Microsoft news

[sajiv]

To beat Google, Microsoft will become Google

Hidden in Microsoft's announcement of a fourth-generation data-center architecture is a hint of where the company is - and where it wants to go - in the battle against Google.

Also revealed was how far Microsoft is willing to become like Google in that fight.

The Generation 4 Modular Data Center is important to Microsoft - it said - because it provides the framework for the company's cloud data center infrastructure for the next five years.

It'll be a departure from Microsoft's older data centers and was described as "one of the most revolutionary changes to happen to data centers in the last 30 years".

Microsoft wants to get away from the current approach of designing and building data centers on a case-by-case basis with the cost and delays that produces. Gen 4 (the shortened name) will use a componentized manufacturing approach the company said, drawing on the IT industry's favored metaphor of utility and commodity - this time encapsulated by noted industrialist Henry Ford's Model T factory.

"We intend to have our components built in factories and then assemble them in one location (the data center site) very quickly," general manager for Microsoft's global foundation services Michael Manos blogged.

It's classic modern, modular thinking: As the service expands, Microsoft orders more systems that it slots into a grid to expand the power, scale, performance, and reliability of its date centers and the services using them.

Microsoft wrapped Gen 4 in some pretty green paper about the environment, saying the company can cut the amount of water used to cool servers in massive data centers.

Worthy though this was, this is not the at the heart of what's really going on here. Microsoft is working on a data center architecture that can be scaled out block by block as its number of online services and customers increases.

It's the classic scale out model, albeit more affordable as Microsoft will be using the utility and commodity play, while cutting its overheads - particularly on water-based cooling and in power consumption.

According to Manos, it was Microsoft newboy chief software architect Ray Ozzie who inadvertently initiated Gen 4 with his memo on Microsoft's software plus services. "That 'plus Services' tag had some significant (and unstated) challenges inherent to it," Manos said.

Microsoft has been running large-scale internet services for more than a decade, since the advent of MSN and Hotmail. Software plus services, though, meant Microsoft had to be able to become flexible enough at providing services across the internet and the enterprise, each of which have their own sets of demands.

Manos claimed Microsoft today has more than 240 online products and services. The goal is to grow, providing more Microsoft services and - with Azure Services Platform - the platform to run other peoples' services.

There is a contradiction at the heart of Gen 4, though. It's a contradiction that shows Microsoft is willing to become like Google in order to beat its ads and search nemesis. The company cannot use plain, old off-the-shelf server parts and server management software to run such an operation, never mind the kind of on-demand and flexible power-up and power-down service Manos has outlined.

Instead, Microsoft will do what Google does: order specially made parts for its servers. Google orders custom-build motherboards for its servers, bypassing the server OEM companies so that the search giant can build its own machines.

The indication is Microsoft knows this and will be drawing up the specs. It's just a question of who does the assembly - Microsoft, OEMs, or systems integrators.

"Think about how a computer, car or plane is built today," Manos said. "Components are manufactured by different companies all over the world to a predefined spec and then integrated in one location based on demands and feature requirements.

"And just like Henry Ford's assembly line drove the cost of building and the time-to-market down dramatically for the automobile industry, we expect Gen 4 to do the same for data centers. Everything will be pre-manufactured and assembled on the pad."

Here ends the Model-T dream.

There will be more to G4 than Manos has written. For example, we don't know what the specs will be or who the markers will be: just that there will be specs.

Importantly, we don't know what software will be used to run this modular, lights-out set up. Microsoft Watch's Mary Jo Foley has pointed to the existence of a "state-of-the art" networking project codenamed Trebuchet. Neither do we know what the management interface will look like.

Manos said it took a year to design Gen 4, drawn up from experience in Microsoft's data centers in Washington, Texas, and Illinois. The question becomes when does Microsoft feel it can start drawing on Google's experience, by flexing its muscle in relationships with server

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft May Use 'Kumo' Name For More Than Search

Microsoft has been rumored for some time to be renaming its Live Search "Kumo" in 2009. However, a trademark application the company filed this month suggests Microsoft may use the name for more than just its search engine.

