Please complete my informal survey
IS Guerrilla
It’s that time again – as the leaves start to fall and, in Calgary, as the snow starts to blow – it’s time for the semi-irregular IS Guerrilla survey.
This is in no way a scientific exercise. I have no idea how accurate the results will be how many times out of 20. And invariably, your comments that come back with the answers will turn out to be much more interesting reading than anything I could put to paper.
And since most surveys (unless they’re the ones that I’ve heard women are quoting from Cosmo) are rather dull, we’re gonna mix this up a bit.
1. Wi-Fi stations are in individual houses, hot zones in coffee shops and public plazas. If you listen to the advocates, wired connections are going the way of the DOS prompt. The question of the day is which links technology will dominate: Wi-Fi or G3?
Now I know that the cop out answer here is “both,” and that they probably will live side-by-side. But what I want to know is, if you were a betting man (or woman), which one would you say is going to dominate?
2. Viruses and worms are driving us all nuts. Microsoft has declared over 20 “vulnerabilities” in Windows in the last while (although they also point out that Red Hat/Linux has identified over 70 in the same period), and they’ve declared that code quality is job one. Ballmer won’t even estimate the release date for the next version of Windows until they’re sure they’ve got the quality right.
Microsoft says that it can “beat the bugs” without stripping away any functionality in their products. Some critics say that MS is going to have to remove some features from their products before they can be reliably bulletproofed. Question for you:
a. MS has got a grip on these vulnerabilities and we’re going to see fewer worms and viruses, or
b. The trouble has just started, and the situation is going to get worse.
3. Our friends at Sun seem to be struggling lately. They went from rolling out shiny new servers by the thousands to support millions of Web sites in the irrational exuberance days of the Internet, to the point where it seemed that barely-used Sun servers could be bought from Internet start-up flameouts cheaply enough to be used as cool plant stands. It’s a new world for McNealy and co. So where next for Sun?
a. Their best days behind ’em
b. They’re doing fine and are primed for an even bigger comeback
4. Who is going to win the Web server wars, BEA or IBM’s Websphere? (This is one I don’t know a lot about, so your comments would be appreciated)
5. Linux…
a. The great democratizing OS revolution of the decade, or
b. An interesting OS, but not one that will ultimately dominate
6. A cranberry martini, more commonly known as a crantini…
a. Acceptable for a man to drink, or
b. Not on your bloody life
7. The use of e-mail
a. Going to continue to grow because of its usefulness, or
b. Gone as far as it’s going to, given the advent of viruses, and spam
8. Not to forget all that MP3ish stuff:
a. People will continue to illegally download music free by the ton (and drive the record companies nuts) or
b. Downloading will go legit through sites like iTunes, and the majority of music downloads will be through them
Let me know what you think via [email protected] and, as always, your comments are appreciated. Watch for survey results here soon.
Hanley is an IS professional in Calgary. He can be reached at [email protected].
