Has Microsoft found its mojo?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I got home very late from work last night as I watched the keynote from Microsoft’s Build conference before leaving the office. Tonight, I guess I’ll be doing the same, for day 2.

At the start, I was mildly interested, Microsoft has been uninspiring for a while now – failing to gain traction with a mobile operating system, with Windows selling well despite an uncertain future, and competitors apparently cleaning up in the tablet market. Microsoft’s stock price has been pretty-much static and many (myself included) have questioned the company’s leadership, especially as it lost a succession of high-profile executives.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/113642789048299520″]

There was a time when I was a great Microsoft advocate, but the keynotes have always been a little dull – what we’ve seen with Windows 8 so far is inspirational though. By midway through the first keynote I was tweeting:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/113651607991877632″]
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/113652108292657152″]

I’ve long since argued that Microsoft should bring its phone OS to PCs – dump the legacy, and make a bold move towards lightweight, single-purpose apps. After all, as Brett King put it:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/brettking/status/113650275071442944″]

Content is the future and operating systems, devices, all of that infrastructure is just a means to an end – it’s how we get to the data.  Even so, I’d like to think I’m a pragmatist – and some of my colleagues are still ranting about the introduction of the ribbon interface in Office (almost half a decade ago) – so how will people respond to the removal of chunks of Windows NT legacy and a totally new user experience as part of the “metrofication” of Windows?

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/113649993813983232″]

That’s why I think Microsoft has been extremely smart. Some are questioning the existence of two user interfaces on one operating system but why not? I can swap out window managers on Linux, we have seen “classic modes” of previous Windows versions and, yes, I’m sure a traditional Windows 32 app will look ugly on a Windows 8 system but that’s the price of supporting legacy – like Classic applications on OS X (now, thankfully, confined to the past).

Windows 8 Platform and Tools

Microsoft is supporting “traditional” applications, alongside a move towards HTML5 and XAML and – this is the smart part – running apps on multiple architectures (x86 or ARM) without recompilation. In one huge leap they have taken Windows forward and there seems to be a convergence between PC, phone and web. One Windows to rule them all. Sure, that’s what Microsoft has been telling us for ages but many of us doubted the company’s ability to pull this off.

There are some great new features in Windows 8 and whilst I’m tempted to provide a run-down, others have done a much better job – I’ll concentrate on the analysis…

For consumers, Windows 8 looks fantastic, supports some great new hardware, and could even win back some mindshare from Apple [steady on Mark…]

For the enterprise, there is only one question that matters: what’s the business case for a Windows upgrade – why would a CIO invest in Windows 8? Don’t give me  features and advantages, but real business benefits (Microsoft has never been good at this, and would probably argue this is where partners add value).

  • To start with, I’m impressed that Windows will boot so quickly and consume fewer resources on the same hardware – perhaps the decline in PC sales is less to do with Apple’s tremendous efforts with the iPad and more to do with longer replacement cycles.  I do find myself asking whether maybe Microsoft could take a step further though, to strip out even more legacy support (maybe in Windows 9?).
  • Support for consumerisation via an application store is also a positive step (I called for this last year, and certain ‘softies told me it was a daft idea…) but we also need the ability to create enterprise application stores – where I can make both Microsoft and non-Microsoft apps available within an organisation. After all, BYO is not for everyone – and there will still be organisations rolling out Windows internally, with their own set of approved applications (although hopefully with a much greater emphasis on delivering content via a browser).
  • I can see the ability to baseline a system and restore to a known state resulting in major cost savings; however it’s tempting to just wipe and reload, instead of performing any form of root cause analysis – we’re unlikely to find out where problem applications are and fix them if all we do is reload the system. Let’s not forget too that a reload still leads to lost productivity for end users – albeit a significant improvement on the status quo.
  • In-kernel anti-malware protection could potentially make a huge difference to security; but the issue of patching is still there (as it is in competing operating systems) – it’s all very well making the notification more subtle but the fact Windows contains so much legacy, is so big and needs so many updates is still a concern.
  • And what about integrating with the cloud – not with Windows Live – but with a private cloud, or with another set of cloud services? Yes, the future (the present, even) is cloudy but maybe I don’t want internal documents being shared on SkyDrive? And, heaven forbid, perhaps the answer isn’t SharePoint either (SharePoint seems to be Microsoft’s answer for rolling out enterprise equivalents to its public cloud services internally).