According to the application, filed on Dec. 4, Microsoft wants to trademark Kumo for a host of software and services beyond a search engine, including advertising and telecommunications services, education, training, entertainment, and the design and development of computer hardware and services.

According to Whois.Net, Microsoft has registered the kumo.com domain, and through CSC, a company that manages domain names for corporations, also has registered related domains that indicate the Kumo name could be used for other services. Those domains include: www.kumosearch.com, www.kumopics.com, www.kumowiki.com, www.kumogroups.com and www.kumotravel.com.

Kumo is a Japanese word that can be used to mean "cloud," "ceiling" or "sea spider," among other things, according to an online Japanese-to-English translation service.

The trademark application and various domain registrations could mean Microsoft plans to drop the Windows Live and Live Search brands, which are fairly new in and of themselves. Microsoft only gave its online services the "Windows Live" moniker at the end of 2005, later dropping the "Windows" for its search engine but keeping it for other services and Web-based client applications.

However, Matt Rosoff, analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said that it is unlikely Microsoft would drop the Windows Live brand entirely, since the Windows Live-branded services and client applications, such as Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail, are part of the Windows client group at the company.

"It would be weird to me that they would rename everything," he said. "They're probably going to keep the Windows Live brand around and make it specifically for things that Microsoft think can improve Windows or take Windows-like functionality online -- those thick clients that connect to services."

Still, for its search engine, Kumo makes sense, Rosoff said. And while another name change might be confusing to some who already are aware of Microsoft's search engine, it actually might help the company because the bulk of average Web users still don't even know about Microsoft Live Search, he said.

"Search has had a lot of branding problems -- that's one reason people aren't even aware Microsoft has a search engine, and if they are they're not aware of where to find it," Rosoff said. Renaming it yet again "won't hurt them and maybe help them," he said.

Microsoft confirmed through its public relations firm Tuesday that it has trademarked the Kumo name, but would not disclose anything further about its plans to use it. 

[sajiv]

Microsoft warning to Web users

London: Users of Internet Explorer, the world's most popular Web browser, are at risk of having their computers hijacked because of a security flaw.

The flaw allows criminal gangs to take control of people's computers and steal their personal information when they visit websites that have been corrupted by malicious hackers. It is believed that as many 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week.

Microsoft said that it had detected attacks on machines using Internet Explorer 7, the most widely-used version of the browser, but that other versions are "potentially vulnerable".

"We are actively investigating the vulnerability that these attacks attempt to exploit," the firm, which also makes the Windows operating system, said in a security statement. "We will continue to monitor the threat environment and update this advisory if this situation changes."

By last Saturday about 0.2 per cent of Internet Explorer users had already visited one of the websites designed to exploit the flaw, according a statement on the technology giant's Malware Protection blog.

[sajiv]

Microsoft Comes To Its Sensors

Lately we've seen some really interesting applications that depend on devices that have sensor hardware such as accelerometers, light sensors, touch sensors, and global positioning system receivers. Most of the innovation has been on mobile devices such as the iPhone. With Windows 7, Microsoft is trying to make sure it won't miss this party.

PCs have had sensor hardware for several years. For example, some ThinkPad notebooks have an accelerometer that detect when the notebook is falling, and they quickly park the disk heads to prevent damage. (After all, it's not the fall that damages the drive, it's the sudden stop at the bottom.) Several models, including ones from Dell and Asus, have ambient light sensors that can automatically adjust the screen backlight based on the room lighting.

Although these sensors already are present in many PCs, they've been used mainly by the hardware makers and not easily available to software developers or users. That's because they tend to be proprietary interfaces that work differently on each PC, and they often require low-level hardware access. There are no Windows interfaces that allow either the operating system or applications to use these sensors in a standard way. That will soon change.

At both the Professional Developer Conference and Windows Hardware Engineering Conference last month, Microsoft was exhorting both hardware and software developers to take advantage of new Windows 7 interfaces that make it easier to integrate sensors. They will standardize and simplify the way sensors are interfaced to the system and give users the ability to control which applications are allowed to use a particular sensor. Games, for example, could take advantage of the accelerometer to react to the motion of a notebook.

