A change of tack!
Makes a change from Microsoft observing the popularity of some site or other, launching their own version and pushing that instead.
Microsoft has inked deals with LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook, allowing the Web 2.0 outfits to embed their tech in the software giant’s Outlook Social Connector, which will feature in the Office 2010 mail client. Redmond first announced OSC in November last year when it released a beta of the Office 2010 suite. Today’s …
Remember here that one of the hot topics amongst the chair-polishing fraternity is "how do we use this social meejah thingy?". This in turn leads to a Policy Decision which says that future IT purchases must have "social meejah thingy" in them somewhere.
The correct question here is "do we need this shit?". That never gets asked 'cos the tech pages of the Financial Times are busily crowing the virtues of the "social meejah thingy" and how its bound to make millions for everyone, leaving those not involved as busted dinosaurs.
Oh god no. Now Internet Destroyer and Outlook can combine in a malware security hole fest and send a social networking email, rootkit wormy thing through a nice Flash vulnerability and bugger your system (and all your 'friends') in an entirely new and unrecoverable way.
Thanks for the new vulnerability Microsoft, have you got shares in one of the botnet operators?
Oh, as for "the OSC will respect that privacy", what, you mean like ArseBook does? Great, I'll just go and post my bank statement in the warez group now shall I?
But we're always being told how much time is wasted in companies by people using Facebook/Myspace etc, etc, etc.....
And now Microsoft are going to make it so you don't even have to leave Outlook to waste time ..... marvellous.
OK I can see that LinkedIn might be handy for professional contacts and some companies may well find Facebook (for Fan Pages and apps) and Myspace useful but it sounds like someone somewhere might have lost the plot a bit again.
LinkedIn - http://press.linkedin.com/linkedin-partners-ibm-lotus-notes
Twitter - he he he
Facebook - ha ha ha
"IBM has also inked a deal with online professional networking company LinkedIn so Lotus users will be able to link to their LinkedIn networks from Lotus mail and other applications. Ditto for internet-phone provider Skype and online customer-relationship-management vendor Salesforce.com, which also have integration deals with IBM for the LotusLive product."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/19/ibm_lotusphere_sap_rim/page2.html
Skype - http://about.skype.com/2009/01/skype_and_ibm_collaborate_on_l.html
(plus there is http://skytus.com/ )
oh alright:
Twitter - http://lekkimworld.com/attentionotes
and I guess if you must:
Facebook - http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/Sync_your_Facebook_Events_%28and_Friends_Birthdays%29_to_your_Lotus_Notes_8.5_Client_Calendar
This continuous push to integrate disparate services sounds like a open invitation to phishers, spammers and general ne'er do wells.
Don't MS ever learn ? Sometimes it's a good thing to keep critical apps and software toys discrete from each other.
This will be a clear indicator for the ability of an IT department to secure their env. "Hey lads - they left that stupid facebook thing in outlook - fire up your torrent clients !"
This sounds like another nightmare in the making for anyone foolish enough to tick the 'yes please!' box.
Occasionally I used to have to visit MSN groups to read something linked from elsewhere. This always seemed to need a .net, passport, MSN ID, Live ID or whatever they'd changed the name to on that particular week. To get one of these usually needed a hotmail address, - another tortuous signup with a 2 month lifespan when (inevitably unused). Only occasionally could I get one of these services to accept the yahoo ID I actually used for such junk. It amazed me the way the process would bounce you from one domain to the other without rhyme or reason and you'd still end up with it saying you'd missed a field that was obviously filled in.
Eventually I simply gave up following the links and stuck to ones on Yahoo, who generally make it fairly simple.
How on earth can you get it so wrong, so comprehensively, so predictably and so often and still have 'market analysts' talk about you as if you'd just made the odd tactical error but are basically sound rather than the dictionary definition of FAIL?
Bloody good job MS don't make ships, planes or nuclear plants or we'd all be really fucked.
Why is it that people - other than the generally clueless who think finding the PC's on button is an achievement, are all fucking horrified at Microsoft's latest and greatest innovation of fitting barn doors on the outhouse - minus the door?
Why do I sense in the force - "a disaster of unfathomable proportions "?
I view Microsoft's "rice paper" brick wall security in the same sense as swallowing the bait and then after shitting out the hooks - only to have to wind the line back onto the fishing pole.
Horribly "Epic Fail".
Why?
And
Who Cares?
I almost look at this as a Darwinistic experiment - take all the 'tards who use these social networking sites, get them using the worst mail client ever created, grab a beer and wait for the fun. I see a headline like "2,000,000 Email and MySpace Accounts Hacked, MS Software Flaw Blamed."
Oh and just to prove MS still thinks its 2007 they have a deal with MySpace which even the slowest of the slow have fled yet they don't have a deal with Twitter where the cutting edge dweebs are gathering. Do I need a hotmail account to sign up?