It seems (ex-)Infoworld writer Randall C. Kennedy has a pseudonym named Craig Barth who is the CTO of Devil Mountain Software. Devil Mountain Software, or Exo.performance.network, is the vendor that claimed Windows 7 maxes out the memory of 86% of the PCs they monitor (a number they say is in the 20,000 range).
Before I get in to this let me say that truth is always good so Kudos to Larry Dignan and ZDNet for exposing this. But I have a couple issues with the whole story.
On Randall C. Kennedy = Craig Barth
Randall C. Kennedy was always a “shockjock”. The man specialized in writing stuff that was designed to get a reaction. I, for example, have quoted Mr. Kennedy twice on this blog. Once when his headline was “Streamed Office Will Kill Web Based Office Software” and the other was “Why Chrome OS will fail – big time”.
Given that I don’t see what the problem is with a pen name. Authors have used pen names to create entertainment since the beginning of time and no one blinked. Because in the end people realized the world is better when people can write unencumbered.
Clive Hamilton’s The Problem of Pain helped millions deal with the loss of a loved one and it would never have been written if C.S. Lewis had been forced to use his real name.
(It is odd that Kennedy used his real name as his pen name and a fake name as his business name but in a world where everyone wants to be a celebrity I can see his reasoning)
On Windows 7’s Memory
My biggest issue here is that people think this discredits his findings while ignoring the fact that common sense discredited his findings. It really doesn’t matter if the person who made these claims was Randall Kennedy, Craig Barth or Donald Duck. We should treat statements on their validity NOT on who made them.
That said, what should discredit this is common sense. To explain that statement let me quote the original Computer World story…
Most Windows 7 PCs max out their memory, resulting in performance bottlenecks, a researcher said today.
Citing data from Devil Mountain Software's community-based Exo.performance.network (XPnet), Craig Barth, the company's chief technology officer, said that new metrics reveal an unsettling trend. On average, 86% ofWindows 7 machines in the XPnet pool are regularly consuming 90%-95% of their available RAM, resulting in slow-downs as the systems were forced to increasingly turn to disk-based virtual memory to handle tasks.
The 86% mark for Windows 7 is more than twice the average number of Windows XP machines that run at the memory "saturation" point, said Barth.
OK, so you basically have a company saying “We have customers we can’t reveal which gave us raw data that we won’t show you which says 86% of new computers have a serious performance flaw that no one else has noted”.
Are you kidding me? How many different news outlets have tested Windows 7? Now ask yourself, of all those news outlets, shouldn’t a lot of them have noticed this? Maybe not the specific problem but at least noticed a serious slow down.
That’s not even counting sites like Anandtech that run every test under the sun.
(For the record, Kennedy/Barth still defends their findings: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9159158/Metrics_vendor_defends_Windows_7_memory_claims)
Conclusion
This is a gossipy headline that I’m sure will get more attention in the days to come. But the real problem here is how several news sources can report on information that’s unverifiable from a company they did no due dilegence on (being their contact at the company was fictional and thus far their biggest customer doesn’t seem to know who they are).