There's a great overview of all the new sensor-related information at Microsoft's Windows Sensor and Location Platform page. To further encourage its use, the group responsible for evangelizing these interfaces was liberally distributing a Sensor Development Kit at the conferences. It's a small circuit board with a USB interface that provides access to the board's accelerometer, light and touch sensors, plus software and documentation.

Although it's great to see these innovations for Windows 7, I'd love to see Microsoft make this new sensor interface available for Vista and XP. Otherwise we'll be in the classic chicken-and-egg situation where neither software makers nor hardware vendors see enough near-term benefit to justify the expense. This is just too cool to let that happen. Let's not wait for Windows 7 before we see this technology in action.

[sajiv]

DirecTV Shelves Its Microsoft Media Plans

Today I learned through Ed Bott's blog that DirecTV has dropped its plans to release HD tuner hardware for Windows Media Center. Although the company just confirmed the news, there already were a few hints that DirecTV might lose its enthusiasm for a Media Center solution.

The DirecTV HDPC-20 tuner project for Media Center was announced way back at the Consumer Electronics show in January 2006. There was a glimmer of hope that it was progressing because a driver was spotted in the Windows 7 pre-beta handed out atMicrosoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Professional Developer Conference in October. Still, it's hard to see that DirecTV had any sense of urgency or desire to ship a product after three years of work.

Meanwhile, the competition wasn't standing still. Back in September, Engadget noted that DirecTV was planning a new TiVo DVR offering. That is in addition to DirecTV's own DVR. So, with two DVRs already in its lineup, the company may have decided that a third wouldn't be necessary, or even all that useful to its customers.

I wonder, however, whether TiVo may have been doing some behind-the-scenes arm twisting. The company just reported a second profitable quarter, but there's a footnote. If not for a big payoff from a successful patent-infringement suit against Dish Network, TiVo would have been in the red for the quarter. Worse, the company has been losing subscribers; given the economy, it's unlikely it will be able to raise rates to increase revenue and turn that around.

So, TiVo has a big stake in trying to grab as many customers as possible when its new DirecTV HD offering arrives early next year. The switch to digital TV in February may create an opportunistic bump to help it as well. With that in mind, TiVo may have offered DirecTV some monetary incentives such as a larger cut of subscription revenue to keep Microsoft out of the mix.

[dwarakesh]

With Web Attacks Increasing, Microsoft Fixes IE Bug

Security experts say that Web surfers should immediately install a new bug-fix for Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, released Wednesday morning.

The flaw, which was accidentally made public by Chinese security researchers just over a week ago, has been used in a growing number of Web-based attacks over the past few days. Criminals have posted attack code that exploits this flaw on thousands of Web sites so far, according to Rick Howard, intelligence director with VeriSign's iDefense group. VeriSign has now seen six variants of the attack software, all of which attempt to steal Chinese online gaming credentials.

Often the attack is launched through a hidden iFrame component that is surreptitiously put on a Web site. VeriSign has even spotted one such iFrame attack on a legitimate financial institution's Web site, Howard said. "The volume of iFrames deploying this thing is really high."

The flaw lies in the way Internet Explorer's data-binding function works, Microsoft said. When the browser is attacked it will crash, corrupting the computer's memory and allowing the criminal to run unauthorized software.

Because Internet Explorer is used by about 70 percent of Web surfers, this attack code will probably show up in widely used malicious software toolkits "very shortly," Howard said.

The flaw is so serious, in fact, that Microsoft took the unusual step of issuing its security fix weeks ahead of schedule. Typically Microsoft releases security patches just once a month in order to simplify the lives of system administrators. Its next set of updates is due Jan. 13.

Criminals could also launch their attacks via e-mail, by sending victims maliciously encoded HTML documents, although this type of attack has not been reported.

Microsoft's patch is for users of IE version 5 and up.

