10 Best IT Products Of 2006

digihome writes "CRN.com chooses the ten best new products of 2006, including the best development tools, server, notebook and storage device. Some of the choices may surprise you ... such as their choice for operating system of the year." From the article: "With Windows Vista, Microsoft has refreshed the user desktop experience. While debate rages over whether the five-year wait was worth it, the truth is Vista is pretty much the only game in town. One may question whether Vista should be bestowed with Product of the Year recognition in the operating system category. But the product unquestionably brings new features and capabilities to solution providers that in turn promise new revenue generation dialogues with end users."

10 Best VAR Profit Makers For 2007

[ReidMaynard]

Thank You

Re:Impressive!

[polar red]

It's when you read sentences like those, that you are sure the article is written by some marketing departement, and not by a technology specialist.

2006?

[onedobb]

So a product that will be released in 2007 is the product of the year in 2006? Now I'd defend Microsoft to a point, but this is absolute bullshit. Vista should not win this at all. It's not even released to the mass market yet.

Re:Impressive!

[hamburger lady]

that and terms like 'revenue stream' and 'value added'.

yeesh.

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much Microsoft paid those guys to make Windows Vista one of the best IT products of the year?

Oh the cynicism...

Re:Hate these lists.

[eln]

The big problem with this list is that it's mislabeled as the "10 Best IT Products of 2006," when it should be labeled "Ad Copy for the 10 IT Products whose sales force managed to sweet talk the analysts who wrote this thing enough to be included."

I've read enough trade magazines to recognize that the blurbs on all of these products come pretty much verbatim from the sales office of the respective companies.

This article is purely for VARs. None of the blurbs are anything close to actual reviews. Having worked for a company whose product looked cool but had major problems under the hood (due to feature creep and unrealistic deadlines primarily), but still managed to get great reviews from "analysts," I can tell you it's distressingly easy to get publications like this to give glowing reviews, even if what you're offering is either broken or primarily vapor.

Vista security?

[b3x]

Is prompting you for approval every time you run an app really considered innovative security?

Re:Hate these lists.

[Capt James McCarthy]

I will never fully trust a gui to develop another gui.

Consider the source

[Anonymous Coward]

CRN = Computer Reseller News. Of course they're going to love Vista!-- rolling out Vista will be a boon to computer resellers everywhere, because few businesses are going to bother upgrading the vast majority of their existing machines, they're going to replace them with hardware beefy enough to run Vista with most of its bells and whistles.

This is hardly an award given for technical merit. Vista represents a full trough for all the revenue-hungry pigs to crowd around.

Vista?

[sasserstyl]

Any such list that includes Windows Vista as the "Best Operating System" loses all credibility.

I have been running Vista for a few weeks now and it is nothing more than an incremental improvement on Windows XP/Server 2k3.

Given the resources of Microsoft, the worldwide importance of the OS and the time taken for development, Vista is a disgrace.

This Article Smells of Bad Cheese

[twifosp]

With advertisements becomming harder and harder to shove down people's throats, CRN has a solution for you. Clevery disguised as a top 10 list, we will include your product, written by your own marketing department, for a nominal fee. Be sure to include plenty of buzzwords and acronyms about how it will transform your life, but try not to include any real technical information on why this product is the best!

-- Jeff P. Realname

Vista is the product of the decade

[hypermanng]

I mean, in the sense that they've been mucking about with it for at least that long. Isn't it Cairo, finally arrived? Something like that, anyway.

Of course, it won't really be all there until next year, so perhaps they're being premature in including it on the list. Also, it will indisputably be the product of the year next year in terms of money.

One almost wonders if it made the list this year so they can omit it from next year, when other OSes might embarrass it. Not to name any names.

Re:This Article Smells of Bad Cheese

[brxndxn]

You got it exactly right..

CRN should be reported to whoever that government agency was that was investigating viral marketing. The 'Top 10 IT products' seem to be little more than advertisements.

Re:Hate these lists.

[gEvil (beta)]

Basically most of the things solve problems that no one cares about.

You are clearly not a manager.

Re:2006?

[Anonymous Coward]

tell us how Vista will be like Windows ME!

What did MS Windows ME provide that motivated people to migrate from MS Windows 98?

What does MS Windows Vista provide that will motivate people to migrate from MS Windows XP?

