Geek Pop Quiz, or, Wherein I Am Bored.

[theweaselking]

I sent an email this morning that started "Hey, we missed a prerequisite on [thing]. Nobody remembered this requirement because it's not 2006 and nobody has seriously used [thing] in the last decade."

This was a followup on my yesterday suggestion, which was that everyone who seriously wanted to use [thing] should be told to go to [store] and pick up [off the shelf] instead, it would be faster, easier, and cheaper.

Pop quiz: What do you think [thing] is?

A shiny precious no-prize for the correct answer. A second one for the BEST answer.

EDIT: Hints pulled up from comments.

#1: [thing] is a software feature, but it's an obsolete one, with complex prerequisites, that requires vendor-side support. Multiple different vendors, in fact. Like, ACTUAL SUPPORT, not "I have to go to multiple web pages to download packages" but "multiple different companies have to change things ON THEIR SIDE to make this work, per user."

Meanwhile, COTS consumer-grade commercial devices, available EVERYWHERE (at least three places in any given shopping mall), do the exact same thing, better, simpler, requiring very little vendor support.

#2: in 2006 I, as a person who Fixed All The Things for employees of My Beloved Corporate Masters, dealt with [thing] on nearly a daily basis.

And by 2008 it was *dead*. In part because by 2008 I no longer worked for an international megacorporation, but also in general. Employees of international megacorporations probably still encountered occasional instances of [thing] in the hands of legacy users for years afterwards.

Comments

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Usenet newsreader?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, good guess, but no - for one, it would be hard to go to a current store and grab something off the shelf to replace a newsreader. For another, newsreaders are easy, it's news-SERVERS that are thin on the ground these days.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought too, but decided to toss it out there for now. Brain not working too well over bawwwing about Nimoy.

Um, hmmmm. Now what the heck it could be... tape backup? Still in use, though, aren't they? And this is a software feature we're talking about, right?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Tape backup = another good guess, and yes, anyone who wants a tape backup SHOULD walk into a Costco and grab a 3TB USB external drive instead! But people still use tape backups in serious ways.

[thing] is a software feature, but it's an obsolete one, with complex prerequisites, that requires vendor-side support. Multiple different vendors, in fact.

Meanwhile, COTS consumer-grade commercial devices, available EVERYWHERE (at least three places in any given shopping mall), do the exact same thing, better, simpler, requiring very little vendor support.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

...send a fax-button?

Shit. My brain is really working overtime trying to figure out WTF this could be.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The next hint is pretty much a dead giveaway. So I'll see if anyone else wants to guess before giving it. :)

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

RealPlayer. I was going to say Flash but it's not quite in the grave yet.

I was going to guess Zip Drives until I read the comments.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Actually, came up with a less-obvious hint:

Faxes aren't it because those haven't been relevant since *1996*, let alone 2006. But in 2006 I, as a person who Fixed All The Things for employees of My Beloved Corporate Masters, dealt with [thing] on nearly a daily basis.

And by 2008 it was *dead*. In part because by 2008 I no longer worked for an international megacorporation, but also in general.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

I rescind that. My internal timeline for the death of zip drives and Realplayer are both off. They were zombie tech by 2006.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

*twitch* Too close to midnight, I cannot brain anymore.

Because I do 3D art, my next (humorous) suggestion is "Make Art" button, plus "Render Faster" button.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Time flies like an arrow.

Meanwhile, fruit flies like an Apple.

[andrewducker]

I'd go for PDA if you hadn't said software.

As it is, I can tell I'm just going to kick myself a lot when you tell us what it is.

[frith]

Some kind of conference call software? It sounds like this software requires permissions to establish a network.

[ashbet]

Lotus Notes? Although I think that was dead before 2006 . . .

[prince-eric.livejournal.com]

FTP.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Oooh, good one. But no: plain FTP is still in wide use (admittedly, mostly for pgp-encrypted files) and more importantly an end user can't be told to go to a physical store and buy something to replace FTP.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Oooh, very close. Yes network-dependent, yes software, less "permission" and more "complete fucking dependency hell"

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

An EXCELLENT guess, one that meets almost all the criteria, but: Wrong on date, and also wrong on "oh, just send those few users to a store to buy a thing and that will solve it"

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

PDA is.... not wrong. Not right, but not wrong.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Novell, er, whatever their networky thing was called?

[skington.livejournal.com]

PostScript print server?

[nubule.livejournal.com]

BlackBerry something something?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You are correct! The question now is, can you (or someone else, for the steal) elaborate?

[nubule.livejournal.com]

I guess BlackBerry email, I recall it needing enterprisey IT support. But if I’m wrong and someone steals no-prize I’ll be okay haha

[dantheserene.livejournal.com]

Blackberry Messenger?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Netware, and Netware was dead in the 1990s. You're thinking 15 years too early.

[nubule.livejournal.com]

I wondered but I dismissed that because I don’t think that needs support from IT, it’s supported by the carrier. But I know little about this.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Postscript is still a thing, but "go to Staples and buy an off the shelf printer" would be an EXCELLENT solution to that if off-the-shelf printers weren't all made by Satan.

[dantheserene.livejournal.com]

My personal phone is a Blackberry Q10, and I use BBM on a daily basis with my wife and closest friend. I am aware that others do not share my enthusiasm.

The answer to the question is probably BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Oh wait, it's not some stupid VPN hardware dongle thing is it?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

What you and nubule are hitting around, constantly close but not quite hitting it dead on, is "Blackberry Enterprise Service".

(I honestly thought I had more Exchange survivors around here.)

But: Blackberries before Blackberry OS10 had two modes, Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) and Blackberry Enterprise Service (BES). They're so close in name and acronym because RIM (now Blackberry) ARE THE WORST AT EVERYTHING HOLY FUCK.

Your BIS data plan was like a modern smartphone data plan. It gave you internet access and checked your email and let you do all the things a Smartphone does.... except connect to an Exchange server.

Your BES data plan was exactly like a BIS data plan, except it works with Exchange, and your Exchange provider's BES server, to give you Exchange access on your Blackberry. And it also tended to cost 5x as much.

This all happened forever ago. It's ancient history. It's 2006.

Since then, smartphones were invented and Microsoft created ActiveSync, which works to seamlessly provide Exchange access to iPhones and Androids and, once Blackberries FINALLY got somewhere close to modern, Blackberries. Activesync is also free, and works on a normal data plan.

But: Any iPhone, any Android, or any Blackberry 10 device, connects to Exchange through Activesync and Just Works.
Any Blackberry *before* 10 requires BES, which means it requires that the Exchange server have a BES server (vendor #1) and your cellphone provider needs to provide a BES data plan (vendor #2), and then you need to do Enterprise Activation and push Service Books and all kinds of RIM crap from before smartphones were a thing.

My client has several Blackberries from before Blackberry 10. And my recommendation to get them onto the brand spanking new Exchange 2013 server was "walk into Best Buy[1], buy a fucking iPhone[2]" because that's SO MUCH EASIER.


[1]: Or Future Shop or Rogers Store or the cellphone kiosk at Costco or....
[2]: Or any Android, or even a Blackberry 10 device if you can't live without a phone that sucks, but NOT BLACKBERRY 9.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The answer to the question is probably BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING.

(More, "Blackberry Enterprise SERVICE" since that's the client-side, but yes.)

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Asterisk.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

We just retired our BESs last summer. Anne W. just retired hers this week. They aren't so dead as we'd all like to think.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Whichever post had the most comments prior to today is going to be so pissed off that it missed out at most commented-on post of the month at the death.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Meh.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

LOL, Groucho.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

EAS is just so much easier.