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2010-10-19T09:50:00.001-07:00

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2010-10-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

http://windowsxperience.wordpress.com/

Microsoft releases details on Vista activation

2007-11-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

For nearly a year, Microsoft has refused to release technical details of the changes it made to its Product Activation technology in Windows Vista. The company was more than willing to speak in broad terms about the program and how it works, but it kept the details confidential, classifying them as trade secrets.

Until last week, that is. A newly released Technical Market Bulletin entitled Product Activation for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 unexpectedly appeared on Microsoft’s Download Center last week. Curiously, the document was dated September 2007, but the Date Published field indicates that it was kicking around internally for more than a month before being officially released.

The document is similar in many respects to the Technical Market Bulletin: Microsoft Product Activation for Windows XP (Word .doc format), released in August 2001, before the launch of Windows XP, and updated in 2002 after Microsoft made some activation changes in XP Service Pack 1.

Historically, the underlying principle of Product Activation has been simple: You can reinstall Windows on the original hardware as many times as you like and activate it automatically over the Internet. You need to reactivate over the phone if the hardware is substantially changed. That’s been the hard-and-fast rule for more than six years.

With that history in mind, I was surprised (to put it mildly) when I read this sentence on the next-to-last page of the Vista activation bulletin:

Reinstallation of Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 on the same or similar hardware and a subsequent reactivation can be accomplished five times.

If that’s true, it’s a major change in policy for Microsoft. I went back through all my notes and records looking for any indication that this policy has been announced previously and found nothing. So I contacted Microsoft to get an explanation and got an impressively rapid response from Alex Kochis, Senior Product Manager in the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) group. His blunt response: “There has been no meaningful policy change. We need to correct that paper.”

The new activation document, it turns out, is missing some crucial details. A more complete description of the actual activation policy is found at the bottom of Microsoft’s Windows Vista Activation FAQ:

How many times can I activate Windows Vista?

Windows can be activated any number of times, but your re-activation experience will vary based on the way you acquired Windows.

If you acquired Windows Vista via retail purchase (boxed product), you may activate via the Internet the first five times. Subsequent activations are allowed but must be completed via telephone.

If you acquire Windows Vista pre-installed on a computer, re-installation would not require additional activation steps unless significant hardware changes were made.

And even that description, Kochis explains, is potentially misleading. The policy allowing five automatic activations over the Internet has been in place for the past year, but it’s subject to change at any time. The real goal, it turns out, is to block hackers who try to spoof parts of the hardware ID so that multiple systems can appear identical when they check in with Microsoft’s activation servers. In that scenario, the server logs for a single product ID might show hundreds or even thousands of activation requests, leading to a requirement that the system be activated over the phone. In that scenario, a customer service representative can confirm that the activation request is legitimate.

For systems sold from large manufacturers (Dell, HP, Sony, and the like), activation is accomplished using a separate check called OEM Activation 2.0. If you reinstall Windows using the original media, activation should never be required unless the motherboard is replaced with one from a different manufacturer. The limit of five reactivations should only apply to retail copies, and then it will likely affect only hard core enthusiasts who repeatedly reinstall and attempt to reactivate retail copies.

If you fall into the latter category, here are three pieces of advice to avoid being bitten by activation hassles:

1. Take advantage of the initial 30-day grace period before activating. Delay activation until you’re satisfied that all hardware and software are working as you intended.

2. Use an image backup program like Vista’s Complete PC Backup (found in the Business and Ultimate editions) or a third-party alternative like Acronis True Image. After installing Windows and all current updates (including drivers), complete activation and then use the backup program to create a snapshot of the drive. If you ever need to reinstall, you can do so easily with that image, which won’t require reactivation if it’s restored to the original hardware.

3. If you’re such a fanatic that you install Windows more than five times a year, get a TechNet Plus subscription. For $299, you get a one-year subscription that includes perpetual licenses for every version of Windows Vista (including Ultimate), Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Office, and a slew of server software and tools. The licenses aren’t valid for business use, but you can install and use each product on up to 10 separate machines for evaluation purposes, and the licenses don’t expire even if you choose not to renew your subscription after the first year.

I’ll have more details from this new technical bulletin, including a rundown on the activation changes between XP and Vista.

Source: ZDNET BLOG

Microsoft Fixes Update Malfunction in Time for Patch Tuesday

2007-11-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

For the second time in less than three weeks, Microsoft Corp. has had to apologize for blunders made by the application that enterprise administrators rely on to deploy the software vendor's security patches and other updates.

Late Monday, Bobbie Harder, a senior program manager with Microsoft's Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) group, confirmed the latest gaffe in a posting to a company blog.

"Sunday evening, Microsoft renamed a product category entry for Forefront to clarify the scope of updates that will be included in the future," Harder said. "Unfortunately the category name that was used included the word Nitrogen in double quotes (appearing as "Nitrogen"). A double quote is a restricted character within WSUS, which created an error condition on the administration console. This issue occurred on many WSUS servers that synchronized with Microsoft servers between 5 p.m. Sunday and 11 a.m. Monday, Pacific time."

Monday morning, network administrators at Microsoft user companies began posting messages to WSUS support forums after they arrived at work to find the patch delivery software's management console reporting an error, essentially blocking them from retrieving updates.

The timing couldn't have been worse, as Microsoft is scheduled to deliver its monthly security fixes later Tuesday.

Harder said the glitch was fixed Monday afternoon and would be propagated to each WSUS server the next time it synchronized with Microsoft's update servers. She also provided instructions for administrators who have set WSUS to sync manually, with separate steps for WSUS 2.0 and WSUS 3.0.

Allen Moore, a systems administrator at DeKalb Memorial Hospital in DeKalb, Ill., said he didn't wait for Microsoft Monday, but instead used SQL queries posted in a support forum to bring back WSUS. "I applied the two SQL queries to manually fix the tables yesterday, and was able to get back into WSUS without any errors," he said in an e-mail today. "I [also] just checked our WSUS 2.0 server and it appears to be working correctly after updating this morning."

Harder said her team would add new checks to curb errors like this. "We are also improving our publishing tools to make sure that issues like this are caught during the publishing process, before they impact customers," she said.

She said much the same thing, however, less than three weeks ago after admitting that recycling an update package had force-fed Windows Desktop Search (WDS) to client PCs which had been told to ignore the application. "We are also working on improving our internal publishing processes to ensure this does not happen again in the future," Harder said then.

Some users seemed to be unhappy with the trend in WSUS problems. "Thanks, Microsoft, it's great having things like this happen when I'm already too busy!!!" said someone identified as stormforce5 on a WSUS support forum Monday.

As she did in the wake of October's WSUS snafu, Microsoft's Harder said she was sorry: "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to our customers."

Anyone still having problems with WSUS should contact Microsoft support, Harder added.

Source: PC WORLD

Remaining Ultimate Extra Language Packs Released!

2007-11-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

Hello! Здравствуйте! Sawatdi Khrap! Shalom! Salam! Γειάσου!

We are pleased to announce the release of the remaining 19 languages packs for Windows Vista Ultimate. This Ultimate Extras release brings the total number of language packs for use with Windows Vista Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI) to 35. Windows Vista Ultimate enables users install multiple languages on their system and quickly switch between them by associating a system language with their login name.

MUI is particularly useful in multilingual homes where multiple people use a single computer and choose different languages for their primary use. People who wish to learn a new language will also find MUI to be a particularly useful feature. We are aware of a very large number of customers who have purchased Ultimate for this feature specifically and are gratified that these customers can now realize the full benefit of Windows Vista Ultimate.

The languages we are adding today are as follows:

Arabic

Bulgarian

Croatian

Czech

Estonian

Greek

Hebrew

Hungarian

Latvian

Lithuanian

Polish

Portuguese (Portugal)

Romanian

Serbian (Latin)

Slovak

Slovenian

Thai

Turkish

Ukrainian

In addition to the release of the remaining Language Packs, a component in the language pack installation process called lpksetup.exe has also been updated. This updated component addresses previous issues which some customers have experienced with language pack installations and so it is recommended that you download and install this component first. The updated lpksetup.exe can be found on Microsoft Download Center at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942903

While today’s delivery marks the final installment of the Extras announced earlier this year, these are by no means the final set of Extras that we intend to deliver. As I mentioned in my post last month, beyond the Extras shipped to date, we plan to ship a collection of additional Windows Ultimate Extras that we are confident will delight our passionate Windows Vista Ultimate customers.

Given our track record, it would be unwise to provide details of what comes next until I am 100% confident in our ability to deliver. Please rest assured, though, that our team is working on hard to deliver on our promise to Ultimate customers. I look forward to announcing the next Ultimate Extra. Please stay tuned…

Thanks for your passion, patience and your continued support.

Barry Goffe
Director, Windows Vista Ultimate
Microsoft Corporation

Source: http://windowsultimate.com/blogs/announcements/archive/2007/10/23/remaining-ultimate-extra-language-packs-released.aspx

Microsoft Shows Off Preview of Office Project Software

2007-10-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Microsoft showed off some features of the next version of Project, to the delight of the crowd gathered at the Microsoft Office Project Conference in Seattle.

The audience applauded a new timeline view that will become available. Alice Steinglass, senior program manager for Microsoft Office Project, showed how users can cut and paste the timeline into other applications, such as a PowerPoint slide. Once pasted, users can alter individual components of the image, deleting sections and changing the font, for example.

That's one feature that furthers Microsoft's goal of making Project not only easier to use for project managers but usable by more people in an organization. "At the end of the day, the fundamental thesis here is that we are all project managers because we all manage work," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, addressing the audience on Tuesday. "Whether my personal project management system happens to look more like a formal project or a task list that I might keep in something like Excel or Outlook, we need to make sure that we give rich tool sets to people at all levels of the food chain to help them do work management."

A major user interface change to come within Project that Steinglass showed off is the icon ribbon at the top of the screen, similar to the one featured on many other Microsoft programs like Word. Users can click on different tabs at the top and the icons available in the ribbon change. With the click of an icon, users can do things like filter for incomplete tasks or group by resource name. These functions currently require several clicks in Project 2007.

Future versions of Project will give customers an easier way to customize fields. The current method is complicated and will eventually be replaced with a blank column that users can simply start filling in with any information they want. As soon as they do, a new blank column automatically appears. If a user inputs a dollar figure in the column, the rest of the column automatically configures for dollars.

Steinglass also showed off enhancements that will come to Web access to Projects. If a user makes changes to several time frames for completing tasks, the application won't automatically update the overall schedule so as not to slow down performance. When a user is done making changes, a calculate changes button makes the alterations, highlighting every item that has changed. Users can hit undo repeatedly to get rid of changes.

Microsoft doesn't even have a name for the next version of Project so there's no time frame for when these features will become available. Project 2007 began shipping earlier this year and some Project 2003 users say they're waiting for the first Service Pack release before they'll move to the latest version.

Microsoft executives expect that Web access will become important in the future. Practically every user of Project will take advantage of Web access, allowing partners and remote workers access to it from online, said Mike Angiulo, general manager of the Microsoft Project business unit. Ballmer wagered that in five years, about 50 percent of Project customers would use a fully hosted version, with the rest using an on-premise server.

Microsoft may also do some work enabling more access to Project from Windows Mobile devices. While there is a need for access to Project from mobile phones, users won't want the full version, Ballmer said. "What you want to do is say what aspects of the Project experience are people going to want to take on the phone," he said. For example, people may want to check on the status of a project and input information from their phones, he said.

Some existing functions already available let people use their phones to change tasks within Outlook and those changes will be replicated on the Project server, said Angiulo.

On Monday, Microsoft said that in two or three weeks it will announce the ship date for Service Pack 1 for Project 2007. When pressed for more details on Tuesday, Angiulo said that it's on the same schedule as the release date for Office 2007. He added that the final code is being tested, an indication that release is imminent.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft: No IPTV in Xbox 360 Yet

2007-10-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

Microsoft hasn't had much luck keeping new announcements under wraps, so this weekend when rumors circulated from Xbox 360 Fanboy about a possible feature for the Fall Update, most weren't surprised of yet another leak.

This one came from a tipster who snapped shots of his Xbox 360 after getting it back from the Xbox Repair center. The screens showed hints at IPTV functionality, which set the internet ablaze with speculation the feature would be part of their upcoming major dashboard update.

But, not so fast. As it turns out, the screenshots were legit, but the feature isn't planned for the Fall Update. Microsoft issued a statement to clear up the misunderstanding. In it, they point out that the features "were inadvertently exposed while the customer's console was being serviced and is unrelated to the Fall Update."

The features are part of the Microsoft Mediaroom services and will be given to TV service providers by the end of 2007. After that, it's entirely up to those providers to determine when the feature becomes available. It could be next spring, fall, or beyond.

It looks as if Xbox 360 owners will have to wait a little longer to escape the cold clutches of VHS tape tyranny to record their shows.

Source: PC MAG

Microsoft Buys Thai Health Software Vendor

2007-10-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. on Monday said it has agreed to buy a Thai software vendor that specializes in hospital administration applications, and plans to sell the software in emerging markets.

Global Care Solutions (GCS) of Bangkok, Thailand, is Microsoft's third purchase of a health-care software vendor in the past 13 months, according to Peter Neupert, vice president for the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft. The group was formed two years ago and the purchase of GCS is one more step to building the Microsoft health-care business, he said.

GCS specializes in hospital software that takes care of patient scheduling, billing, clinical workflow, regulatory compliance and medical record-keeping. The privately held company has worked for years with Bumrungrad International Hospital, a facility made famous by its focus on catering to visiting tourists.

What makes GCS software special is the amount of specialized record keeping required by Bumrungrad. Doctors at the hospital see over 1.2 million patients each year, including 400,000 foreign patients from 190 countries, meaning varying language, insurance and billing data. Half of the 3,200 patients seen at Bumrungrad each day walk in without an appointment, yet GCS's scheduling software ensures patients wait an average of 17 minutes to see a doctor.

Microsoft will retain all GCS workers after the acquisition. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The companies also announced a collaborative alliance with Bumrungrad Hospital to continue work on tweaking and improving technology to improve hospital care.

"We now have a partner that's willing to experiment with us," said Neupert. He said future work will include software development as well as experimenting on how RFID (radio frequency identification) can improve hospital care.

Microsoft will focus GCS software sales on hospitals in emerging countries, said Neupert. The software fits well with emerging market hospital needs, requiring just a small investment in computer hardware, he said.

Microsoft has not been receiving requests for the kind of software GCS provides, he said, but made the acquisition based on what its Health Solutions Group required, and because the company has a good understanding of its business. GCS software is in use in seven hospitals around the Asia-Pacific region, the company said.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft apologises for Desktop Search update error

2007-10-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has apologised for a Windows Server update that automatically installed the Windows Desktop Search tool on users' desktops without approval.

The mistake happened because Microsoft reused the same update package as when Windows Desktop Search (WDS) was first published in February as an optional update that was only applicable to systems with the search tool previously installed.

This meant organisations that had approved the February update package for a limited number of machines had this week's new update automatically install WDS on all clients because the Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) is set by default to automatically approve update revisions.

One IT manager affected by the update told silicon.com: "I came into the office this morning and found that every one of our desktops and servers which are on WSUS have had the WDS tool automatically installed. We were shocked as we do not automatically approve anything for our systems, unless we have already approved an old version of the same update. So Microsoft has decided to push this directly out, bypassing any approval opportunity we have set. To say the least we are not happy and we're currently reviewing what we are going to do."

In a post on Microsoft's WSUS blog Bobbie Harder, programme manager for WSUS, said: "We sincerely regret the inconvenience this has caused and extend a sincere apology to all impacted customers."

Microsoft said it is working to correct the issue and has temporarily suspended the distribution of the search tool through WSUS.

Harder said: "We will make a new package available for WSUS in the near future, but not as an update revision, so you can rely on predictable update behaviour with auto-approval settings. We are also working on improving our internal publishing processes to ensure this does not happen again."

Microsoft said customers wanting to uninstall the WDS update revision released this week can do so via the add/remove programs feature and by following the instructions on Microsoft's WSUS blog.

Source: ZDNET

Microsoft Adds Event Planning to Live Services

2007-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. is adding an event planning offering to its expanding Windows Live suite of services.

Microsoft says the new service, Live Events, offers more than some other existing online invitation services, such as the popular Evite.com. Like those services, users of Live Events will be able to design a Web page and invitation to an event, choosing from over 100 templates. They can customize further by changing the font and background images and dragging and dropping different components of the site.

Users can choose e-mail addresses of people to invite to their event from an address book they may already have in Hotmail or Messenger. They can also type in e-mail addresses.

One feature that may set Live Events apart from other similar services is the ability for event participants to visit the invitation site after the event to upload photos or videos or comments, said Jay Fluegel, product manager for Windows Live Events. Then anyone can order prints of the pictures, view slideshows or download the photos to Windows Live Gallery, a beta service that lets users share photos and other content.

The service, accessed at events.live.com, will begin a gradual rollout across 56 international markets Thursday and Friday. The rollout is expected to begin just after 5 p.m. Pacific time Thursday in the U.S.

Microsoft also announced updates to a couple of other Live services. Users of the Skydrive beta, which lets anyone store and share files online, will now have 1G byte of storage, up from 500M bytes.

In addition, Live Spaces users will see an updated summary of changes their friends have made to their Spaces pages. When a user logs on to their Spaces page, they'll see thumbnails of new photos and snippets of text entries that friends have posted on their own pages. Microsoft also updated permissioning on photo albums so Spaces users can restrict access to their photo albums to a specific list of people.

Microsoft has slowly been adding to and updating its Live services, with plans to have a complete suite of integrated services by the end of this year. Users can visit get.live.com to find out about the different services

Source: PC WORLD

Word Exploit Loose, According to Microsoft, Symantec

2007-10-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

Security researchers spotted an attack Wednesday that exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Word patched just the day before.

On Wednesday, Symantec Corp. reported it had obtained a suspicious Word document that crashed every version of the application except the newest, Word 2007, when opened. After it examined the document, Symantec found that the document included shell code and three pieces of malware.

Among its more surprising findings: Symantec found that the document had been created with the edition of Word included with Office for Mac 2004.

On Tuesday, Microsoft Corp. issued a patch that closed a critical vulnerability in multiple editions of the popular word processor, including Word 2000, Word XP and Word for the Mac. Symantec put the two together. "Taking a closer look at that vulnerability, we confirmed that this document was in fact exploiting the same vulnerability," researcher Orla Cox said on the company's security response blog.

Even though Microsoft in its advisory acknowledged that attacks had already been seen in the wild, Symantec remarked on the finding. "In our experience, the exploitation of such vulnerabilities tends to be very targeted in nature," said Cox, when talking about the unusual discovery.

It's not unusual, however, for exploits to appear soon after a vendor posts a patch. The practice, dubbed "Exploit Wednesday" to match the "Patch Tuesday" moniker used to describe Microsoft's monthly patch day, has been debunked by some, however, as part myth. Hackers don't actually stockpile code and synchronize its release with the appearance of patches, a researcher at Symantec rival McAfee Inc. said in June after releasing the results of a survey of 200 zero-day Windows vulnerabilities.

Updates to the Windows versions of Word can be obtained via Microsoft Update or Office Update, while the patch for the Mac edition is included in the 11.3.8 update to Office 2004 available on the Web site of Microsoft's Macintosh development team.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Will Patch IE7 'URI' Hole

2007-10-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

After basically stonewalling for the past three months, Microsoft late today announced it is indeed working on a patch for a severe security hole that turned up in Internet Explorer 7 last July.

I understand it's a complex problem. The first time it turned up, it was assumed to be a problem in how IE7 and Firefox, in conjunction, handle what are called uniform resource identifiers (URI).

You may recall that at the time Microsoft and the Mozilla Firefox folks had a bit of a tiff over whose problem it was.

Firefox was fixed in short order. However, until today, there basically wasn't a peep out of Microsoft.

Now Microsoft has released a Security Advisory – what the company publishes when they acknowledge a bug but don't have a patch yet – in order to warn users.

They do say they have a patch underway and will ship it as soon as they get it done and properly tested. At that point, they will publish a Security Bulletin, which includes links to the patch or patches. No word on how long that will be. But, hey, it's progress.

So who's affected by this bug? The problem has to do with changes Microsoft made between IE6 and IE7. Oddly, If you have IE7 running on Windows Vista, you're safe from this vulnerability. And if you're running IE6 or earlier versions on Windows XP, you're also safe.

However, if you're running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 with IE7, you've got a problem.

Here's Microsoft's description of the issue, in typical Microsoft geek speak:

"Internet Explorer 7 updates a Windows component, which modifies the interaction between Internet Explorer and Windows Shell when handling URLs and URI’s. Applications which pass un-validated URIs or URLs to Windows can be leveraged to exploit this vulnerability."
Got that?

So in a nutshell, if you click on a malicious link, your PC could be completely compromised – but only if you're running IE7 on XP or Windows Server 2003.

Granted these documents aren't aimed at your average consumer – rather they are directed towards security professionals at big companies.

But Microsoft's consumer-oriented security documents on the same topics are usually so vapid as to be nearly worthless, in my opinion anyway. So it's a "Hobson's choice" of way too little information versus drinking out of the information fire hose. I'll opt for the latter.

Microsoft's recommendation of what to do while waiting for the patch: "Do not follow un-trusted links or browse un-trusted Web sites."

We've talked about this before … grrrrrrr. In a virtual world where 50-year-old unemployed slobs can easily masquerade as 30ish, athletic, unmarried stock brokers, how can you tell what links to trust? Luckily, there have been no known attacks in the wild so far.

And at least now there's a patch on the way. Lets keep our fingers crossed that Microsoft gets the patch out before somebody zero-days this hole. Stay tuned.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft updates Windows Live SkyDrive

2007-10-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has doubled the capacity of its SkyDrive online file storage service and added new features, according to an official company blog.

SkyDrive, which is still in beta, allows users to store files that only they can access, share documents with specific friends or allow anyone to view files in an open folder.

In response to customer requests, Microsoft has increased the available storage to 1GB and added RSS feeds so that users can be notified when someone adds a file to a public folder.

SkyDrive will also now allow users to share a folder with people who are not in their address book.

"People asked why they have to go to Hotmail or Messenger to add someone to their address book, and why they can't just do it on SkyDrive itself," said the blog entry.

"We fixed that. Now, you can share with anyone directly from SkyDrive by typing in your friend's email address."

Users will also be able to see who uploaded each individual file, as the information will be added to the general data about the document.

Source: VNUNET

Microsoft Sets up First Interoperability Lab in Bangalore and Announces Open Source Technology Program

2007-10-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

In continuation of its ongoing efforts to address the interoperability needs of customers, Microsoft Corporation today announced two new initiatives at the Microsoft Interoperability Conclave held in Bangalore today. The two initiatives include – Microsoft's first Interoperability Lab in India, designed to help customers envision and build solutions which are interoperable; Open Source Technology Program designed to further open source research and development of open source applications on the Windows platform in collaboration with leading engineering institutes in the country.

Focused at discussing issues, challenges and solutions to foster interoperability, the Conclave drew participation from leading academicians, bureaucrats and industry professionals including Dr D B Phatak, Professor, IIT Bombay, Mr R Chandrashekhar, Additional Secretary (E-Governance), Department of Information Technology, Govt of India, Mr Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman, Infosys and Craig Mundie, Chief Research & Strategy Officer, Microsoft .

To ensure enhanced customer productivity in the increasingly heterogeneous technology environment. Microsoft has been leading the interoperability initiative and ensuring different technologies are able to talk to each other. Microsoft's four pronged strategy in this direction encompasses accomplishing interoperability through the explicit design of interoperable products, through working with partners, customers, and competitors, licensing IP and working with industry to create standards. The company has been consistently engaging with the ecosystem to promote interoperability and has rolled out several initiatives globally and in India in partnership with academia as well as customers and partners.

