June 4th, 2007

Google Office wins? Declares enterprise hierarchies 'dead'

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 12:32 pm

Categories: Enterprise, Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications

Tags: Google Inc., Information Technology, E-mail, Donna Bogatin

What a difference six months makes? Apparently in the Google Enterprise (sales) world!

In Google Enterprise strategy: ‘Death to the hierarchy’” last November, I reported Michael Lock, Director of North American Sales for Google Enterprise, exhortation at the NYC Googleplex,

“Death to the (Microsoft) hierarchy”:

Given the “explosion” of unstructured data in the enterprise, “old methods of information management don’t work,” Lock asserted. He also offered a remedy: “Death to the hierarchy!”

Lock put forth personal anecdotes to proclaim “you don’t put email in folders” and declared GMail the victor over Outlook.

Lock spoke of the old (pre-GMail) Outlook days when he would “look forward” to his transcontinental commutes for six hours of time to “categorize email.”

Lock entertainingly, but pointedly, emphasized that Google solutions do not demand what he portrayed as labor intensive and inadequate user categorization via hierarchical folder structures. Lock then used his own GMail account to illustrate what he believes is the superiority of implicit organization via a single, intuitive search box, a Googley one. Lock proudly concluded that he has left behind hundreds of Outlook folders.

At the time, I asked Lock for a projection of when Google will succeed in bringing “Death to the hierarchy.” Lock offered that forward thinking enterprises are moving away from hierarchical data organization, but no specific date for an absolute demise of the “hierarchy” was provided.

Nonetheless in his return visit to the NYC Googleplex this morning, Lock said in the affirmative: “Hierarchies are dead.”

“Data has changed and it doesn’t come in columns and rows,” Lock underscored.

Lock provided the diverse audience of NYC professionals at the “Google @ Work” enterprise sales pitch with three key takeaways, “lessons that enterprise IT can learn from Google:

1) Fast is better than slow,
2) Simple is better than complex,
3) Assume chaos and deal with it.

Lock asserted the now familiar Google Enterprise rallying cry: Enterprise IT is in a sad state of affairs, but consumer friendly Google is to the enterprise rescue.

Lock on the antiquated enterprise way of doing IT business:

Define all requirements,
Buy vs. build,
Issue RFP,
Select vendor,
Do bakeoff,
Define implementation plan,
Customize application,
Build end-user training plan,
Deploy application.

The world has sped up, but how IT deploys has not, Lock deplored.

Why so enterprise conservative? Lock suggested. After all, Google is not so worried about getting things just right. Lock: “We put the product on the Internet before it is ready.” Why? “Fail quickly and learn from it,” Lock proclaimed.

Current delivery models have “insane” complexity, Lock warned. Take email, as a case study in bad enterprise business. Lock lampooned what current enterprise email operations entail:

Operating system,
Email servers,
security servers,
Backup storage servers,
Spam filer,
Content repositories,
Tape back-up,
Mobile delivery server,
Database to support content repositories.

The Lock ace in the hole: “Then there is that ‘Patch Tuesday‘ by some big vendor.”

What is the enterprise solution? It couldn’t be more simple, five letters is all it takes; GMail.

Lock nevertheless acknowledged there is still some enterprise reticence against “letting my email on someone else’s servers.”

How silly, though, Lock indicated. After all, he said, you are not afraid to put money in a bank are you?

To make his point Googley clear Lock showed a picture of a mattress, and then one of an ATM.

ALSO: Do Google Apps really trump Nintendo Wii and Apple TV?
Is Google Enterprise Search a joke? 
Google to big business: Google love belongs in the Enterprise!

June 1st, 2007

Google Gears: NOT a Microsoft killer

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:34 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Google Office vs. Microsoft? Maybe I indicated today, underscoring that Google finally, apparently, has the guts to let Google Apps compete in the big boys market, a for pay one.

Does that mean then that Microsoft is en route to being “flattened” by Google.