[sajiv]

Gates Foundation donates to health, connectivity



Charitable causes are getting hit hard these days, but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, formed by the eponymous Microsoft founder and his wife, announced Thursday the donation of nearly $14 million. About half, or $6.9 million, is going to two U.S. organizations promoting broadband connectivity, and another $7 million has been awarded to fight a parasitic illness that threatens millions of people in developing countries.

The $6.9 million for broadband has been donated to advocacy group Connected Nation and to the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy -- the bulk of it to Connected Nation -- to promote better broadband access in public libraries in Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Virginia. The goal is to bring broadband Internet of at least 1.5 Mbps to every public library in each of those states.

There's a recession angle to it: "As the economic crisis in the U.S. deepens, visits to public libraries are up across the country," a release from the Gates Foundation explained. "Many libraries in states across the country are reporting that online services are in high demand, especially for job seekers, students, and people who do not have Internet access elsewhere."

As for the other $7 million donation announced by the Gates Foundation on Thursday, it's going to something very different: the Infectious Disease Research Institute, and it will be used for diagnosis and treatment of people in Africa who have been infected with Leishmania donovani, a parasite that causes visceral leishmaniasis.

Visceral leishmaniasis affects about 500,000 people per year, 10 percent of whom die. The Seattle-based IDRI is working to develop a vaccine for the disease.

[sajiv]

8-yr-old TN girl creates record in Microsoft exam

Software major Microsoft has recently discovered the youngest soul so far to crack its broad certification programme, the 'Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)' exam, with an eight-year-old girl successfully clearing it with flying colours.

Ms Lavinyashree of the 'Dolphin School' of Madurai, about 450 km South of Chennai, notwithstanding the initial entry barriers due to her age, cleared the MCP exam with an amazing score of 842 out of 1000 in this problem-solving multiple choice test, official sources in the Temple city confirmed this evening when contacted by 'Hindustan Times'.

This is usually an examination taken by students passing out of engineering and computer science courses in the age group of 25-30 conducted by 'Microsoft' every year, sources close to the school said. But Lavinyashree, a fourth standard girl, has broken all records now.

With her feat, Lavinyashree has broken the record held by a 10-year-old Pakistani girl, Hurbakareem Randha, who had successfully cleared the MCP examination in 2005.

Only in the previous year, the Madurai girl had achieved another feat by entering the Limca Book of Records by reciting all the 1330 couplets of the Tamil saint-poet, Thiruvalluvar's classic "Thirukkural".

Lavinyashree with her parents had come down to Chennai last week and received the blessings of the Chief Minister, Mr M Karunanidhi, here on her tremendous accomplishment, sources said.

While the Madurai girl or her parents could not be reached directly at their residence this evening over phone, Lavinyashree has been quoted in the local press there as having said that she has set her ambitions high and would like to become a "big scientist" like former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

[sajiv]

Microsoft issues emergency patch for Internet Explorer 

San Francisco: Microsoft has issued an emergency patch for its Internet Explorer browser, aiming to fix a critical flaw that allowed hackers to take over computers merely by steering them to infected websites.

Microsoft Wednesday took the rare step of issuing the patch after numerous security experts advised people to switch to rival browsers until Microsoft fixed the problem. Microsoft usually releases patches on a set schedule and this is only the third emergency patch in the last three years.

The flaw has been in circulation since the first week of December. So far, more than two million computers are believed to have been infected.

The vulnerabilities are found on copies of Internet Explorer 7, as well as IE6 and IE5. The patch is designed to prevent attackers from downloading malware onto users' computers if they visit a malicious Web site, or a legitimate Web site that has been infected.

[sajiv]

Microsoft grants Windows XP a reprieve

The BBC reported Monday that Microsoft has extended the deadline for smaller PC builders and resellers to obtain licenses for the discontinued operating system from the previous deadline of January 31, 2009 to May 30, 2009.

"Microsoft is making accommodation through a flexible inventory program that will allow distributors to place their final orders by January 31, 2009; and take delivery against those orders through May 30, 2009," a Microsoft representative said in an e-mailed statement. "This is not an extension of sales."

