard/cover to rival Surface, 8-inch Windows 8 tablet

UPDATE: Microsoft has delayed availability of its Switch to Windows Phone app until sometime next week.

Microsoft figures customers will be more likely to switch from Android smartphones to Windows 8 phones if it makes it easier to find the same or similar apps for their new phone as were on their old phones.

Microsoft is introducing Switch to Windows Phone, an application that finds identical or replacement applications for Windows Phone 8 in the Windows Store to replace their old Android apps.

The new application, which is being released today, is not available for iPhones.
Switch to Windows 8 inventories all the applications on the Android phone and sends that inventory to the Microsoft SkyDrive cloud. When customers log in to the same SkyDrive account from the Switch to Windows 8 app loaded on their Windows Phone 8, the app finds the same set of applications. If there are no exact replacements, the app recommends similar ones, according to Guru Gowrappan, executive vice president for products at application search firm Quixey.

Quixey supplies the apps-search engine within Switch to Windows 8. The engine uses descriptions of apps, reviews of apps, trouble reports about apps and other metadata it gathers from the Web to recommend substitute applications to users, Gowrappan says. The goal is to make them as close as possible to matching the app on the Android phone.

In the case of Switch to Windows 8, the Quixey search engine goes through the 135,000 Windows Phone 8 applications in the Windows Store seeking direct matches – such as the Windows Phone 8 Facebook app to replace the Android Facebook app – or to find applications that perform as close to the same function as possible, he says.

The search engine can also look for applications based on what customers want to do. So a customer could enter “cook Italian food” into the engine and would get a list of apps such as Tuscan Chef and Italian Video Recipes.

Sprint Zone and Sprint Digital Lounge use Quixey’s engine to find apps as does ask.com for searching Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Blackberry applications.

Keyboard for iPads mimics Surface
Logitech is selling a thin, fabric-covered keyboard/cover for iPads that give the Apple tablets similar functionality to Microsoft’s Windows 8 Surface tablet/laptops.

Called FabricSkin Keyboard Folio, the keyboards attach magnetically to iPads and flop down to convert from being a cover to being a keyboard. The device includes a prop to hold the screen at a slant for better viewing when typing. It can also fold over to allow use of the iPad as a tablet.

At $150, that puts iPads with keyboards on a price par with some models of Surface tablets with keyboards.

Some differences: Surface supports Office applications and a file system, something iPads lack. Surface draws power from the computer battery; FabricSkin Keyboard Folio has its own rechargeable battery. The Surface keyboard communicates with the tablet via direct electrical connection; FabricSkin Keyboard Folio uses Bluetooth.

8-inch Windows 8 tablet
Acer is coming out with an 8-inch tablet running Windows 8 if a leaked photo is to be believed.
Windows 8
The photo here was posted by the site minimachines.net but taken down at Acer’s request.


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70-451 – PRO: Designing Database Solutions and Data Access Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008

QUESTION 1
You work as a database developer at Certkingdom.com. You need to plan a SQL Server 2008 database
that will be accessed by mobile users.
The database must be able to profile data before importing it from heterogeneous data sources,
including Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and
CSV files. In addition, Certkingdom.com’s mobile users must have collaboration and offline capabilities
and they must be able to use heterogeneous data stores.
How should you plan your database if you want your design to use the least amount of
administrative effort?

A. You should make use of the Analysis Services and the Notification Services.
B. You should make use of the SQL Server Agent.
C. You should make use of the Integration Services and the Microsoft Sync Framework.
D. You should make use of the Service Broker and SQL Mail.

Answer: C


QUESTION 2
Certkingdom.com has hired you to design a SQL Server 2008 database for its online retail application. The
database must be able to run both Transact-SQL statements as well as SQL Server Integration
Services (SSIS) packages. Certkingdom.com plans on running scheduled maintenance tasks on the
database and they want the database to send alerts and notifications to the network
administrators.
How should you design this database?

A. You should make use of the Analysis Services and the Notification Services.
B. You should make use of the Reporting Services.
C. You should make use of SQL Server Agent.
D. You should make use of the Service Broker and the Notification Services.

Answer: C


QUESTION 3
Certkingdom.com hires you as their database administrator of their SQL Server 2008 database
infrastructure. You need to optimize a very large database table for query execution against string
data. The database contains several million rows of data. You need to ensure that the queries are
performed in order of proximity and are completed in the least amount of time possible.
How should you configure the database?

A. You should create a partitioned view on the table.
B. You should create a nonclustered index on the table.
C. You should make use of the Analysis Services.
D. You should enable Full-Text-Search.

Answer: D


QUESTION 4
You work as a database developer at Certkingdom.com. You need to design a SQL Server 2008 database
named Sales. The Sales database will have tables named Customers with an identity column
named CustomerID, Products with and identity column named ProductID, SalesReps with an
identity column named RepID, Orders with an identity column named OrderID, and Invoices with
an identity column named InvoiceID.
Sales representatives are assigned to specific customers with each Sales Representative being
assigned to more than one customer.
You need to ensure that the database is normalized and that it represents the relationship
between the Sales Representatives and the customers.
How should you design your database?

A. You should create a foreign key constraint between the SalesReps and Customers tables.
B. You should make use of the hierarchyid data type on the SalesReps table.
C. You should add a SalesRep2Customer table with foreign key constraints to the SalesReps and
Customers tables.
D. You should make use of a table-valued function on the SalesReps table.
E. You should make use of a view based on the SalesReps and Customers tables.