Moreover, does Gears magically stamp Google as developers’ best friend versus the supposedly perennial bad boy Microsoft?

Google would have the world believe in Googley who needs Microsoft super powers, and it overwhelming does.

Google Gears churns toward Microsoft

Not only is Google strengthening its presence in the developer community, it is pleasing many different factions by releasing Gears as open-source software, rather than proprietary. Microsoft has been criticized for locking developers into its Windows operating system and other Microsoft software.

And for consumers and corporations, Google Gears knocks down a perceived barrier in competing with desktop applications. While users of Microsoft applications, such as the popular Office suite, can work in the software and access data stored on their computer at any time, Google’s Web-based applications, such as Gmail, require a user to be connected to the Internet. That will change now that Gears has arrived.

Google, the open source poster child? Not so fast.

Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center was not convinced last week and it is unlikely that one announcement about a strategic Google move with an end-game to bolster Google’s own fortunes will spur him to see the Google light.

SEE: Does Google play fair in Open Source?

Google to the consumer and corporate rescue? Already? Hardly.

Google Gears circa June 2007 is a work in (slow) progress “early-access developers’ release,” disclaimed by Google itself as “not yet intended for use by real users in production applications,” let alone consumers or corporations!

Google is apparently pre-ordained to rule over Microsoft. Stephen Arnold, for one, will not deny the “Google legacy,” at Microsoft’s expense:

Gears ratchets the collar Google has around Microsoft’s throat. Each innovation takes some of the oxygen away from the behemoth in Redmond. If Google exerts more pressure, Microsoft might become more confused.

Microsoft dazed, confused and gasping for air? Google wishes.

What big bad Google innovation is there that has escaped Microsoft?

Google is the undisputed leader in search and search advertising, for now. BUT the search game is the only one Google is winning, despite its endless efforts to diversify. 

What’s more, Microsoft trumps Google on the serious acquisitions front: aQuantive, TellMe, Massive…

The world may be routing for Google to outgun Microsoft, but “Redmond” is growing its anti-Mountain View search and advertising ammunition AND maneuvering on with legacy gains from long won victories on the software battlefield.

SEE: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft

ALSO: How Microsoft beats Google in ad agency battle
Google: Tough love for Microsoft
Google vs. Symantec, McAfee? Not exactly
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop

June 1st, 2007

Google Office vs. Microsoft? Maybe

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:00 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Is Google Gears really the ace in the Google Office hole? Is the Google-centric initiative the one missing piece in Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office aimed at sealing Google’s winning productivity applications fate?

Popular perception portrays Google’s announcement of Google Gears earlier this week as putting the Google vs. Microsoft Office battle in high gear, but the real test begins today, as Google Apps goes “For Fee,” although with a still “limited time” free trial offer.

What is Google Gears? What is its real-world significance? What is the Google Gears impact on Apps vs. Office?

I analyzed the issues yesterday:

Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
Google: Tough love for Microsoft
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop

The Google Apps Premier current payment position:

$50 / user account / year
Limited time offer: Free 30-day trial
You will be asked to provide a credit card number to sign up for Google Apps Premier Edition. However, you can cancel at any time before the end of your free trial and your card will not be charged.

Apparently, then, Google is today busy ringing up $50 credit card charges for the hundreds? thousands? tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? millions? of Google Apps Premiere prior “free-trial” users, those that didn’t “cancel” by yesterday that is.

NOW, Google must REALLY stand behind its product. Will Google do a better Google Apps job going forward?

Google says it is serious in the Apps game. But talk is cheap, so is Google Apps.

Google nevertheless will have a lot more riding on Google Apps success than the $50 tickets it apparently will be ringing up today:

With Google, you can afford to provide each and every employee with the tools they need to succeed.

ALSO: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft
Google CEO tows Google line at D5

May 31st, 2007

Google: Tough love for Microsoft

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:49 am

Categories: Google, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Desktop, Security, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

“Because the Web is Google’s platform, we are interested in improving it as much as we can,” so intones Bret Taylor, the evangelist for Google’s strategic developer initiatives.