Co-located at the Microsoft Technical Centre in Bangalore, the Interoperability lab will enable customers envision and test interoperable solutions across infrastructure, application and management layers. The facility will encompass all benefits of the technical centre which include access to world class infrastructure, experts and Open Source Lab in Redmond. Under the Open Source Technology Program Microsoft also announced signing of MoUs with IIT-Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, IIIT Hyderabad and IIIT Bangalore.

“Interoperability is as critical a challenge as security and reliability to the health of an organization's IT environment. With open dialogue and on ground work with the industry and academia we hope to collectively address this emerging and important issue“, said Mr. Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft India. 'Initiatives like the Interoperability lab and the Open Source Technology program are significant milestones in our efforts to collaborate with the eco system to promote a community development approach and create innovative products that are inherently interoperable', he added.

The Interoperability Lab will showcase, envision and build interoperability solutions for specific heterogeneous technology scenarios like cross platform rich web application and line of business application integration, virtualization and management of heterogeneous platforms. The lab will be equipped with access to state-of-art computing and office infrastructure and Microsoft and Open Source Software to develop and test Interoperable solutions.

The Open Source Technology Program encourages student projects across diverse research areas such as Interoperability between Windows and Linux platforms, Mobile and embedded devices applications, Web and database applications on Windows, High performance computing applications etc. Further it will provide educational research grants to faculty and scholarships to students. Microsoft will encourage students to follow an open source community engagement model through Codeplex and port25.technet.com. As part of the program, students will also get guidance from an Expert Advisory Council comprising of eminent members of the academic community.

Some ongoing interoperability initiatives in India in collaboration with members of the eco system include:

Academia:

-- Scholar versus Scholar Program: A comprehensive Student Awards and Faculty Research grant program designed to promote HPC research and development of open source applications on Windows Compute Cluster Server. Over 250 institutions have participated in this program and the academics and students from the two winning institutes Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar and BITS –Pilani – were felicitated at the Conclave today.

Customers and Partners:

-- 'Interoperability between Windows and Linux' – Building Bridges between the Present and the Future“ a 5 city roundtable series hosted by Frost & Sullivan in India. The discussion focused on understanding the interoperability issues which customers face in India and the incentives they look forward to from vendors to facilitate interoperability

-- The Company is also working with several partners in India to collaborate and develop solutions based on OXML - these include Datacraft India Ltd; Microland Ltd, HCL Infosystems Limited; Prodapt solutions, PriceWaterhouse Coopers Pvt. Ltd.

-- India is also represented in the Interoperability Executive Customer Council and Dr P. Madhav of IEG Hyderabad. is a member of the council from India

The Conclave also saw a Panel Discussion on the subject of “Interoperability: Challenges and Opportunities“ which drew participation from eminent members of the industry and academia such as Dr P. Madhav of IEG Hyderabad, Dr C R Muthukrishnan (Ex-Director, IITM and Consultant, TCS), Dr M Rammohan Rao (Dean, ISB, Hyderabad), Mr M N Vidyashankar (IT Secretary, Karnataka), Ms Revathi (MD, Novell) and Dr Madan Mohan (Director, Frost & Sullivan)

About Microsoft India

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ “MSFT“) is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft Corporation India Private Ltd is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation USA. It has had a presence in India since 1990 and currently has offices in twelve cities - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, and Pune.

For further press information, please visit www.microsoft.com/india/msindia
Contact Details:

Vidhya, Text 100 Pvt Ltd, +91 9910500220 Email: vidhyaa@text100.co.in

Ruchi Chawla, Text 100 Pvt Ltd, +91 9818903929 Email: Ruchi.chawla@ text100.co.in

Nitin Thakur, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt, +91 (0124) 5158000/ +91 9873347428 Email: nitint@microsoft.com

Source: NDTV PROFIT

Windows XP SP3 to Include Some Vista Features

2007-10-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

A Web site that leaked details of Windows XP Service Pack 3 over the weekend claimed that the update includes several new features, including some borrowed from Windows Vista.

According to NeoSmart Technologies, Windows XP SP3 build 3205, which was released to beta testers on Sunday, includes four new features among the 1,000-plus individual hot fixes and patches that have been issued since XP2's debut three years ago.

Features backported from Vista, said NeoSmart, include Network Access Protection (NAP), an enterprise policy enforcement technology that inspects client PCs before they access a corporate network, then updates the machines if necessary or blocks them if they don't meet specified security criteria.

Other additions range from a kernel module containing several encryption algorithms that can be accessed by third-party developers, to a new Windows activation model that doesn't require users to enter a product key.

Microsoft had previously announced SP3 support for NAP, which is part of Windows Vista and will be included in the not-yet-finalized Windows Server 2008.

Windows XP SP3, which Microsoft has said will be released early in 2008, will be one more move by the developer to extend the lifespan of the six-year-old operating system. Last month, for example, Microsoft gave Windows XP a five-month reprieve by pushing back the end of retail sales and sales of XP-powered PCs by large resellers to June 30, 2008.

And last week, Microsoft debuted a new "get-legal" program that lets companies purchase large quantities of Windows XP Professional licenses through their usual resellers.

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment on the leak, or the new features touted by NeoSmart.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft to set up first innovation centre in Pune

2007-10-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

After establishing a strong presence in technology development and research in India, Microsoft is now bringing innovation centres to India.

Its first such innovation centre will come up at the proposed Innovation Triangle Park (ITP), modelled on North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. The centre, which will come up at the proposed ITP in Pune, will become operational in the first quarter of 2008. The Redmond-based giant already has a development centre in Hyderabad and a research centre in Bangalore.

The ITP, which is part of a broad framework, is aimed at creating an ecosystem to fuel innovation. Collaborations with academia, industry partnerships, startup funding and skill-building are some key elements of the initiative.

Symbiosis International University and College of Engineering, Pune, are on board and Microsoft is talking to several others to join the ITP alliance.

“We have decided to replicate the successful North Carolina park, that is 50 years old and has seen capital investment of $3 billion. The first innovation centre will be in Pune and we will scale it up and also set up such centres in other cities,” Microsoft general manager Tarun Gulati said, at the ‘India is Innovation’ summit. The company has 100 such innovation centres globally.

While no investment details were available, the creation of the innovation ecosystem would be a co-funded activity between partners. The innovation framework also includes Microsoft’s programmes to boost software startups, innovations and business models.

Microsoft India chairman Ravi Venkatesan said: “We are driving innovation for the world and for India. There are interesting developments in the mobility space. For instance, we have worked with sugarcane cooperatives helping them get real-time information on their cellphones instead of PCs. These are solutions that are applicable globally.”

Similarly, given the important role that mobile phones play in communication and computing in India, the company, in a tieup with Vodafone, has plans to enable searches on mobile phones. In fact, the service has recorded 30,000 searches per day.

According to Mr Venkatesan, Microsoft India was eyeing greater traction in the SME, public sector/government and consumer segments.

Source: ECONOMIC TIMES

Microsoft Adds Free Games To Xbox 360 Consoles

2007-10-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

With an eye on the upcoming holiday shopping season, Microsoft(MSFT) on Monday said it would bundle two video games with the Xbox 360, a move that followed by two months price cuts for the video-game console.
By the end of the month, Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Elite are expected to ship with Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The games have a combined retail price of $90, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft in August lowered the price of the consoles by $50 in an effort to keep pace with similar moves by rival Sony, which sells the PlayStation 3. The 20-Gbyte Xbox 360 now sells for $350. The 120-Gbyte Elite system retails for $450.

The U.S. price cuts followed Sony's decision in July to lower the 60-Gbyte version of the PlayStation 3 to $499 from $599.

While hardware pricing is important, games are the driving force behind consumers' choice of video-game console. Among the most popular games on the Xbox is Microsoft's sci-fi game Halo 3, which posted sales of more than $300 million in its first week on the market. Released Sept. 25, first day sales of Halo reached $170 million, and retailers took more than 1.7 million pre-orders -- both industry records.

Nevertheless, Nintendo's Wii has outpaced sales of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Nintendo in June sold 381,800 Wii consoles, compared with Sony's 98,500 PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's 198,400 Xbox 360 machines.

The holiday shopping season, which officially begins the Friday after Thanksgiving and runs to Christmas, is the biggest retail season of the year, and a time when Microsoft and its rivals make major marketing pushes for their consoles.

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

Ballmer Claims Red Hat Violates Microsoft IP

2007-10-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says Red Hat Linux uses intellectual property owned by Microsoft and that Red Hat's customers should pay Microsoft for it.

Ballmer made the claim, an echo of earlier remarks aimed at the open source community, during a presentation at a Microsoft event Oct. 4 in London.

"People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation eventually to compensate us," Ballmer stated, according to news reports, and a video of his remarks posted online.

Asked for comment, Red Hat reiterated its position that its customers are protected from liability by its Open Source Assurance Program, which includes "indemnification against claims raised by any holder of software patents," according to information on Red Hat's Web site.

Red Hat is also a founder of the Open Invention Network, which provides "a patent safe harbor for the Linux environment," Red Hat states.

Ballmer's remarks are "unfortunate," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. If Microsoft really believes Linux violates its patents, it should sue, but that by doing so, it'd be suing its own customers because many use both Microsoft and Linux in their IT systems.

"They have yet to actually make a specific allegation that an identified patent is infringed in a specific product. Until they do it, they'll just create more ill will in the development community and among their own customers, since by their own admission, most of them have both Microsoft and Linux running in their data centers," Zemlin says.

He urged Microsoft to help to reform the software patent system if it supports interoperability with open source. Microsoft entered into an agreement with open source Linux vendor Novell in November 2006 to improve interoperability with Windows and Novell SUSE Linux and protect Novell customers from intellectual property liability claims.

A Gartner research report says Microsoft's strategy is not to file suit but use the infringement claims as leverage to win other agreements like the one with Novell.

"We think the company will attempt to pressure technology providers to come to the table and negotiate an equitable licensing or royalty arrangement in instances where Microsoft can prove its claims of infringement," Gartner stated in response to a May 14 Fortune magazine article in which Microsoft claimed open source software violated 235 of its patents.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft is all set to offer Live Services suite from Nov

2007-10-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

Microsoft plans to launch the entire suite of Live Services, its platform for offering software on a subscription model across user segments, in the next 6-9 months across the country.

The online subscription software market, according to some estimates is currently put at $112 billion. It is expected to be over $200 billion globally by 2010.

The hosted model where software vendors charge a rental for applications accessed and used off the net is particularly suited to emerging markets like India and China where software piracy and affordability are major concerns. Therefore, much of this estimated growth is expect to come these markets.

While Google has posed a major challenge to Microsoft particularly in the consumer space with its offerings, others like SAP have jumped into the fray in the enterprise space that is a major focus area for Microsoft.

While Windows Live, incorporating Windows Live Hotmail, Live Search, Live messenger and spaces, the blogging solution for individual or small enterprise websites, and Virtual Earth, are already available, Microsoft has lined up a slew of new offerings services some of which are already available in other markets.

"All the time lines for the launch of these services are either yesterday or today or the next six months", Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India, told DNA Money.

If the company has to grow five times its current size as targeted, it is important that the live offerings are ramped up aggressively, he added.

All these offerings are part of Microsoft's software plus services (S+S), architecture that is built around the concept of selling some software and hosted services to customers across segments.

On the consumer side, Microsoft will launch within 45 days Xbox Live.

More significantly, the world's largest software-maker is also preparing the ground to launch early next year Zune, Microsoft's reply to the iPod.

Interestingly, Zune will be launched simultaneously with the Zune Community Service in India that will allow users to download and share music, pictures and other social content with other Zune users, Srikanth Karnakota, leader, platform strategy, said.

Microsoft will be targeting all three screens, the PC, TV and mobile in India with its Live services, he said.

Hosted products for small businesses like Office Live and Microsoft's version of hosted customer relationship management, CRM Live will follow in January followed by Live Meeting, Venkatesan added.

Source: SIFY

Microsoft Patches Critical IE Flaws And Windows Vista Holes

2007-10-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

Microsoft(MSFT) on Tuesday released six security bulletins, half of which have an effect on Windows Vista.
"Three of the bulletins impact Vista," said Eric Schultze, chief security architect, of St. Paul, Minn.-based Shavlik Technologies. "That's not a really good track record for an operating system that Microsoft thought was going to secure the world."

Pointing to Windows Vista patches this month and in previous months, Schultze said, "I don't think Vista has had quite the impact that Microsoft hoped it would in staving off the need to patch your OS."

Of the six security updates published Tuesday, four are rated "critical" and two are rated "important." "This is a little larger this month than average," said Schultze. "Obviously, the big news goes toward bulletin 057, which is for Internet Explorer. The Internet Explorer patch goes toward addressing a lot of previously known public vulnerabilities. So you'll want to patch the IE issue pretty quickly for all of your Internet browsing machines."

"Today's Microsoft patches emphasize the need for proactive browser protection and the risk of surfing the Web unprotected," said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager at McAfee Avert Labs, in an e-mailed statement. "Many of the vulnerabilities addressed by the fixes could be exploited if a Windows user simply clicks a malicious Web link, a favorite attack method among cybercriminals. Users need to be more careful than ever when surfing the Internet."

Though bulletin 058 is only rated "important" -- the "critical" designation is typically reserved for flaws that allow remote code execution -- Schultze nonetheless said the IE fix should be dealt with immediately.

"The other big one that I think it really critical to do is bulletin 058, which Microsoft calls the RPC denial of service," said Schultze, who explained that it could be used to conduct denial of service attacks. "This one will be really critical for network administrators and corporations to protect all of their assets on their internal network... from disgruntled employees."

Schultze said there is no exploit currently circulating for this bug but he expects there will be one within a week.

The other critical bulletins address flaws in Kodak Image Viewer, Outlook Express and Windows Mail, and Microsoft Word that could allow remote code execution. Bulletin 059, rated "important," addresses a vulnerability found that impacts Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft had expected to release seven updates Tuesday, as stated last Thursday through its Advance Notification Service (ANS).

Tami Gallupe, Microsoft Security Response Center release manager, explained in a blog post, "As previously communicated, the ANS is always subject to change. We decided to remove one of the updates from the release schedule due to a quality control issue, so we can resolve that issue prior to releasing the update to customers."

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

Internet Explorer 7 Now Available To Software Pirates

2007-10-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has released an update for Internet Explorer 7, dropping the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation for XP users. Previously only genuine copies of XP (i.e. those that phone home to validate) could download and install IE 7.

Microsoft’s move to open up IE 7 to pirated copies of Windows may stem from the fact that IE 7 has yet to overtake IE 6 in popularity according to most web traffic surveys. The removal of the WGA requirement is almost guaranteed to increase the install numbers over IE6.

Microsoft has also made a few small changes to IE 7 in today's update, including the default visibility of the menu bar and a new, more in-depth tour for first-time users.

You can grab the updated Internet Explorer 7 — legit copy of Windows or not — from the Microsoft site.

Source: WIRED

Halo 3 Sales Top $300 Million In First Week

2007-10-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Microsoft said Thursday that its sci-fi video game Halo 3 posted sales of more than $300 million in its first week on the market. "Halo 3 is truly a cultural phenomenon," said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, in a statement.
Halo 3, for Microsoft's Xbox 360 platform, went on sale Sept. 25. With first day sales of $170 million, the game has already broken a number of industry records for market performance. Retailers took more than 1.7 million pre-orders for Halo 3, another record.

The game is also setting new standards for online play. More than 2.7 million gamers played Halo 3 over Xbox Live in the first week, according to Microsoft.

The title stars Master Chief, a biologically enhanced soldier who has to blast his through a futuristic landscape to survive and accomplish missions. He's countered at every turn by The Covenant, an alliance of hostile aliens.

Despite being less than two weeks old, Halo 3 has already transcended video game circles to make its way into popular culture. The Madam Tussauds wax museum in Las Vegas recently added a statue of Master Chief to a collection of sports and entertainment superstars that includes Shaquille O'Neal and Elvis.

The Halo 3 launch did not go off without a hitch, however. Microsoft conceded that faulty packaging caused scratching on some discs included in the $70.00 Limited Edition of the game. Additionally, the volume of gamers playing Halo 3 on Xbox Live reportedly slowed the network for those playing other games last week.

Still, there's no doubt that Halo 3 is a huge success for Microsoft. The company is hoping that the buzz generated by the game will boost Xbox 360 sales, which dropped 60% year-over-year in the company's fiscal fourth quarter. "Halo 3 embodies our vision for the future of entertainment," said Gates.

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

Microsoft Updates Vista's Speed, Stability, Again

2007-10-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

For the second time in two months, Microsoft Corp. has rolled out fixes to improve Windows Vista's speed and reliability.

The four separate updates, available now for download from the vendor's Web site, address several operating system performance and stability problems, deal with a dozen Universal Serial Bus issues, improve Windows Media Player and patch Media Center.

Although Microsoft has put Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) in the hands of some testers, it has said it will continue to update the original Vista -- dubbed "RTM" for "release to manufacturing" -- even as it puts SP1 through its paces. Seven weeks ago, it issued a pair of updates that tackled numerous problems, offering them as optional items through Windows Update last month.

"[Tuesday's] updates are a collection of fixes that we have made to address a small set of reliability, compatibility, stability, security and performance issues," a Microsoft spokeswoman said Wednesday in an e-mail reply to questions. "[They] will provide incremental improvements to the most common issues -- but in general, these improvements or fixes are going to be very narrow in scope."

The widest ranging of yesterday's quartet was a 5.4MB update for multiple hardware and operating system issues that Microsoft said extends laptop battery life, improves the stability of wireless network connections and deals with compatibility problems with some antivirus software.

Interestingly, the update also promised to shorten Vista start-up and resume-from-sleep times, problems that Microsoft had supposedly fixed with the August patches. Vista users have complained about Vista's slow start-up, shutdown and return from power-saving modes since at least April.

A second update, detailed in the KB941600 support document, is a cumulative roll-up of 12 fixes to Vista's USB components. In Microsoft's terminology, a "roll-up" is a collection of patches, similar to a service pack, but not tested as extensively. A similar cumulative update for Media Center is also available from the Microsoft download site; it deals with several specific problems, including some involving how Vista interacts with Microsoft Xbox 360 video game consoles.

The fourth update patches Windows Media Player 11, the default audio- and video-playing software included with the operating system. Microsoft offered few details -- a support document has not been added to the database -- but the company's spokeswoman said that the 8.8MB download for the 32-bit version of Vista "eliminates corruption of Media Player database in certain scenarios and of media stream in certain scenarios."

The updates will be distributed via Windows Update "in the near future," the spokeswoman added, but as in August, she would not pin them to a date. Microsoft's next scheduled Windows Update releases are due out next Tuesday.

Microsoft has aggressively promoted its ability to update Vista through Windows Update, even going so far as denying after Vista's launch that it needed to produce a comprehensive service pack, or SP1. It has continued to claim that most issues can be addressed by Windows Update.

Mike Nash, the Microsoft executive who leads Windows product management, was the latest to brag about Windows Update's prowess in keeping Vista running smoothly. "The really important updates we can release with Windows Update, and the need for a service pack is actually reduced," he said.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Ready To Launch Digital Phone Systems

2007-10-02T20:03:00.001-07:00

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) on Tuesday said it is ready to ship to manufacturers software that will power a new line of digital phone systems for small businesses.
The Microsoft Response Point phone systems, which will be offered by D-Link and Quanta Computer, will range in price from $2,500 to $3,000 and will be available for pre-order starting Friday, Microsoft said. A third manufacturer, Aastra Technologies, will produce Response Point-based phones starting next year.

Response Point is designed to let companies of up to 50 employees easily set up and maintain a digital telephone network without the cost or complexity of a public branch exchange, or PBX, system. The software, which has been in development under the code name Edinburgh, will work alongside conventional phone systems or voice-over-IP systems, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft is hoping Response Point's ease of use will appeal to small businesses that typically lack in-house computer or telephony expertise. The company claims individuals with average PC skills will be able to use a simplified management console to add users to the system, set up voice mail, and configure extensions.

Embedded voice recognition technology will enable office workers to initiate a call simply by pressing a button on their Response Point phone and speaking a colleague's name.

Microsoft is looking to aggressively build its presence in the market for computer-based voice services. Earlier this year, the company announced the acquisition of TellMe Networks, a developer of voice recognition software, for an undisclosed price.

Customers can preorder Quanta's Syspine Response Point-based phone system beginning Friday, Oct. 5. A package that includes a base unit with built-in analog telephone adapter (ATA) and secure gateway (NYSE: GTW), plus four phones, will cost about $2,500. Additional phones will be available for $159 each.

D-Link's Response Point systems, called VoiceCenter, will be available by year's end. The VoiceCenter system will include a base unit, ATA, and five phones for approximately $2,999. Additional phone lines will cost about $149.

Microsoft Financing will allow customers who purchase through an authorized Microsoft reseller to pay for fully installed Response Point systems on a monthly basis. Microsoft said the plan will give small businesses access to advanced phone technology without straining their credit lines or making large, up-front investments.

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

Microsoft Goes Jellyfishing

2007-10-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) been doing a lot of acquisitive fishing lately, so it's only fair that it should be the one to bag a Jellyfish.com. The Inside Value pick announced that it acquired the comparative-shopping website in a Live Search blog entry yesterday.

I poked at Jellyfish.com when it launched in the summer of 2006. It offered many of the same product-related search features you'd find on similar sites, like CNET Networks' (Nasdaq: CNET) MySimon.com, or Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Products -- the site formerly known as "Froogle." But unlike its predecessors, Jellyfish is a comparison-shopping website that eats like a loyalty program.

"Jellyfish is the ONLY shopping engine to directly share $ with you," explains the site. "As a Jellyfish member, you'll receive automatic savings on everything you buy. Think of us as a search engine for shopping, except we share at least half of every $1 we earn when you shop. I bet your search engine has never done that!"

In other words, the Jellyfish model is more in the mold of the free loyalty marketing program available through sites like United Online's (Nasdaq: UNTD) MyPoints.com. There, shoppers earn gift certificates by shopping at the site's revenue-sharing partners.

In Jellyfish's plan, users get a cut of any commission due to Jellyfish for the referral, in the form of a cash-back rebate the following month.

The myth behind money for nothing
Giving money away seems like a no-brainer way to draw an audience and lose venture-capital funding. In reality, it often fails on both fronts. IAC/InterActiveCorp's (Nasdaq: IACI) iWon.com has positioned itself as a search engine with prizes, yet it has never posed a threat to the most popular portals, including IAC's own Ask.com.

Sure, it works sometimes. Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) is doing just fine with its Pogo.com casual games hub, which rewards players with chances at regular cash drawings. Before it got taken to the cleaners by the major labels, the original MP3.com signed up more than 180,000 artists who were drawn to the site's "payback for playback" promotion, generating pocket change based on free downloads delivered.

Then again, maybe Pogo and MP3.com were destined to be first-mover stars anyway. The carrots were either not necessary, or a brilliant tactic to keep penny-pinching rivals at bay.

When it comes to comparative shopping, the jury's still out on the carrot. Jellyfish has been around for nearly 16 months now and this is the first time the company has found its way into the Fool.com pages since my original article in June 2006.

"We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search," reads Microsoft's blogged explanation for the purchase.

So it's hard to say if the site will stay afloat in its current form or if it's going to be the technological backbone of something even bigger at Microsoft.