Answer: C

Explanation:


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70-236 Microsoft Exchange Server 2012

Contents
Preface xvii
Foreword xxi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 A decade and counting of Exchange deployments 1
1.1.1 The way we were 2
1.1.2 The protocol wars 2
1.1.3 Ever increasing mobility 4
1.1.4 Third-party products and management 6
1.1.5 Some interesting projects 6
1.1.6 The not so good points 7
1.1.7 Exchange’s connection with the Active Directory 10
1.1.8 Reviewing predictions made in 1996 11
1.2 Microsoft’s themes for Exchange 2007 12
1.2.1 The happy prospect of a migration 18
1.3 Preparing for Exchange 2007 20
1.4 Installing Exchange 2007 22
1.4.1 Modifying and removing servers 27
1.4.2 Validating the installation 27
1.4.3 Third-party software 28
1.5 Server roles 28
1.5.1 Services 32
1.6 Licensing 36
1.6.1 Version numbers 40
1.6.2 32-bit Exchange 2007? 41
1.7 Support 42
1.8 Challenges for Exchange 2007 42
1.9 Into the future 45
vi Contents
2 Exchange, Windows, and the Active Directory 47
2.1 Active Directory and Exchange 47
2.1.1 Domain Designs 48
2.2 Active Directory replication 50
2.2.1 Replication basics 51
2.2.2 When Active Directory replication happens 53
2.2.3 Active Directory naming contexts 55
2.2.4 Transforming Domain controllers into
Global Catalogs 58
2.2.5 USNs and replication 60
2.2.6 Urgent replication 64
2.2.7 Intrasite and Intersite replication 65
2.2.8 High-watermark vector and up-to-date vector tables 68
2.2.9 Changes in Active Directory replication in Windows 2003 70
2.3 Exchange’s Active Directory Topology service 71
2.3.1 DSAccess (or ADAccess) 72
2.3.2 How many Global Catalog servers do I need? 75
2.3.3 Where are my Global Catalogs? 76
2.4 Recovering deleted Active Directory accounts 78
2.5 Exchange and the Active Directory schema 80
2.5.1 Updating the schema with an installation 80
2.5.2 Changing the schema 82
2.5.3 Active Directory custom attributes for Exchange 85
2.5.4 Updating the schema to allow Ambiguous
Name Resolution 86
2.5.5 Exchange-specific permissions 87
2.5.6 Exchange property sets 88
2.6 Longhorn and Exchange 2007 90
2.7 The very important LegacyExchangeDN attribute 91
2.8 Brain surgery for the Active Directory: ADSIEDIT 93
2.8.1 LDP and LDIFDE 96
2.8.2 Active Directory for Exchange 98
3 The Basics of Managing Exchange 2007 99
3.1 Exchange Management Console 100
3.1.1 The importance of filters 104
3.1.2 Managing mixed organizations 109
3.1.3 Running EMC remotely or on a workstation 112
3.1.4 No more AD Users and Computers 113
3.1.5 Changing columns 115
Contents vii
Contents
3.1.6 Visual effects 116
3.2 Why some options have disappeared from EMC 118
3.2.1 Coping with change 122
3.3 Changes in the Exchange delegation model 124
3.4 Customized Recipient Management 128
3.4.1 Adieu RUS 130
3.4.2 Recipient types 132
3.5 Moving users 133
3.5.1 Moving mailboxes 134
3.5.2 Logging mailbox moves 138
3.6 Using distribution groups 140
3.6.1 Forming groups 142
3.6.2 Group changes in Exchange 2007 145
3.6.3 Expanding distribution lists 147
3.6.4 How many objects can I have in a group? 148
3.6.5 Managing group membership 149
3.6.6 Protected groups (and users) 152
3.7 Using groups for permissions 154
3.7.1 Managing distribution groups from Outlook 154
3.8 Dynamic distribution groups 156
3.8.1 Changing filters and conditions for dynamic
distribution groups 157
3.8.2 A note on OPATH 159
3.8.3 A new UI for dynamic groups 160
3.8.4 Creating New dynamic groups 162
3.8.5 Using dynamic Distribution groups 167
3.9 Mailbox quotas 168
3.9.1 Setting mailbox quotas 170
3.10 Email address policies 173
3.10.1 Mailbox moves and email address policies 178
3.10.2 Queries that drive email address policies 178
3.11 Address lists 183
3.11.1 Upgrading Address Lists to Exchange 2007 format 187
3.12 User naming conventions 188
3.13 Server naming conventions 192
3.14 Moving from the basics 194
4 The Exchange Management Shell 195
4.1 EMS: Exchange’s management shell 197
4.1.1 Working with PowerShell commands 199
4.1.2 Exchange shell commands 204
viii Contents
4.1.3 Command editing 208
4.1.4 Getting at more information about something 210
4.1.5 Using common and user-defined variables 214
4.1.6 Identities 217
4.1.7 Working in a multi-domain forest 219
4.1.8 Profiles 221
4.1.9 PowerShell in batch 223
4.1.10 Execution policies 224
4.1.11 Sending email from the shell 226
4.2 Learning from EMC 229
4.3 Using EMS to work with mailboxes 232
4.3.1 Creating a new mailbox with a template 232
4.3.2 Setting and retrieving mailbox properties 234
4.3.3 Other ways of interacting with mailboxes 244
4.3.4 Get-Recipient 245
4.3.5 Moving mailboxes 245
4.3.6 Accessing another user’s mailbox 249
4.3.7 Different commands and different properties 251
4.3.8 Contacts 252
4.4 Working with distribution groups 253
4.4.1 Working with dynamic distribution groups 257
4.4.2 Advanced group properties 262
4.5 Delegation through the shell 265
4.6 Creating efficient filters 267
4.7 Bulk updates 270
4.7.1 Creating sets of mailboxes 273
4.8 Reporting mailbox data 275
4.8.1 Special properties 282
4.9 Using the shell for other management tasks 284
4.10 Command validation 287
4.11 Working with remote servers 290
4.12 Working with non-Exchange 2007 servers 291
4.13 Testing Exchange 2007 292
4.13.1 Client connections 294
4.13.2 Mail Flow 295
