Randall C. Kennedy

The iPad is a terrible enterprise computing device. It has limited connectivity options and no multitasking capability, and it's generally a bad corporate citizen. When I hear other pundits talk about the recently announced Citrix Receiver software for iPad as some kind of silver bullet for currying the device's acceptance within the datacenter -- ostensibly by turning it into a Windows-addled zombie -- I shake my head in disbelief. The iPad ? Reduced to the role of a thin client for accessing Windows VMs and terminal sessions? Are you serious?

Never mind the absolute crap storm such a blatant misappropriation would generate at 1 Infinite Loop ("Hey Steve-o, guess what people are doing with your shiny new iToy?") -- such logic completely ignores the all-important fact that the iPad makes a pathetic thin client.

It's the thought experiment we all like to engage in. What would life be like without Microsoft Windows? To listen to the free open source software crowd, the demise of Windows -- and by extension, Microsoft's hegemony over the PC universe -- would signal a kind of rebirth for information technology. Software would finally be free of the corporate shackles that have stifled innovation and dragged down the best and brightest among us.

Such thinking is naïve, at best. Rather than freeing IT, the demise of Microsoft would plunge the industry into an apocalyptic tailspin of biblical proportions -- no visions of hippie utopia here. The withdrawal of the Redmond giant's steady hand would cause today's computing landscape to tear itself apart at the seams, with application and device compatibility and interoperability devolving into the kind of Wild West chaos unseen since the days of the DOS big three: Lotus, WordPerfect, and Ashton-Tate.

Mozilla's Firefox is doomed. Caught between the immovable object of Microsoft Internet Explorer and the irresistible force of Google Chrome, the free open source community's poster child will soon be relegated to the ash heap of history.

At least that's my conclusion after sifting through the latest round of excuse-making and finger-pointing coming out of the Mozilla camp. Still laboring to deliver the long-overdue Firefox 3.6 release, Mozilla insiders are now talking about a major restructuring of the entire Firefox development process, leading some to question the organization's ability to maintain the browser's increasingly top-heavy code base.

It's a rule of thumb: Like measuring twice before cutting or looking both ways before crossing the street, you should never deploy a version of Windows until the first service pack has been released. That way you can be sure that any showstopper-type bugs have been resolved before committing to the new platform. Better to be late to the stampede, the thinking goes, than to end up face down in a ditch with a bunch of arrows sticking out of your back.

Of course, in the case of Windows 7, Microsoft is hoping that you'll throw caution to the wind and roll it out anyway. And given the lack of drama emanating from the early-adopter camp -- true deal-breaker bugs have been few and far between with Windows 7 -- some IT shops will be tempted to ignore their thumbs for a change and take a chance on the RTM build.

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the tools they bring to the job. If you're a professional plumber or a carpenter, people will expect you to carry the right tools for the task at hand. The same holds true for IT pros. Those in the know will judge you by the depth and sophistication of the technical toolkit you bring to a support call.

[Save time with the slide show tour of this article: "10 Terrific (and Free!) Windows Tools for IT Pros." ]

It's the secret craving you don't talk about, the shameful act that you keep hidden from your peers. You've tried to quit, but something keeps pulling you back, click after unsavory click.

I'm referring, of course, to IE abuse: the illicit launching of, and surfing with, Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. As social diseases go, this one is pandemic. Look around you right now. Chances are that, as you're reading this blog entry, someone in your immediate vicinity is abusing IE.

Do as I say, not as I do: That's the message I took away from Microsoft's latest confessional session at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC). Apparently, several of Microsoft's best and brightest -- the people who help chart the course for the company's tools division -- admitted to eschewing modern visual programming techniques in favor of the "old school" text editor and command-line approach.

This would hardly be news if it weren't for the fact that it flies in the face of everything that Microsoft has said and done in the developer tools space over the past two decades. At PDC after PDC, company executives have touted the wonders of their latest visual goodies. To now learn that company's own gurus don't use these same glitzy, paint-by-numbers toolkits is tantamount to hearing how wonderful Obamacare will be and then finding out that the people passing the relevant legislation are exempt from the program. (I wonder if their "Cadillac" health plans will be taxed?)

Thin is in again. At least that's the message I'm taking away from the full-frontal media orgy surrounding last week's Chrome OS demo. Virtually everyone who's anyone is now singing the praises of the smaller, lighter, Web-centric desktop model at the heart of Google's still unreleased "Windows killer." And that includes Microsoft.

In fact, the folks up in Redmond are doubtless watching the entire spectacle with amusement. After months spent shadowboxing a Chrome OS vaporware ghost, the company finally has a tangible, non-ethereal target to shoot at. And shoot it will -- with both barrels.

The Chrome OS is here -- sort of. This week, Google was kind of enough to give the world a sneak peek at its nascent desktop operating system. And after months of speculation (and more than a few bogus screenshot galleries), I can finally say that I've seen the future ... and it's not Chrome OS.

The preceding statement should come as no surprise to readers of my Enterprise Desktop blog. I came to a similar conclusion months ago. When news of the existence of a Google OS project first leaked out, I gave it an ice cube's chance in hell of succeeding. Now, after watching a sometimes touchy-sounding crew from Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters walk us through the ins and outs of the Chrome OS, I'm more convinced than ever that my original assessment was right on the money.

Office 2010 is clunky -- that's the first word that comes to mind as I meander around the recently leaked official beta release (build 14.0.4514.1007, for those keeping score). The default color scheme is a ghastly gradient gray blur, while the new Outlook Scenic Ribbon toolbar is a disorganized mess.

But most importantly, Office 2010 is slow. The individual applications load like molasses on my Windows 7-based netbook, and common tasks -- like checking for new mail across several hosted POP3 accounts -- chew up way too many CPU cycles. I find myself closing Outlook 2010 in between e-mail checking sessions because it's simply too demanding to leave open all the time.

Windows 7 is surging. After an insanely popular beta cycle, Microsoft's latest and greatest has exploded out of the gate, grabbing more than 4 percent of the real-world usage base as tracked by InfoWorld's Windows Pulse service -- after only a few weeks of general availability.

More tellingly, Windows 7 is grabbing a sizable chunk of our new users. Fully 10 percent of the most recent registrants are running some version of Windows 7, which is remarkable since, after three years in the market, Windows Vista still barely registers above the 30 percent level.