Shopping and searching should be buddies
Why can't Mr. Softy just run Jellyfish in its original form, using its marketing muscle to draw a bigger crowd? Well, it may appear to be a conflict of interest to non-Jellyfish sponsors who are active advertising clients for the company.

Shopping and search engines seem to be a match made in heaven, but keep in mind that Google bumped Froogle from its landing page last year, before going on to kill the brand altogether by renaming it Google Products. Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) offers Yahoo! Shopping, though the comparative-shopping engine almost feels secondary to the company's true goal of getting small merchants to sign up and be listed by the site's e-commerce services.

Shopping and search aren't perfectly matched, interlocking puzzle pieces. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Jellyfish purchase morph into something else. A year from now, don't be surprised to find a MSN search product that rewards users with free Zune tunes, or a paid-search program where referred users get special pricing. Just because iWon hasn't won, that doesn't mean Microsoft's next buy will be iLost.

Source: Motley Fool

Microsoft unveils new generation of Zune

2007-10-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has unveiled the second generation of Zune digital music players and will offer consumers 1 million unprotected songs on its online music store.

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it will offer three new models of the Zune in November including two equipped with flash memory. The 4GB and 8GB versions are iPod Nano look-alikes that will sell for a suggested retail price of $149 and $199 respectively. An 80GB player equipped with a hard drive will sell for $249. The pricing scheme for the devices exactly mirrors Apple's iPods.

Some of the other changes include a complete overhaul of the device's software and a redesign of Marketplace, Zune's music store. Other interesting features include wireless syncing and the new Zune Pad, a touch-sensitive technology that enables users to slide their finger across the main navigation button instead of always having to click.

The 4GB and 8GB models represent Zune's first foray into flash-based players and they will be offered in a palette of red, pink, black and green. The 80GB features a 3.2-inch screen and will be smaller and thinner than the original Zune 30GB player. The software upgrades will also replace the software in the 30GB models.

Zune devices will automatically sync when connected over home wireless networks. The feature is designed to ensure that owners always leave home with the latest content, such as podcasts.

The move to provide unprotected MP3 music on the Zune music store is unprecedented for Microsoft but does not come as a surprise. Not only is the company one of the major providers of digital rights management software, but executives there slammed Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs last February when he called on the music industry to abandon DRM.

Microsoft then reversed itself in April, saying it would eventually sell unprotected songs on Marketplace.

While 1 million songs may sound like a lot, Microsoft isn't saying just how much of that music is coming from the four major music labels. Already, eMusic offers more than 2 million unprotected tracks from mostly independent labels. In May, Apple announced it had partnered with record company EMI to sell DRM-free music on iTunes. Apple hasn't said how many unprotected tracks on iTunes are available.

Susan Kevorkian, an analyst with IDC, said that Microsoft is more interested in selling music players than it is with providing DRM software. She said that Microsoft began scaling back its DRM efforts last year in order to throw more resources at improving the Zune.

But are the new products enough to reel in Apple? The newest Zunes are a step up, but Microsoft watchers don't think they offer anything better than the iPod.

"I would say they are holding their own," Van Baker, a research vice president with Gartner, said of Microsoft's venture into the music category. "Within that group (vying for the approximate 30 percent market share that Apple doesn't own), I'd say they are a contender. Are they gaining on Apple or making up ground? I don't think so."

What's new with Zune?
The problem is that the newest Zune models don't offer anything demonstrably better than the iPod, the analysts said.

More than a year has passed since Microsoft began developing the music player and the company is still without a comparable video store to iTunes. Zune's Marketplace will begin offering music videos, but it is still without TV shows. While Microsoft crowed about its new touch-sensitive navigation button, the new iPods come equipped with touch-sensitive screens.

And the new iPods now offer Wi-Fi--a feature that was supposed to set the Zune apart.

Kevorkian said her company last year had anticipated "a quicker refresh" to the Zune. She said that some of the reasons that may have slowed Zune efforts may have been some key departures in the unit's management and that it was forced to rush the launch of its debut models.

"What we are seeing now are important incremental changes," Kevorkian said. "What we're waiting to see is more revolutionary changes, such as the ability to access the Zune music service via Wi-Fi. We think Microsoft will be a strong player in the portable flash player category. They have diversified their player platform and undertaken a major overhaul of their software, which is important way to development. There are people looking for an alternative to Apple, and Microsoft is likely going to win market share from other Windows-based media players. They are just behind right now."

Microsoft has always said that the Zune was a long-term project, predicting in 2006 that it could take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to go toe-to-toe with Apple. The company surpassed its initial sales goal by selling more than 1 million Zunes by June.

"What we've done in the past year is establish the Zune brand," said Jason Reindorp, marketing director for Zune. "It's starting to mean something to people. That isn't easy to do. Microsoft had a very realistic view of what it would take to get into the marketplace and differentiate itself and be successful. We look at these things in terms of years, not months."

Interestingly, Microsoft usually likes to compare its efforts with Zune to that of the company's foray into the video game sector. With the Xbox, Microsoft seized market share from Sony and Nitendo very early. Are there any similarities between X-box's early efforts and Zune's?

"No, absolutely not," Baker said. "Xbox had Halo. If it wasn't for Halo, Xbox probably wouldn't exist. But that's the game industry, where one incredible franchise can drive an entire platform. Against Apple, Microsoft is up against a dominate service worldwide and it's going to be tough to knock them down if Microsoft doesn't bring something uniquely different to market. If Microsoft can't do that, they can only compete on price and that only buys so much time."

Source: CNET

Microsoft Takes Office Online

2007-10-02T02:54:00.002-07:00

Microsoft on Monday continued its foray into the world of online applications with a program that allows Office users to access their documents online and share with others.

Users are now invited to pre-register for Office Live Workspace, which allows those with Microsoft Office to access their Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents online. The software giant is dubbing the offering an "online companion" to the Office product.

"These documents will go wherever people go when they're away from their usual desktops," Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, said in a statement. "People will be able to work on documents from any Microsoft Office-equipped computer with an Internet connection – or review and comment on documents on devices that only offer Web access."

If users want to share their online Office documents or collaborate with another user, they must send an e-mail that will include password-protected access to their files.

Users can also "post files to their dedicated password-protected online workspace directly from the Office application in which they're working, Raikes said.

If a user wants to migrate to another PC and use the saved web document, he or she will not need to have Microsoft Office installed on the machine, a Microsoft spokesman said. "It doesn't necessarily have to be Microsoft Office, but you will need a word processor of some sort, or spreadsheet application, presentation app, etc.," he said.

"That said, individuals can view files even if there is no app installed on the computer – they will just not be able to edit," the spokesman added.

Microsoft rival Google has its own Web-based office application known as Google Apps. Earlier this year, Google denied that it was specifically targeting the customers of providers like Microsoft with Google Apps, but a spokesman admitted that the Apps unit is moving forward on several pilot projects for larger companies.

When Google later rolled out its Google Apps premiere edition designed for businesses of all sizes, Rajen Sheth, product manager for Google Enterprise, insisted that the company considered "Google Apps to be a complement, not a competitor, to traditional desktop applications."

Microsoft on Monday, meanwhile, re-branded its Microsoft Office Live hosted small business service as Microsoft Office Live Small Business.

Microsoft has made a number of updates to its Windows Live applications in recent months, though it is taking great pains to differentiate between the "Live" and "Online" offerings.

Live applications, like Gallery, Mail, Messenger, and Writer are free, Web-based offerings that provide services like photo sharing, Webmail, messaging and blogging. In September, Microsoft unveiled a unified installer that will enable one-stop downloads of those applications, a feature that will reportedly assist in a "cloud computing" effort that links these applications to the Windows operating system.

The "Online" endeavor, however, is intended for organizations "with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility is critical, and the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards are important considerations," according to Microsoft.

Also on Monday, Microsoft announced the start of Microsoft Exchange Labs, a research and development program intended to produce next-generation messaging and communication technologies. It will involve select universities and school districts, Microsoft said.

Source: PC MAG

Adobe Piles On Microsoft With Online Word Processor

2007-10-02T02:54:00.001-07:00

Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) on Monday will join Google (NSDQ: GOOG), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and Sun -- not to mention startups like Ajax13, ThinkFree, TransMedia, and Zoho -- in what's becoming an industry-wide assault on Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Office.
At the Adobe Max Conference in Chicago, Adobe plans to announce that it has signed an agreement to acquire Waltham, Mass.-based Virtual Ubiquity and Buzzword, the startup's Flash-based online word processor.

Buzzword joins Adobe's other online offerings, Acrobat Connect, Create PDF Online, and a new service called Share, to form the backbone of a free online document collaboration service.

"This combination of services is focusing on what we call collaboration on documents that matter," said Erik Larson, Adobe's director of marketing and product management.

Share is being offered as a beta service through Adobe Labs. It allows users to share and publish online documents by inviting friends or colleagues. Shared documents can utilize PDF-based policy limitations to prevent copying or printing, for example.

The Share service also includes a set of REST (Representational State Transfer) APIs to integrate document data into other applications.

Like Google and its Google Docs word processor, Adobe is in this for the collaboration. "We know that people are working online more and together more," said Larson. "They're looking for their productivity increases to be not just individual gains but gains for the group."

But unlike Google Docs, Buzzword feels like a desktop word processor. It understands margins, for example, and its online pages look like their printed output. Rick Treitman, CEO of Virtual Ubiquity, calls this, "WYSIWIS, What You See Is What I See."

"All of our services and long term vision is making sure everyone is seeing the same thing," added Larson.

Adobe is aiming Buzzword at small and midsize businesses, as well as consumers. "We do expect students and educators to use it because the service will be free," said Larson, noting that Buzzword isn't intended for enterprise use.

Adobe plans to add premium services around its online collaboration offerings. The company did not provide any details about what these premium services might be.

At some point next year, when Adobe AIR 1.0 is released, Buzzword will run offline under the AIR platform.

Adobe also plans on Monday to announce that nine media partners that have committed to work with Adobe to distribute their content on Adobe Media Player, Adobe's AIR-based multiplatform application runtime for running Internet applications on the desktop.

Adobe's new partners include CBS, PBS, Yahoo Video, Meredith Corp., Blip.tv, Fora.tv, Motionbox, MyToons, and StimTV.

"As we saw TV moving to Internet distribution, we saw we needed a new kind of player," said Deeje Cooley, product manager for Adobe Media Player. He described that kind of player as one that requires less time to find content and leaves more time to enjoy it.

Source: Information Week

Microsoft Blogger Accidentally Leaks Office Mobile Upgrade

2007-09-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

A Microsoft Corp. employee on Thursday accidentally blogged about an upgrade to Office Mobile that shouldn't be available for another couple of weeks.

The upgrade, when it becomes available, should solve an incompatibility issue that left Windows Mobile 6.0 users unable to read Office 2007 file formats.

Jason Langridge, who works in Microsoft's Windows Mobile group in the U.K., wrote that Office Mobile 6.1 was available and he included a link to the download page. But a representative with Microsoft's external public relations firm said that the upgrade was put up on the site initially for internal testing and was accidentally made available to the public.

The new version of Office Mobile is expected to become available very soon, probably within the next two weeks, he said.

Langridge has not yet removed the post from his blog.

The download page, which is no longer accessible, said that the upgrade allows viewing and editing of Word documents and Excel Workbooks and viewing of PowerPoint slides that were created using Office 2007. Office 2007 was released in January and is based on the Open XML format. Windows Mobile 6.0 devices began hitting the market in the middle of this year but users have been unable to read Office 2007 documents, unless they used a third party software product. DataViz Inc., for example, offers software that lets Windows Mobile 6.0 users read Office 2007 documents.

Users of the upgrade will also be able to view and extract files from compressed .zip folders, it said.

Following the link on Langridge's site now leads to a page with this message: "The download you requested is unavailable. If you continue to see this message when trying to access this download, go to the "Search for a Download" area on the Download Center home page."

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Confirms Stealth Updating Mucks Up XP Restore

2007-09-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. Friday confirmed that Windows XP users who repair the operating system cannot update their PCs with the latest patches because of a file included with the stealth update pushed out to machines this summer.

"When an XP repair CD is used, it replaces all system files (including Windows Update) on your machine with older versions of those files and restores the registry," said Nate Clinton, program manager for Windows Update (WU), in a post to the Microsoft company blog dedicated to the update service. "However, the latest version of Windows Update includes 'wups2.dll' that was not originally present in Windows XP. Therefore, after the repair install of the OS, wups2.dll remains on the system, but its registry entries are missing. This mismatch causes updates to fail installation."

The Windows Secrets newsletter reported the patch installation failures after tests on Windows XP machines that had been restored by an in-place reinstall. The root of the problem, said the publication, is that seven DLLs from the latest revision to WU -- not just one -- failed to register themselves with XP. Microsoft could not provide an explanation for the discrepancy between the claims.

The file cited by Clinton, wups2.dll, is one of the seven fingered by Windows Secrets and part of the so-called stealth update that Microsoft sent to most noncorporate Windows XP and Vista users beginning in July and running through this month. The update was delivered and installed without prior notification, even when the PC's owner had told the operating system not to download or install updates without notification and permission.

Computerworld on Thursday confirmed through testing that the WU update silent update -- tagged as 7.0.600.381 -- blocks 80 patches and hot fixes from installing on a just-repaired system restored with a retail version of Windows XP SP2. After executing a batch file recommended by Windows Secrets, the batch file registered each of the seven suspect DLLs. The updates could be installed, however.

Clinton said the problem would be fixed by registering only the wups2.dll file. He also listed the steps users should take, and promised that a document providing more detail would be posted to Microsoft's support database. As of midday Friday, the document, designated KB943144, had not appeared on Microsoft's support site.

Although Scott Dunn of Windows Secrets said the post-repair update bug is proof of the danger that stealth updates pose, Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security Inc., said Friday that the practice also hits Microsoft in the wallet.

"Imagine the amount of work for Microsoft's support teams on this," he said. "It would have probably taken a couple of hours on the phone to help a customer," he added, because even the support representative would not have had any idea that the WU update was the cause. "This isn't just a PR problem for Microsoft, but also a support problem.

"Silent updates are not going to help with Microsoft or end users," Storms said.

Companies may rely on re-imaging a damaged PC rather than restore it with an in-place reinstall, he said, but plenty of small and midsize companies depend on the repair option. They, too, would be stymied by the inability to patch repaired PCs, since the same WU client software is used by Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), the update mechanism most businesses use to deliver update to their end-user machines.

"Everyone gets the same updates [to WU]," said Storms, "so the same problem will persist for both WSUS and people getting updates direct from Microsoft."

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Adds Details to Windows Extender Plan

2007-09-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

Microsoft on Thursday unveiled details about upcoming extenders for its Windows Media Center intended to allow seamless transitions between home computers, TVs and other home media devices.

The extenders will be launched by Cisco, D-Link and Niveus and will be available starting in November, Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices eHome Division, said at the Digital Life conference in Manhattan.

The Cisco and D-Link devices will range in price from $300 to $350, but pricing information for the more high-end Niveus product has not yet been revealed.

Microsoft originally launched the Media Center Extender for Windows XP in 2004-2005, and followed it up with the Media Center Extender for the Xbox 360. The idea is to allow consumers to take media viewed on one device like a PC and transition it seamlessly to another, like a home TV or online personal network.

"People can create their own experiences [and] we do the work through extender of making it show up on every TV in the house," Belfiore said.

The DMA2200 Media Center extender with DVD Player from Linksys, a division of Cisco, provides extender capability with a built-in DVD player. It will retail for $349.99.

The idea is to have the device "tag along with other devices so you're not increasing the number of boxes you switch between," Belfiore said.

For those who do not need a DVD player, however, the more compact DMA2100 version provides a dual-band wireless-N solution and intended for smaller areas like the bedroom. It will set consumers back $299.99.

The DSM-750 extender from D-Link is housed in a 17-inch, black aluminum chassis and connects to a home network via Ethernet or dual-band draft wireless-N networking. It supports Windows Media video DivX and XVid formats and includes a USB 2.0 port for removable USB flash and hard drive access. It will retail for $349.99.

The DSM-750 "will support wide range of content," Belfiore said. "It is totally silent, no fan [and is] fast enough for photos, music and high def video."

The Niveus device is intended for more high-end, home theater owners. It will include 1080p video, digital audio, an internal cooling system and the 3-D user interface found on the Niveus Media Center.

The new extenders will be available in the U.S. in November, Belfiore said.

Representatives from Hewlett-Packard were on hand earlier in the morning to announce that its HP MediaSmart LCD HD TV's will support the new extenders from Microsoft. "This will be the first high-def TV that will have media extenders built-in and available from the TV itself," said Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer for HP's personal systems group.

HP's MediaSmart TVs are currently on sale, but the extender software from Microsoft will not be available until early 2008. Televisions purchased before those updates are released will be automatically updated early next year, McKinney said.

In addition to the extenders, Microsoft on Thursday launched a beta Internet TV offering that will be available to all U.S. customers running Windows Vista Media Center.

The service will allow users to view TV content without a tuner in the PCs. The streaming video content – which will include concert footage, movie trailers, news segments from MSNBC, sports clips from Fox Sports and episodes of TV shows like "Arrested Development" – will be ad-supported.

Source: PC MAG

XP Reprieve: Microsoft Gives OEMs Five More Months

2007-09-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is extending the time it will allow original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and retail outlets to sell PCs with Windows XP as customers continue to balk on upgrading to Windows Vista.

Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP through OEMs and retailers on Jan. 31, 2008, while custom system builders have until Jan. 31, 2009, to pre-install XP on machines. But because sales of Vista PCs have not been as strong as expected, OEMs and retailers have asked Microsoft to extend XP's availability. OEMs and retailers will now have until June 30, 2008, to sell PCs with Vista preinstalled on machines, Microsoft said. Retailers also can sell XP out of the box until that time if they choose, the company said.

In fact, some PC makers are selling Vista-equipped systems with an XP Pro recovery disc to those who request one so that it can be used in case the purchaser isn't happy with the new Microsoft OS.

Why?
"While we've been pleased with the positive response we've seen and heard from customers using Windows Vista, there are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista," Microsoft said in a press statement.

Microsoft also is extending the life of Windows XP Starter Edition, the version of XP for emerging markets. The software will be available until June 30, 2010, so users in those markets can take advantage of low-cost, hardware-constrained PCs that Vista may not be compatible with. Vista requires hardware upgrades that most PCs running XP do not have.

Per Microsoft's policy as of 2002, a new Windows OS would stay on the market about four years after its original availability date. But XP was released on Oct. 25, 2001, more than five years before Vista limped out the door to consumers Jan. 31, 2007, after several delays and a major code overhaul.

Vista Expectations Lowered
Microsoft had high expectations for customer adoption of Vista, and claimed the launch would be one of the most successful in Windows history. Unfortunately for the company, those predictions so far haven't panned out, and in July, Microsoft lowered its projections for customer adoption of Vista. The company had said the split between XP and Vista sales in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, would be 15 percent to 85 percent; now the company is saying the split will be 22 percent XP and 78 percent Vista.

According to some, that may even be optimistic. Paul Ghysels, a custom system builder who owns the Neighborhood Computer Store in Moraga, California, said that Microsoft has "really blown Vista." He said he's not surprised Microsoft extended the availability of XP for OEMs. "I figured Microsoft would have to come up with something because Vista is so unprepared for the market right now," Ghysels said.

He added that the extension likely won't affect his business much, since most of his customers come to him because they are already disillusioned with the major PC manufacturers and thus unlikely to want a name-brand PC pre-loaded with Vista.

Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), a rollup of updates for the OS that Microsoft has said will be available in the first quarter of 2008, should make Vista more market-worthy. In fact, many consumers and businesses have said they would wait for the update before moving from XP to Vista.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft targets India's young guns

2007-09-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. flagged off on Thursday customised domains for the huge market of young Indians in a bid to boost revenues from free e-mail services a decade after it acquired Hotmail.

The service, www.coolhotmail.com, to be operationalised at the weekend, uses the same Hotmail platform but will offer 200 personalised domains to choose from, said Jaspreet Brindra, chief of Microsoft's Indian subsidiary.

"More than one million Indians who come on the net every month are below 25 years of age," Brindra told a news conference.

Hotmail, which claims to be India's second largest e-mail provider after Yahoo!, is planning an advertising blitz for the customised domains on television, radio and the Internet.

"It is quite apparent that we are looking to have more revenue opportunities through the wider usage of this service," Brindra said.

Nearly half of India's 1.1 billion people are below 25 years of age and the country boasts the world's largest English-speaking population spurring dramatic growth in the computer software industry.

Internet usage monitoring agency, comScore Networks, in its latest survey found a major surge in the number of Internet users in India in the last year.

More than 21 million Indians above the age of 15 years were using Internet at the end of last January, compared with 16 million just a year ago, comScore said. That 33 per cent leap compared with growth of just two percent in the United States.

"This vast young user population now wants personalised identity and wants to advertise their choices and these domains we are launching will cater to that," said Samir Saraiya, product chief of Microsoft's Windows Live Services.

The number of people using Internet globally soared 10 per cent to touch 747 million people in the year to January, 2007.

Economic boom helped lift India's personal computer sales by 32 per cent to 5.04 million units in the year to March 31, 2006, according to the Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology.

Desktop sales totalled 4.6 million units -- up 27 per cent over the same period -- while notebook sales totalled 430,000 units, up 144 per cent.

Source: THE TIMES OF INDIA

Serious Flaw In Microsoft Excel 2007 Displays Math Errors

2007-09-27T09:52:00.001-07:00

Microsoft Excel 2007 has math problems. Over the weekend some folks in the Microsoft Excel Google Group reported that cell operations like =77.1*850 return erroneous results (in this case Excel returns the value as 100,000 when in fact it's 65,535). A post on the Excel Blog confirms the issue and even says the problem is more widespread than initially reported.

Fortunately the Excel team has identified the problem and is says it’s working on a solution. As it turn out, Excel can add, contrary to some headlines, it just doesn’t display the right data in the cell.

This issue was introduced when we were making changes to the Excel calculation logic in the Office 2007 time frame. Specifically, Excel incorrectly displays the result of a calculation in 12 very specific cases. The key here is that the issue is actually not in the calculation itself (the result of the calculation stored in Excel’s memory is correct), but only in the result that is shown in the sheet. Said another way, =850*77.1 will display an incorrect value, but if you then multiply the result by 2, you will get the correct answer (i.e. if A1 contains “=850*77.1”, and A2 contains “=A1*2”, A2 will return the correct answer of 131,070).

The Excel team says they have a fix for this issue and are almost done testing to ensure that the fix works and doesn’t introduce any additional issues. Once they’re satisfied an update will be made available.

Note that this issue does not affect earlier versions of Excel.

Source: WIRED

Microsoft Tells Availability, Price of Office 2008 for Mac

2007-09-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. has named the date on which Mac OS X users can get their hands on the latest version of its Office suite.

"Office 2008 for Mac" will be launched on Jan. 15 in the U.S. -- that's the first day of the Macworld Expo event planned for San Francisco -- and it will be launched in other major markets during the first quarter, the company said.

Three versions of the suite will be available: the basic package includes all the Office applications. The "home and student edition" is targeted at consumers and includes a three-user license. The "special media edition" comes with all Office software and the "Expression Media for Mac" image management application.

The basic edition will cost US$400, the home and student edition will cost $150 and the special media edition will cost $500. Upgrade packages from Office 2004 to the basic edition will cost $240 and to the special media edition will cost $300. Upgrade details to the home and student edition were not disclosed and an upgrade may not be available. Pricing is in line with the current prices for Office 2004.