4.13.3 Miscellaneous test commands 297
4.14 PowerShell for Exchange administrators 297
5 The Store 301
5.1 Introducing the Store 301
5.2 Differences in the Exchange 2007 Store 306
Contents ix
Contents
5.2.1 Are 64 bits that important? 307
5.2.2 Trading memory for I/O 312
5.2.3 The decrease in storage costs 317
5.3 No more streaming database 318
5.4 Tables and items 320
5.5 Storage groups 323
5.5.1 Creating a new storage group and database 327
5.5.2 Working with storage groups and databases 329
5.6 Transaction logs 331
5.6.1 Circular logging 335
5.6.2 Creating new transaction logs 337
5.6.3 Reserved logs 338
5.6.4 Transactions, buffers, and commitment 339
5.6.5 Transaction log I/O 341
5.6.6 Protecting transaction logs 341
5.6.7 Transaction log checksum 342
5.6.8 Maximum database size 343
5.7 Database portability 345
5.7.1 Zero database pages 349
5.8 MAPI connections and logons 349
5.9 The Deleted Items cache 350
5.9.1 Cleaning the Deleted Items cache 356
5.9.2 Recovering items and mailboxes 357
5.10 Background maintenance 360
5.10.1 Background tasks 364
5.10.2 Tracking background maintenance 367
5.11 Fixing failed databases 368
5.12 Exchange 2007 content indexing 375
5.12.1 Using content indexing 380
5.13 Public folders 383
5.13.1 Public folders and Exchange 2007 384
5.13.2 Changes in public folders administration since
Exchange 2003 386
5.13.3 Calming replication storms 388
5.13.4 Managing public folders with Exchange 2007 392
5.13.5 Permissions on top-level folders 405
5.13.6 Referrals 405
5.13.7 Migrating public folder content 406
5.14 Removing database size limits 408
5.15 Backups 408
5.15.1 NTBackup 410
x Contents
5.15.2 Other commercial backup products 410
5.15.3 Creating a backup strategy 413
5.15.4 Backups and storage groups 415
5.15.5 Checkpoint file 421
5.15.6 The future of streaming backups 426
5.16 Moving from the Store 427
6 Exchange Transport and Routing 429
6.1 The evolution of routing 429
6.2 Change through experience 430
6.2.1 Hidden administrative and routing groups 433
6.3 Exchange 2007 transport architecture 435
6.3.1 The critical role of hub transport servers 438
6.3.2 Receive connectors 440
6.3.3 Send connectors 447
6.3.4 Linking Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 453
6.3.5 Multiple routes into Exchange 2003 458
6.3.6 Decommissioning Exchange 2003 routing groups 458
6.3.7 Handling Exchange 2003 link state updates
during migration 458
6.3.8 Foreign connectors 459
6.3.9 Authorization 460
6.3.10 Accepted domains 460
6.3.11 Transport storage 461
6.4 Routing ABC 464
6.4.1 Resolving multiple paths 467
6.4.2 Most specific connector 467
6.4.3 Connector cost 469
6.4.4 Closest proximity 469
6.4.5 The role of hub routing sites 470
6.4.6 Site link costs versus routing costs 471
6.4.7 Instructing mailbox servers 472
6.4.8 Bypassing some connections 472
6.4.9 Protocol logging 473
6.4.10 X.400 support 474
6.4.11 Bifurcation 475
6.4.12 Header firewalls 476
6.5 Transport configuration 476
6.5.1 Transport configuration file 481
6.5.2 Routing logs 483
6.6 Queues 485
Contents xi
Contents
6.6.1 The Queue Viewer 488
6.6.2 The Unreachable queue 491
6.6.3 Poison messages 493
6.7 Back Pressure 494
6.8 Delivery Status Notifications 496
6.8.1 Customizing DSNs 501
6.8.2 Postmaster addresses 504
6.9 Transport agents 505
6.10 Transport summary 506
6.11 Edge servers 506
6.11.1 Edge or hub? 508
6.11.2 Basic Edge 510
6.11.3 Edge Synchronization 511
6.11.4 Basic Edge security 518
6.11.5 Fighting spam and email viruses 518
6.11.6 Defense in depth 522
6.11.7 Microsoft’s approach to mail hygiene 523
6.11.8 Forefront for Exchange 528
6.11.9 Mail Hygiene Agents 533
6.11.10 Agent logs 535
6.11.11 Connection filtering 536
6.11.12 Sender filtering 538
6.11.13 Address Rewrite agent 539
6.11.14 Sender ID agent 541
6.11.15 Content filtering 547
6.11.16 Content Filter updates 550
6.11.17 Per-user SCL processing 553
6.11.18 Safelist Aggregation 554
6.11.19 Sender reputation 557
6.11.20 Recipient filtering 559
6.11.21 Blocking file attachments 560
6.11.22 Attachment filtering 562
6.11.23 Edge transport rules 563
6.11.24 Available Edge 565
6.12 Client-side spam suppression 567
6.12.1 Outlook’s Junk Mail Filter 568
6.12.2 Postmarks 573
6.12.3 Restricting OOF and other notifications 574
6.13 Routing onwards 580
xii Contents
7 Clients 581
7.1 Outlook 583
7.1.1 Outlook web services 585
7.1.2 Understanding Outlook’s relationship with Exchange 591
7.1.3 Deploying cached Exchange mode 596
7.1.4 Address caching 599
7.1.5 MAPI compression and buffers 600
7.1.6 Conflict resolution 602
7.1.7 Preventing MAPI clients from connecting 603
7.1.8 Outlook 2007 and Exchange 5.5 607
7.2 Offline and personal Stores 608
7.2.1 Personal folders 609
7.2.2 Mail delivery to personal folders 611
7.2.3 Configuring PSTs 615
7.2.4 PST archiving 617
7.3 Offline folder files 619
7.3.1 OST synchronization 621
7.3.2 When things go wrong with your OST 623
7.4 Out of Office changes 624
7.4.1 The big question: Is Outlook 2007 worth the upgrade? 625
7.5 The Offline Address Book (OAB) 626
7.5.1 Downloading the OAB 627
7.5.2 OAB files on the PC 628
7.5.3 The evolving OAB format 630
7.5.4 OAB and cached Exchange mode 632
7.5.5 OAB generation and distribution 634
7.5.6 Creating a customized OAB 640
7.5.7 Allocating OABs to users 642
7.6 Outlook Anywhere 645
7.7 Outlook Web Access 650
7.7.1 New features in Outlook Web Access 2007 652
