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Columnists' corner: Always the intrepid sort, our own Oliver Rist aims to peer into Vista where none others have been. "While the rest of the business world was wondering about the effects of all this Vista voodoo, I wanted to hear Microsoft's opinion," he writes. "Surprise, surprise, they're happy as clams." But that's not to say Mr. Rist expects lightning-quick adoption of the new OS. "Business is business, and investing in new hardware means exhausting the old hardware first." No rush to Vista.
Best of the blogs: Sean McCown uncovered a new product with a sexy voice. (I snagged those words from him, just so you know!). It's DBLaunch for SQL Server and the brogue to which Mr. McCown refers belongs to Sean McLean.
Podcasts: Hewlett-Packard and LSI Logic are simplifying storage as a way to court small businesses, with a focus on SAS and direct connections. Tune into Storage Sprawl.
The news beat: Microsoft's Office Open XML document format is ratified by ECMA as a standard, thereby paving the way to it being fast-tracked by ISO. While analysts and retail chains are saying that its Zune player has gotten off to a slow start, sales-wise, Microsoft predicts it will sell more units in its first 14 months than did Apple's iPod. And Nancy Weil at the IDG News Service weighs in with IT predictions for 2007.