From Tuesday, Microsoft is also offering customers in some countries who buy Office 2004 an upgrade to Office 2008 for only the price of shipping, handling and taxes.

The launch of the Mac version will come a year after the latest version of Office was offered for the Windows operating system. Office 2008 for Mac will support the Open XML file format and the package will be a Universal Binary that runs on both Power PC and Intel-based Mac computers. Versions will be available in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Delivers Vista Ultimate Add-on, Delays Others

2007-09-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

Just days after users and bloggers raised Cain about Microsoft missing a deadline to deliver add-ons that it promised Windows Vista users, the company announced Tuesday that it is shipping one program but delaying 19 language packs for another month.

Microsoft also said that while Vista Service Pack 1's on-screen information about the add-ons has been dramatically scaled back from what appeared in the original operating system, it has no intention of dropping the extras.

Shipping Tuesday, said Barry Goffe, the director of Vista Ultimate, is DreamScene, the long-in-beta video screensaver that first appeared in February. The other downloads he had said would be shipped this summer -- the remaining language packs used to turn Ultimate into a localized operating system -- have been delayed until next month, however.

"While we are excited about shipping DreamScene, the remaining 19 language packs are, unfortunately, not yet ready for release," said Goffe in a post to the Microsoft company blog that features news of Ultimate's add-ons, dubbed "Extras" by the company.

"Recently, we realized that Ultimate customers who tried to install the language packs that shipped earlier this year were experiencing an unacceptably high number of failures during installation," Goffe said. "We continue to make delivering the highest-quality, most-secure Extras our top priority, and we will not ship any Extra until it is absolutely ready."

The new deadline for the language packs, he added, is "by the end of October."

Microsoft has been taken to task by Vista Ultimate users since June, when several prominent Windows bloggers noted that it had been six months since the operating system's launch and the company hadn't shipped any finalized Extras in that time. Within days, Goffe was blogging, saying that DreamScene and the unshipped language packs would release by the end of summer.

Extras, which are bonus downloads available only to customers running the top-end Vista edition, were one of the benefits cited by Microsoft to distinguish the $399 version of the operating system from its $239 cousin, Home Premium. Microsoft's online marketing, for instance, touted Extras as "cutting-edge programs, innovative services, and unique publications" that would be regularly offered to Ultimate users.

According to Goffe, Extras are still coming, even though some testers of Vista SP1 have noticed a dramatic difference between what the service pack shows in a "What are Windows Ultimate Extras?" dialog box. Long Zheng, for example, who writes the Windows enthusiast blog iStartedSomething, posted screenshots of the original dialog box and the one from SP1 on Sunday.

"On a related note, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 even tries to hide the Ultimate Extras shame by removing much of the information in the Control Panel applet," Zheng wrote then.

Not true, said Goffe. "Our intent in making this change was simply to broaden the definition in anticipation of a broader range of Ultimate Extras being available in the future," he said on the blog. While he also said that Microsoft would ship additional add-ons, he didn't explicitly promise that Extras would continue.

In a reply to questions, however, a company spokesman did just that. "We are fully committed to delivering additional Windows Ultimate Extras in the future," the spokesman said in an e-mail. "In addition to this latest announcement, we plan to ship a collection of additional Windows Ultimate Extras over the next few years."

DreamScene can be downloaded only by Vista Ultimate users, who can retrieve the screensaver from the Windows Update screen.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft's 'Halo 3' Breaks First-Day Sales Records

2007-09-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp.'s alien-killer gaming thrill, "Halo 3," has broken the U.S. sales record for a new video game by garnering an estimated US$170 million in its first 24-hours on sale, the company said late Wednesday.

The performance beat the previous record setter, predecessor Halo 2, which raked in $125 million within 24-hours after its launch.

That's not all. Halo 3 has beaten other records as well. More than 1.7 million copies of Halo 3 were pre-ordered in the U.S., making it the fastest pre-selling game in U.S. history, Microsoft said. The game also drew over a million Xbox Live members to play online in the first 20-hours on offer, making it the biggest day for Xbox Live gaming in history.

The video game industry has enjoyed sizzling sales this summer in the U.S, according to the industry researcher, NDP Group. In August, video game software sales rose nearly 23 percent year over year to $488 million, while overall industry sales totaled $993 million, including consoles and other hardware.

Sales figures for Halo 3 were collected for the U.S. only, and the figure will likely stand much higher after Microsoft tallies results from overseas. Halo 3 launched in 37 countries at midnight on Sept. 25 and is available in 17 languages. It retails for around $60.

The title could go on to become one of the top international sellers of all time, but it faces stiff competition. The top selling console game of all time, not originally bundled with a console, is Pokémon Red, Blue and Green, at 20.08 million units, according to figures compiled from the Web site Magic Box's Japan Platinum Game Chart and its U.S. Platinum Videogame Chart..

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft tries to improve Vista photo features

2007-09-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

Microsoft developed Windows Vista in part to make it easier for people to manage their digital photos. Now it has released beta software that's trying to refine that experience further.

Windows XP leaves much to be desired with photo management, Mike Nash, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows Product Management, said Wednesday in a talk here at the InfoTrends Digital Imaging conference. On the list of gripes: XP lacks abilities to edit, archive, search, tag and edit images; it can't support the higher-end but unprocessed "raw" photos; transferring images to PCs is "slow and cumbersome"; and "color management was sketchy at best."

Windows Vista is designed to fix these shortcomings, Nash said. But newer software called Windows Live, in public beta testing since earlier this month, is geared to expand photo abilities even more--in part through improving what the PC can do on its own and in part what it can do with the Internet.

"The notion of live services is a critical part of Microsoft's strategy," Nash said. "Our mindset is that the value proposition of Windows Vista is a combination of the core operating system and those online services."

Of course, XP isn't the only comparison to Vista that can be made. Apple's Mac OS X includes many photo-friendly features already.

Dave Block, Windows senior product manager, demonstrated the photo-related components of the Windows Live software. Windows Live Photo Gallery augments Windows Vista Photo Gallery with the ability to sharpen images and to view a histogram that shows an image's distribution of light and dark tones.

The software also adds the ability to upload photos with two mouse clicks to Windows Live Spaces, an online site for blogging and sharing photos. Microsoft doesn't envision the ability to export photos to other sites such as Flickr or Shutterfly, Block added in an interview.

Windows Live Gallery, part of a suite that includes other components for blogging, mail and other tasks, takes over from the Vista Photo Gallery when installed, Block said.

Microsoft may not think as much about photo handling with Windows XP, but there's one feature from the earlier operating system that Microsoft is adding back into Vista as a result of customer feedback. In XP, the photo-import process let people select which photos they wanted to transfer to the PC and which photos they wanted to delete or leave on a camera. With Vista, it's an all-or-nothing affair.

"A goal with Vista was to make photo import really simple. But we got feedback that people wanted it to be more highly functional," Block said.

Windows Live Photo Gallery shouldn't be thought of as what Vista's photo management ought to have been, Block argued. "It's adding new features. Don't think of it as a patch," he said.

During the photo import process, on either the standard and augmented Vista, people can tag their images with labels such as photo locations and subject names. Adding such "metadata" is a crucial part to enabling software and therefore computer users to search for particular photos.

Vista simplifies some of the divergent standards for photo metadata, said InfoTrends analyst Ed Lee. There are still problems, however.

For example, image-editing powerhouse Adobe Systems also offers software that lets people tag photos and rate them on a scale of one to five stars. Adobe and Microsoft software can read the primary photo tags the other company's software has written. But the companies take an incompatible approach for subtags that provide more elaborate detail. A "flower" primary tag could be expanded by adding a "rose" subtag, for example.

"There's no agreed upon industry standard," Block said. "Both implementations are good; they're just not compatible."

He didn't have a projection for when the companies might work out their subtagging differences.

The Windows Live beta software can be downloaded from Microsoft. It's available for Windows XP and Vista, but it requires the installation of other components for search and color management for XP, and of SQL 2005 Compact Edition for both operating systems.

Source: NEWS.COM

11.6m Xbox 360s Sold, Live To Hit 10m Users In 2008

2007-09-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

As the second anniversary of the Xbox 360 approaches, Microsoft has released a list of stats on the console, providing figures on sales of both the 360 and its games, details on Xbox Live, social networking and more.

Microsoft says that it has sold more than 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles in the 37 countries where it is currently available; of these, 25 have access to Xbox Live. In addition, US NPD data says gamers have bought more Xbox 360 software (24.3 million units) than for either of its competitors, PS3 and Wii, who together have sold 19.8 million games.

Xbox Live, having over 7 million members to date, is expected to reach 10 million members by June 2008, Microsoft says, adding that the numbers work out to one new Xbox Live member every 8 seconds.

Xbox 360: The Games

Microsoft says there are over 250 games currently available on the 360, which includes 86 Live Arcade games. Additionally, the company says, of the next-gen consoles, these numbers give the 360 the largest games attach rate, with 6.3 games sold per console owner.

The company also estimates that members of Xbox Live have spent over 3.2 billion collective hours playing online, unlocking more than 600 achievements and creating a total combined Gamerscore of more than 14 billion. In total, Microsoft says Xbox Live has hosted 2.5 billion game sessions since launch, with more than 5.6 million hosted each day thus far in 2007. Nearly 70% of consoles download and play Live Arcade titles, and at 200 free downloadable demos, Microsoft claims more free playable content than its competitors.

Finally, Microsoft added that 2.6 million IM, text and voice messages are sent over the service daily, with the average Xbox Live Gold subscriber maintaining 23 friends on their Live friends list.

Xbox 360: The Top 10 Countdowns

Microsoft also provided a list of the top 10 games played over Xbox Live worldwide since the console's launch in November 2005:

01. Halo 2
02. Gears of War
03. Hexic HD
04. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
05. Call of Duty 3
06. Call of Duty 2
07. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3
08. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
09. Crackdown
10. PGR3

The top 10 Xbox Live Arcade downloads worldwide since launch are as follows:

01. Aegis Wing
02. Uno
03. Texas Hold ‘em
04. Geometry Wars Retro Evolved
05. Bankshot Billiards 2
06. Street Fighter ‘II Hyper Fighting
07. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Classic Arcade
08. Worms
09. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
10. Contra

The top 10 Xbox Live Marketplace Demos downloads worldwide were also listed:

01. Crackdown
02. Lost Planet E3 2006
03. Dead Rising
04. BioShock
05. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
06. Forza Motorsport 2
07. Sonic the Hedgehog
08. Saints Row
09. Superman Returns
10. Colin McRae: DIRT

Xbox 360: The Entertainment

Microsoft also provided stats on its movie and television library, estimating the count of such content provided by twenty-nine movie studios and television networks to total 2,800 hours. The company says there have been 290 million total downloads from Xbox Live Marketplace including non-gaming entertainment content.

Source: GAMASUTRA

Microsoft to add new commerce functionality to Office Live

2007-09-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has made available to a select set of private beta testers new commerce functionality that it plans to add to its Office Live services.

Office Live Store Manager seems to be a new set of features/functionality that Microsoft is planning to add to one or more of its existing Office Live Small Business SKUs. Store Manager is currently in private beta test with a “few of our select small business customers,” blogged Microsoft Technical Specialist James Senior.

“The store manager portion of Office Live enables this small business to have an online store tightly incorporated within their website with the minimum of fuss. Prior to this they had integration with Paypal and had some complicated ASP pages to get around the problem of selling online - hardly something a small business wants to be doing! This encapsulates what Microsoft is trying to achieve with Office Live: a one-stop-shop for all online activities for small business following the mantra of easy to use,” Senior explained.

One of the testers of Office Live Store Manager, according to Senior’s post, is Larouex Gourmet Foods.

Office Live, in spite of its name, is not a Web-based, hosted version of Microsoft Office. Office Live are a set of Web-based add-ons to Microsoft Office and SharePoint aimed at small- to mid-size business customers. In October 2006, Microsoft rolled out its first three Office Live services: Office Live Basics (free and ad-supported); Office Live Essentials ($19.95 a month per company) and Office Live Premium ($39.95 a month per company). (A fourth member of the family, Office Live Collaboration, never made it out the door and remains in beta test.

In July, Microsoft quietly repositioned its existing set of Office Live services as “Office Live Small Business.” Microsoft officials have said the company has plans to go both up and down market with Office Live by rolling out more enterprise-focused Office service add-ons, as well as new Office Live services aimed more directly at individual consumers. So far, Microsoft has made no official announcements on either end of that spectrum.

Microsoft has some serious ambitions for Office Live. In July, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said:

“We fully believe and expect in two or three years Office Live will be one of the most deployed, most utilized of all the products that we have in the Microsoft portfolio. Certainly it won’t be as big as Windows in a couple of years, but we do believe it will reach our top three or four largest deployed applications that we have around the world.”

I’ve asked Microsoft for more specifics on Office Live Store Manager, including a date when it will be available to a broader audience. Stay tuned.

Update on September 18: A Microsoft spokesperson sent back the following responses to my questions:

“Microsoft Office Live is committed to providing small businesses a single, easy-to-use solution that addresses a range of small business pain points - core IT services, sales and marketing services and productivity services. As we mentioned last fall with our V1.5 announcement, we see e-commerce as a natural addition to our suite of services. Store Manager is currently in a limited beta and we expect it to go live in the coming months.”

Source: ZDNET

Coming Tuesday: 5 Microsoft patches

2007-09-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's Security Response Center has provided advanced notification of the patches that are expected for release next week as part of the September Security Patch Release.

Each of the five patches scheduled for release next Tuesday are for a different system component:

One Critical patch for Microsoft Windows
One Important patch for Visual Studio
One Important patch for SFU (Services For Unix)
One Important patch for MSN / Live Messenger, and
One Important patch for SharePoint Server / Windows
There hasn't been much discussion at this stage about the potential content of the patches, though it is known that there is active malware targeting various weaknesses in the MSN client.

Accompanying the above patches will be an update to the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, and a single high-priority, non-security update for an unidentified product.

Source: THE REGISTER UK

Microsoft Live to Expand to 53 Services

2007-09-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Microsoft’s (MS) Live network is currently monstrous in size and scale, according to the MS roadmap this is set for major expansion, with the Live network to balloon out to 53 services.

MS’s latest offering, the Windows Live Skydrive has been causing a stir in the online storage world, with the Skydrive being the latest maneuvering by MS against Google for dominance. However the real story lies at a deeper level, with MS continuing to release a steady stream of new Windows and Office Live services that will see the portfolio expand to 53 services and further additions not ruled out. MS is hoping the portfolio expansion will “allow people to become more learned or dedicated to internet services” said Harvey Sanchez, Online Services Strategy Manager at Microsoft Australia.

MS has “actually just approved a little matrix of live services” Sanchez said. The Live services push is aimed at synergising the various products together which will see the success of one service boost the take up of the others. While complimentary product positioning isn’t anything new, on such a scale in cloud computing is quite significant. According to Sanchez it is this complimentary element of the live services which is the most important.

The big flashy services such as the MS Skydrive, Groove, Virtual Earth and Live TV grab easy headlines while other services slip under the radar. The Live portfolio has several releases slated for later this year, such as ‘Live@Net’ a specific offering aimed at wireless customers and partners which will enable them to co-brand the Mail, Messenger and Space experience to their end users. Other examples coming this year include Office Live Personal Workspaces which will offer online storage and a place to share files, folders and pictures as part of the Office Live suite.

MS also has around twelve products currently in beta which are slowly snaking their way towards release, ranging from Live Mobile to Live Mail Desktop and Live Barcode. With a portfolio this large it would be a mild understatement to say that MS is positioning itself to take a sizeable chunk of purely online services or ‘cloud computing’ for itself.

The expansion of major cloud computing portfolios such as MS Live and Googles suite of online services is aiming to capture more of a users online time. This is making your time less about how much you spend on the world wide web, and more about how much you spend on that companies services for the web. According to Sanchez, surfing the web is important for everybody, though it is the ability to utilise the web in a much more effective way that is important.

Source: IDM

Silverlight goes 1.0, adds Linux support

2007-09-09T22:41:00.002-07:00

Microsoft released Silverlight 1.0 on Tuesday and said it has partnered with Novell to deliver a Linux version of the software.

In addition, Microsoft announced a number of consumer Web sites will use Silverlight to distribute video.

Silverlight is a cross-platform Web browser plug-in for displaying interactive Web applications and an alternative to Adobe's Flash Player, which has become the de facto standard for video on the Web.

The Novell deal will result in a Linux version of Silverlight called Moonlight. Microsoft is also producing a version of Silverlight for Mac OS X.

The expanded platform support could help Microsoft in its plans to compete with Adobe's Flash, which is installed on nearly all PCs. To distribute Silverlight widely, Microsoft is relying on customers who have built media applications with it.

On Wednesday, the Home Shopping Network, World Wide Wrestling Entertainment, Entertainment Tonight, and Break.com will launch video features that use Silverlight, said Brian Goldfarb, a group product manager at Microsoft. Major League Baseball is already live with its online video broadcasts using Silverlight.

Many customers are adopting Silverlight because they already have their video encoded in the Windows Media format, Goldfarb said.

Another key part of Microsoft's Silverlight strategy is to rely on its development tools. Its Visual Studio programming tools and Expression-branded designer products ease collaboration between developers and Web designers, Goldfarb said.

Version 1.1 of Silverlight, which Microsoft announced at its Mix 07 conference in May, will be available next year, probably in the summer, he said. That version will have support for the .Net programming model used in Microsoft's development languages, including scripting languages.

With the Silverlight 1.0 release, Microsoft also intends to release Expression Encoder, a tool meant to make it easy to encode video for display on the Web with Silverlight.

Source: CNET

Panel Rejects Microsoft’s Open Format

2007-09-09T22:41:00.001-07:00

A panel of software experts yesterday unexpectedly rebuffed Microsoft’s bid to have its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an international standard. The decision complicates the company’s effort to extend its dominance to the emerging field of open documents.

After five months of electronic balloting, Microsoft failed to meet the two voting criteria to win a designation as an approved standard from the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization, or the I.S.O., and the International Electrotechnical Commission, or I.E.C.

The fight over the standard, while technically arcane, is commercially important because more governments are demanding interchangeable open document formats for their vast amounts of records, instead of proprietary formats tied to one company’s software. The only standardized format now available to government buyers is OpenDocument Format, developed by a consortium led by I.B.M., which the I.S.O. approved in May 2006.

The timing of the decision may be inopportune for Microsoft, coming two weeks before the European Court of First Instance is to rule on its appeal of the European Commission’s 2004 antitrust decision against the company.

Of the 87 countries that participated, 26 percent opposed Microsoft’s bid. Under the rules for approval, no more than 25 percent of the countries could oppose the bid. Microsoft also failed to win the vote of 66 percent of 41 countries on another panel of I.S.O. and I.E.C. members.

The tug of war up to the vote was reminiscent of the company’s squabbles with rivals. The critics of the company say that Microsoft’s dominance of personal computer software gives it an unfair advantage, while the company maintains that its innovations and technical expertise make for superior products.

More than 90 percent of all digital text documents in the world are in Microsoft formats, according to the consulting firm Gartner. Many national and local governments in Europe and some in the United States are requiring open formats to reduce their reliance on Microsoft. In an open format, the computer code is public, which allows developers to create new products that use it without paying royalties.

Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s general manager for interoperability and standards, predicted that Microsoft’s format would be eventually adopted.

“Open XML is already widely available and is being used by Apple and Novell,” he said. “It is in the Palm operating system, and in the Java and Linux operating environments.”

Some critics of Microsoft blamed the company’s own aggressive lobbying for its defeat.

A member of an advisory panel that voted on the standards issue in Malaysia, who declined to be identified, said Microsoft’s lobbying in the country had reached into high levels of government.

The Industry Standards Committee on Information Technology of Malaysia decided to vote against Microsoft’s format, but the Malaysian government abstained in the end.

Mr. Robertson said Microsoft had sought to persuade voters of the merits of Office Open XML, just as I.B.M. had lobbied against it. “Many countries have taken part in this vote, including countries that supported us,” he said.

Source: NYTIMES

Microsoft Cuts The Price Of HD-DVD Unit In Europe

2007-09-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

At IFA, Microsoft has made another step to help the HD-DVD format. The maker of Xbox 360 announced a 20-euro cut in the price of its HD DVD add-on drive for the gaming console. According to the Redmond company, the blue-laser high-definition-disc drives are to retail in Europe for 180 euros ($244).

This move follows a similar announcement made by the company last month, when Microsoft announced that the price of the HD-DVD player in US will be $179 instead of $199.

Also Toshiba said last week at the IFA 2007 that stand-alone movie players for the HD DVD format are to be offered in Europe for less than 300 euros, which means $390. The players will go on sale in the European market before Christmas.

Both camps, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, have focused on gaming consoles as a key to getting enough players into the marketplace. Sony sells its PlayStation 3 with a Blu-ray drive built in, often with a package of free movies as well. Manfred Gerdes, chief of Sony Germany, says European sales of the PS3 have totalled 2 million to date, double the number of set-top Blu-ray movie players.

Also the Blu-Ray held a news conference at IFA 2007 to announce a slew of new titles for European release. Twentieth Century Fox said it would bring out 29 new titles in Europe on Blu-ray and Sony said Spider Man 3 would be out as a two-disc set in Europe in October.

But other electronic makers are seeking methods to end the rivalry between the two formats. For example Samsung presented its dual-player BD-UP500, which is able to play both formats. A Samsung Europe executive, Mike Henkelmann, said the player will go on sale before the Christmas shopping season.

The SouthKorean electronic maker LG, which already has a hybrid player on the market, said in Berlin it would introduce a "new-generation" model by the end of the year.

Source: EFLUXMEDIA

Microsoft Releases New Virtual Machine-Management Software

2007-09-09T22:38:00.001-07:00

Microsoft Corp. Thursday released its first software designed specifically to manage virtual machines on a network, and tweaked licensing for its system-management products to take into account virtualization.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007, which has been in the works for about a year and a half, has been released to manufacturing and will be generally available in October as part of Microsoft's System Server Management Center suite of products, the company said.

The new product is built on the same architecture as other products in the enterprise version of the suite -- which include Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager and Configuration Manager -- and is aimed specifically at managing virtual machines in a data center that runs Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, the current version of Microsoft's server virtualization technology, said Patrick O'Rourke, group manager, Windows Infrastructure. "Customers now can use the same tools to manage both virtual and physical assets [on the network]," he said.

Microsoft also has changed the licensing model for its for its System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise, making it available for US$860 per host server -- which means the actual server that hosts any instances of virtual software -- plus two years of Microsoft's Software Assurance plan. Previously, System Center software was licensed per device being managed in the data center, O'Rourke said. The new licensing should make managing virtualized environments with Microsoft's software more cost-effective for customers, he said.

Microsoft has been developing and fine-tuning its virtualization strategy over the past several years to keep up with virtualization leader VMWare Inc. and others, as well as to serve the needs of large customers who increasingly are using virtualization in their data centers. However, the company's strategy has predictably hit some road bumps.

Microsoft is developing next-generation virtualization technology, code-named Viridian, that takes advantage of virtualization-optimized processors from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and will help keep the company up to speed with competitors. However, though Viridian will be a component of Windows Server 2008, it won't be available until six months after that new OS is released. And since Microsoft recently pushed back the release of Windows Server 2008 to the first quarter of next year, Viridian's release is nearly a year away. The company also decided earlier this year to pull out some originally planned features of Viridian due to timing concerns.

In the meantime, customers can use a combination of Microsoft's stand-alone Virtual Server and its System Center products to install and manage both virtual and physical machines in the data center. Microsoft also is planning a mid-market version of Virtual Machine Manager, called Workgroup edition, for release in January. The software will cost $499 per host server.