7.7.2 Outlook Web Access Light 658
7.7.3 International versions 662
7.7.4 Accessing legacy data 664
7.7.5 Managing Outlook Web Access 666
7.7.6 Authentication 667
7.7.7 Segmentation 671
7.7.8 Notifications 675
7.7.9 Controlling attachments 677
7.7.10 Themes 680
7.7.11 Client settings 684
Contents xiii
Contents
7.8 Internet client access protocols 684
7.8.1 IMAP4 685
7.8.2 The Exchange 2007 IMAP server 689
7.9 Mobile clients 694
7.9.1 Selecting mobile devices 696
7.9.2 Server-based ActiveSync 698
7.10 Windows Mobile 6.0 and Exchange 2007 702
7.10.1 ActiveSync policies 706
7.10.2 Managing mobile devices through EMC 711
7.10.3 Moving mailboxes to Exchange 2007 and ActiveSync 713
7.10.4 Estimating network traffic for mobile devices 715
7.10.5 Analyzing ActiveSync logs 717
7.10.6 Wiping mobile devices 719
7.10.7 Debugging synchronization 721
7.11 Comparing Windows Mobile and BlackBerry 723
7.11.1 Processing the mail 725
7.11.2 Other messaging options for Windows Mobile 730
7.11.3 Power management 731
7.11.4 Input flexibility 732
7.12 Unified Communications 735
7.13 Unified Messaging 737
7.13.1 Client Access to voicemail 741
7.13.2 Dealing with voicemail 745
7.13.3 Voice synthesis 747
7.13.4 Pure voicemail 748
7.13.5 The magic of SIP 749
7.13.6 Speech Grammars 752
7.13.7 Phonetic names 754
7.13.8 Cross-forest UM 756
7.14 Special mailboxes 756
7.15 Clients and users 759
8 Managing Users 761
8.1 Room and equipment mailboxes 762
8.1.1 Managing properties of room and equipment mailboxes 765
8.1.2 Converting old mailboxes to rooms 770
8.2 Helping users to use email better 771
8.2.1 Eliminating bad habits 771
8.2.2 Disclaimers 779
8.2.3 Out-of-Office Notifications 781
8.2.4 The last few bad email habits 781
xiv Contents
8.3 Customizing display templates 782
8.4 Exchange 2007 and compliance 787
8.4.1 The growing need for compliance 789
8.4.2 Transport rules 792
8.4.3 Using a rule to add disclaimer text to outgoing messages 794
8.4.4 Capturing selected messages 795
8.4.5 Becoming more complicated 797
8.4.6 Creating an ethical firewall 800
8.4.7 Transport rule storage 803
8.4.8 Rules and the shell 804
8.4.9 Journal rules 808
8.5 Messaging Record Management 815
8.5.1 Managing default folders 818
8.5.2 Managing custom folders 824
8.5.3 Allocating managed folders with policies 826
8.5.4 Applying policies to users 827
8.5.5 The Managed Folder Assistant 829
8.5.6 Logging Managed Folder activity 831
8.5.7 Using Managed Folders 833
8.5.8 Harvesting information from managed folders 835
8.6 Message classifications 837
8.6.1 Adding intelligence to classification through rules 844
8.7 Copying user mailboxes 848
8.7.1 Auditing 853
8.8 Free and busy 853
8.8.1 Looking at free and busy data 855
8.8.2 Free and busy in Exchange 2007 861
8.8.3 Changes in Outlook 2007 863
8.8.4 Cross-forest free and busy 866
9 Hardware and Performance 867
9.1 Moving toward 64-bit Exchange 867
9.2 Buying servers for Exchange 2007 870
9.3 The storage question 876
9.4 RPC pop-ups 881
9.5 Clusters and Exchange 882
9.6 Continuous replication and Exchange 2007 888
9.6.1 Concepts 889
9.7 Deploying Local Continuous Replication (LCR) 892
9.7.1 How LCR works 897
9.7.2 LCR operations 900
Contents xv
Contents
9.7.3 LCR restrictions 903
9.7.4 LCR database transition 904
9.8 Deploying Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) 906
9.8.1 Comparing CCR and traditional clusters 910
9.8.2 CCR in practice 912
9.8.3 CCR failovers 915
9.8.4 Lost Log Resilience 919
9.8.5 The transport dumpster 921
9.8.6 Standby Continuous Replication 924
9.9 Continuous Log Replication: Good or bad? 924
9.10 Virtual Exchange 925
10 More useful things to Know about Exchange 929
10.1 Automated analysis 929
10.1.1 SSCP 932
10.1.2 Microsoft’s Release to Web (RTW) strategy 933
10.2 The Exchange Toolbox 935
10.2.1 Updates 936
10.2.2 Database Recovery Management 937
10.2.3 Database Troubleshooter 942
10.2.4 Mail Flow Troubleshooter 943
10.3 Messaging tracking logs 945
10.3.1 Generating message tracking logs 947
10.3.2 Log sizes and ages 950
10.3.3 Keeping track of message subjects 951
10.3.4 Accessing message tracking logs 951
10.3.5 Using the Troubleshooting Assistant to track messages 952
10.3.6 Tracking messages with EMS 956
10.3.7 Message delivery latency 959
10.4 Management frameworks 959
10.5 Utilities 963
10.5.1 Performance testing 963
10.5.2 The MFCMAPI utility 965
10.5.3 MDBVU32 968
10.5.4 ExMon—Exchange User Monitor 968
10.5.5 PFDavAdmin 971
10.5.6 LogParser 973
10.5.7 Outlook Spy 978
10.6 Bits and pieces 978
10.6.1 Where the Exchange team hangs out 978
10.6.2 Online Forums 979
xvi Contents
10.7 Conferences 979
10.7.1 Magazines 980
10.7.2 How Exchange uses registry keys 980
10.8 Good reference books 981
A Appendix 983
A.1 Message Tracking Log Format 983
A.2 Events noted in Message Tracking Logs 985
B Important Exchange PowerShell commands 987
B.1 Recipient management commands 987
B.2 Exchange server administrative Commands 990
B.3 Databases and Storage Groups 993
B.4 Address Lists and Email Policies 995
B.5 Queues and Messages 995
B.6 Edge Synchronization 996
B.7 Routing 997
B.8 ActiveSync 998
B.9 Public folders 999
B.10 Transport and journal rules 1000
B.11 IMAP and POP 1001
B.12 Active Directory commands 1002
B.13 Testing Exchange 2007 1003
B.14 Basic PowerShell 1004
B.15 PowerShell control commands 1005