Even after May 30, however, it's still not the end of XP. The operating system will be available on ultra-low-cost PCs until June 30, 2010, and the low-end Windows XP Starter Edition will continue to be available in emerging markets until the same date.

Plus, big PC makers plan to offer PCs with Vista Ultimate and Vista Business that have been factory downgraded at customers' request until July 30 next year.

[sajiv]

Microsoft Embraces Web With Hosted Services (PC World)

Though the quest to acquire Yahoo dominated news surrounding Microsoft's Web strategy in 2008, another story was brewing quietly behind the scenes that could be even more significant for the company in the long run -- its move to offer hosted business productivity services.

The company makes much of its revenue from selling software licenses to enterprises. Those customers are starting to see value in using software that's hosted remotely on the Web -- or in "the cloud" -- and less in building out expensive IT systems in-house, which is becoming even more cost-prohibitive now as economies around the world falter.

Even as it attempts to battle Google for a share in the online advertising market by offering hosted consumer services, Microsoft is keenly aware that the needs of its business customers are changing. In 2008, Microsoft delivered on a strategy it unveiled several years ago and offered the first hosted versions of key software infrastructure -- Office Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. The company plans to roll out hosted versions of Office Communications Server and Live Meeting in early 2009.

These services, even more than its online advertising strategy, indicate that Microsoft is embracing the Web as a business model and could be more significant to the company's bottom line in the long run.

"When Microsoft says, 'We are willing to make a change in how we do our core business,' that's a pretty big deal," said Matt Rosoff, analyst with Directions on Microsoft.

He said if Microsoft can get "some of its traditional big customers to online services," that revenue stream could be far more important to the company than online advertising revenue, at least in the short term.

"From Microsoft's perspective, that's much more significant than the whole search thing," Rosoff said. Search and online advertising revenue is "the future," he said, but Microsoft stands to gain much more from its enterprise customers that buy hosted services in the near term.

As the year closes, Microsoft's future in search isn't looking too promising. A comScore Networks report on online search market share in November gives Microsoft's Live Search 8.3 percent -- matching a low for the year the company also hit in August -- while Google had a commanding 63.5 percent of online searches. A deal for Microsoft to purchase either Yahoo's search business or the entire company also is still up in the air and widely rumored to be in the works as the end of 2008 approaches.

Hosted business services, however, is an area where Microsoft has an edge over Google, since Microsoft already owns many of the enterprise customers that would purchase them. Google has a tougher play with its own hosted business productivity services, since it has not proven yet it can compete in the enterprise market and does not have years of a successful software business to back it up.

Individually, Microsoft is now selling hosted Exchange Online for US$10 per user, per month and SharePoint Online for $7.25 per user, per month. When they are available, Office Communications Online will cost $2.50 per user, per month; and Office Live Meeting Online will cost $4.50 per user, per month. Early next year Microsoft also will offer a suite of all of these services for $15 per user, per month.

Though it's too soon to tell how many of Microsoft's enterprise customers will switch from buying packaged software from Microsoft to embrace this new model, at least the company is positioning itself for what many believe is the next significant phase of enterprise IT, software as a service, or SaaS.

In typical fashion, Microsoft has given its own name to its SaaS strategy, calling it "software plus services." The company first revealed the strategy in a keynote by Ray Ozzie in Boston at its TechEd 2007 conference, saying that it would begin offering business services on a hosted basis but continue to offer packaged software in its traditional licensing model as well.

Ray Wang, a vice president at Forrester Research, said this "hybrid" business model makes sense for Microsoft, which has to keep its enterprise licensing customers happy. Not all of them are ready to move to SaaS, even if the trend, which has been hyped for years, is finally turning into reality for IT customers.

"There are so many customers that don't want to move to services," he said. "What Microsoft is doing is providing another option, another delivery option."

While Microsoft's move to hosted services will be good for the company and its enterprise customers, it has been disruptive for the company's hosted-services partners, with whom Microsoft now is competing. Even before it decided to offer its own hosted services, Microsoft allowed partners to host its software infrastructure for their customers.