Microsoft also plans to extend the capabilities of the next version of Virtual Machine Manager so that it not only supports Windows Server virtualization technologies but also third-party virtualization from VMware and XenSource Inc., O'Rourke said. A beta of that software is expected to be available around the same time as Windows Server 2008, and Microsoft plans to update its roadmap then as well.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Releases Windows Media Extenders

2007-09-09T22:37:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. is increasing the range of video formats that PCs running its Windows software can pipe to televisions around the home, with support for a new range of Extenders for Windows Media Center devices from hardware manufacturers.

It expects companies such as Cisco Systems Inc., D-Link Corp. and Niveus Media Inc. to reveal new set-top boxes next month that can play videos or music stored on a PC running the Home Premium or Ultimate editions of Windows Vista. Microsoft's software will stream video in previously unsupported formats such as DivX and Xvid, delivering it to devices around the home over wired or wireless networks.

The new Extender devices could even be capable of streaming "protected" high-definition (HD) video over the latest 802.11n wireless networks, Microsoft said Thursday. Vendors or broadcasters of HD content can protect it from piracy by using DRM (digital rights management) software to restrict the devices on which it can be displayed or stored.

Microsoft's reasoning in developing these capabilities is that customers want to access the content on their multimedia PCs when they're not in front of the PC.

Apple Inc. realized this in 2004, when it released the diminutive AirPort Express Wi-Fi router with an audio-out socket for streaming music over a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection from a Macintosh or PC running its iTunes jukebox software, but the following year Microsoft went one better with an add-on pack called Windows Media Center Extender allowing its Xbox game consoles to stream music and video from a Windows Media Center PC.

Manufacturers and buyers have been slow to take an interest in Microsoft's Windows Media Center Extender platform. The best-known Extender is Microsoft's own Xbox 360 game console, of which market-watchers estimate Microsoft has sold around 10 million since its November 2005 launch. By comparison, D-Link said in June 2006 that it had sold just 100,000 of its MediaLounge wireless media players in the first 18 months they were on sale.

But Microsoft is still pushing the idea, now rebranded Extenders for Windows Media Center, collaborating with Cisco, D-Link and Niveus to link their set-top boxes to Vista PCs. In the future, the company plans to work with a broader range of vendors to incorporate the same capabilities directly into other devices such as DVD players and televisions.

There's more to it than a change of name, though: in its Windows Media Center Extender FAQ, Microsoft warns that devices based on the old specification, developed to work with Windows XP, will no longer work with the new system for Windows Vista.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft opening up on the Web

2007-09-09T22:35:00.002-07:00

On the PC, Microsoft may not be writing every program that people use, but by controlling the operating system, the company has maintained a dominant position.

The company is in the early stages of trying to carve out a similar role on the Internet. To do that, Microsoft is not just branching out, but also reaching out to make itself more compatible with rivals.

"When you talk to people who are heavy Internet users, they don't all use just one service from one company," Microsoft corporate vice president Chris Jones said in an interview this week. "They end up using a smattering of services."

For sure, Microsoft would like to have people use its Web mail service, its instant-messaging software and its blog software, but what it wants most is to ensure that it has some central role for the vast majority of Web surfers.

Of course, Microsoft is not alone in this pursuit. Google and Yahoo, and potentially others, also covet such a role. And in many cases, rivals have the early lead.

Microsoft is trying to strike back by building on its strength--Windows. While its first products were browser-based services and largely a rebranding of existing MSN products, the company's latest products are desktop programs. They are also more open. Windows Live Mail, for example, works particularly well with a Windows Live Hotmail account, but also can be used with other Web mail services.

Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff said he expects this to become a model for Microsoft as time goes on. "I don't think we've seen anywhere close to the end of these," he said. (Rosoff is also a writer for the CNET blog network.)

Microsoft's newfound openness is evident in several other pieces of the company's strategy.

For those who do like the Windows Live services on the Web, the company is making sure they are accessible from non-Microsoft devices as well. The company recently struck a deal with Nokia to make Microsoft services accessible from its smart phones.

And as it tries to take on Adobe's ubiquitous Flash with its Silverlight platform for Web developers, Microsoft is again hoping to be seen as open, announcing this week that it will add support for Linux, in addition to Windows and the Mac.

The idea is that, at some point along the way to the Internet, Microsoft--and therefore its ad engine--touch nearly everyone. Of course, this is a bit harder than it has been on the desktop side.

In some cases, Microsoft is hoping that it can move into markets where it is not already a strong player, largely by aggregating the efforts of others. Social networking is one area where the company has discussed such a role.

Jones again hinted at this, saying that in the real world he has many different social networks and that he expects the same to be true on the Internet. "I'll probably be involved in many and what I'll want to do is make it really easy to stay in touch with all of them," he said. "And so how can we build software services that help?"

In some cases, Microsoft is also looking to link its existing tools with the social networks, such as a deal with Bebo to use Microsoft's contacts and instant-messaging technologies. The contacts part of the arrangement means that on Bebo there will be a secure way for Windows Live users to bring their contacts over to the social network. That contrasts with many social-network sites that just ask for your e-mail account name and password.

Aiming to provide more of the basics
Beyond such one-off deals, Microsoft is eyeing a role at providing some more basic services, such as sharing and accessing files. Windows Live Photo Gallery, a Windows application that went into public beta testing this week, is an example of a starting point for photo storage, but Microsoft has its sights set higher.

"Over time you'd like to have the service so that all your photos were available from any device, not just the ones you put in your photo album, and that it was easy to have those things backed up, to have them with the resolution you want, and then to have very collaborative experiences with pictures," Jones said.

"So, that you can see with photos we've taken a big step in this release of Windows Live, but we've got more to do."

The same goes for file sharing, he said. "We have a cloud-based way to do file sharing called SkyDrive, and then we have a peer-to-peer based way to do it called FolderShare," Jones said. "Well, over time it might make sense for us to really start to make that experience be seamless so you could get to all your files from anywhere."

Those two are just the first pieces in what Microsoft hopes will be an entire Live infrastructure that developers can write on top of, much the way they write programs that run on top of Windows today. It's a notion that some have dubbed a "cloud OS."

Such services are going to take massive amounts of storage space, which Microsoft also believes will eventually lead to a battle between only a few large companies for many of these core infrastructure pieces.

But as it pursues these different strategies, clashes among different parts of Microsoft seem inevitable. Silverlight, the Windows Live services team and the Live infrastructure group are all trying to be Web platforms of one sort or another.

And even the browser is a tough one for Microsoft. The company doesn't want to lose potential users of its services by not supporting Firefox, but Internet Explorer market share helps strengthen Windows.

"It gets to 'What is the goal of Windows Live?'" Rosoff said. "You want the most audience for the services, but you want to maintain the importance of Windows, and Internet Explorer is a part of Windows. There are some conflicts with the entire online services strategy," Rosoff said.

But internal conflict is part of Microsoft's way of doing business. Rosoff notes that the Windows Media Center, Xbox and Internet TV groups all are aiming to be the center of the digital living room.

"To some degree that's the way Microsoft has always worked," Rosoff said. "They've always allowed technology to compete and not necessarily picked a winner."

Source: CNET

It's Official: Apple is the New Microsoft

2007-09-09T22:35:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago, Microsoft was the company everyone loved to hate.

The most vociferous Microsoft haters slammed the company for being a greedy industry bully that used its monopolistic, clunky, copycat operating system to force software on users and coerce partners into unfair licensing deals.

Don't look now, but the role of the industry's biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft. Here's a look at how Apple has shoved Microsoft aside as the company with the worst reputation as a monopolist, copycat and a bully.

Apple the monopolist

The core complaint about Microsoft in the 1990s was that its Windows market share gave it monopoly power, which it abused in multiple ways. Attorneys General and others zeroed in on the "bundling" of the Internet Explorer Web browser, which they claimed was forced on users because Microsoft offered it as part of Windows.

People love iPods (including me; my family of four has purchased 12 iPods in the past few years). But iPods come bundled with iTunes. Want to buy music from Apple? Guess what? You must install iTunes. Want an Apple cell phone from AT&T? Yep! ITunes is required even if you want only to make phone calls. Want to buy ringtones for your Apple phone? ITunes.

Apple not only "bundles" iTunes with multiple products, it forces you to use it. At least with Internet Explorer, you could always just download a competitor and ignore IE.

Not fair, you might say. Any hardware device that syncs data with a PC as part of its core functionality has software to facilitate that syncing. True enough. But operating systems have browsers as part of core functionality, too. Doesn't Mac OS X come with Safari? Doesn't the iPhone?

And "bundling" works. Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has distributed 600 million copies of iTunes to date. The overwhelming majority of those copies were iTunes for Windows. And iTunes for Windows' popularity isn't driven by software product quality. ITunes is the slowest, clunkiest, most nonintuitive application on my system. But I need it because I love my iPods.

At least with Windows, you could reformat your PC and install Linux or any number of other PC-compatible operating systems. Can I reformat my iPod and install something else? Can I uninstall iTunes but keep using the iTunes store and my iPods? Apple strongly discourages all that, claiming that the iPod, the iPod software and iTunes are three components of the same product. But that's what Microsoft said about Windows and IE.

Sorry, dad

Here's a scenario for you. A consumer walks into a local retail outlet to buy a Christmas present for dad. The Apple iPod "section" of the store dwarfs the section where all the also-ran players are displayed. IPod is clearly the trusted standard. The consumer buys a shiny new "Fatty" iPod nano with video.

Dad opens the present and is excited. He follows the directions, installs iTunes and immediately splurges on a few dozen songs at the iTunes store. He loves it, and is an instant convert to portable digital music.

The only downside is that he works out every day at the gym, where cardio machines face TVs that broadcast sound over FM radio. Six months later, when his iPod is stolen, he goes to buy another player -- this time, he hopes, with an FM radio in it. Several competitors offer this feature, but not iPods. He's about to choose a new player with an FM radio when it hits him: None of his files -- now totaling 300 songs and 50 movies -- will play on the new player. He bought and paid for all this content, but it only works with iPods and iTunes.

Apple has an iPod customer for life. Microsoft never had this kind of monopoly power. Sorry, dad. I should have bought you a tie.

Sticker shock

Another clue that a company has monopoly power is when you find yourself suffering sticker shock. How many times have you stood in line at the theater megaplex and marveled at the chutzpah required to charge $4.50 for a soft drink, when the same beverage is one-third the price at the quickie mart 50 feet outside the theater doors? But -- so sorry! -- no outside food or beverages are allowed in the theater. The theater has a monopoly on soft drink sales, and you'll pay what they charge.

That same shock rippled through the iPhone enthusiast community yesterday when Jobs announced with a straight face that iPhone ringtones based on iTunes songs would cost the full price of the song, plus 99 cents extra. What? The full song costs 99 cents! How on Earth can Apple seriously charge the same amount again for the ability to hear just 30 seconds of the song -- the same length as the free iTunes "samples"?

Apple fully understands the power of monopoly pricing. The company has sold the 8GB iPhone for two prices in its short, three months of existence: $599 and, now, $399. When the iPhone was the only way to get the whole multitouch, big-screen, Wi-Fi iPod experience -- when the product had no alternatives -- the price was $599. One analyst estimated Apple's cost to build an iPhone is $245.83. I don't know if that's true but, if so, more than half the user cost was profit. That's theater soda pricing. But as soon as Apple introduced an alternative to the iPhone -- the iPod Touch -- Apple dropped the price by one-third.

Imagine if another company were allowed to compete in the OS X media player market. These players would all drop to below $300. Don't hold your breath, though; it'll never happen. Apple has the power to exclude all others from software than runs on its media players. Microsoft could only dream of such power.

Apple the copycat

Ten years ago, Microsoft haters complained that Windows followed the Mac OS to market as a graphical user interface, copying the Mac's features such as folders, trash cans, resizable windows and other elements. That complaint was repeated with each new version of Windows -- Apple was the innovator in the operating system space, and got there first with a host of key features. Microsoft just came along later, duplicated features that Apple pioneered, and reaped the benefit because of its monopoly power.

But who's innovating now? The LG KE850 was winning awards for its full-screen, touch-screen, on-screen keyboard before Jobs even announced the iPhone.

The best thing about the iPhone and iPod Touch -- the warm-and-fuzzy multitouch UI with gestures -- wasn't new, either. Various labs have been demonstrating similar UIs for more than a decade, and even Microsoft demonstrated a fully realized 3G UI in May, well before Apple shipped the iPhone. Microsoft will ship its tabletop UI, called Microsoft Surface, in November, and Apple will likely enter this space with a 3G UI months or years after Microsoft does.

And Wi-Fi in a media player? Ha! Microsoft's funky Zune had that almost a year before Apple did and SanDisk's Sansa Connect with Wi-Fi was released last June. Apple even stole the name for its iPod Touch product, according to HTC, which sells a touch-screen smart phone called the HTC Touch.

Don't get me wrong. I think Apple's execution of these features is far better than its competitors'. And it would be horrible decision-making to not build the iPhone simply because others pioneered key features. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Apple doing what Microsoft did: dominating the market with features other companies had first. If it was fair to slam Microsoft over Windows, it's fair to slam Apple over the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Apple the bully

Microsoft used to be the big bully, pushing everyone around and dictating terms to partners. Microsoft has lost its edge in this regard -- most of Microsoft's major resellers brazenly hawk Linux. Even Intel -- the "tel" part of "Wintel" -- is powering Macs these days. Microsoft is still profitable, but it has lost control -- and has lost its reputation as the bully nobody can say no to.

Meanwhile, Jobs has suddenly become the most feared man in Hollywood, bragging Thursday about Apple's scary dominance in digital media sales. Apple has sold more than 3 billion songs and 95 million TV shows via iTunes. While music CD sales crash and burn, almost one-third of all music sales are now digital. As Jobs euphemistically said yesterday, "iTunes is leading the way."

Although full details haven't been revealed, NBC apparently wanted more "flexibility" to charge higher prices for its TV shows on iTunes. Apple said no, and NBC was sent packing. NBC now plans to sell shows on alternative locations, such as its own Web site and on Amazon.com. Prediction: NBC will come crawling back to Apple and beg the company for inclusion, and on Apple's terms. Why? Because iTunes is increasingly becoming the only venue in which media companies can succeed selling music and TV show.

Jobs rules like Bill Gates never did. If you want to succeed in the digital music or downloadable TV business, you'll do things his way.

Why I support Apple

After reading my preceding comments, you may be surprised at my next statement: I come not to bury Apple, but to support it.

You see, my point isn't that Apple's growing bad reputation is deserved, but that Microsoft's wasn't. All that evil monopoly hype, court cases and public posturing directed for so long at Microsoft drained energy and resources from the entire industry. The market, however, corrects issues such as that. In the case of Microsoft's "monopoly," Linux, Firefox and now Apple prove that customers always had choices.

The same goes for Apple.

As pundits, bloggers, users, politicians, Hollywood big shots, regulators, lawyers and competitors increasingly bash Apple, accuse it of unfair play and call for legal and regulatory action, I will defend it, as I defended Microsoft. It's fun to slam big, powerful companies that are dominating their markets. But in the final analysis, Apple has earned its growing power and influence, just like Microsoft did.

Is Apple a monopolist, copycat and bully? Yes, and deservedly so. And if anyone thinks Apple's success is a problem, well, bringing in the lawyers wasn't the solution for Microsoft, and it won't be the solution for Apple.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Adds Testing Tool for Windows Server 2008

2007-09-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday added another component to its toolbox of free testing software designed to make it easier for developers to create software compatible with the upcoming Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft released a beta version of what it says is a "highly automated" tool for determining whether third-party software meets the criteria for its Works with Windows Server 2008 program.

The tool can be used by software developers and by systems administrators who need to test the applications their companies run for compatibility with Windows Server 2008.

The new OS, which was code-named Longhorn Server, is expected to be released to manufacturing in next year's first quarter -- a recent change from Microsoft's earlier target of late this year. In the meantime, a Beta 3 version of Windows Server 2008 can be downloaded from the company's Web site.

Ensuring that compatible third-party software is available for Windows Server 2008 is a key factor for Microsoft as it tries to drive demand for the operating system among corporate users.

The release of the new tool follows the company's earlier announcement of a more-rigorous software testing program called Certified for Windows Server 2008, for which there also is a freely downloadable testing tool.

Applications that meet the Works with Windows Server 2008 criteria can sport a logo indicating that on the marketing materials created by their vendors. By contrast, companies that want their products listed as being Certified for Windows Server 2008 must pass a test run by an independent testing firm, using the same testing tool that Microsoft offers on its Web site.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft, Siemens Team on Car Navigation

2007-09-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp.'s in-car technology is getting a boost via a deal with a large supplier of automotive electronics. Germany's Siemens VDO Automotive AG has agreed to collaborate with it on a next-generation communication and entertainment system.

Siemens VDO and Microsoft said Friday they will work together to develop a new generation of on-board communication, navigation and entertainment systems that use Microsoft Auto, a software system and hardware reference design. Siemens VDO counts Volkswagen AG, DaimlerChrysler AG and Ford Motor Co. among its customers.

Among the features planned by the two companies are in-vehicle video entertainment and Internet connectivity, according to Siemens VDO spokeswoman Eva Appold.

Systems based on Microsoft Auto let drivers connect various portable devices, such as mobile phones, MP3 players and video games, into their automotive system via a USB 2.0

(Universal Serial Bus) port, and interact with devices via voice technology.

The new multimedia system planned by Siemens VDO, to be available in early 2009, will be based on hardware components and software developed by the German company, and include entertainment and communication components of Microsoft Auto, according to Appold.

Siemens VDO, a subsidiary of German electronics and engineering company Siemens AG, plans to show a prototype multimedia system at the IAA (Internationale Automobil Ausstellung) international motor show in Frankfurt next week.

"The multimedia platform will be very versatile, but it's up to our car manufacturing customers to decide which features they want to offer," Appold said.

Appold was unable to provide pricing details, saying that final prices will be determined by the car makers.

As part of the agreement with Microsoft, Siemens VDO will contribute to the further development of Microsoft Auto, the companies said.

Microsoft already has agreements with Ford and Fiat SpA to supply software for new in-vehicle communication and entertainment systems designed by the car makers.

Source: PC WORLD

Sorry :(

2007-09-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

Guys,

I apologise that I haven't been able to update my blog as fast as I would have liked. Actually, I had been busy posting in the Microsoft Windows India Community ie MeraWindows. You can find a logo of that forum in my blog, click it and you will go straight there. Anyways, I had been posting all the latest news there, so if you guys missed anything here, you can always check it out there. LOVE YOU ALL!

Microsoft kills off anti-Linux campaign

2007-08-24T09:56:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has killed off its controversial "Get the Facts" anti-Linux campaign and replaced it with a new message called "Compare".

Get the Facts aimed to convince IT administrators that Windows Server offered a cheaper and more reliable alternative to open-source server products. It proved unpopular with the Linux community, who dubbed it "Get the FUD" (fear, uncertainty and doubt).

The new campaign, backed by a detailed website, is still aimed at persuading Linux users to think again and look at Microsoft's operating systems, applications and server products, but it takes a much gentler stance.

The goal of the revamped site is to offer "more in-depth information and customer-to-customer opinions about many of the issues IT administrators face", said a Microsoft spokeswoman. "It turns out people wanted third-party validation in addition to people's experiences making OS purchasing decisions, so in addition to customer case studies and research reports that compare platforms, the site will also offer guidance around best practices, web casts, etc," she said.

Compare will still contain much information aimed at persuading users of the value of Microsoft software over Linux, such as this whitepaper from analyst firm IDC, but without any overt anti-Linux message.

Microsoft already has a huge market lead over Linux, which has led industry observers to say that the company is stifling the development of open-source software. Earlier this month, Michael Warrilow from analyst firm Hydrasight said: "There's just too much of an installed base and experience around Windows, regardless of whether you think it's a good operating system or not".

Microsoft may be concerned about pushing out the competition completely, given that it has faced a succession of run-ins with the European Commission on antitrust charges. The Commission's next Microsoft ruling is set for 17 September.

For the time being, users can still get a flavour of the old message from Microsoft Canada.

Source: ZDNET UK

India Won't Endorse Microsoft's Office Standard

2007-08-24T09:55:00.002-07:00

India has become the latest country to reject Microsoft’s global bid to provide an alternative standard for electronic office documents. India will now vote against Microsoft’s proposal at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in Geneva, joining countries like China and Canada.

After a meeting of the Bureau of Indian Standards in New Delhi Thursday, its technical committee chairperson, Nita Verma, told the media: “We unanimously agree on the disapproval of OOXML [Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language] with comments. The same will be submitted to ISO.”

India’s deadline to give the ISO its decision is September. More than 120 countries will take part in the vote on Microsoft’s standard specifications for documents like word processors, spreadsheets and memos.

Microsoft’s rivals like IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) and Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) are backing a different standard, the Open Document Format, which is already broadly accepted, and accuse Microsoft of pushing for a standard that is beset by a host of technical flaws that make it unviable. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) officials say their standard, also known as Open XML, should be accepted on the grounds of allowing multiple formats in the industry.

“Multiple standards enable users to have choice among formats while facilitating greater flexibility and interoperability amongst diverse technology solutions that exist today,” Rakesh Bakshi, Microsoft’s director for legal and corporate affairs, commented in a statement e-mailed after the ruling.

“We respect the decision taken by the Bureau of Indian Standards appointed committee. At the same time, it is important to note that all the BIS members unanimously support the need for multiple standards,” Bakshi said, adding that Microsoft would work with BIS on the issue.

At the Indian committee meeting, only Infosys Technologies (nasdaq: INFY - news - people ) and Delhi-based CSI supported Microsoft’s stance.

In a recent note, global technology advisory firm Gartner said: “Both document formats will likely be used. … Many governments are investigating ODF, and Microsoft’s Open XML is likely to become a de facto standard used by many organizations regardless of whether the ISO adopts it as standard.”

Gartner’s research said the ODF and Open XML standards could converge in the long term, “but all organizations should plan on them coexisting for at least the medium term.”

Source: FORBES

Microsoft Reveals New Partner and Products for Games for Windows at Annual Games Convention

2007-08-24T09:55:00.001-07:00

Proving continued industry support from among some of the best games companies from around the world, Microsoft Corp. today announced new games, hardware and accessories that will exhilarate fans of the world's most popular gaming platform.

At the German Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, Microsoft announced that top video game publisher Ubisoft Entertainment was the latest to join the Games for Windows branding program. The first title Ubisoft will deliver is "The Settlers(R): Rise of an Empire." Ubisoft joins other publishing powerhouses such as 2K Games, Activision Inc., Atari Inc., EA Partners, LucasArts, Microsoft Game Studios, Midway Home Entertainment Inc., and SEGA by committing to ship select titles under the Games for Windows brand, a brand that ensures a high level of quality, compatibility and support for key safety features for gaming on Windows(R). With the addition of Ubisoft, Microsoft now enjoys the support of the majority of top games publishers around the world to provide consumers with amazing Windows gaming experiences.

Microsoft also announced that "Train Simulator 2" from Microsoft Game Studios will join the roster of more than 60 titles currently announced to carry the brand. "Train Simulator 2" brings to gamers the most realistic train simulation experience ever from Microsoft, allowing train enthusiasts to explore the world's rail network or build their own in a detailed and immersive world.

Windows gamers are also enjoying a wave of exciting new products this fall and holiday. Microsoft Hardware, continuing its PC gaming hardware innovations, announced the return of its SideWinder(TM) line of gaming accessories with the first mouse to bear the SideWinder name, the Microsoft(R) SideWinder Mouse. Built from the ground up for gamers, it was developed to meet gamers' individual needs, providing custom tuning tools and a design for performance handling.