Preface

By their very nature, every book that seeks to describe how technology works face challenges during its creation. Dealing with beta software and attempting to resolve the difference between how the software works and how the developers say it will work in the final version is a problem faced by any author, which is one reason why it is often best to wait to finalize text after you have a chance to work with released software. Looking back at this project, in some ways, this has been the hardest book of the seven that I have written about Exchange. I think that there are four reasons why this might be so. First, Exchange 2007 marks the boundary for substantial architectural change within the product, so it is similar to the degree of change that we experienced when we moved from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000. Second, the nature of software is that it becomes more complex over time as the developers add new features and this is certainly true of Exchange 2007. The new features have to be considered, probed, and documented, all of which takes time. Third, the Exchange development team has done an excellent job since 2004 to document all aspects of Exchange in a more comprehensive manner than ever before.

The Exchange 2007 help file, TechNet, MSDN, and the excellent Exchange team blog at https:://msexchangeteam.com/ default.aspx are interesting and productive hoards of information for authors to mine. Unfortunately, there is often too much material (a good complaint to have) and the material needs to be interpreted and analyzed in the light of your own experience with Exchange. Engineers write great blogs, but the scourge of cognitive dissonance often means that they omit some detail that makes all the difference to a newcomer in understanding why a component works the way that it does. Last but not least, you should not underestimate the degree of cultural change that Microsoft has incorporated into Exchange 2007 in the transition from a predominantly GUI-centric approach to server management to the use of the PowerShell scripting language as the basis of many management operations. The need to understand and appreciate the change has to occur before you can adequately document and describe the benefits and this increases the effort required to write the book. I must admit that it took me time to realize the full benefit of interacting with Exchange through the shell, but now I am at the point where I wonder why Microsoft never provided such a powerful interface in the past! The degree of change that exists in Exchange 2007 means that it is diffi- cult to cover everything in one book. I have therefore elected to cover the parts of Exchange that I think are of most interest to the majority of administrators and have left other components for you to discover through the material that Microsoft publishes or perhaps another book, written by me or someone else. Please accept my apology if I have not covered something that you think is important and treat this as a challenge and opportunity for you to write about the topic yourself. There are many magazines, blogs, and other ways of spreading information about Exchange. From time to time, I wander back down the path to consider some aspect of Exchange 2003. While this book is firmly focused on Exchange 2007, the vast majority of companies that will deploy Exchange 2007 will do so by migrating from Exchange 2003 and will therefore run both products alongside each other for some period. For large organizations, the period might extend to a year or more as it is unlikely that few will complete their migration to a pure Exchange 2007 environment quickly. With this in mind, it is fair and reasonable to document how things work with Exchange 2003, especially when these servers operate with Exchange 2007. So what is in the book? To set the context, Chapter 1 starts with an overview of the development of Exchange from 4.0 to 2007 and then describes the themes that Microsoft employed to focus the development priorities for Exchange 2007 and some of the changes that occur in this release. All successful deployments of Exchange since Exchange 2000 operate on a solid Active Directory foundation, so Chapter 2 reviews some of the critical intersection points between Exchange and the Active Directory including replication, the schema, and Global Catalogs. Chapter 3 goes into the basics of managing Exchange 2007 through the Exchange Management Console. Chapter 4 takes the management topic further by exploring the ins and outs of the new Exchange Management Shell, perhaps the most fundamental change to the product that Microsoft has made in Exchange 2007. Chapter 5 goes to the heart of Exchange and reviews how the Store works including topics such as databases, storage groups, and transaction logs to content indexing and backups. Chapter 6 looks at how the new transport system routes messages and includes topics such as the Edge server and anti-spam protection. Chapter 7 explains how clients from Outlook to Outlook Web Access to mobile devices allow users to work with their mailboxes. Chapter 8 then moves on to consider some elements of user management, including the important topic of compliance and records management. Chapter 9 addresses one of the more


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70-483 Q&A / Study Guide / Videos / Testing Engine


QUESTION 1
You work as a senior developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain named Certkingdom.com.
You are running a training exercise for junior developers. You are currently discussing the use of
the Queue <T> collection type.
Which of the following is TRUE with regards to the Queue <T>collection type?

A. It represents a first in, first out (FIFO) collection of objects.
B. It represents a last in, first out (LIFO) collection of objects.
C. It represents a collection of key/value pairs that are sorted by key based on the associated
IComparer<T> implementation.
D. It represents a list of objects that can be accessed by index.