Google “owns” the Web experience, but to”improve” it, Google must go through the Microsoft-owned desktop, as I analyze in Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop.

Does it gall CEO Schmidt to have to “Microsoft-enable” Google products? OR, does he get personal satisfaction in “using” Microsoft to achieve his Microsoft domination end-game.

SEE  Google trumps Microsoft IE7 in search war?

Schmidt makes sure Google misses no opportunity to point out the supremacy of the Google cloud, over the Microsoft desktop. Given that the typical Google user uses Microsoft to reach Google, however, Schmidt must “improve” the Microsoft experience, for the good of Google.

Take desktop security, for instance. I have been breaking Google news on that front and have the real deal on Google’s latest initiatives. 

SEE Google: Beware virtualization, GreenBorder NO security panacea and Google: Practice safe browsing! and Google blasts Web bots: PC big culprit in drive by downloads.

As I underscore, it is telling that Google paints the PC as the weakest link in Web security. Google to the desktop rescue, however.

But, why?

As the number one search engine is quick to proudly note, Google is often used by people as the “gateway to the Internet.” Google therefore has a $150 billion market cap vested interest in:

1) A “harmless” Internet gateway,
2) An infection free billions of Web pages that it provides the gateway to,
3) Deflecting security risk responsibility to the (Microsoft) PC.

If Microsoft will not clean up its own house, Google will do it for them!

But can the mighty Google really make “safe browsing” a given AND clean up the desktop, once and for all?

In Google: Beware virtualization, GreenBorder NO security panacea I dissect what is really behind Google’s recent absorption of the desktop security play.

Contrary to popular perception, Google does not envisage GreenBorder’s virtualization solution as a magic bullet, the core missing piece of technology in the malware battle. Google actually warns against counting on such an implementation to provide an impentetrable desktop barrier.

Google underscores that it is naive to assume such turnkey security power and emphasizes:

Virtualization is NO security panacea, treat virtual machines as services that can be compromised.

Google is not to be deterred, of course. Stay tuned for Google’s next move!

SEE: Google acquisition game: GreenBorder the next Dodgeball?

ALSO: Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time

May 31st, 2007

Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 5:40 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Game, Google Inc., Google Apps, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Is Google Gears the missing “kick-ass” Google Apps link that will enable Google to kick Microsoft Office’s “ass”?

Is there really such a thing as a magic bullet? After all, Google must first get Google Apps right, in the Google cloud!

Google Apps has been around for a whopping nine months, several product cycles in the Googley scheme of things. Google Apps Premier version debuted in February.

As is the typical Googleplex fashion, a “game changing,” but only quarter-baked, Google add-on initiative is “unveiled” to the world, regardless that the base product is not meeting its stand alone expectations.

Today may be the start of a new Google Apps game though.

Google Apps Premiere launched as a “for-fee” product, but no fees were charged. Upon launch, April 30 was set as the drop-dead date for actually processing the $50 stated annual fee on Google Apps Premier users’ credit cards. Google then extended the “free trial,” through TODAY!

As it stands now, Google still indicates as of tomorrow, credit cards beware.

Knowing Google, however, there may just be another Googley twist looming in the cloud. Stay tuned!

ALSO: Google: Tough love for Microsoft

In the Meantime:

Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)!
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop
How Microsoft battles Google in Search warfare
Is Google Enterprise Search a joke?
Google user data cloud: Do you trust it?
Google declares Google Office victory
Is Google Office really an enigma?
Google Apps goes Enterprise Professional: $5000 please

May 31st, 2007

Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 5:00 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Software

Tags: Google Inc., Google Gears, Donna Bogatin

Google Gears is not a defacto anything. Will it be though?

Once again, a strategic Google move with an end-game to bolster Google’s own fortunes is being lauded as a game changing Google gift.

How benevolent really is Google though?

