More windows 10 FUD

Source: ZDNet

"Windows 7 "does not meet the requirements of modern technology, nor the high security requirements of IT departments", said Markus Nitschke, head of Windows at Microsoft Germany."

You'd think ol' Satjay would have gotten the message with the backlash over the forced upgrade of millions of PC's across the globe with Windows 10's tricky dialog box.

Apparently not...

Today we find the latest salvo against poor old Windows 7 by the proclamation that somehow enterprises are at a serious risk in continuing with Windows 7 ONE MINUTE LONGER!

Please.  The laughable assumption that Windows 10 is the cure for all the ills that plague the enterprise is getting a bit tired.

Consider that even with the recent walkbacks of draconian control of the Windows 10 desktop from IT departments the fact remains that security is not a question of what OS you run.  It's a matter of how good your security policies are and as I've said before the way we treat security will always fail so long as the end user is treated as an adversary.

What about productivity?  What about freedom from nagging popup ads for Office 365 or Cortana getting in the way of a simple search for a hidden app in your start menu?  What about compatibility with current software and most importantly HARDWARE!

If you're an enterprise with a fleet of Kaby Lake desktops maybe Windows 10 is a better fit for you but it's going to have virtually NOTHING to do with how secure your enterprise is.

That takes a good security policy with end-user buy-in or it will fail.

If security was such a concern then Microsoft should have started producing a Linux Distro instead of another flaky, cruft laden OS.  It would have been cheaper and a hell of a lot easier to patch.

If Microsoft still thinks that as they go so goes the world then we'd all be running Linux with a Microsoft logo.  

But that won't happen because everybody knows that paid Linux distributions that nickel and dime you for every app and feature always fail regardless of how good they are.

If this news concerns you, let me provide some salve that's more relevant.  

Security isn't about an OS, it's about your security practices.  Good practice can keep even Windows XP secure in the enterprise...

I've seen it in practice and it has A LOT to do with what you ALLOW in the enterprise.  

Look, you can drive the safest car in the world but if you're determined to drive off a cliff to your death there's nothing that's going to stop that.

Remember where this is coming from.  A company that wants to SELL you an Operating System so that it can SELL you more of it's products.

That's reality.

Yammer's back. Microsoft updates the de facto social media client for the Enterprise

If you work in a company of any size chances are Microsoft technologies are the backbone of IT which means there's probably an Office 365 enterprise subscription.

Far removed from it's humble roots as a standalone productivity suite with Outlook's public folders as your primary collaboration source we now enjoy collaboration features that we'd never dreamed of back in the old days.

It really started with OneNote, then came SharePoint to extend the fun to other people and with acquisitions like Skype and Yammer, collaboration is almost a given in the modern enterprise.

But some features worked better than others and Microsoft has a bad habit of changing things without notice or letting features die on the vine.

For awhile it seemed like Yammer was going to be one of those withering features until recently. 

In case you didn't know...

Yammer is a private social networking service that allows communication and collaboration between users in the same enterprise.  Before the Microsoft acquisition access was limited to those within the same email domain.  Microsoft tightened that up by using AD membership but there was still work to do in the 2 years since it became part of Office 365.

Today a major update was announced that allows even tighter integration on windows domains as well as new collaboration features and on the admin end the ability to merge yammer user domains.  A handy feature with all those mergers and acquisitions going on in the corporate world. 

The video below comes from Microsoft and does a better job of explaining the updates to the service than I could.  

It's worth a look...