Answer: A

Explanation:


QUESTION 2
You work as a developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain named Certkingdom.com.
You have written the following code segment:
int[] filteredEmployeeIds = employeeIds.Distinct().Where(value => value !=
employeeIdToRemove).OrderByDescending(x => x).ToArray();
Which of the following describes reasons for writing this code? (Choose two.)

A. To sort the array in order from the highest value to the lowest value.
B. To sort the array in order from the lowest value to the highest value.
C. To remove duplicate integers from the employeeIds array.
D. To remove all integers from the employeeIds array.

Answer: A,C

Explanation:


QUESTION 3
You work as a senior developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain
named Certkingdom.com.
You are running a training exercise for junior developers. You are currently discussing the use of a
method that moves the SqlDataReader on to the subsequent record.
Which of the following is the SqlDataReader method that allows for this?

A. The Read method.
B. The Next method.
C. The Result method.
D. The NextResult method.

Answer: A

Explanation:


QUESTION 4
You work as a developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain named Certkingdom.com.
You have received instructions to create a custom collection for Certkingdom.com. Objects in the
collection must be processed via a foreach loop.
Which of the following is TRUE with regards to the required code?

A. The code should implement the ICollection interface.
B. The code should implement the IComparer interface.
C. The code should implement the IEnumerable interface.
D. The code should implement the IEnumerator interface.

Answer: C

Explanation:


QUESTION 5
You work as a senior developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain named Certkingdom.com.
You are running a training exercise for junior developers. You are currently discussing the use of LINQ queries.
Which of the following is NOT considered a distinct action of a LINQ query?

A. Creating the query.
B. Obtaining the data source.
C. Creating the data source.
D. Executing the query.

Answer: C

Explanation:


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70-483 Q&A / Study Guide / Testing Engine / Videos


QUESTION 1
You work as a senior developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain
named Certkingdom.com.
You are running a training exercise for junior developers. You are currently discussing the use of
the Queue <T> collection type.
Which of the following is TRUE with regards to the Queue <T>collection type?

A. It represents a first in, first out (FIFO) collection of objects.
B. It represents a last in, first out (LIFO) collection of objects.
C. It represents a collection of key/value pairs that are sorted by key based on the associated
IComparer<T> implementation.
D. It represents a list of objects that can be accessed by index.

Answer: A

Explanation:


QUESTION 2
You work as a developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain named
Certkingdom.com.
You have written the following code segment:
int[] filteredEmployeeIds = employeeIds.Distinct().Where(value => value !=
employeeIdToRemove).OrderByDescending(x => x).ToArray();
Which of the following describes reasons for writing this code? (Choose two.)

A. To sort the array in order from the highest value to the lowest value.
B. To sort the array in order from the lowest value to the highest value.
C. To remove duplicate integers from the employeeIds array.
D. To remove all integers from the employeeIds array.

Answer: A,C

Explanation:


QUESTION 3
You work as a senior developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain
named Certkingdom.com.
You are running a training exercise for junior developers. You are currently discussing the use of a
method that moves the SqlDataReader on to the subsequent record.
Which of the following is the SqlDataReader method that allows for this?

A. The Read method.
B. The Next method.
C. The Result method.
D. The NextResult method.

Answer: A

Explanation:


QUESTION 4
You work as a developer at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network consists of a single domain named
Certkingdom.com.
You have received instructions to create a custom collection for Certkingdom.com. Objects in the
collection must be processed via a foreach loop.
Which of the following is TRUE with regards to the required code?

A. The code should implement the ICollection interface.
B. The code should implement the IComparer interface.
C. The code should implement the IEnumerable interface.
D. The code should implement the IEnumerator interface.

Answer: C

Explanation:


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70-417 Q&A / Study Guide / Testing Engine / Videos


QUESTION 1
You work as a Network Administrator at Certkingdom.com. The network contains a single Active Directory
Domain Services (AD DS) domain named Certkingdom.com. The network includes servers that run
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2012.
All servers in the network have Windows Remote Management (WinRM) enabled.
You use a Windows 7 Enterprise client computer named Certkingdom-Admin1.
You are currently logged in to Certkingdom-Admin1. From your client computer, you want to obtain the IP
address of a Windows Server 2012 member server named Certkingdom-File1.
Which command or commands should you use?

A. Telnet Certkingdom-File1 ipconfig.
B. NSLookup > Server Certkingdom-File1 > ipconfig
C. WinRM –r:Certkingdom-File1 ipconfig
D. WinRS –r:Certkingdom-File1 ipconfig

Answer: D

Explanation:


QUESTION 2
Your role of Network Administrator at Certkingdom.com includes the management of the Active Directory
Domain Services (AD DS) domain named Certkingdom.com. The network includes servers that run
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2012.
A server named Certkingdom-Win12Admin runs Windows Server 2012. You use Certkingdom-Win12Admin to
administer the Windows Server 2012 servers in the domain.
A newly installed domain member server named Certkingdom-SRV06 runs a Server Core Installation of
Windows Server 2012.
You need to configure Certkingdom-SRV06 to enable you to use the Server Manager console on CertkingdomWin12Admin
to manage Certkingdom-Win12Admin.
How should you configure Certkingdom-SRV06?

A. You should install the Remote Server Administration Tools on Certkingdom-SRV06.
B. You should install the Server Manager console on Certkingdom-SRV06.
C. You should enable Windows Remote Management (WinRM) on Certkingdom-SRV06.
D. You should use the Enable-NetFirewallRule cmdlet to configure the firewall on Certkingdom-SRV06.

Answer: D

Explanation:


QUESTION 3
Your role of Network Administrator at Certkingdom.com includes the management of the Active Directory
Domain Services (AD DS) domain named Certkingdom.com. The network includes servers that run
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2012.
A server named Certkingdom-Win12Admin runs Windows Server 2012. You use Certkingdom-Win12Admin to
administer the Windows Server 2012 servers in the domain.
You want to use Server Manager on Certkingdom-Win12Admin to manage the Window Server 2008 R2
SP1 servers in the domain.
What should you do?