The number one Internet company with ambitions to outseat the number one software company could have very well demonstrated that Google Gears is not all about Google applications by NOT using a Google product as its signature implementation: Google Reader!

Contrary to popular perception, Google engineers have NOT enabled what “Internet surfers for years have yearned for,” Web applications that work offline.

What has Google done to kick-off its day-long promotion of software developers that create products that drive more revenues to Google?

Google Gears, a browser plug-in that will let people run Web applications when they’re connected to the Internet or not. The company released the source code for the Google Gears software.

Really? And what are the tens of millions of civilan computer users to do with it? Nothing!

The initial code is aimed at JavaScript developers who write Ajax-style Web applications.

Not to fear though, Google is on the real-world ball, so says Google:

Google expects to have a consumer-ready release of Google Gears, which will be under 1 megabyte in size, “within months.”

Time will tell, or not.

SEE: Google: Tough love for Microsoft and Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time

ALSO: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop
Does Google play fair in Open Source?
Microsoft gains over Google in Holy Land

May 30th, 2007

Google's love hate relationship with the desktop

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:55 pm

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Desktop, Google Inc., Google, Donna Bogatin

Google CEO Eric Schmidt takes every opportunity to rally “Who needs the PC or a laptop for storage!” in his never ending quest to gather all the world’s information “safely” in the Google worldwide cloud. That is the Google mission.

Nevertheless, he spearheads Google efforts to extend Google to the Desktop, Google Web applications in particular.

Google has shifted into high Desktop gear with the introduction of “Google Gears”:

An open source technology for creating offline web applications. This new browser extension is being made available in its early stages so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities that all developers can use.

Google Gears marks an important step in the evolution of web applications because it addresses a major user concern: availability of data and applications when there’s no Internet connection available, or when a connection is slow or unreliable.

Has Google turned ecumenical then? Hardly. Schmidt underscores the end-game:

With Google Gears we’re tackling a key limitation of the browser in order to make it a stronger platform for deploying all types of applications and enabling a better user experience in the cloud.

What is Google Gears?

• A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
• A database, to store and access data from within the browser
• A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

The Google beta disclaimer: “Google Gears is currently an early-access developers’ release. It is not yet intended for use by real users in production applications at this time.”

As Google itself would therefore acknowledge, it is not yet time to call the Microsoft Office vs. Google Apps fight.

Things are starting to heat up, though, from all directions!

Read my exclusive interview of Gravity Zoo in Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)! discussing the implications of its OpenOffice.org porting project, designed to bring OpenOffice to the Internet.

UPDATE: Google: Tough love for Microsoft and
Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time and
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time

May 30th, 2007

Google Developer Day? Next year Chicago

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 12:59 pm

Categories: Enterprise, Google, Google Software Applications

Tags: Donna Bogatin

Google Developer Day is but hours away, and Google Engineering love is already in full promotional swing.

Google touts the event as a worldwide engineering fest, but the world’s software engineers are not all in agreement.

SEE: Does Google play fair in Open Source? and Microsoft gains over Google in Holy Land

While Google proudly notes the need to move the Mountain View meet-up to San Jose, due to overflow demand, Google Engineering nevertheless perseveres in its never ending quest to feed Google’s insatiable demand for the “best and the brightest” software developers (rocket engineering experience preferred, but not required) the world has to offer, from the Big Apple, to Down Under, and now, to the Windy City.

I have been chronicling the Google 2007 engineering staffing quest:

Microsoft beware: Google to grab Seattle engineers

Google challenges NYC software engineers

Google goes Down Under: G’day Google! 

Google’s Adam Bosworth to NYC technologists: Speed rules

Google is currently in an Illinois frame of mind, Chicago. Google solicits:

Despite the fact that we have dozens of offices worldwide, whenever I tell people that I work for Google in Chicago, most of them respond “Google has an office in Chicago?” Then I proceed to tell them that yes, we have a sizeable sales office in downtown Chicago (which is now in its sixth year!), and yes, we have a few engineers camped out in one corner (near the cafe and the foosball table, of course).