Serguei Sofinski, CEO of Intermedia, a Microsoft hosting partner, said the vendor's "aggressive pricing strategy" pressures profit margins for partners, who will have to diversify their offerings and providing other value to customers to stay competitive.

However, like other hosting partners, he said his company is taking it in stride, and thinks that Microsoft entering the market alerts customers to the business model Intermedia and other SaaS providers have supported for years.

"Partners will benefit from the market awareness that Microsoft can generate for the software-as-a-service delivery model," Sofinski said. He said that while today only 1 percent of deployed Exchange seats are hosted, he expects that rate to increase to 15 percent to 20 percent by 2012 through Microsoft's efforts to educate customers about hosted services.

[dwarakesh]

Windows XP's Life Extended, Again

Microsoft has extended Windows XP license purchasing deadline from 31st January, 2009 to 30th May, 2009 as reported by The Times.

Initially, Windows XP was to go off-shelf on 30th January, 2008 in order to make way for Windows Vista. However, in deference to customers' wishes, Microsoft extended the date.

It's generally accepted that customers haven't taken to Windows Vista and the software giant was forced to reprieve XP because of customer preference. The OEMs also found a workaround in the clause of Microsoft's licensing terms, which eventually allowed offering Vista to XP downgrade license.

According to the change in terms, the OEMs can take delivery at anytime up to 30th May. Shortly after that Vista successor Windows 7 is expected to be launched.

Consumers are bound to get confused as Windows XP is reprieved, Vista Service Pack 2 expected in 2009, and Windows 7 Beta builds to soar on the web. We'd certainly like to triple boot system with all three Microsoft operating systems and see if all three work fine. If that works, that would be something.

[sajiv]

Microsoft probing SQL Server vulnerability

Microsoft is investigating reports of a flaw that could allow someone to remotely execute code on a system running certain versions of SQL Server.

"Microsoft is aware that exploit code has been published on the Internet for the vulnerability addressed by this advisory," the company wrote in a security advisory published on Monday. "Our investigation of this exploit code has verified that it does not affect systems that have had the workarounds listed below applied. Currently, Microsoft is not aware of active attacks that use this exploit code or of customer impact at this time."

Affected systems are: Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000), Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE), and Windows Internal Database (WYukon). Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected, the advisory says.

Microsoft said that once it completes its investigation, it will "take the appropriate action to protect our customers," which could include issuing a security patch through a service pack, in the monthly security update, or via an out-of-cycle security update.

The vulnerability was disclosed December 4 by Bernhard Mueller of SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft Warns of SQL Attack

Just days after patching a critical flaw in its Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft is now warning users of a serious bug in its SQL Server database software.

Microsoft issued a security advisory late Monday, saying that the bug could be exploited to run unauthorized software on systems running versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

Attack code that exploits the bug has been published, but Microsoft said that it has not yet seen this code used in online attacks. Database servers could be attacked using this flaw if the criminals somehow found a way to log onto the system, and Web applications that suffered from relatively common SQL injection bugs could be used as stepping stones to attack the back-end database, Microsoft said.

Desktop users running the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine or SQL Server 2005 Express could be at risk in some circumstances, Microsoft said.

The bug lies in a stored procedure called "sp_replwritetovarbin," which is used by Microsoft's software when it replicates database transactions. It was publicly disclosed on December 9 by SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab, which said it had notified Microsoft of the issue in April.

"Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected by this issue," Microsoft said in its advisory.

This is the third serious bug in Microsoft's software to be disclosed in the past month, but it is unlikely to be used in widespread attacks, according to Marc Maiffret, director of professional services, with The DigiTrust Group, a security consulting firm. "It is rather low risk given other vulnerabilities that exist," he said via instant message. "There are a lot of better ways to currently compromise windows systems."

After seeing the Internet Explorer flaw used in a growing number of online attacks, Microsoft rushed out an emergency patch for the issue last Wednesday. The company says it has also seen "limited and targeted attacks" exploiting a serious bug in the WordPad Text Converter for Word 97 files. As with the SQL bug, this WordPad converter vulnerability has not been patched, but is a prime candidate to be fixed in Microsoft's upcoming January 13 security updates.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft Extends XP Shipments Until May

Microsoft is giving system builders several more months to get Windows XP for their custom PCs, ensuring XP will be out in the marketplace until almost the scheduled release of Windows 7 in early 2010.