"Today we and our partners announced several products that dramatically improve the experience -- and fun -- for Windows gamers," said Kevin Unangst, global director of Games for Windows at Microsoft. "The addition of Ubisoft to the Games for Windows program and the continued innovation in PC gaming hardware is a huge win for gamers around the world who are experiencing the revival of the PC as a world-class gaming platform."

About Games for Windows

Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system in the world for games, delivering the widest range of titles, the most gaming hardware choices, and advanced gaming technology for players of all types. With Windows as the cornerstone, the Games for Windows platform offers publishers and gamers the most enjoyable and innovative gaming experiences available on a PC. More information can be found online at http://www.gamesforwindows.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

(C) 2007 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. The Settlers, Blue Byte and the Blue Byte logo are trademarks of Red Storm Entertainment in the US and/or other countries. Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the US and/or other countries. Red Storm Entertainment Inc. is a Ubisoft Entertainment company. Developed by Blue Byte Software.

Source: CNN

Microsoft Strikes Deal to Make Live More Reliable

2007-08-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has entered into an agreement with Limelight Networks that will hopefully result in improved reliability of Xbox Live.

Limelight is a web content delivery company, with customers like Facebook and MySpace. The company will provide Microsoft with media streaming and content delivery services over the course of a multiyear agreement. The idea is that Limelight's services will help Live deliver its content via less congested routes on the 'net.

Rival firm Akami Technologies provides much the same services for Sony and Nintendo.

Source: WIRED

Nokia and Microsoft announce mobile tie-up

2007-08-24T09:53:00.002-07:00

Nokia, the handset manufacturer, has announced that it will start pre-installing a raft of Microsoft internet applications on its phones from early next year as a way of increasing revenue from web services.

From January, owners of Series 40 handsets will find Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger, Live Contacts and Live Spaces installed on their phones, while the applications will be available for five phone models this week.

The deal, which applies in 11 countries including Britain, France, Germany and Spain, demonstrates the extent to which Nokia is trying to muscle in on the growth of internet-based mobile services such as web browsing and music downloads, which have traditionally been dominated by the networks.

Initially, however, only those phones purchased at retail price – without network subsidies – will offer the programs.

Nokia is seeking approval to offer the same package on phones subsidsed by the networks, which tightly regulate the applications that can be downloaded in order to maximise their own revenues, a spokesman for the company said.

A range of Microsoft products have been used in Nokia phones in the past, including Windows Media DRM 10, which provides copy protection for music files, but this will be the first time that the Nokia's own operating system will be able to synchronise with some of Microsoft's most widely-used consumer products.

The deal will mean, for instance, that contacts from a Nokia phone can be synchronised with those on Windows Live, Microsoft's internet platform, and that pictures taken on phones can be uploaded to the internet more easily.

Nokia has for some time been providing software designed to facilitate mobile internet access and, in turn, enable the company to share more readily in the advertising revenue associated with such services.

It added Microsoft's copy protection program in 2005, and earlier this month announced that its new phones would soon come installed with PlayReady, another Microsoft product, which provides a platform for delivering digital content such as music, video, and images.

"These aren't just applications that will sit in the background of your phone," Steven Knuff, a Nokia spokesman, said. "They will integrate and intertwine fully with your phone. This is about converging the fixed and mobile internet so that users just think of there being one internet, which they access from a single platform."

Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president for Online Services at Microsoft, said: "The availability of Windows Live services on Nokia devices demonstrates our commitment to extending people's online lives from the PC to the device."

Source: TIMES ONLINE UK

Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 Due in September

2007-08-24T09:53:00.001-07:00

Microsoft is set to launch a portion of its business intelligence technology platform, PerformancePoint Server 2007, at an event in New York on Sept. 20.

The second piece to Microsoft's BI technology triad, SQL Server 2008 (code-named Katmai), is scheduled to ship in the second quarter of 2008. The company's third major tech component, Office 2007, is available now—and will be integrated with PerformancePoint Server 2007.

But with the company's BI strategy spread over three major components with a remaining year-long release cycle, will businesses have the luxury to wait?

In a recent report, IT research firm IDC found that the BI market grew by more than 11 percent in 2006, with the BI tools market driven by the need for improved CPM (Corporate Performance Management) and, to a lesser extent, compliance software.

Performance management really centers around various decision-support and reporting functions that help companies to improve revenue, profit and operational efficiency, according to IDC analyst Dan Vesset, who said in a statement that "Microsoft had another strong year" with performance management.

The release of Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 next month is really the repackaging of Microsoft's ProClarity acquisition a little over a year ago, which brought CPM functionality to Microsoft's BI portfolio.

At heart, CPM allows chief financial officers to answer critical questions about their business—questions like: "How are we doing? Why are we doing well (or doing poorly)? And what should we be doing about it?"

But Microsoft isn't alone in pursuing the CPM angle to garnering business intelligence users—folks Microsoft hopes to lure beyond the CFO's office. SAP and Oracle, two formidable competitors in the business applications sector, have each acquired CPM capabilities in the past six months.

SAP announced May 8 its intention to acquire OutlookSoft, which provides planning, budgeting, forecasting and consolidation software. Oracle spent $3.3 billion in April to acquire Hyperion, an industry leader in CPM software.

Chris Caren, general manager of Office Business Applications at Microsoft said in a May interview with eWEEK that his company plans to do something "really different" with CPM.

"While we are targeting the CFO and compliance we bet incredibly hard on Excel, making it a place where you can work with information securely and share information securely," said Caren, in Redmond, Wash. "Our ease of use and our price point leads to much broader solutions. SAP and Oracle typically don't go beyond the CFO; our goal is to [reach] everyone who might own a budget."

ith about 500 million licenses of Office floating around, Excel offers quite a leg up for Microsoft as it works to expand BI throughout the enterprise—and with the release of PerformancePoint Server 2007 next month, it's available.

But that still leaves the question of whether a 2008 release of Katmai will leave users hanging?

While PerformancePoint Server will include dashboards, score carding and analytics for monitoring, analysis and planning, Katmai is really the underlying applications layer of Microsoft's BI platform—and the basis of Microsoft's overall data platform vision.

According to Microsoft's Aug. 22 press release, Katmai (SQL Server 2008), will "help organizations deliver a more secure, reliable data platform for storing business-critical information and delivering the right information to all users."

At Microsoft's May BI event in Seattle, Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, outlined Katmai's capabilities that include the ability for large scale data warehousing and richer information delivery through Office.

"Beyond rational database capabilities, [users] will be able to store any type of data, including unstructured," said Raikes. "It's a new data model that will enable [developers] to build richer applications faster."

At the same time, Katmai will utilize software from SoftArtisans, a company Microsoft acquired last year that generates functional Excel spreadsheets and Word documents over the Web—without the need for Office on the server—by populating Office documents with dynamic data from any source. The bottom line: SoftArtisans enables better interoperability of reporting with Office.

"We have a very strong interoperability in terms of taking reporting services and exporting that to Word, or Excel, but [SoftArtisans] gives you the capability to start in Word or start in Excel to access information and author reports from there," said Caren in his May interview.

So while Microsoft BI users will have pretty good CPM capabilities with PerformancePoint 2007 Server—an obvious business driver—the real meat seems to be coming next year.

Source: E WEEK

IBM Vs. Microsoft In Telephony Integration Middleware Race

2007-08-24T09:52:00.001-07:00

IBM's plans to ship next year telephony integration technology as a foundation for its Sametime unified communications client highlights the company's approach to the emerging UC market, along with its key differences with rivalMicrosoft( MSFT).

Mike Rhodin, Lotus' general manager for IBM, on Wednesday unveiled Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony at the VoiceCon show in San Francisco. Along with the new product, which is expected to be released in beta in the first quarter of next year, Rhodin also introduced a new version of Sametime that starts to ship in the fall, and announced the acquisition of Web-conferencing company WebDialogs.

Unified Telephony, in general, would provide a software platform that IBM customers could use to leverage PBX or IP PBX systems from multiple vendors within the Sametime UC and collaboration client. PBXs interconnect telephone extensions to each other as well as to the outside telephone network. Unified communications enable the real-time redirection of voice, text, or e-mail to the device closest to the user at any given time.

IBM has partnered with Siemens to get the technology IBM needs to connect the Unified Telephony platform, scheduled to ship in the middle of next year, to legacy telephone systems. "It's a natural marriage of skills," Rhodin said during a news conference that followed his VoiceCon keynote. "They're very good at the back-end stuff, and we're very good on the front end."

The partnership also demonstrates a difference in approach to the UC market between IBM and Microsoft, which has yet to partner with infrastructure companies like Siemens in delivering its UC platform in the fall. IBM's announcements came one day after Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate VP of Microsoft's Unified Communications Group, told VoiceCon attendees that Microsoft would ship Office Communications Server 2007, Office Communicator 2007, and Office Live Meeting Oct. 16.

IBM has chosen to approach the market with technology that can leverage companies' existing telephone systems, while Microsoft has made it clear that it hopes to one day replace those systems with software-based communications running on servers. "When you don't have a software-centric point of view, then you're heading in the wrong direction," Pall said at VoiceCon.

Rhodin, on the other hand, said IBM has no plans to compete with PBX vendors, but prefers to use standard integration technology to connect its middleware to whatever telecommunications systems its customers choose. "IBM is not trying to drive down a path that will require ripping out technology," Rhodin told reporters.

IBM also looks at Microsoft's UC platform as catch-up technology, arguing that the software maker is just starting to deliver capabilities that can match those of IBM, which has been in the UC market years longer than Microsoft. "We think we're in the lead here ... and we plan on staying ahead," Rhodin said.

According to market researcher COMMfusion, IBM and Microsoft are offering the same UC components: voice and telephony, collaboration, instant messaging and presence, unified messaging, and integration with business processes and applications. The differences, however, is that IBM is leveraging partner technology in the areas of voice and telephony, and unified messaging. In the area of integration to business applications, Microsoft, so far, is connecting only to its Office productivity suite. That, however, is likely to be expanded.

COMMfusion analyst Blair Pleasant said during a breakout session at VoiceCon that Microsoft is using gateways in the areas of voice and video Internet telephony to integrate with other parts of the enterprise. Its platform, however, could operate without PBXs.

Microsoft is expected to market its Office Communications Server and other software as a complement to PBX and IP PBX systems. But Pleasant believes the company is actually offering a "Trojan horse," since its likely when companies are ready to replace their PBX systems, Microsoft will have many of the telephone control capabilities they'll need.

IBM's products, on the other hand, emphasizes Sametime as the UC client, offer telephony integration with PBX suppliers, and leverages IBM's WebSphere application server to embed communications within business applications, such as enterprise resource planning and customer management software from SAP and Oracle-owned PeopleSoft and Siebel.

To extend Sametime with new functionality, IBM is offering open-source Eclipse development tools. Microsoft is focused on its own Visual Studio suite.

Meanwhile, in its effort to stay one step ahead of Microsoft, IBM introduced at VoiceCon Sametime 8, which will be available in three versions: entry, standard and advanced. The latter version would include three new capabilities. First is the ability to create a permanent chat room in which people can move in and out of. Secondly, communities of employees can be set up around, for example, a particular expertise, so a person can ask a question to the community and get answers from people they may not know. The response thread could then be archived as part of an FAQ.

The third function adds screen sharing to Sametime, so a person could actually see the desktop of the person they are communicating with. The standard edition of Sametime 8 will be available in the fall, while the advanced and entry editions are scheduled to ship in the first half of next year. The entry edition would be available in the fall to customers of Lotus Notes 8, which IBM made generally available Aug. 17.

With the WebDialogs acquisition, IBM plans to add Web conferencing as an online service accessible through Sametime. The software-as-a-service offering will be called Lotus Sametime Unyte. Unyte was the name of the WebDialogs service. "We found that they have the easiest system to use in the market," Rhodin said.

IBM is targeting small-to-medium sized businesses and departments within larger organizations. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

Microsoft Recalls Smoky Xbox 360 Racing Wheel

2007-08-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

The racing wheel accessory for Microsoft(MSFT)'s Xbox 360 is smoking -- but not in a good way.

In the latest setback to its troubled video game system, Microsoft is recalling a part on the wireless steering wheel because it overheats. Microsoft on Tuesday called the move a "precautionary" measure.

Microsoft in a statement said it's been informed of "a very small number" of incidents where components in the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel overheat and emit smoke when the unit is plugged into an AC outlet. The company is releasing a free retrofit that's designed to fix the problem. Until gamers receive it, Microsoft is advising them to use the wheel on battery power only.

It's hardly surprising that Microsoft is taking no chances when it comes to the Xbox and potential fire hazards. The company is currently being sued by the family of an Illinois toddler who died in a blaze that the family claims was started by faulty Xbox wiring. Microsoft has denied the allegation and is fighting the matter in court.

But the possibility of spontaneous combustion isn't Microsoft's only Xbox-related problem. A number of users have sued the company claming that the system scratches their pricey game discs, rendering them useless.

Additionally, Microsoft took a fourth-quarter charge against earnings of $1.06 billion to cover the cost of extending the warranty on the Xbox 360. The move was a response to users' complaints that the systems have a tendency to malfunction irreparably after just several months of use.

Xbox users can find out how to get the racing wheel retrofit by visiting the Xbox support forum on Microsoft's Web site.

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

We're not Google, says Microsoft

2007-08-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has lambasted Google for its YouTube video-sharing site, claiming that its own Soapbox is far more responsible and doesn't take advantage of "loopholes" in copyright law, according to CNet.

Thomas Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel for copyright was quoted by the technology news site saying that unlike Google's YouTube, Microsoft's Soapbox video-sharing site has been designed to work in concert with copyright holders and that it represents an effort to be a good corporate citizen.

Soapbox uses what Microsoft calls Audible Magic fingerprinting technology to ensure this.

In a swipe at Google, which has been sued by Viacom over the presence of numerous copyrighted videos on YouTube, Rubin said that Microsoft "could have looked for potential loopholes in the DMCA or the fair-use provisions of the Copyright Act...but it would have done nothing to address the significant and legitimate concerns of the content industry."

DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which sets the rules for Website liability. "Before a video is uploaded to the site, before it gets posted, there is a fingerprint taken of the file that identifies what that file is, and it's checked against the database that the content industry has created and populated (to tell) whether the uploaded file is infringing," Rubin said. "If it is, we don't allow it to go up. It's that simple."

If current court precedents are any indication, Google may not be legally required by the DMCA to implement pre-emptive filtering techniques.

A takedown procedure based on reports of infringing videos may be sufficient. But a Google attorney has said in the Viacom case that some kind of YouTube filtering will be in place by September, reported Cnet. "It's important to point it out because it really should serve as a model for all in the content and technology industries," Rubin said.

Alan Davidson, a Google representative in Washington, responded by saying "Google has valued" its relationship with "hundreds of content creators", but did not elaborate.

Microsoft has long been more copyright-friendly than Web-centric companies, as evidenced by its support for stronger copyright laws, artificial limits placed on its Zune media player and the steps it took to embed digital rights management (DRM) for "premium content" into Windows Vista (even to the extent of limiting usability).

One reason why Microsoft is more copyright-friendly than Google, of course, is that it makes nearly all of its revenue not from online advertising, but by selling copyrighted software. Google doesn't, and believes in a free world as they say.

Source: TIMES OF INDIA

Microsoft offers HD Photo plug-in for Photoshop

2007-08-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has released an HD Photo plug in for Adobe Photoshop CS2 or CS3 running on Mac OS X v10.4. The plug-in is being offered as a beta version; it will expire on December 31, 2007.

HD Photo — once known as Windows Media Photo — was introduced by Microsoft to the public at large with the release of Windows Vista. Microsoft claims the format offers better image fidelity than JPEG, higher image compression efficiency and more flexible editing features. The company has even gone so far to submit the format’s specifications to the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) for consideration as a new standard Microsoft calls “JPEG XR.”

This beta plug-in enables those versions of Photoshop to support HD Photo images. “This release includes all the features and user interface changes for the final release, including the installer. The HD Photo plug-in supports a wide range of pixel formats (including high dynamic range, wide gamut formats) and numerous advanced HD Photo features,” reads the Web page for download.

Source: MACWORLD

Windows has 'fewer flaws' than Linux

2007-08-20T06:03:00.001-07:00

Data collected by a Microsoft security researcher suggests that the company had to patch far fewer software vulnerabilities than competing vendors in 2007.

A vulnerability report maintained by Jeff Jones, strategy director at Microsoft's Security Technology Unit, claimed that the firm's Windows XP, Vista and Server operating systems required patches for some 20-45 vulnerabilities each.

During the same period, vendors such as Red Hat, Apple and Novell have had to patch hundreds of vulnerabilities, according to Microsoft.

Jones released a similar report in June chronicling vulnerabilities reported in major operating systems during the first 90 days after release.

The latest report does not give exact figures, only graphs, but the data appears to be accurate.

A tally of this year's security bulletins by vnunet.com found 43 flaws in Windows XP that had been patched, similar to Jones's estimates. In contrast, Apple's last security update alone patched 45 flaws in OS X.

Applications not installed by default, such as Microsoft Office, were not counted.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Workstation and Ubuntu Linux topped the list with roughly 170 and 150 vulnerabilities patched r espectively. Red Hat's Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 received around 130 vulnerability fixes, according to Jones.

Jones's enterprise figures painted a similar picture, showing fewer than 40 fixes for Windows Server 2003, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Server had more than 100 vulnerabilities patched and Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise server had roughly 70.

The study only takes into account vulnerabilities patched by the vendor, and does not record such things as current zero-day flaws.

The report also does not mention vulnerabilities that were or are currently being actively exploited, an area where Microsoft continues to be far more prone than its competitors.

Source: VNUNET

Microsoft and Google go head to head in storage and office apps

2007-08-18T01:15:00.000-07:00

Microsoft increases Hotmail storage to 5GB as Google bundles StarOffice in Google Pack.

There has been no love lost in recent times between arch-rivals Google and Microsoft but moves in the last few days show the two companies are on a head-on collision course in the Web 2.0 biosphere.

Earlier this week, Google announced it had begun including Sun Microsystem’s previously payware office suite StarOffice as part of its free Google Pack of software tools. Google Pack is an expanding range of free software tools that currently includes its own software such as Google Earth, Google Desktop, Picasa, Google Talk, Google Toolbar and Google Photos Screensaver and external third-party tools. These tools now cover Norton Security Scan (anti-virus), Adobe Reader (portable document reader), Skype (on-line telephony) and now StarOffice.

StarOffice has previously been sold for as much as $US70 and is closely related to the open-source freeware suite called OpenOffice and based on Sun’s Java platform independent runtime engine.

The addition of StarOffice comes only days after Microsoft admitted that it could release the next version of its venerable budget Works office suite as a free advertising-supported application online in coming months.

Google has also expanded its storage options allowing users to buy online storage with range of plans including:

6GB ($US20 per year)
25GB ($US75 per year)
100GB ($US250 per year)
250GB ($US500 per year)
The online giant now offers 1GB of free storage with its Picasa online photo image service and 2.8GB with a Gmail email account.

But not to be outdone, Microsoft has upped the ante by claiming it will soon be giving Hotmail users 5GB of free storage, more than 2GB above Google’s offering. With Yahoo giving users unlimited storage, it places Google back in third place out of the big-three online entities.

Microsoft will also increase the storage limit to paid users of Hotmail to 10GB.

The storage expansion is part of a number of changes the Microsoft online email service is rolling out over the next few weeks with improvements to performance, quality of service and added extras such as auto de-duplication of contacts and longer retention of deleted entries and folders according to the blog maintained by Ellie Powers-Boyle.

The emergence of online storage and free big-name applications looks to be the first serious threat to Microsoft’s dominance of the PC and it’s a threat that will have consumers front and centre deciding who wins.

Google and Microsoft have appeared as two boxers sparring at each other for the last 18 months however the announcements and releases over the last few days show that the sparring may soon graduate to an all-in brawl.

Source: TECHLOGG

Microsoft denies PatchGuard update connected to kernel hacks

2007-08-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

Tuesday's update to Windows Vista's PatchGuard, a kernel-protection scheme designed to keep malicious or unproven code at arm's length, had nothing to do with recent hacks of another Vista defense, Microsoft said today.

The update to Kernel Patch Protection (KPP), also known as PatchGuard, was issued Tuesday to Vista 64-bit users, but the description of the enhancement was inscrutable. All Microsoft said at the time was "this update adds checks to this protection for increased resiliency in Windows."

Third-party researchers filled the vacuum with speculation about the update's purpose, with much of that speculation centered on a possible connection between the update and multiple disclosures that Vista's kernel code-signing defense -- another barrier Microsoft set up to protect the kernel, but separate from PatchGuard -- could be easily circumvented. Among the end-arounds was a utility written by Alex Ionescu, a Canadian college student interning this summer at Apple Inc. Ionescu's "Purple Pill" used a flawed, but legitimate and signed ATI Technologies video driver, to slip unsigned code past Vista's protection.

When asked to divine the update's intent, Ollie Whitehouse, a Symantec Corp. researcher tracking Vista kernel signing, said he believed Microsoft was reacting to the code-signing evasions by toughening up PatchGuard. "It looks like they are trying to make it harder to do anything malicious once you've exploited vulnerabilities which allow code to be executed in the kernel, such as the ATI driver," Whitehouse said Tuesday.

Microsoft claimed that wasn't the case. "These are unrelated events," said Russ Humphries, a senior product manager on the Vista team in a posting to the group's blog today. "Perhaps the mix up is due to a confluence of events, or -- put another way -- the fact that we released an update to KPP at the same time that news about an ATI driver issue appeared," Humphries continued. "The update to KPP has no relationship to the ATI driver issue or recent topics related to code signing."

Others in the company pointed out yesterday that PatchGuard, or KPP, has been updated before. During Microsoft's monthly post-patch webcast yesterday, Mike Reavy, a program manager with the Microsoft Security Response Center, said: "It's normal for us to update [KPP] on an ongoing basis. This is the second type of update we've released."

For his part, Ionescu agreed that his utility and the PatchGuard update were not conjoined. "They're not related," he said yesterday. "The [PatchGuard] patch was going to come out either way."

Source: COMPUTER WORLD

Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite launched in India for Rs 34,990

2007-08-18T00:46:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has finally launched their Xbox 360 Elite edition in the Indian market. This variant of the gaming console sports a premium black finish, and signature metallic detailing.

It comes packaged with a component HD cable and HDMI cable along with a 120GB hard drive.

Microsoft is already selling the other two variants of the Xbox 360 in the Indian market including the one without any hard disk and the one with a 20GB hard disk.

This Elite edition supports high definition multimedia interface which would enable the owner to view the games in HD video (up to 1080p) and multi-channel surround sound — all from one cable.

Mohit Anand, country manager - entertainment and devices division, Microsoft spoke at the launch of the Xbox 360 Elite edition in the Indian market: “There is a huge demand for gaming in the country, and fans are constantly craving for products and features that enhance their experience. The Xbox 360 Elite’s good looks, larger storage space, and premium features will allow our customers in India to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer.”

The Elite edition is however pretty expensive at Rs 34,990 which comes to around USD 875.

Source: TECHWHACK

Microsoft Wants To Top $155 Million In First-Day Halo Sales

2007-08-15T20:58:00.002-07:00

Microsoft is shooting the moon with Halo 3. Variety reported over the weekend that Microsoft is looking to top not only Halo 2's opening numbers but the first-weekend box office take from Spider-Man 3:

In its first 24 hours of release in 2004, the second installment of the sci-fi shooter earned $125 million ... With "Halo 3," Microsoft's Xbox unit wants not only to top the 2004 figure but to reach $155 million in a single day -- besting the $151 million opening weekend for "Spider-Man 3," the current record holder for a pic at the box office.