Well, now we’re decking out the office with binary clocks and caffeinated soap because Google is hiring engineers here.

Why now?

Our Chicago engineers are currently working on Open Source and developer tools, and we’re ramping up other interesting data-centric projects. So if you’re an innovative engineer who likes to launch early and often, build world-class software, and be a part of a small upstart team, then we want you.

Of particular note is that Google believes Chicago is as obscure to the American workforce as Sydney, Australia is!

In pitching a Google Engineering open house in Mountain View for the Australian operations, the Google host said:

When I mention I’m an engineer in our Sydney office, I’m often greeted with looks of surprise: it seems many people aren’t aware of our Australian presence.

Perhaps Google needs to be more open then. Google just shut off access to its NYC engineering recruitment efforts, dubbed NYC Speaker Series, as I report in Google CEO Schmidt on ‘Personal Democracy’: Up For Sale.

If Google truly is concerned that no one knows about Google Australia or Google Chicago, it wouldn’t be so shy (secretive) .

ALSO: Google has a (big) people problem and
Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft

May 30th, 2007

MySpace wins Photobucket, Over Google?

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 10:00 am

Categories: Google, Google Software Applications, Search, Social Networking, Social Web, User-Generated Content, Video, Wall Street, Web 2.0, Yahoo, YouTube

Tags: Google Inc., Web, YouTube Inc., Video, Photo-sharing, MySpace, Donna Bogatin

UPDATE: May 30: “MySpace wants photobucket? Where is Google!”, I asked earlier this month (see story below).

Alas, News Corp. is the lucky buyer after all, at an undisclosed price.

“The acquisition is a perfect strategic fit for us that reinforces FIM’s leadership in user-generated content,” said Peter Levinsohn, President of Fox Interactive Media.

MAY 8, 2007: News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media (FIM) nears deal to buy Photobucket, is the latest M & A industry chatter/rumor.

Photobucket allows its users to store photos and videos and then easily drop them into their pages on prominent sites like Facebook, eBay and particularly MySpace, a FIM property.

The deal is not yet complete, but the parties have ironed out major issues and are focusing on finer points, according to this (unidentified) person, who said the price could be as high as $300 million.

Photobucket has become the largest and fastest-growing photo-sharing service on the Web. Unlike rival photo sites such as Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly and Yahoo’s Flickr, Photobucket positioned itself as a tool for people using sites like MySpace, rather than a place to get prints made or to interact with other photographers. A year ago, it said it had 14 million members. Photobucket now cites 41 million users. 

The site is free for basic use, but charges $25 a year for a premium subscription that includes extra storage space and the ability to store videos more than five minutes long. It also displays advertisements to users when they manage their accounts.

What’s the Photobucket-MySpace deal story? Michael Arrington declares “Photobucket was a steal v. Google/YouTube.”

The real story though is that there is NO Photobucket-Google deal!

WHY NOT? After all the (rumored) $250 million cash and $50 million earn out provision for the “ largest and fastest-growing photo-sharing service on the Web” is but pocket change for the $3.1 billion all cash DoubleClick acquirer and $1.65 billion all stock YouTube acquirer. 

Heck, Google could readily sweeten the deal, and what a deal it could be! Photobucket photo-sharing “Queen” to complement YouTube video-sharing “King!” 

Here are some reasons why: 

1) Google wanted YouTube because it was deemed the largest and fastest growing video sharing service on the Web; Photobucket matches profile in images category.

2) Google is keen on driving Video Search, plus Image Search, touting “the most comprehensive image search on the Web.” 

3) Google is deemed to have bought YouTube in part to prevent News Corp. from “owning” both the social networking and video sharing markets; What about a defensive anti-FIM purchase of Photobucket in the photo sharing market?

4) Shouldn’t all video sharers be photos sharers and vice-versa?