I imagine some of my questions will be answered as more and more details of Windows 8, Office 15 and new generations of cloud services are revealed but, based on what I heard yesterday, Microsoft has indeed, re-imagined Windows… I haven’t been this impressed with a Microsoft keynote for a long time (maybe ever?) butJon Honeyball (himself, an extensive Apple user) beautifully summed the situation up in just a few words:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/113674678446473216″]

Just in the nick of time…

[Updated 14 September 2011: provide additional links/graphics and improve grammar]

Global Corporate Challenge 2011 (#2011gcc) – now complete!

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Global Corporate ChallengeA few months ago, I wrote a post about my participation in one of the Fujitsu teams taking part in the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC).

My team came fourth (out of 15) in the UK and Ireland, which is not bad at all, although I suspect I was the weakest link in the team.  Even so, I was glad to post a new personal best on the penultimate day of the challenge and we almost made it around the world (virtually) reaching location 126/132.

For me, the GCC was supporting my bigger challenge to be Fit at 40 and I’m pleased to say that I’m still making good progress, adding swimming, cycling and spinning activities to the running.  Over the period of the GCC a clocked up an average of 10,715 steps (1,189,435 in total) with an average daily distance of 6.86km (761.24km in total), burning 47,958 calories in the process.

The good news is that I didn’t really change my behaviour for the GCC – I had already made the lifestyle changes and the GCC re-afirmed my choices. Whilst the muscle gain is making it harder to lose weight it shows just how fat I was and I’m now making good progress towards shedding that second stone – soon I’ll be dropping below the 100kg in weight for the first time in many years…

And I’ve now got so used to wearing my GCC pedometer, it feels strange not to have it there any more!

Confessions of a business traveller…

Posted on By Mark Wilson

There was a time when travel was an everyday part of my life. Maybe not the international variety, although I’ve done my fair share of that, particularly when I was working for Polo Ralph Lauren, but I used to spend my weeks hammering up and down the motorways of England, Wales and, less commonly, Scotland and Ireland too…

These days a typical week is split between my home office (commute time, 5 seconds from my bedroom) and London (commute time, 4 hours). This week was different though – as I write this I’m travelling by Eurostar, speeding through France at 300kph, on my way home from Paris.

Holiday Inn Paris Bastille, next to a sex shop...“Lucky so-and-so”, some of you might think but, even though long-distance train travel is vastly preferable to flying, we’re not talking luxury here: I have a standard class seat and my hotel last night was a perfectly comfortable, but not over the top, Holiday Inn (next to a sex shop, as it happens… make what you will of that!)

Even those of us travelling “on expenses” need to be mindful of costs, especially in the current economic climate, so I have a few tips to share with anyone making a similar journey…

St Pancras International (2)First up, is the domestic train travel before the Eurostar terminal atLondon St Pancras (in my opinion, a wonderful place to travel to/from). I bought a normal, off peak ticket into London and an advance ticket home again (two singles) but it turns out there is another, less well advertised, option: cheaper fares are available to connect with London International (CIV) services.

Next comes  the Eurostar boarding pass: if you have a supported smartphone, don’t bother printing a paper copy – Eurostar have a mobile app (for iPhone and Android) that allows you to download your boarding pass and simply show the QR code on your screen to the reader on the gates.

My next tip relates to the journey itself. After travelling on modern trains in the UK, it’s easy to forget that the Eurostar fleet is now starting to show its age and lacks features such as in-seat power sockets and Wi-Fi. Thankfully, Eurostar are embarking on a refurbishment of their fleet next year (together with the addition of some new trains) – and Wi-Fi is certainly part of the plan, although I’m not sure about power sockets for laptops, etc. On that basis, it might be worth making sure that your devices are well-charged before setting out on the journey.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/Eurostar/status/110675523667116032″]