A. You should run the Configure-SMRemoting.exe –Enable cmdlet on the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 servers.
B. You should add the computer account for Certkingdom-Win12Admin to the RAS and IAS Servers group in Active Directory.
C. You should install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and Windows Management Framework 3.0 on the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 servers.
D. You should install the Remote Server Administration Tools on Certkingdom-Win12Admin.

Answer: C

Explanation:


QUESTION 4
Your role of Network Administrator at Certkingdom.com includes the management of the Active Directory
Domain Services (AD DS) domain named Certkingdom.com. The network includes servers that run
Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2012.
A server named Certkingdom-File1 runs the File and Storage Services server role. Certkingdom-File1 hosts
shared folders on the D: drive. Users access the shared folders from their Windows 7 client
computers.
A user attempts to recover a previous version of a file in a shared folder on Certkingdom-File1 but
discovers that there is no previous versions option.
How can you ensure that users can recover files using the Previous Versions function?

A. By modifying the Share Properties of each shared folder.
B. By enabling Shadow Copies on the D: drive of Certkingdom-File1.
C. By adding a condition to the shared folders on Certkingdom-File1.
D. By modifying the settings of the Recycle Bin on Certkingdom-File1.

Answer: B

Explanation:


QUESTION 5
You work for a company named Certkingdom.com. Your role of Network Administrator includes the
management of the company’s physical and virtual infrastructure.
The network includes servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and
Windows Server 2012.
Virtual machines (VMs) are hosted on Windows Server 2012 servers running the Hyper-V role.
You install a new Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host server named Certkingdom-HVHost12. CertkingdomHVHost12
has four Fiber Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) and connects to two Fiber Channel
SANs using two HBAs per SAN.
You plan to create VMs on Certkingdom-HVHost12 that will need to access one of the SANs.
How should you configure Certkingdom-HVHost12?

A. By creating a Virtual Switch in Hyper-V.
B. By installing an additional host bus adapter (HBA).
C. By creating a virtual Fiber Channel SAN in Hyper-V.
D. By creating a virtual iSCSI SAN in Hyper-V.

Answer: C

Explanation:


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Amazon’s biggest competitor in the cloud: Salesforce.com?

Amazon’s biggest competitor in the cloud: Salesforce.com?
Amazon and Salesforce are each pioneering companies in cloud computing, but are they competitors?

Who is Amazon’s biggest competitor in the cloud?
The go-to answer for many may be companies like Rackspace with its OpenStack platform, perhaps Google with its Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure, VMware or one of the up-and-coming cloud computing companies like Joyent.

But Mikhail Malamud, founder of cloud consultancy startup CloudAware, says another cloud company could pose the biggest challenge to Amazon’s cloud plans: Salesforce.com.

These two companies, Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com, are two of the leading cloud providers in their respective markets of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) for AWS and software as a service (SaaS) for Salesforce.com. But Malamud believes there is one reason why Salesforce.com could be a formidable foe for Amazon in the cloud moving forward: data.

Salesforce.com’s data stash
“Data is the kingmaker in the cloud,” says Malamud, whose firm, CloudAware, provides a platform to access AWS resources.

Salesforce.com has an enormous cache of customer data, and not just any data, but some of enterprises’ most valuable data — customer information. Salesforce.com has data about who its users’ customers are, what interactions they have with those customers, and increasingly it’s been attempting to collect even more data, from human resource management to social data.

And Salesforce is building an ecosystem of products and services around that data. While the company may be best known as a SaaS-based customer relationship management (CRM) application, it also has a robust platform that allows customers to build new applications on its cloud.

Force.com and Heroku, the latter of which Salesforce acquired in 2010, are platform as a service (PaaS) tools allowing customers to leverage CRM data already in Salesforce’s cloud and build related applications that are customized to individual users’ needs. It’s where Malamud built his company’s app. A Salesforce CRM customer, for example, could build an application on Force.com that integrates with the CRM application to analyze the sales data. And Malamud says every new application that’s built in Salesforce.com’s environment is one less app that’s running in Amazon’s cloud.

Amazon: We’ve got data too
Amazon is responding in turn, though. In the past year AWS has made a concerted effort to manage more of its customers’ data. Announcements like Red Shift — the company’s headline announcement at its first-annual users conference, named re: Invent — is a new data warehousing service, meant to be a low-cost alternative to expensive on-premises database storage systems. Amazon Glacier is a “cold storage” service for storing a company’s long-term data, while Data Pipeline is a relatively new service that makes it easier to transfer all that data between various applications within Amazon’s cloud. “They’re clearly trying to get as much of your data as possible,” Malamud says.

Malamud says Salesforce will be the place where next-generation apps will be built, providing a legitimate threat to Amazon moving forward.
“It’s a legitimate theory, but it’s more of a longer term play,” says David Vellante, chief analyst at research firm The Wikibon Project, about the Salesforce.com-Amazon rivalry. The two companies are not really direct competitors right now, he says. They’re both cloud-based, but AWS at its core is about providing fast, easy and cheap access to virtual machines, storage and hosted applications in its IaaS cloud. Salesforce.com is a SaaS that is attempting to build up its accompanying PaaS.

Amazon’s bigger near-term competitors are the growing cavalry of IaaS providers looking to steal business from the company, he says. Google, Microsoft and Rackspace (with its OpenStack platform), as well as VMware, HP, Dell, Joyent, Terremark and Savvis, are just some of the whole range of IaaS providers looking to bite into Amazon’s market share that pose a more immediate threat to AWS.

Robert Mahowald, research vice president at IDC who leads the software as a service (SaaS) and cloud services practice, agrees with Vellante. “It’s not necessarily where the companies are today, but it’s certainly an aspiration of Salesforce,” he says. But he’s also on board with Malamud’s core premise of “follow the data.”