5) YouTube is a free service; Photobucket has a premium paying service. Google wants to diversify into fee for services models, why not have two media sharing brands with different models addressing diverse consumer needs? Plus, Photobucket is not advertising averse.

6) MySpacers like YouTube, and Photobucket.

7) Archrival Yahoo owns Photobucket rival Flickr.

Google-YouTube because “Who needs Google Video?”; Google-Photobucket because “Who needs Google Picasa (Web Albums)?”

Eric Schmidt, are you listening?

ALSO: MySpace to 175 million friends: It’s OUR Space, not yours!
 Why is Google afraid to buy Clear Channel?
Google YouTube: Viral video success formula?

May 29th, 2007

Google: Beware virtualization, GreenBorder NO security panacea

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:30 pm

Categories: Google, Google Software Applications

Tags: Software, Security, Google Inc., Virtualization, Attacker, GreenBorder, Virtual Machine, Flaw, Security Panacea, Donna Bogatin

In Google vs. Symantec, McAfee? Not exactly earlier today, I underscored that, contrary to popular perception, Google’s recent acquisition of start-up software security firm GreenBorder Technologies does not signal impending doom for the two category leaders.

What IS the BIG deal? A simple Google buy versus build technology decison for security software does not a sector killer move make, I noted.

What’s more, the technology iteself that was acquired is NOT the security panacea it is popularly perceived to be.

Does GreenBorder’s software really create an impenetrable protective barrier that can be considered a DMZ Demilitarized Zone?

Can a free consumer software download really be expected to deliver security miracles?

NO, at least not according to Google’s own evaluation of the security limitations of virtualization, offered from any vendor:

Virtual machines are often used by security researchers to sandbox malware samples for analysis, or to protect a machine from a potentially hazardous activity. The theory is that any security threat or malicious behaviour will be restricted to the virtual environment which can be discarded and then restored to pristine condition after use.

Virtual machines are sometimes thought of as impenetrable barriers between the guest and host, but in reality they’re usually just another layer of software between you and the attacker. As with any complex application, it would be naive to think such a large codebase could be written without some serious bugs creeping in. If any of those bugs are exploitable, attackers restricted to the guest could potentially break out onto the host machine.

There are a number of ways that an attacker could break out of a virtual machine, Google asserts and identifies:

Most of the attacks identified were flaws, such as buffer overflows, in emulated hardware devices. One example of this is missing bounds checking in bitblt routines, which are used for moving rectangular blocks of data around the display. If exploited, by specifying pathological parameters for the operation, this could lead to an attacker compromising the virtual machine process. While you would typically require root, or equivalent, privileges in the guest to interact with a device at the low level required, device drivers will often offload the parameter checking required onto the hardware, so in theory an unprivileged attacker could be able to access flaws like this by simply interacting with the regular API or system call interface provided by the guest operating system.

Google has evaluated the security exposure to hosts of hostile virtualized environments to conclude that as virtual machines become increasingly commonplace as a method of separating hostile or hazardous code from commodity systems, the potential security exposure from implementaion flaws has increased dramatically.

What’s more, Google has found that virutal machines are not robust enough to withstand vigorous testing and present multiple expolitable flaws that could allow an attacker restricted to a virtualized environment to reliably escape onto the host system.

Google’s bottom line: Because virtualization is NO security panacea, treat virtual machines as services that can be compromised.

Why has Google acquired virtualization play GreenBorder then? Why not?

As I analyzed earlier today in Google vs. Symantec, McAfee? Not exactly, Google’s acquisition strategies and motives are as varied as its deals.

Google may want to use GreenBorder as a virtualization testing ground. OR, rather than providing Google a key piece of technology, GreenBorder may offer one particularly compelling proposition:

Unlike virtualization software from rivals requiring multiple Windows licenses for each corporate user, GreenBorder insulates the Microsoft Windows system from the underlying computer hardware and only requires a single license for Windows, according to Neil MacDonald.