Mobile communications are another issue and, even though European mobile carriers are being forced to reduce their pricing for voice communications, data roaming charges are best described as excessive. O2 kindly sent me a text to tell me that calls would cost £0.36 a minute outbound and £0.11 a minute inbound. Meanwhile SMS messages would be £0.11 to send and free to receive, but data was – are you sitting down? – £3.06 per Megabyte. And that was in France; it gets steeper in other parts of the world. For that reason, I didn’t use push email, Twitter, or much else whilst I was travelling. I recommend turning off Data Roaming on your smartphone/tablet, resetting the statistics, and then turning it on only when required, taking care to watch what’s being used (just 5 Foursquare check-ins racked up 1.6MB of data, bringing a whole new meaning to questioning the cost of social networking…). Aside from the fact that I’m a social media junkie, it’s amazing how reliant I have become on Google Maps – and I got lost at least twice, including on the way to from the Metro to our offices.

On that note, as I write this post, my train is just about to leave the Channel Tunnel and I’ll be glad to be back in the land of 3G communications again!

Finally, if, like me, your destination is Paris and you feel like using some apps, I have a couple of recommendations:

  • I already mentioned Eurostar but the other is from the Paris transit authority, RATP (for iPhone and iPad). These apps needs connectivity, but tap your start and end stations on the map, then it will work out the quickest journey by a variety of transport modes. Transport for London could learn a lot from this…
  • I was less enamoured with the Lonely Planet Paris Travel Guide (for iPhone). Maybe if I was on a leisure trip it might have been more useful but the £3.99 cost was not worth it for me – the user experience is poor (very un-iOS) and the best thing I can say about it is that is has an offline map of Paris, although it only covers the city centre and I tended to use the paper copy that the hotel gave me…

Oh yes, and one more thing: make sure you have some offline media to entertain you on the journey – I’ve watched quite a few TED talks on this trip and am currently listening to my Spotify playlists in offline mode…

So that’s about it. This leg of my journey is drawing to a close, I’m now speeding through Kent and Twitter is calling. Hopefully these tips will be useful to someone else making a similar journey soon.

Could this be the ultimate unified messaging client?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Much has been made of the slow death of email and the rise of enterprise social software so I was interested to read a recent paper in which Benno Zollner, Fujitsu’s global CIO, commented on the need to balance email usage with other communications mechanisms.

In the paper, Benno posits a view that we’re entering not just a post-PC era but a post-email era where we use a plethora of devices and protocols. This is driven by a convergence of voice and data (not just on smartphones, but on the “desktop” too – Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype shows how seriously they are taking this) but also the enterprise social software that’s extending our traditional collaboration platforms to offer what was once referred to as a “web 2.0” experience, only inside the corporate network.  Actually, I’m slightly uncomfortable with that last sentence – not just because as I find the terms “web 2.0” and “enterprise 2.0” to be cringe-worthy but, also, the concept of the corporate network is becoming less and less relevant as we transact more and more business in the cloud, using the mobile Internet, Wi-Fi hotspots and home broadband. Even so, it illustrates my point, that social networking is very much a part of the modern business environment, alongside traditional communications mechanisms including the telephone and email.

A few months ago, I wrote about the need to prioritise communications but I can see us taking a step further in the not-too-distant future.  Why do I need an email client (Microsoft Outlook), multiple instant messaging/presence/voice over IP (VoIP) clients (Microsoft Office Communicator/Lync/Skype) a Twitter client (TweetDeck), Enterprise social software (Microsoft SharePoint/Newsgator Social Sites/Salesforce Chatter) and a combination of mobile and desk-based phones (don’t forget SMS on that mobile too!)? Plenty has been made of the ability to use VoIP to ring several phones simultaneously, to call the phone that best matches my presence or to divert the call to a unified messaging inbox but why limit this to telephony?

I can envisage a time when we each have a consolidated communications client – one that recognises who we’re trying to communicate with and picks the appropriate channel to contact them.  If I’m sending a message to my wife and she’s at her desk, then email is fine but if I can tell she’s on the school run then why not route it to her mobile phone by SMS?  Similarly, advanced presence information can be used to route communications over a variety of channels to favour that which each of my contacts tends to use in a given scenario.  Perhaps the software knows that a contact is not available via instant messaging but is signed in to Twitter and can be contacted with a direct message.  Maybe I can receive a précis of an urgent report on my smartphone but the full version is available at my desk. The possibilities are vast but the main point is that the sender shouldn’t need to pick and choose the medium; instead, software can take into account the preferences of the recipient and route the communication accordingly (taking into account that some transport mechanisms may not guarantee delivery). Could this be the ultimate unified messaging client?