Can they do it? I guess when you're guaranteed a huge success, you might as well set an even higher bar for yourself.

Source: VNUNET

Microsoft Reveals First Vista Gadget Bugs

2007-08-15T20:58:00.001-07:00

Microsoft Corp. Tuesday patched several Windows Vista gadgets, the first time it's had to fix the small applications, prompting one researcher to mark the date as the real "arrival of the next-generation of vulnerabilities."

The three bugs detailed in one of the nine bulletins issued Tuesday could let attackers inject their own malicious code into a victim's Vista-powered PC, said Microsoft. Three of Vista's bundled gadgets -- the small applications that sit on the desktop, usually pulling information from other programs or off the Web -- are flawed: the RSS, contacts and weather gadgets. The vulnerabilities in the RSS and weather gadgets are particularly dangerous, since both are enabled by default in a standard Vista installation.

"If a user subscribed to a malicious RSS feed in the Feed Headlines Gadget or added a malicious contacts file in the Contacts Gadget or a user clicked on a malicious link in the Weather Gadget an attacker could potentially run code on the system," Microsoft reported in the bulletin.

Although the bugs can result in remote code executing on the target machine -- a characteristic that usually pegs the vulnerability as "critical" -- Microsoft ranked them one step lower, as "important," in part because Vista's revised account rights settings should deflect the worst kind of damage.

Most third-party researchers, however, fixed attention not so much on the bugs themselves but on the fact that they lived inside Vista's gadgets.

"Six months ago, around the time of Vista [release] we started talking about the new types of vulnerabilities we might see," said Amol Sarwate, the manager of Qualys' vulnerability research lab. "These vulnerabilities are a testament that this next generation has finally arrived."

Tyler Reguly, a Toronto-based researcher with nCircle Network Security Inc., also tapped the gadget vulnerabilities as among the most interesting of Tuesday. "There was actually an article almost two years ago quoting a researcher at Trend Micro who said that RSS would be the botnets' next stomping ground," said Reguly in a posting to the nCircle blog. "This vulnerability could be proof of that. When you subscribe to an RSS feed you are implicitly trusting that feed. This vulnerability takes advantage of that trust relationship, inserting malicious code into something that you are 'blindly' trusting."

Like Sarwate, Reguly thinks that the RSS gadget bug is a harbinger of bad things to come. "It's a scary thought. This isn't like clicking a link in Internet Explorer...this action has been pre-approved. I'm interested to see where this will lead us."

VeriSign iDefense, which originally reported the RSS bug to Microsoft in March, also spelled out how a hacker could wreak the most havoc with the vulnerability. "If an attacker can find some way to inject data into a trusted feed then they will be able to exploit any subscribers to the feed," the company said in its own advisory, also published Tuesday. iDefense credited Aviv Raff, a security researcher who works for Finjan Inc. and is noted for rooting out bugs in Web browsers. In the past, Raff has disclosed vulnerabilities in Apple Inc.'s Safari and Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox.

But while these patches are the first to fix Microsoft's tools, flawed gadgets aren't new. Late last month, for example, Yahoo Widgets, a competing gadget platform, was tagged with a critical vulnerability in an associated ActiveX control.

Microsoft's gadget patches can be grabbed via one of the developer's update services.

Source: PC WORLD

Citrix Increases VMware's Competition

2007-08-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

VMware saw its competition toughen up just a day after its eye-popping debut on the stock market -- but investors didn't seem to fret.

Business software maker Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) Systems CTXS said Wednesday that it would shell out $500 million for a small VMware VMW rival called XenSource, which sells "virtualization" software products that help make servers more efficient.

Executives at Citrix say XenSource will make it a strong player in the young virtualization market. Analysts estimate that privately held XenSource's sales this year will probably be less than $5 million, but they give it a chance to grow quickly because of the benefits of virtualization.

"It's a great market," said Michael Cristinziano, vice president of strategic development at Citrix. "It's one of those once-in-a-decade technology shifts."

Cristinziano estimates XenSource sales could rise to $50 million next year and $200 million in 2009.

Citrix already is somewhat in virtualization, but not in the hot server market. Citrix's main business is software that makes it easier to put Windows applications on PCs at remote locations via the Internet.

But some analysts don't see any big competition rising against VMware for a year or longer. VMware is viewed as far ahead in developing the technology. They call Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSFT the largest threat for VMware.

"VMware has several years (on) XenSource," said James Gilman, an analyst at Soleil Securities-Cross Research. "That will allow (VMware) to be able to compete and maintain their market share."

VMware became a Wall Street darling Tuesday when its stock soared 76% in its first day of trading. And despite the Citrix announcement, VMware shares rose another 13% on Wednesday. Priced at $29 a share, VMware now trades at 57.71.

Citrix shares fell 1.5% on another down day for the market.

VMware, founded in 1998, pioneered a new type of virtualization. Its software creates multiple "virtual" servers within a physical server. This saves customers money because they can pack more software onto servers. VMware also sells other software and services designed to enhance servers and other hardware.

Analysts put VMware's market share at 85% to 90%, a dominance that lets it command hefty prices. Its sales jumped 89% in the second quarter from the year-ago quarter. Its operating income rose 81%. The company is on pace to do well over $1 billion in sales this year vs. just $74 million as recently as 2003.

Citrix, which passed the $1-billion-per-year sales mark last year, gives XenSource some heft to take on the market juggernaut. Citrix, for example, has some 5,000 resellers to 350 for open-source vendor XenSource.

With XenSource, Citrix gains an entry into the hot server virtualization market. Market trackers forecast sales in this sector to grow at a compound annual rate of 40% for the next few years. Citrix also gets some help with its own desktop virtualization products. Its software lets companies set up desktop systems on multiple machines, using a single server to provide the operating system and applications.

Analysts say Citrix paid a steep price for XenSource, in a deal expected to close this year. But Citrix's Cristinziano says the sum was reasonable given XenSource's assets.

"You pay for what you get," he said.

Under Citrix, XenSource might be able to speed up its development of virtualization tools to close the gap with VMware, says Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research. (NASDAQ:FORR)

Microsoft, meanwhile, is expected to release its virtualization lineup that competes more head-to-head with VMware in late 2008.

Software sectors usually end up as two-horse races, and virtualization should be no exception, says Walter Pritchard, an analyst at Cowen & Co.

"If you're a No. 3 player in the market, it's not too exciting," he said.

He estimates that VMware's market share will fall to 53% by 2011, mostly due to gains by Microsoft.

Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert points to another factor. While Citrix competes with Microsoft to an extent, it also has a long history of working with Microsoft. For that matter, she says, XenSource also has built a strong relationship with the maker of Windows.

The "co-opetition" between Microsoft and Citrix, Egbert says, could present more competition down the road for VMware.

Source: CNN

Google and Microsoft Look to Change Health Care

2007-08-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports that both Google and Microsoft may soon be entering the online health care market. Will there be a link to “Google Health” at the top of the company’s home page? According to the Times, the project is still an internal prototype and unlikely to be available even as a beta for some time.

The article does, however, offer a tantalizing glimpse at what Google Health could look like:

A presentation of screen images from the prototype — which two people who received it showed to a reporter — then has 17 other Web pages including a “health profile” for medications, conditions and allergies; a personalized “health guide” for suggested treatments, drug interactions and diet and exercise regimens; pages for receiving reminder messages to get prescription refills or visit a doctor; and directories of nearby doctors.

Google executives would not comment on the prototype, other than to say the company plans to experiment and see what people want. “We’ll make mistakes and it will be a long-range march,” said Adam Bosworth, a vice president of engineering and leader of the health team. “But it’s also true that some of what we’re doing is expensive, and for Google it’s not.”

Also worth noting in the Times piece is the way that the web has already changed how many of us approach health care. Of particular interest is the future-of-health-care portrait painted by John D. Halamka, a doctor and the chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School, who sees the future of health care on the web.

With more and more people using WebMD or Google to research symptoms before they see a professional, Halamka tells the Times that “the doctor is becoming a knowledge navigator… in the future, health care will be a much more collaborative process between patients and doctors.”

And that image probably won’t be limited to your symptoms, but may well extend to patient records. “Patients will ultimately be the stewards of their own information,” says Halamka who believes that eventually we will control our records rather than the institutions that provide the care.

Halamka’s vision might be a bit utopian given the nature of the health care industry and it also raises some additional questions — who hosts the records? And do you want Microsoft or Google in on the management of your health history?

Source: WIRED

Microsoft Increases Free E-Mail Storage Limit

2007-08-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. is increasing the storage limit for its Web-based e-mail service, surpassing competitor Google Inc.'s limit but far short of Yahoo Inc.'s unlimited storage.

The limit for a free Windows Live Hotmail account will increase from 2G bytes to 5G bytes. The change will be rolled out to users over the next few weeks along with a series of other upgrades, wrote Ellie Powers-Boyle, a Microsoft program manager, on a company blog.

Google offers around 2.8G bytes of storage space for a free account. Last week, Google began selling storage space that can be used for either its Gmail or Picasa photo sharing services for US$20 a year for another 6G bytes as well as more expensive plans.

Under the new changes, Microsoft will let users store 10G bytes of e-mail data for a $14.99 annual subscription. Those subscribers will also get a new feature: the ability to forward e-mail from their Hotmail account to a Gmail or other e-mail account.

Unfortunately, users of the free service will only be able to forward e-mail from one Hotmail account to another Hotmail account, essentially blocking them from a quick migration to another free e-mail service.

Another new Hotmail option is the ability to shut off the "Today" feature, which shows top news and features stories on Microsoft's MSN portal. It appears after a user logs into their Hotmail account.

Microsoft is also changing some of Hotmail's security features. One new feature is a link, "Report phishing" that alerts Microsoft to a possible scam Web site linked to an e-mail.

Powers-Boyle also wrote that Microsoft is trying to make Hotmail run faster. The company will also increase the amount of time that messages are stored in the junk and deleted items folders before being automatically flushed, although no specific time period was given.

Other improvements include: Better performance for Hebrew and Arabic writers, a feature that stops the duplication of contact information and the ability to set an automated response.

Source: PC WORLD

Google bowls for Microsoft Office buyers with free StarOffice

2007-08-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Sun's Microsoft Office workalike, formerly $70, suddenly materializes in the Google Pack download, writes Executive Editor Eric Knorr

Two years ago Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and Scott McNealy, still CEO of Sun at the time, made a joint announcement that was notable for its lack of content. The only real substance: Sun would bundle Google Toolbar with Sun's Java Runtime Environment.

But Schmidt did drop one hint of more to come: "We will work to make the distribution of [OpenOffice] become broader. We are not announcing specifics."

It took a while, but if you check the Google Pack page –- where Google rolls together a motley group of free software into a big download –- you’ll now find StarOffice on the list. This is notable for a couple of reasons. First, although StarOffice and its open-source cousin OpenOffice share the same code base, StarOffice has added features -– a spell-checker and thesaurus plus some Windows fonts and clip art. And until now, StarOffice sold for $70.

In the past few people took Star/OpenOffice seriously. Those who still deal with the vagaries of, say, Mac Word documents opened in Windows shudder at the idea of adding file interoperability uncertainties with third-party software. And neither StarOffice nor OpenOffice support Office 2007 file formats.

But do they need to? Just over the weekend, a non-technical friend complained to me that Office 2007 hid all the commands he used and exposed all the commands he didn't use. Such lamentations depend on how you use the product, but the point is that Office 2007's UI is a major departure from earlier versions, and those who despise learning curves may seek out an alternative that more closely resembles previous Office versions.

Microsoft may be in a tougher spot than it's ever been -- Vista sluggishness in sales and performance, browser-based workalikes of its desktop apps, reports of developers moving away from Windows. And as far as anyone can determine, the company does not yet have a coherent response to Google Apps. The sudden appearance of StarOffice as a free download is not a momentous event. But it's one more chink in Microsoft's corroding armor.

Source: INFO WORLD

Microsoft Moves Toward Exchange Server 2007 SP1

2007-08-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

Microsoft(MSFT) Tuesday announced details of Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and opened up a new test release to Microsoft Developer Network and TechNet subscribers, adding much-needed integration and support for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 into Exchange.
Though an older test release of the company's latest e-mail server product already was powering e-mail for more than 150,000 people, the new community technology preview is now feature complete, including increased support for Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 SP2, and Windows Vista. For example, Exchange management tools now run on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The Vista support fills one of Vista's remaining holes in application compatibility, which has been one of the operating system's early troubles.

However, the number one feature request for Exchange Server 2007 SP1, according to Microsoft, was "standby continuous replication," a feature that enables an organization to do keep a hot copy of live e-mail data on a standby server in lieu of or in addition to implementing more extensive clusters of live servers. Mid-size organizations are demanding this so they don't have to pay for clusters, and enterprises want it for smaller sites, according to Microsoft group product manager Ray Mohrman.

Exchange Server 2007 SP1 also adds an array of other updates, including the introduction of IPv6 support, new features for Outlook Web Access, tighter integration with Office Communications Server 2007, a service pack for Forefront Security for Exchange Server that "increases filtering and scanning performance," new ActiveSync policies for synchronization, authentication, encryption, and smaller details like the ability to prevent Exchange ActiveSync-enabled mobile devices from taking pictures with their cameras.

According to a slide shown at the company's annual Financial Analyst Meeting last month, Exchange is a $1.5 billion annual business. Microsoft says more than 1,000 companies and about 3 million people total have switched from Lotus Notes to Exchange Server within the last year. The final version of Exchange Server 2007 SP1 is expected by the end of the year.

Source: Information Week

Microsoft Buys aQuantive, Sets Up Online Ad Group

2007-08-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Monday said it completed its most expensive acquisition ever and is establishing a new online advertising group to battle Google and Yahoo head-to-head.

In May, the company paid US$6 billion for aQuantive, a digital marketing services agency, to help expand its Internet advertising business. The deal, Microsoft largest ever in terms of dollar amount, closed and Microsoft formed the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group that will be headed by former aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews.

In July, CEO Steve Ballmer emphatically said that Microsoft was investing in new areas, including online advertising where the mindset is to win big.

"We are going to be an advertising company," Ballmer said during the company's annual meeting for financial analysts. "We need to embrace that. We need to be world class at that."

The acquisition of aQuantive is the centerpiece of an online advertising build out that also includes the July purchase of AdECN, which links buyers and sellers of Internet ad space. In May, the company bought ScreenTonic, which delivers location-based ads to mobile devices. And last year, Microsoft bought video game ad firm Massive, which will be used to inject ads into online gaming services such as Xbox Live and MSN games. Terms were not announced for any of those deals.

Last year, Microsoft went live with its adCenter platform, which lets companies by advertising space on Live Search.

The flurry of activity represents Microsoft race with Google and Yahoo to provide the top platform for delivering online advertising.

Google also has been busy, paying $3.1 billion in April to acquire DoubleClick from under Microsoft's nose in a deal that prompted Microsoft aQuantive purchase. Also in April, Yahoo paid $680 million to complete a deal to acquire Right Media.

According to a report by UBS Investment Research in March, Google continues to be No. 1 in worldwide online search revenue, taking $10.5 billion of the $24.5 billion online advertising market in 2006. UBS cited figures from ZenithOptimedia and company reports. Yahoo came in second with $5.6 billion in revenue, while Microsoft was a distant third with $1.6 billion online advertising revenue in 2006.

As part of the close on the aQuantive deal Microsoft also set up its new APS advertising group, which will be responsible for all ad platforms, including aQuantive, MSNDR, AdCenter, and in-game and mobile ads.

Group chief McAndrews will report to Kevin Johnson, president of president of Microsoft's platforms and services division.

As part of the transition, Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the online services group, and Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of the search and advertising platform group, will also report to Johnson.

Source: PC WORLD

Group's Top 10 Mostly Microsoft Products

2007-08-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

What have been the most influential products in the technology market over the past 25 years? The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) was founded 25 years ago.

The organization was founded by representatives of five microcomputer dealerships working together to find better ways to do business, a spokesman for the group, which has now grown to 22,000 member companies, said.

For its 25th anniversary, the association decided to poll its members to find out what products have influenced technology. The list of 10 products was released this month.

Four of the five top spots were taken by Microsoft products. The Apple iPod, which has become one of the most successful products in history in its short life, was the only non-Mircosoft product in the top five.

The No. 1 spot went to Internet Explorer, selected as the most influential product by 66 percent of the information-technology professionals surveyed. Introduced in 1995, it has been around for only half of the 25-year span, and remains the market's predominant Web browser, the association noted.

Second was Microsoft Word, gaining the votes of 56 percent of those surveyed.

Microsoft Windows 95 placed third in the poll. It was chosen by 50 percent of those voting.

The exciting iPod and the rather unexciting Excel spreadsheet program from Microsoft tied for fourth place with 49 percent each.

"More than 100 million iPods have been sold since the portable digital media player launched in 2001, and more than 1.5 billion songs have been purchased from the Apple's iTunes online store," the association noted.

Meanwhile, Excel has taken about 90 percent of the spreadsheet market since it was introduced in the mid 1980s.

Rounding out the top 10 in the CompTIA poll on the most influential products, applications or technologies of the past 25 years were:

BlackBerry, 39 percent. Launched in 1999 by Research In Motion, this all-in-one wireless data and voice device was the first wireless device to synchronize with company e-mail systems so users did not require a different e-mail address when traveling.

Adobe Photoshop, 35 percent. The de facto standard in image editing was the first to bring affordable image editing down to the personal computer level in the late 1980s.

McAfee VirusScan, 32 percent. Popular antivirus program.

Netscape Navigator, 31 percent. Introduced in 1994, Navigator quickly became the leading browser on the Web.

Palm Pilot, 31 percent. The first personal digital assistant device manufactured by Palm, Inc., then a division of U.S. Robotics, and introduced in 1996. The following year, the device was named "High Tech Gizmo of the Year" by Newsweek.

Source: The Ledger

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 VHD

2007-08-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has released a pre-configured VHD of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 that can be downloaded and safely evaluated in a Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 environment in a similar manner to that of a VMware virtual appliance.

Overview:

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 is the next generation of the Windows Server operating system that helps information technology (IT) professionals maximize control over their infrastructure while providing unprecedented availability and management capabilities, leading to a significantly more secure, reliable, and robust server environment than ever before. Windows Server 2008 delivers new value to organizations by ensuring all users regardless of location are able to get the full complement of services from the network. Windows Server 2008 also provides deep insight into the operating system and diagnostic capabilities to allow administrators to spend more time adding business value.

Windows Server 2008 builds on the success and strengths of the award-winning Windows Server 2003 operating system and on the innovations delivered in Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2003 R2. However, Windows Server 2008 is far more than a refinement of predecessor operating systems. Windows Server 2008 is designed to provide organizations with the most productive platform for powering applications, networks, and Web services from the workgroup to the datacenter with exciting, valuable new functionality and powerful improvements to the base operating system.

Source: INFOWORLD

Microsoft tests dashboard view of online offerings

2007-08-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

Microsoft started testing on Thursday a new dashboard view for its various Windows Live online services.

A Windows Live user can sign onto home.live.com and quickly scan for new e-mails, blog postings from friends, contact updates or try out other Microsoft services such as online antivirus and spyware scans.

"It's a quick view and summary for all of the services you are using on Windows Live," Chris Jones, a Microsoft corporate vice president in the Windows Live group, said in a phone interview.

The world's largest software company aims to create a large and engaged audience in order to compete against Web rivals Yahoo and Google for tens of billions of dollars in online advertising.

Working in Microsoft's favor is a network of more than 300 million Windows Live users, who frequently log in to check e-mail and instant messages.

The company's other Web services are not as popular, but Microsoft says the new look could help introduce new services to existing e-mail and messaging users.

All Windows Live services will also have a home icon to take a user back to the dashboard view.

Windows Live services are linked on the back end by a common contacts database. A user can post a picture on Windows Live Spaces, its blog- and picture-sharing site, and send a notice to anyone on their instant messaging contact list.

Microsoft has said the next wave of Windows Live services is due out later this year.

Source: Reuters

Microsoft says 'Halo 3' presales set record

2007-08-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

Microsoft, warming up the "Halo 3" hype machine, announced today that preorders for the upcoming Xbox 360 video game have topped 1 million units -- a record pace for presales, the company said, citing reports from retailers.

Another interesting factoid: The company says the $129.99 "Halo 3" Legendary Edition -- complete with Spartan helmet case, pictured below -- is on track to sell out, based on preorders, even before the game is available. The news release doesn't say how many Legendary Edition units Microsoft is selling, but I've asked for that information, and I'll update this post if the company discloses it.

On the subject of this previous post, Microsoft also confirmed some of the product tie-ins that it's planning with other companies. They include a special "Halo 3" branded soda from Mountain Dew, "Halo 3" packaging at Burger King, a contest to win a limited-edition "Halo 3" G6 GXP Street car from Pontiac -- and, of course, a collectible "Halo 3" Slurpee Cup, from 7-11.

For the record, there are still 47 days remaining until the Sept. 25 launch.

Source: SEATTLEPI

Web 2.0 could erode Microsoft's dominance

2007-08-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's dominance is leading businesses to overlook problems with its products, says analyst Gartner.

But the growth of Web 2.0 technologies will challenge the company's position, says the report published last week.

Microsoft software is not always the best but firms are swayed by a combination of integration, ease-of-use and aggressive sales and marketing.

Reliance on Microsoft limits firms' flexibility, and also creates dependencies on the supplier's other products, says Gartner.

But the advent of quick-to-market Web 2.0 systems will erode the Redmond-based supplier's dominance and turn it into a follower rather than a leader.

'As enterprises move to standardise on a single workflow platform, Microsoft will be challenged to displace key infrastructure vendors such as SAP and Oracle,' says the report.

Source: VNUNet

'Vista Capable' Suit Against Microsoft Allowed to Proceed

2007-08-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

A judge in Washington state has denied Microsoft Corp.'s request to dismiss all claims in a suit alleging that "Windows Vista Capable" stickers the company put on PCs violated consumer protection laws and were an example of deceptive business practices, allowing the case to move ahead toward a jury trial.

In the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, Judge Marsha J. Pechman dismissed one of four claims by plaintiff Dianne L. Kelley in a lawsuit against Microsoft over the stickers, which Microsoft -- in conjunction with PC makers -- affixed to PCs that were sold before Windows Vista itself was available to give consumers an idea what machines could run the OS.

The suit also calls into question the fairness of Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" coupon program that allowed users to upgrade to Vista from XP machines for little or no cost after buying a "Windows Vista Capable" machine.

According to court papers, Judge Pechman is allowing two of the plaintiffs' claims to move into the trial phase of the case. One alleged that Microsoft violated the Consumer Protection Act by engaging in unfair or deceptive business practices by affixing "Windows Vista Capable" labels to PCs without telling consumers they may have to spend more money for a machine to run a premium edition of the OS. Another alleged that Microsoft unjustly received payment for Windows XP licenses and upgrades from Vista Basic to Vista Premium because of their practices.

Judge Pechman dismissed one claim, which called Microsoft's placement of "Windows Vista Capable" stickers on PCs that could not run all versions of Windows Vista a "breach of contract." Another claim -- that a "Windows Vista Capable" sticker represents a written warranty under federal law -- has been taken under advisement by the judge, which means she will decide how to proceed on that claim later, Microsoft said.

The case is scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 8.

