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Yesterday was Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft has finally released Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP. See CIO, InfoWorld, Engadget and Paul Thurrott for some comments, and fire up Windows Update or Microsoft Update to start the install. This may be the last SP release for the 2001 edition of Windows. SP3 may be enough to keep companies from upgrading their desktops to Windows Vista for the next year or two.

From Business Week: large companies, startups and individuals have been developing and launching widgets over the last few years. Widgets are small software applications that run inside a specific environment.

Yesterday I discussed a specific example – PicLens, a web browser extension for image viewing. Back on 9 January 2008, I mentioned Zotero, a Firefox extension that helps students and academic researchers organize their literature searches. CEO Lawrence Coburn of RateItAll has an extensive blog with reviews and comments about widgets, including this article about Google’s Facebook application.

Widgets are not new. Om Malik mentioned them in September 2006 in this article on Business 2.0.

Widgets a small applications that are run and installed on the client – the computer desktop, a web browser, or another application. A widget pulls specific data from servers on the Internet, or the cloud as it is usually called in the industry. Settings are usually based on the user’s preferences. My Mac dashboard includes time and temperature widgets, a calendar, an RSS widget that displays my blog posts, and an NHL scoreboard with the latest games.

Widgets can also be deployed on an intranet or extranet, but there are additional security concerns that have to be addressed, including logins and permissions.

Mac users got their first taste of widgets in 2005, when Dashboard was first included in Mac OS X. Yahoo soon followed with its own widgets for Windows users. Windows Vista and Google each have their own gadgets. Of course, most these widgets won’t work on another system.

Facebook added support for third-party applications last year, as I noted on 28 May 2007. As i mentioned on 19 February 2008, I usually ignore invites that I receive for Facebook applications. I’m never quite sure who can see my data, profile or status, even when Facebook lets me set these preferences.

Where’s the value?

As a flood of widgets, extensions, appls and other software comes to market, it’s important to ask about the value of these features. In many cases, these are little more than features or mini-sites that get embedded into the web browser or the computer desktop. The vast majority of current widget developers are writing code for their own use. Some developers post their widgets and share them with other users.

It’s rare for a company like Slide to emerge. As I discussed on 28 January 2008, Slide recently received US$50 million in venture capital, based on the company’s successful line of Facebook applications. It’s a risky business, as Slide and other Facebook app developers are almost totally dependent upon the success of the main Facebook site itself.

So any developer who depends upon widgets for their business revenue has to diversify. Costs increase as the same widgets are duplicated for multiple platforms, because revising and recompiling each widget requires some duplication of effort for each specific operating system or web site. MySpace will soon offer widget support, and various interoperability and user privacy schemes have been proposed that may let widgets work on multiple social networking sites. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has its own proposal, as mentioned by Lorelle back in November 2006. David Berkowitz has a Widget Standards wiki.
These two issues are holding back user adoption of these tools on social networking sites. Business Week’s recent revision of its social media article is a great place to turn for more information, as I mentioned on 25 February 2008.

From one of my students comes a link to this article about Asustek, also known as ASUS. Here’s a November 2007 article from Forbes with some more details.

The company’s US$299 Eee PC laptop runs Linux on an Intel processor, and ships with OpenOffice and Firefox preinstalled. The price is less expensive than a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista, and was enough to scare Microsoft into a special deal: Eee PC buyers could add Microsoft Windows for US$40.

While the XO project and other spinoffs try to bring their low-cost laptops to the US mass market, Asustek is moving aggressively.

I’ve had a few students ask me why businesses should upgrade to Windows Vista, the newest version of Microsoft’s operating system. Microsoft has spent a great deal of money and time promoting Vista, and has claimed that businesses are accelerating their Vista migration plans.

I always tell people to wait until Microsoft releases their first Service Pack before installing new Microsoft software.

This article from ZDNet features an interview with Simon Szykman, the CIO of NIST, the US government bureau that sets Federal standards for cryptography, information security, and other areas. NIST also runs the Computer Security Response Center, which posts alerts and warnings about virus, worms, and other computer security threats.

Sadly, that article has a deceptive title. NIST hasn’t banned Windows Vista. The agency is evaluating the operating system.

NIST, like many large organizations, has several applications that were developed in-house. While Microsoft tested Windows Vista on thousands of computers worldwide, companies usually perform their own testing with these homegrown programs. This is crucial, as Windows Vista might not support hardware or software that companies rely upon every day.

In January, ZDNet described how Microsoft invited NIST and the National Security Agency and to review and comment on the official Windows Vista Security Guide. NIST is still examining how to secure its own computers wafter Windows Vista is installed. The Janaury 2007 version of the guide is available here.

Dell, HP and other computer manufacturers have largely stopped shipments of Windows XP on new computers. Customers who haven’t switched to Windows Vista usually wipe the new hard disk, and install Windows XP. However, some new machines might be used as testbeds to determine how much value Windows Vista might deliver.

NIST, like other organizations, has already adopted Internet Explorer 7, which was included in Windows Vista. IE 7 also shipped for Windows XP, and for most Windows users, it’s a good upgrade that closes some security holes and adds helpful features like tabbed browsing. Of course, Firefox has offered tabbed browsing for years.

Microsoft Office 2007 shipped earlier this year, but as I mentioned on February 21, some companies are encountering problems with Office 2007’s new file formats.

Personally, I don’t plan on using Windows Vista any time soon. I’m hoping to replace my university Windows XP computer with a Mac. I’m waiting for Office 2008 for the Mac, also.

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According to ZDNet, founder Michael Dell has returned to the CEO slot at his own company.

This was a surprise to me, as former CEO Kevin Rollins represented Dell on stage at a major Microsoft Vista launch event in New York City on Monday, as shown in this New York Times article.

Bloomberg News also discussed the event here.

Rollins is on the left in this picture from the event. He does look a bit unhappy, doesn’t he? Also in this picture, from left to right: Dean Maloney of Intel, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, Hisatsugu Nonaka of Toshiba, Hector Ruiz of Advanced Micro Devices and Todd Bradley of Hewlett-Packard.

Brian Caufield of The Red Herring has an interesting article that poses an important question: has Dell run out of ideas?