I'm guessing the list of reasons will be pretty similar, barring the underlying changes that most users won't appreciate. Vista won't provide me anything right now over XP much like ME didn't provide me anything over 98. In fact, I'm guessing Vista will create more headaches because of software developers, game vendors in particular, not properly writing their code to run under regular user accounts.

Jim

Re:Impressive!

[rudeboy1]

I don't mean to nitpick, but did you note the magazine? It's whole subject matter revolves around VARs. That's Value Added Reseller

Worthless link bait.

[Dzimas]

This is thinly disguised link-bait from a site I've never heard of. Is there any special reason that it was deemed /. worthy, apart from the fact that their inclusion of Vista will incite a vicious troll war? To make things even worse, each of the 10 "winners" appears on a separate page to pump up ad impressions.

Re:Impressive!

[Amazing Quantum Man]

in turn promise new revenue generation dialogues with end users.

Yeah, I figure they mean this kind of dialogue:

End User: Hi. I'm having a problem with $PRODUCT

Tech Support: Hi. We need your credit card number. Tech Support is $45/hour.

On the Notebook

[MrCrassic]

I actually own the workstation edition of this laptop (the model from last year, nw8240). I think that while the specs (at that time) were top notch and could not be beat in a smaller package, the build quality of the computer is kind of bad. The casing is quite easy to break and is easier to look "beat up." The screen is also questionable, as mine had dead pixels and "yellow" spots after less than six months of use. The service department of my school replaced that computer's motherboard two times in the last year alone, and I am not one to put my computers through the rough.

Why aren't any of IBM/Lenovo's Thinkpad offerings on that list? I see that computer used more often than the high-end HP's in business anyway, which is well deserved because they are rock solid and last a really long time. I had their 760L from 10 years ago working until 2 years ago when someone took the computer and smashed it to the floor. And even after that it still worked! The same went for my Thinkpad 600.

If my computer's internals hadn't been replaced, the thing would have been gone in less than six months, which is unacceptable to me.

Re:Vista security?

[Damastus the WizLiz]

Incessant prompting is not new to security. All you have to do is run a software firewall to see that effect.

Re:Impressive!

[gwayne]

In other words, it's a popup window that says "Your computer is infected with spyware. Click here to buy our spyware remover!"

Re:Impressive!

[evilmousse]

Did you notice the relevance of your own sigline: "Attack the message, not the messenger."?

Top 10 Reasons to Hate Top 10 Lists

[Infonaut]

1. They arbitrarily set the list at 10 entries, even though there may be only 3 quality products, or 52 quality products
2. They encourage lazy thinking, by comparing apples to oranges
3. They have become so common that any one top 10 list becomes indistinguishable from any other top 10 list
4. They almost never include any sort of ranking criteria, so readers don't know if the decisions were made on the basis of *cough* advertising dollars or a more rigorous standard
5. They smell funny

Best server a generic 1u box?

[spun]

Wow, who would have thought that you could cram 5 single processor dual core 1U boxes into the space that you could cram 16 quad processor quad core blades into? This is simply AMAZING!

Yes, for the pedantic nitwit lurking out there ready to pounce, IBM does not recommend this without some serious upgrades to the BladeCenter power supply and a very good external cooling system. Seriously though, generic dual core 1u servers are so two years ago.

Re:Impressive!

[StarvingSE]

Vista's new "security feature"

(install "untrusted" software aka we didn't pay MS $500)
run software
Vista: whoa! are you sure you want this to run? click yes
Vista: whoa! your software is accessing your HD, is this ok? click yes
Vista: whoa..... you get the picture

basically its going to be a pain in the ass to run open source software unless you turn this "feature" off, and then its just as insecure as any other windows. Vista security is just a bandaid, nothing more.

Re:Vista security?

[arth1]

Is prompting you for approval every time you run an app really considered innovative security?

By suits, yes. The same suits who can't tell authorization and encryption apart, and think that security is a product you can add afterwards.

Re:Impressive!

[misleb]

It is more like, "Hey, that's a nice computer you have there. I would hate to see it get infected by a virus because we got lazy about maintaining security on older versions of Windows. Here, buy Vista."

-matthew

Re:Impressive!

[The Warlock]

So it's like somebody holding you at gunpoint and offering to sell you a bulletproof vest?