Email isn’t dead – but soon we won’t care whether our messages are sent via SMTP, SIP, SMS or semaphore – just as long as they arrive in a manner that ensures an efficient communication process and lets us focus on the task at hand, rather than spending the day working our way through our inboxes.

This post originally appeared on the Fujitsu UK and Ireland CTO Blog and is based on a concept proposed by Ian Mitchell.

What exactly does that Lightroom preset do?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A couple of weeks ago, I was messing around with some presets I’d downloaded from the ‘net for Adobe Lightroom.  I quite liked the effect but I wanted to know what they were doing.  The version of Lightroom that I’m using (2.6) doesn’t let me edit an existing preset so I turned to the ‘net to find out how to work out what settings were being applied.  After asking my question on Quora it was less than 24 hours before Rob Sylvan responded and explained it’s as simple as exporting the preset as a .lrtemplate file and viewing it with a text editor.

Unlike Adobe’s extensible metadata platfrom (.XMP) files, Lightroom presets do not use XML but the format is pretty easy to follow (Mike Sweeney has written about Lightroom 3 presets and they look pretty similar in Lightroom 2.x to me). By examining the contents it should be possible to work out the changes that the preset makes.

Here’s an example I picked up from the ‘net that emulates Ilford HP4+ black and white film:

s = {
id = “D6783909-3334-45C7-A277-10FF62F8D9CE”,
internalName = “Ilford FP4+”,
title = “Ilford FP4+”,
type = “Develop”,
value = {
settings = {
AutoBrightness = false,
AutoContrast = false,
AutoExposure = false,
AutoShadows = false,
Brightness = 50,
ChromaticAberrationB = 0,
ChromaticAberrationR = 0,
Clarity = 30,
Contrast = 25,
ConvertToGrayscale = true,
Defringe = 0,
EnableColorAdjustments = true,
EnableDetail = true,
EnableGrayscaleMix = true,
EnableSplitToning = true,
EnableVignettes = true,
Exposure = 0,
FillLight = 0,
GrayMixerAqua = 36,
GrayMixerBlue = 10,
GrayMixerGreen = 36,
GrayMixerMagenta = -14,
GrayMixerOrange = 10,
GrayMixerPurple = -20,
GrayMixerRed = -25,
GrayMixerYellow = 38,
HighlightRecovery = 0,
LuminanceSmoothing = 0,
ParametricDarks = -6,
ParametricHighlightSplit = 75,
ParametricHighlights = 0,
ParametricLights = 5,
ParametricMidtoneSplit = 50,
ParametricShadowSplit = 25,
ParametricShadows = 0,
PostCropVignetteAmount = 0,
PostCropVignetteFeather = 50,
PostCropVignetteMidpoint = 50,
PostCropVignetteRoundness = 0,
Shadows = 5,
SharpenDetail = 25,
SharpenEdgeMasking = 0,
SharpenRadius = 1,
Sharpness = 25,
SplitToningBalance = 0,
SplitToningHighlightHue = 0,
SplitToningHighlightSaturation = 0,
SplitToningShadowHue = 0,
SplitToningShadowSaturation = 0,
ToneCurve = {
0,
0,
32,
22,
64,
56,
128,
128,
192,
196,
255,
255,
},
ToneCurveName = “Medium Contrast”,
VignetteAmount = 0,
VignetteMidpoint = 50,
},
uuid = “92CAD954-CC15-49BE-89C1-46F88058904E”,
},
version = 0,
}

Useful Links: August 2011

Posted on By Mark Wilson

A list of items I’ve come across recently that I found potentially useful, interesting, or just plain funny:

Cloning a Windows system disk using nothing but free software

Posted on By Mark Wilson

As part of the process of replacing the hard disk in my server at home, I needed to clone the operating system between two drives. As my Windows Server installation consists of two partitions (my C: and a 100MB system reserved partition), I couldn’t use Microsoft’s disk imaging tool (imagex.exe) as it only works on single partitions (i.e. it’s not possible to image multiple partitions in a single operation).