Microsoft's hardware partners began shipping PCs with the "Windows Vista Capable" logo in April 2006 as a way for people to know that if they purchased a new Windows XP PC before the new OS was available, their machine would be ready to run Vista. However, the designation was potentially confusing, because a PC with the label was only guaranteed to run the least expensive, most basic version of Vista, Windows Home Basic.

A month later, Microsoft launched a Web site to explain the hardware requirements for different versions of Vista, as well as a new PC designation called "Windows Vista Premium Ready," which the company used to label PCs that could run Vista editions -- such as Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate -- with more features than Vista Basic. Microsoft also provided coupons for people who purchased these PCs to upgrade to the appropriate version of Vista either for free or for little cost once the OS was made available.

Kelley filed her suit against Microsoft in March as a class-action case, but whether the suit applies to an entire class of people with similar complaints has not yet been determined.

Kelley, a resident of Camano Island, Washington, purchased a PC with a "Windows Vista Capable" sticker affixed to it in November 2006. In her complaint, she said that Microsoft was "deceptive" in its failure to indicate that the PC lacked the "Premium Ready" designation. She also claimed that the upgrade she received for her PC only allowed her to upgrade to Vista Home Basic, which offered "few ... advantages over the existing XP operating system." Therefore, consumers were duped into thinking they would receive coupons for a "dramatically new" OS when they could not, according to her complaint.

Microsoft spokesman Guy Esnouf Friday said the company is pleased one of the claims in Kelley's complaint has been dismissed and looks forward to proving its case in court.

Source: PC WORLD

Apple Beats Microsoft at its Own Open XML Game

2007-08-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

Apple Inc.'s release of iWork '08 this week is "embarrassing," an analyst said Friday, not for its maker, but for Apple's rival, Microsoft Corp.

Tuesday, Apple rolled out a refreshed iWork that added a spreadsheet, dubbed Numbers, to the earlier mix of a word processor/page layout Pages and presentation maker Keynote. But it was iWork's ability to handle the Open XML file format -- the new native format for Microsoft's own Office 2007 application suite -- that Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch talked about.

"This was the ultimate insult to injury," Gartenberg said. "Not only has Microsoft not delivered the ability to read and write Open XML in its Mac Office, but at the end of the day, Apple was the one who delivered."

Gartenberg referred to Microsoft's problems developing Office 2008 for Mac, which the company announced last week would be delayed until mid-January. Among the roadblocks, said Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MBU), is the shift to Open XML as Office 2008's native file format. The company has also been slow in releasing conversion tools that let earlier editions of its Mac suite work with Office 2007's Open XML documents.

"This is embarrassing for MBU," Gartenberg said. "It has said that the shift to Intel has caused [its] problems, and changes in development tools, and the file format, too. But every other major vendor has pretty much managed to get their apps over to Intel [on the Mac]. Microsoft is one of the oldest Mac developers out there, so it's not like it doesn't have experience [on the platform]."

IWork '08 applications can open the OpenXML formats churned out by their Office 2007 counterparts -- Pages with Word, Numbers with Excel, Keynote with PowerPoint -- but cannot save in those formats. Currently, Office 2004 and Office v. X users can both open Word and PowerPoint Open XML files and save in those formats using beta converters MBU has issued. No such converter has been released that handles Excel 2007's Open XML files, however.

Ironically, one of those who praised iWork's handling of the Microsoft file format was a program manager for Office 2007. "[iWork '08] reads the Office Open XML files with very high fidelity," said Brian Jones on his company blog.

At the same time, Jones defended his fellow developers at Microsoft in MBU. "The Mac Office folks have a ton of stuff they are working on for the next version, so it's not surprising that you aren't seeing full Open XML support until they reach that point," Jones said in response to a question asking how Microsoft lost the race to Apple's iWork.

"Office for the Mac is just not a real priority for Microsoft," said Gartenberg as he spelled out his take for Microsoft's tardiness creating software on the Mac that can handle what are, after all, its own file formats. "And that's not likely to change anytime soon."

Asked to explain why Microsoft hasn't been able to match Apple, MBU's marketing manager, Amanda Lefebvre, ticked off the development issues that have delayed Office 2008.

"The transition to the new file format is one of several reasons the development cycle is longer with Office 2008," she said. "Office 2008 [for Mac] will run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs with a Universal Binary [and] this transition necessitated a switch to a new set of development tools as well. The combination of these two technology shifts definitely impacted our schedule."

Not quite, Gartenberg said. "What this really shows is Microsoft's inability to ship software on time these days," he said.

Apple, meanwhile, is doing the smart thing. "They're making sure that they're not dependent on Microsoft for any of the important software [for the Mac]," said Gartenberg.

That strategy, along with the US$79 price of iWork and the window of opportunity because of Office 2008's delay, puts Cupertino in the cat bird seat. "It's going to be hard for Microsoft to get those people who try and buy iWork back," he said. "Microsoft's let down its Mac customers."

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Unveils 'Money Plus'

2007-08-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

Microsoft on Friday released updated versions of its Microsoft Money personal finance management software.
At a time when more and more consumers are facing with a credit crunch and sagging stock portfolios, Microsoft Money Plus offers several new tools to help users keep a tighter rein on their finances.

Enhanced utilities provide alerts on when bills are due or overdue, offer detailed cash flow analysis and track a number of markets -- including stock exchanges, currencies and commodities -- through a dashboard, according to Microsoft.

An "Insights" feature makes key financial data available on the desktop so users don't have to launch the full application to get a quick update on their finances.

"Everyone is busy these days, and sometimes you just need to know your account balance or check out whether you have enough extra cash to splurge on dinner, an amazing outfit or the latest 'must have' golf gadget," said Chris Jolley, group manager of the Financial Products Group at Microsoft. The company has been offering personal finance software for 17 years including last year's $20 download-only Money Essentials.

Microsoft is also using Microsoft Money Plus as a platform through which it can deliver third party financial services to users. Identity theft monitoring, tax preparation and investment education are among them.

Microsoft has partnered with Experian, H&R Block, The Street.com and others to provide the services.

Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe sells for $49.99 with a $20.00 mail in rebate on offer. Money Plus Premium sells for $79.99 with a $30.00 rebate. A Home and Business edition sells for $89.99, also with a $30.00 rebate.

Microsoft is making a basic edition of the program available as a download for $19.99. The Money Plus software requires Windows XP (with SP2) or Windows Vista.

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

Microsoft India appoints new GM

2007-08-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

Software major Microsoft today appointed Amit Sircar as General Manager to head its Hyderabad-based Microsoft Global Services - India (MGSI) operations.

"MGSI is key to Microsoft's global growth plans in the services of business and we are confident that Amit is the right person to take the charter even further," Microsoft India Chairman Ravi Venkatesan said in a release here today.

Source: The Hindu

Perfect 10 Sues Microsoft

2007-08-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

A publisher of nude model photography is suing Microsoft Corp. for putting links and images of the company's content in search results taken from other Web sites that are illegally reproducing the material.

The company, Perfect 10 Inc., previously filed similar suits seeking injunctions against Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. over alleged copyright infringement.

The latest suit alleges that Microsoft's MSN image search feature creates unauthorized thumbnails of content owned by Perfect 10 and includes links to see a full-size versions of the images for free. The suit also says that Microsoft's MSN search engine makes passwords available to the company's perfect10.com Web site.

Microsoft also takes advertising money from Web sites that have stolen Perfect 10 images, and provides links to Web sites that offer passwords for Perfect 10's services, according to the lawsuit. The companies could not be immediately reached for comment.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Confirms HDMI Port Addition to Xbox 360

2007-08-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

Microsoft confirmed late Wednesday the existence of newly updated Xbox 360 units that include HDMI support. The news comes amid reports that new machines are now available in stores coinciding with today's price drops.

"Yes, we are offering an HDMI port for Xbox 360 simply as another choice in Xbox 360 owners' games and entertainment experience," a Microsoft rep told Shacknews in an statement. "Retailers are gradually introducing HDMI-enabled Xbox 360s into the channel to meet demand."

The company denied comment on the port addition to cheaper Core models not to mention the rumored cooler running processors. "We have not announced any plans to add HDMI to the Xbox 360 Core System," the rep said. "We are constantly updating the console's more than 1700 internal components and therefore will not comment on details of specific components or manufacturing processes."

HDMI allows for higher audio and visual fidelity when connected to HD-enabled TVs, and was first made available on Xbox 360 Elite models.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft Says No Windows Virtualization on Top of Linux

2007-08-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft will not allow Windows Vista or Windows XP to be virtualized on top of Linux, Sam Ramji, the director of Microsoft's open-source software lab, said at the annual LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here Aug. 7.

"What we have heard predominantly from customers is that they want to be able to mix and match their data center applications, but we haven't seen significant demand for Linux applications on the desktop or for desktop virtualization on top of Linux," Ramji said in an address titled "Linux and Windows Interoperability: On the Metal and on the Wire."

But, he said that while he does hear a lot of requests for this from developers in the Linux community, the feedback Microsoft is getting from customers and its Interoperability Executive Customer Council with regard to the desktop is that they want .Net and Java interoperability.

"We get no significant request for desktop virtualizations across platforms," he said.

It is possible, however, that virtual machines will be able to move between Linux and Windows in the future.

Source: PCMAG

Apple Kicks Microsoft Where It Hurts

2007-08-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

Apple's announcement this week of new iMacs, software, and services strikes at the Windows platform's core strengths. The new generation of iMacs, priced starting at $1,199, compete on price/performance with midrange PCs. And Apple rounded out its iWork suite with the Numbers spreadsheet software and other capabilities, making it a head-to-head competitor with Microsoft Office.

It's getting hard to find reasons to buy a Windows PC, aside from sheer inertia. Windows PCs used to be far more cost-effective than Macs, but no longer. Macs can now compete hard with PCs on cost, for all but the very cheapest, sub-$600 Windows machines.

This is especially true when you factor software into the price. The Mac comes bundled with iLife software, offering sophisticated video, photo, and audio editing. You have to pay hundreds of dollars to find equivalent software for the PC.

But while Apple is entrenching its position in the midpriced and high-end desktops, it's accelerating its retreat from the bargain basement. Apple is discontinuing the $999 17-inch iMac; the entry-level iMac is now $200 more expensive: $1,199 for the cheapest of the new line.

Even the Mac Mini, priced under $800 without a display, keyboard, or any external components, is an afterthought for Apple. Although the Mini received an upgrade Tuesday, it didn't get any of the love lavished in the iMac and applications.

Apple's retreat from the low end is intentional -- Apple just isn't interested in shipping el cheapo PCs, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs: "[We] just can’t do it. We can’t ship junk. There are thresholds we can’t cross because of who we are," Jobs said Tuesday.

Mac fans will see that as a declaration of Apple's superiority. Mac haters will see it as ridiculous snobbery. I don't see it as either -- just a simple statement of fact. Apple is competing in the midrange and high end PC market, it's not interested in the low end of the market.

iWork: iWork is a main area where Apple is bringing the battle to Microsoft. Apple added a spreadsheet to iWork, called "Numbers," making it more of a head-to-head competitor with Office. John Gruber, author of the blog Daring Fireball, writes: "This is the 'bring it on' release of iWork."

MacUser writes:

Numbers is a spreadsheet done in the style of Keynote and Pages, featuring intelligent tables that allow sorting and filtering by clicking on headers; a flexible canvas that allows multiple sheets on a single canvas, meaning you can use formulas to tie them together, but format them separately; interactive printing that lets you scale content so that you get exactly what you see; and drag-and-drop formulas.

The point of Numbers, as with the other elements of the iWork suite, is to be able to make beautiful spreadsheets very quickly. Best of all, it’ll allow you to import and export almost all Excel documents.

Gruber describes Numbers as:

a total ground-up re-imagining of what a "spreadsheet" app is. The fundamental element is not the spreadsheet; it’s a canvas on which you can place elements, which elements can be tables (which are spreadsheets), charts, and graphics.

Look at the “Intelligent Tables” features. What Numbers really is is a way for people to create their own table-based software. Numbers might be as much a new Hypercard as it is a new Excel.

Apple upgraded Pages, its page-layout software, to make it function better as a word processor, including the ability to import documents with change-tracking from Microsoft Word.

Microsoft is going to be facing some tough times with its Microsoft Office monopoly. The monopoly is currently riding on fear -- everybody else uses Office, so if I don't I might not be able to share critical documents -- and the needs of a few Excel and PowerPoint power-users. For the rest of us, there are plenty of good alternatives to Office. Office costs $300 for most people -- although student discounts can bring the price down to about $150. OpenOffice.org and its Mac port, NeoOffice, does almost everything that Microsoft Office does, and it's free. Now, iWork is another alternative for Mac users, priced at $79.

iLife: Apple upgrade iLife, with changes to iMovie to speed up the movie-making process, GarageBand for creating audio and podcasts, and iPhoto. AppleInsider has details, with screenshots.

iPhoto has features that make it easier to organize photos.. It addresses a problem that I face: Thousands and thousands and thousands of photos occupying the hard disk, almost completely disorganized. Are you looking for the particular photo you took four years ago of Great-Aunt Gertie dancing the cha-cha at your son's Bar Mitzvah? Good luck with that -- it's buried under a vast pile of digital mulch.

The new iPhoto organizes photos that were taken at the same time into Events.

You can also hide photos in iPhoto. That's great for people like me -- I hate to delete a single photo, but I don't want to look at all of them every time I flip through an album.

iPhoto automatically exports your photos into a Web Gallery, which is a new feature of the .Mac service.

Apple incorporated Web Gallery into the iPhone, updating the smartphone's software through some magical means that didn't involve user intervention. That's unusual; until now, updates to iPhone software were delivered over the Internet, through iTunes, when iPhone owners synched their devices to the desktop. iPhone Atlas speculates that the updates were delivered wirelessly over the EDGE network. Either that, or the Web Gallery was included in the iPhone software update 1.01, released July 31, and timed to go live Tuesday.

iMovie '08 isn't just a movie editor - it also works as a library of all your online video. MacUser writes:

Music, sound effects, photos, titles, and transitions can all be added with ease, and the Share options make it a snap to export video to a variety of sources: iTunes, ipod, iPhone, Apple TV, or in a .Mac Web Gallery. You can encode in multiple resolutions for different quality downloads, even going higher than DVD if you want. And if you want to share it immediately, there’s a Share option that lets you send your movie directly to YouTube.

iMovie requires a G5 or Intel processor, so owners of older Macs need not apply.

You can get video tutorials of the new iLife and iWork applications. While you're there, catch a video of Jobs's presentation, and see the new Mac commercial, which will give you good idea what the new iMacs look like.

Not the least of Tuesday's announcements: Apple upgraded its .Mac service.. I mentioned the online photo gallery earlier; Apple also added additional storage capabilities, bringing the maximum online storage to 10 GB.

The added capacity actually makes .Mac practical as an online backup service. Apple really needs to add an unlimited-storage option to make .Mac competitive with online backup services like Amazon S3 and Mozy.

Mac Mini: The Mac Mini got upgrades as well.

The new version still comes in two models, $599 and $799, but features Core 2 Duo processors versus the previous Core Duos — now 1.83 and 2.0GHz instead of 1.67 and 1.83GHz (supposedly “up to 39 percent faster than the previous generation”). Apart from that, 1GB of RAM is now standard, and the hard drives got a modest increase, now up to 80GB and 120GB. Amazingly, it seems the new model does not include 802.11n, which is surprising and disappointing. No cosmetic change, no mention on Apple’s homepage....

Jobs hates the Mac Mini, says Gruber on Daring Fireball. "[T]think about [Jobs's] comments during the event making fun of Dell machines because of the all the cables you need to hook them up to displays and webcams. That all applies equally to the Mini," Gruber said.

New keyboard: The change to the iMac extended to the keyboard, which is now a sleek, silvery device. You can get a closer look at the new keyboard on the Apple Web site.

One change to the keyboard: No Apple logo on the Command key. Instead, you just have the cloverleaf symbol, and a new addition, the word "Command." This will be useful for new Mac users, who often have trouble finding the Command key because it doesn't say "Command" on it. As an interesting aside, Apple pioneer Andy Hertzfeld, part of the origianl Mac development team more than 20 years ago, explains how that cloverleaf symbol came into being.

Apple opened up the floor to Q&A with Jobs at the end of the news conference. MacWorld writes:

One question that came from the audience wondered why Apple doesn’t participate in the “Intel Inside” program, in which PC manufacturers affix the well-known labels to their computers.

“We like our own stickers better,” Jobs said. “Don’t get me wrong. We love working with Intel. We’re proud to ship Intel products in Macs. They’re screamers, and combined with our OS, we’ve tuned them well. It’s just that everyone knows we use Intel processors. We’d rather not tell them about the product that’s inside the box.”

Gruber responds on Daring Fireball:

Jobs offers a rare chance for a public Q&A and someone asks why they don’t booger up their computers with horrid stickers? Will someone please tell me who asked this question so I can name him jackass of the week?

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

Microsoft Launches New Service Site for Xbox 360

2007-08-08T22:01:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has launched a new web site, found at service.xbox.com, that lets you create a repair order, check repair status, cancel an existing repair and view your system's warranty status.

This new web site follows Microsoft's extension of the Xbox 360 warranty to cover any issues resulting in three flashing red lights, for three years from purchase. Last month, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, told Associated Press that the company will record a charge of up to $1.15 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter to cover the additional costs associated with the new extended warranty.

Source: TEAM XBOX

Microsoft And NASA Team Up For 3-D Space Shuttle Tour

2007-08-08T21:47:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has announced a new collaboration with NASA designed to give users a 3D photographic tour of the space shuttle Endeavour before its launch later this week. The new exhibit uses Microsoft’s Photosynth technology to create a three-dimensional environment with “views of shuttle Endeavour on the launch pad, interior and surrounding area of the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the return of previous flight Shuttle Atlantis atop a 747.”

You’ll need to download the Photosynth viewer to see the images (sorry Mac users, for now Photosynth is only available for Windows XP and Vista — running either IE6 or IE7). If you don’t meet the minimum requirements or if you’d just like to see an overview, there’s a nice video preview available on the Microsoft Labs site.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas, an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, also gave a talk at the TED festival a while back that shows off some of the remarkable capabilities of Photosynth and SeaDragon, which you can see here.

NASA says it hopes this joint project will lead to more collaborative initiatives with Microsoft. And Microsoft is no doubt hoping the same, especially since most recent NASA collaborations have been with rival Google, which gets some of its Google Earth data from NASA.

Also worth noting is that, near the end of the promotional video linked above, Blaise Aguera y Arcas says that Photosynth with soon offer features which allow users to stitch their own photos together.

Given that Photosynth relies on image data from a normal SLR camera, it might soon be possible for even you and I to stitch together some impressive 3-D tours, provided you take enough images.

Source: WIRED

Microsoft Co-Founder Bails Out Of Dreamworks

2007-08-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, recently ranked by Forbes as the fifth richest U.S. citizen at $18 billion, has decided to further reduce his stake in DreamWorks Animation. Allen is selling 10 million shares of common stock worth about $320 million, a move that will automatically (according to the terms of his original agreement) force him to give up his seat on the company’s board of directors.

Allen said, “The reduction in our position in DreamWorks Animation is part of an ongoing effort to rebalance the Vulcan Capital portfolio. I am pleased to have been a principal investor in DreamWorks since its inception and proud of the Company's many successes to date.”

Although Allen will remain one of the company’s largest stock holders, retaining roughly 6 million shares, the high-profile move doesn’t help a studio recently plagued by rumors that one of its founders, Steven Spielberg, may soon bolt for greener pastures.

Source: WIRED

Microsoft Hires EA Executive to Run Xbox Live

2007-08-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. has hired another Electronic Arts Inc. executive in an effort to help support a surprisingly successful part of the Xbox group.

John Schappert, who was executive vice president at EA, will fill a new position at Microsoft as corporate vice president of Live, software and services in the Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business. He'll oversee activities related to Xbox Live, the service that lets subscribers play games against each other online and buy content such as TV shows and arcade games.

Schappert will focus on expanding Live's online services and broadening the audience using it, Microsoft said in a statement. Live users can also do video, voice and text chat with each other.

Xbox Live is one of the best performing parts of the Xbox business, gaining subscribers faster than Microsoft expected and earning more money than the company anticipated, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft.

The service has more than 7 million users and has had 220 million downloads of content, including 45 million paid arcade games, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices business, said at a recent meeting with financial analysts.

The Xbox Live video marketplace has been a "pleasant surprise" for Microsoft, he said. Strong subscriber growth is expected to continue, he said.

Schappert's move follows other recent executive exchanges between EA and Microsoft. Last month Peter Moore, formerly the head of Microsoft's Xbox and Windows gaming initiatives, joined EA as president of EA Sports. Don Mattrick, a former president at EA, took his place at Microsoft. Schappert will report to Mattrick.

Moore left the company shortly after Microsoft acknowledged that some Xbox 360 consoles have a hardware problem. Microsoft took a more than US$1 billion charge related to fixing and replacing the consoles.

Source: PC WORLD

Microsoft drops Xbox 360 price by $100

2007-08-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is cutting $100 off the price of the Xbox 360 as of today. The version with a 20-gigabyte hard drive will sell for $400, while the basic core system, which does not come with a hard drive, will be $300.

The Xbox 360 Elite, with a 120-gigagbyte hard drive, will be priced at $500. A special-edition Halo console will be available in September at $500 with a Spartan green-and-gold finish and 20-gigabyte hard drive. The price cut is timed to coincide with the Aug. 14 release of the popular Madden NFL 08 title, Microsoft said.

Source: THE LONDON FREE PRESS

Microsoft Releases Windows Updates, Vista SP1 And XP SP3 In Testing

2007-08-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

Microsoft isn't standing still with Windows Vista. The company Tuesday released two updates to address performance and compatibility concerns with the operating system and confirmed this week that Windows Vista SP1 is in early pre-beta testing with a "select group of testers."
After unauthorized versions of the two Vista updates appeared online last week and were quickly removed by Microsoft, they became public on Tuesday. These fixes, available now only through Microsoft's download center, will later become available through Microsoft Windows Update. Next Tuesday is Patch Tuesday for Microsoft, so they could be available on Windows Update sooner than later.

The first update, KB938979, is a package of performance updates that deal with such problems as poor memory management, long calculation times for estimating the total time remaining on large file moves, memory leaks when using the Windows Energy screen saver and delays upon returning from hibernation or when exiting the Photos screen saver. Some Vista users have complained of poor performance, so any fixes are likely much wanted additions. The first update also fixes file corruption problems when writing to AVI files, synchronizing offline files to servers and editing image files that use the RAW image format.

The other update, KB938194, focuses on compatibility and reliability. For example, it addresses video and gaming graphics problems, printer spooler interruptions, screens blanking when external displays are turned off, display driver error messages and problems with diagnostics when the computer is under heavy usage.

Microsoft hasn't been tremendously open about the prospects for Windows Vista SP1, up until now only saying that it hoped to have a beta version of the service pack out by the end of the year and painting SP1 in the broadest of strokes, such as a fix to assuage Google's complaints about Vista's integrated search technology. Though no new details have emerged on SP1's contents, Microsoft is confirming that a pre-beta version of Vista SP1 has been released to some testers, and that screen shots found on the Web this week are indeed of the elusive service pack.

The company apparently isn't done with Windows XP yet, either. Reports this week suggested that just as one group of testers got their hands on Vista SP1, another group began testing Windows XP SP3, which Microsoft has preliminary plans to release the first half of next year. Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed those reports.

Source: INFORMATION WEEK

1st Post

2007-08-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

This is a blog for those who are interested in anything related to Microsoft.