Applications that run in the cloud are fundamentally more important than the infrastructure they run on, so in that sense Salesforce has an advantage in being able to offer customers products, services and platforms that leverage data already in its cloud.

But AWS is a heavy-hitter in the cloud, too. Through partnerships with big enterprise software giants like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, AWS allows customers to migrate their existing enterprise software licenses to Amazon’s cloud and let AWS worry about all the underlying infrastructure.

Salesforce.com has a different business model: The company isn’t pushing customers to migrate their SAP, Oracle and Microsoft apps into its cloud; they want customers to be all-in with its own cloud. So far, the company has done an extraordinary job capturing the CRM market, but existing business apps aren’t being migrated into Salesforce’s cloud.

To Mahowald, that means the Amazon vs. Salesforce debate comes down to a new vs. existing apps debate. Amazon has everything in place to give customers the opportunity to outsource their packaged software onto its cloud, something enterprises are becoming more and more comfortable with. Salesforce wants to be the place where the enterprises’ next-generation business apps are built and stored.

The problem for AWS is that there are increasingly more and more competitors offering similar IaaS services. To date, Amazon has simply done it better than its competitors, Vellante says — it out-innovates competitors, has a broader range of services and continually lowers its prices. It’s tough for competitors to keep up, but a crop of providers are trying.

Some providers are carving out niches in vertical markets, offering healthcare-, government- or financial services-focused clouds, for example. Others are banking on the hybrid cloud — which combines both on-premises and public cloud resources — as being the future the industry. VMware, sensing an opportunity in the market, recently announced plans to create a hybrid cloud offering.

Salesforce isn’t competing with those offerings, though, Vellante says. Salesforce has found a niche in its ecosystem of customers and is nurturing and growing it. But Salesforce.com is not the be all and end all of cloud service providers now or into the future. “If you’re running a big data app and you need a 10-node cluster spun up today to host your analytics app, you’re not going to Salesforce,” Vellante says. “You’re going to Amazon or another IaaS.” It’s a different play for each of the providers, which is why Vellante says both of these companies — AWS and Salesforce.com — will be around for a long time, and they both likely will make a lot of money in the cloud.

 


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For Microsoft, going private may not be such a bad idea

What does Microsoft have left to gain by being public when the stock is at a standstill?

Should Microsoft go private? Don’t dismiss the question, it’s a valid one, even if it would be extraordinarily difficult.

The stocks of most of the old guard of the tech industry have been stagnant for years, even though the companies have done reasonably well or even very well in some cases. Yet they get no appreciation from Wall Street and are taken for granted. A recent Seeking Alpha blog asked if Microsoft was good for anything other than its dividend. At this point, they have to ask what they gain by being public.

RELATED: Intel needs more than just an ARM license

Microsoft’s relationship with Samsung gets ugly

I’ll say it up front so you don’t have to: going private would not be easy for any of these companies. Their stocks are heavily diluted and they would need a ton of outside money to buy up enough stock to go private. It would be very, very difficult and I acknowledge that. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth considering.

You take a company public for a variety of reasons. My very first gig out of college was as a financial reporter. One of the conventional wisdoms I learned back then was you didn’t go public because you needed money to survive. Companies that did that were likely a bad investment to begin with. You went public for the big cash infusion and also as a lure for top talent.

Well, that day is over. We all know about the three Microsoft billionaires (Gates, Ballmer, Allen) and thousands of millionaires the company made, but those were early employees. Trust me, no one hired in the last decade became a millionaire on their options.

You go public to have shares to trade for acquisitions. Most of the acquisitions made by Microsoft are actually very small, strategic purchases. Its only big ones have been Skype and aQuantive, and boy was the latter one an utter failure.

You go public to get the attention of institutional investors and build brand equity. Does anyone NOT know what Microsoft is?

On the flipside, though, are the headaches. A public company spends millions of dollars per year on compliance rules, such as the inane Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). SOX has been directly cited as the reason for the drop in initial public offering (IPO) activity in the 2000s while IPOs rose in foreign countries, including hundreds of American firms going public on the London Stock Exchange.

Also, back in 2005, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation reported going-private transactions made up 25 percent of all public takeovers. In other words, public companies were taken over by private ones, and were subsequently taken off the market. That was double the pre-SOX level and the trend was largely blamed on SOX.

More important than compliance headaches is the complete monomania of Wall Street. It cares about a single thing: growth. If you don’t have a growth story, they don’t want to hear it. No company ever earned a Buy rating because it increased employee healthcare coverage or improved customer service.

Microsoft has a complicated, multi-year strategy to execute. It needs time and patience, something people clearly do not have with Windows RT. What better way to execute than to do it outside of the impatient eyes of Wall Street analysts who only care about next quarter’s projections. It’s not easy to implement a multi-year strategy when four times a year you have to hear ‘what are you going to do for me next quarter?’

Don’t tell me HP couldn’t benefit from this. Meg Whitman is doing her best and seems to be slowly righting the ship, but because people take the quarter-to-quarter view, and not the long view like a CEO with an ounce of vision has to take, she can’t get a break.

Intel’s stock is exactly where it was when Paul Otellini took over the firm in 2005. Back then, it was a $38 billion company, its products had lost major ground to AMD, it was under SEC and EU investigation and was being sued by AMD. Intel is now a $54 billion company, its revamped chips have laid waste to AMD so badly it’s no longer a competitive company, and all of the legal headaches are gone. And this is the thanks he gets for it.

Microsoft would similarly be well-served to operate in quiet for a while. The company has its own transition and transformation to address and it would be nice to do it without the quarterly dog-and-pony show. It won’t shield Ballmer from the criticism he has coming in response to Windows 8, but it would give him a chance to take a long view and actually execute on it without constant interruption.


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