I could have used commercial software like Symantec Ghost but I figured there must be a legitimate, free, way to do this by now and it turns out there is – I used the open source Clonezilla utility (I also considered some alternatives but found that some needed to be installed and I wanted something that would leave no trace on the system).

I had some issues at first – for some reason my machine wouldn’t boot from the CD I created but I found the best way was to install Clonezilla on the target disk.

To do this, I put the new disk in a USB HDD docking station and created a 200MB FAT partition on it. Next, I downloaded the .ZIP version of CloneZilla and copied the files to the new disk. I then ran /utils/win32/makeboot.bat to make the disk bootable (it’s important to run makeboot.bat from the new disk, not from the .ZIP file on the local system disk). The last step (which I didn’t see in the instructions and spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting) is to make the new disk active (using Disk Management or diskpart.exe).

With Clonezilla installed on my “new” disk, I connected it to the server and booted from this disk, electing to load CloneZilla into RAM and overwrite it as part of the cloning process.

I then left it to run for a few minutes before removing the old disk and rebooting back into Windows Server.

(Quite why I’m still running a Windows Server at home, I’m not sure… I don’t really need an Active Directory and for DNS, DHCP and TFTP I really should switch to Linux… I guess Windows is just what I know best… it’s comfortable!)

Three gotchas to be aware of:

  • If you don’t make the Clonezilla partition active you won’t be able to boot from it (basic, I know, but it’s not in the instructions that I followed).
  • Clonezilla clones the partitions as they are (i.e. it’s a clone – and there is no resizing to use additional space on the disk) – it’s easy to expand the volume later, but if you’re moving to a smaller disk, you may have to shrink the existing partition(s) before cloning.
  • The AMD64 version of Clonezilla hung at the calculating bitmap stage of the Partclone process , with a seemily random remaining time and 0% progress. I left this for several hours (on two occasions) and it did not complete (it appeared to write the partition structure to the disk, but not to transfer any data).  The “fix” seems to be to use the i686 version of Clonezilla.

Using Windows to remove a Mac OS X EFI partition from a disk

Posted on By Mark Wilson

The old hard drive from my Mac is destined to find a new role in my low-power server (hopefully dropping the power consumption even further by switching from a 3.5″ disk to a 2.5″ disk). Before that can happen though, I needed to wipe it and clone my Windows Server installation.

After hooking the drive up, I found that it had two partitions: one large non-Windows partition that was easily removed in Server Manager’s Disk Management snap-in; and one EFI partition that Disk Management didn’t want to delete.

The answer, it seems, is to dive into the command line and use diskpart.exe.

After selecting the appropriate disk, the clean command quickly removed the offending partition. I then initialised it in Disk Management, electing to make it an MBR disk (it was GPT).

The perils of online billing…

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Like most people, the mail I receive from the postman these days breaks into three categories:

As I use Direct Debits to pay my bills, they generally need little more than a cursory glance before being “filed” (i.e. chucked in a big box until I get around to doing it properly) but I also elect for paper-free billing where it makes sense.

I say “where it makes sense” because so many organisations (e.g. First Direct, ING Direct, Marks and Spencer Money) seem to think that providing records in HTML, CSV or Quicken format is enough – and it’s not, in my opinion.  The paper-free billing that has value to me provides a PDF of the paper bill that would have been sent to me by post and organisations that do this include American Express, BT and E-ON.

The wrong way

If you were watching my Twitter stream over the weekend, you might have seen me ranting about BT‘s paper-free billing though, because there is a catch: and it’s one that’s worth knowing about.

I mentioned how haphazard my paper filing is and my digital filing is not much better.  I get the emails notifying me that my bill is ready for download and I generally think “OK, I’ll look at that later”.  After all, I know it will be paid (by Direct Debit) and, if there is a problem, I’ll notice the exceptionally large/small transaction on my bank account and investigate at that time.  Every once in a while, I get around to downloading the statements and storing them in my “digital filing cabinet” (my NAS, at home).

