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One of the effects of being involved in IT for years is the questions you ask when you see a story or article written about the current big hitters and 'popular' technology corporations. From the mid 1990s until the early days of Steve Ballmer's tenure as Microsoft CEO the company faced big questions about its business practices. Whatever the arguments were is now IT history but the EU fined Microsoft many millions of dollars for bundling their browser into their Windows operating system and demanded that a 'browser ballot' screen on their OS. They also objected to a media player being bundled. In the USA the tough anti-trust laws were concerned that Microsoft had used it's power in the operating system market to force computer manufacturers to install Windows by default making Windows the market monopolist in PCs and pushing out alternatives. Microsoft, to many technology enthusiasts, became 'evil' and was perceived to be stifling innovation and just in

A few days ago I passed my VCP (VMWARE Certified Professional). Actually you don't get a VCP at all. What you get is a VCP5 meaning qualified with Vsphere 5.x. In particular mine is VCP5-DCV. This is for datacentre vertualization. So it is a 'qualified' title. Everyone knows the version you understand and know about. There are no secrets there. To get a VCP you have to pass an exam (cost £179 or $286). To register for the exam you have to go through and official training course. The most recent UK price for this course is £2800 + VAT. In other words if you are not a VAT registered business and are paying out of your own wallet the training is £3100 (or just under $5000). Basically it is a very expensive certification and it only lasts for the version you pass the exam for. So my certification ages over time when version 6 comes out or version 7. Fortunately you never lose your original qualification that you have spent money on and work hard to obtain. That was true because

It's the last few hours for updates to Windows XP. After today the 400 million copies of XP still sitting out there somewhere will no longer be updated by Microsoft. Even after the very long notice given to people about the end of life for XP the UK Government has done a last minute deal to spend £5 million on keeping Windows XP running a little longer. Apparently they haven't had time to upgrade to Windows 7 (2009) or Windows 8 (2012) or Windows 8.1 (2013). When Windows XP was born Twitter and Facebook hadn't been invented, Apple had the ipad but no phone and Windows mobile was selling well. XP gained its reputation after Windows Vista failed completely. The upgrade cycle was broken. Microsoft even gave XP a bit more life by allowing it to be installed on Netbooks when they (Microsoft) thought Linux might take hold of the Netbook. So we are heading to unknown territory. XP is now open to attack by viruses, malicious software and the like. As well as hitting people running