Except that I’m finding more and more of my providers don’t maintain a complete history for download. And BT was the one that really took the biscuit… I logged into BT’s website to retrieve my statements and successfully downloaded around 15 or 16 months’ worth. My problem was that I had a gap between the last time I did this, and the oldest statement available online.  I called BT, who told me I only have access to 6 months history (really? I can see more than that!) and that I could write a letter requesting the missing statements. Smelling a rat, I asked how much that would cost. £4.80 per bill, I was told. I said I wouldn’t be needing the address, thank you very much, and hung up.

Then I hit Twitter:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/107455235949211648″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/107455937794686976″]

I got several sympathetic responses (including one follower who says BT promised him unlimited access to statements when he signed up for paper-free billing so he pushed the issue and was sent every single statement since his account was opened…) but one in particular copied in the @BTCare account. I had previously ignored that account, preferring hashtags like #BTDoesntCare because my previous experience of @BTCare had been unhelpful, but this time they responded with a URL for a web form, promising to follow up the issue.

The next day (a Sunday, no less, and which should be applauded), BT called (from a call centre in Northern Ireland, rather than the normal Indian operation) and explained that I only had access to 6 months statements online and words to the effect of “it wasn’t their fault I hadn’t downloaded my statements in time, as they had sent them to me each month by email”. I pointed out that they hadn’t sent me the statements – what they actually sent was an email saying words to the effect of “your statement is ready, when you want to go and take a look” but not “be quick before it’s gone”. I also highlighted that they give me a £1 a month discount for paper-free billing and to charge any more than that was unreasonable – £4.80 for access to old bills was obscene, especially as I don’t want a paper bill – the PDFs will be fine.  At this point BT changed tack, claiming that they had some discretion, and offering to email me the missing bills.  After needing to speak to my wife (because it’s her name on the account and they can’t cope with two people being jointly responsible for a bill…), they sent me the missing statements and I was a happy camper. Almost.

I say almost because this shouldn’t happen. How many people who are less connected online, or less pushy on the phone, would have just paid up the £33.60 BT wanted for seven statements and invested  time/effort/cost into posting a letter? And why is there only 6 months’ history available (and I’m “lucky” because I can see a bit more than that)?  The answer to that is poor IT, or poor decision making – presumably someone made an arbitrary decision to limit online statement availability and reduce the storage cost to BT – ironically, these statements are clearly available to BT’s customer services staff, although they may well be dynamically generated (as they used to be on the customer-facing website which, incidentally, was a painful process and the reason I rarely went in to download them!). Or, to take another view, how much did sorting out this mess cost BT (quite a bit, I would imagine, so surely it’s better to get it right first time)?

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/107847209340502016″]

The right way

Now let me give you an example of an organisation that has paper-free statements working perfectly: American Express.

I would use AmEx exclusively if only their cards were as widely accepted as Visa or Mastercard but their web portal allows me to download the most recent six months’ statements and, crucially, to request any previous statements for retrieval within 24 hours, at no cost to me.  At the back end, I’m sure the statements are pulled from near-line or off-line storage to on-line, managing American Express’ storage efficiently but almost transparently to me, and delivering an excellent customer experience.

I’ll finish this post (I’m sorry, it is a bit or a rant), with a partial retweet from Simon Bisson that just about sums up the situation for me:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/markwilsonit/status/107456687102894080″]

Well done American Express. BT and E-ON you need to do better. Bottom of the class: almost everyone else I deal with…

Finding the SIM serial number for my iPad, without taking the SIM out

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Earlier this afternoon, I was searching for my iPad’s cellular data number (CDN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) serial number (I needed the last 6 digits for a password reset on my carrier’s billing portal).   The cellular data number is fairly straightforward (looking in the About screen in the General Settings) but the SIM is a little less so. My carrier (Three) advises taking the SIM out and physically inspecting it but I thought there had to be a way to do this in software…

…it turns out that there is: the SIM serial number is also known as the Integrated Circuit Card ID (ICCID) and Apple support article HT4061 details several ways to find this information, along with the device serial number, Universal Device Identifier (UDID), International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) and CDN.