Microsoft confirmed Monday that it is offering a "flexible inventory program" that allows distributors and system builders to place their final orders for XP by the end of January, but have those orders delivered until May 30, 2009.

The company stressed in an e-mailed statement that the move is not "an extension of sales." Still, it gives system builders and distributors the ability to sell PCs with Windows XP preinstalled for a bit longer than they currently have.

The move marks yet another extension Microsoft has had to made to keep XP in the marketplace, which customers have demanded because of lackluster reception for Windows Vista, XP's successor, released to businesses in November 2006 and to consumers in January 2007.

Many enterprise customers have opted to skip upgrading to Vista and wait for Windows 7, which is expected to be available by the beginning of 2010. Even consumers have widely complained about how underwhelming Vista was, after all of the hype.

If Windows 7 is released in early 2010 as planned, it means that there will only be about a six- or seven-month gap between when the last XP machines will be for sale and when Windows 7 hits the market. And some feel that Microsoft may even get Windows 7 to businesses by the end of 2009 because the company recognizes it needs to repair the Vista damage.

In September 2007, Microsoft pushed back the date for when OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) could install and sell XP on PCs until July 31, 2008, from the original date of Jan. 31 of this year. At the same time, it extended the XP cut-off date for system builders until Jan. 31, 2009

XP has an even longer shelf life for the emerging ultra-low-cost PC (ULCPC) market, another concession Microsoft had to make because Vista's hardware footprint was too big for these machines. In April the company said it would be available for OEMs to install on ULCPCs either until June 30, 2010, or one year after the availability of Windows 7, whichever comes first.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft Answers beta website launched

Microsoft has launched a new web site just for Windows Vista users: answers.microsoft.com. Microsoft Answers, currently in beta (the site is often down and under maintenance), is a support forum in the Q&A format. There are three ways of using the service:

    * Use the search bar at the top of the page to find existing answers to your question.
    * Browse specific category pages under Find Answers.
    * Ask the community how they fixed a problem or how they did something.

The idea behind the website is a great one: have an official forum for Windows tech support that is run by actual Microsoft employees willing to help out users. Furthermore, you can subscribe to your question and be notified via your browser, e-mail, or RSS when there is an answer posted. Unfortunately, signing up is mandatory: there is no way to see questions and answers without being signed in. This is a very bad decision on Microsoft's part; anyone should be able to read the solution to a problem as a guest and registration raises and unnecessary barrier to entry.

I find it very interesting that Microsoft is limiting the website to just Vista-related questions and answers. XP is going out the door, but what will happen when Windows 7 is released? Will the site be divided into two, or will Microsoft convert the site to only cover Windows 7 questions?

[sajiv]

Microsoft Hardware to reach out to partners across 25 cities

The events will serve as a platform to share the exciting plans for 2009 in addition to imparting training to channel partners about the new Microsoft technologies.

Microsoft Hardware has announced a new channel initiative, a 25 city dealer meet, to reach out to the channel partners across India.  The meets will showcase and create excitement around newly launched products and offers.

The events will serve as a platform to share the exciting plans for 2009 in addition to imparting training to channel partners about the new Microsoft technologies. Those attending can expect an exciting range of spot offers.

"Channel partners are Microsoft Hardware's interface to consumers and hence very important to the company's growth plans. These dealer meets are aimed at ensuring that our partners have sufficient knowledge, information and motivation to be able to ensure optimum returns over the next year," said Ashim Mathur, National Marketing Manager, Entertainment and Devices Division, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd.

The objective of dealer meets will be twofold – first, to strengthen partner relationships, and second, to bring more dealers into the fold of Microsoft. With its vast footprint across India, Microsoft Hardware currently reaches out to customers through a robust network of 6,000 partners across 110 cities and is expected to reach 125 cities in the near future.

"These dealer meets equip our partners with the right information that will help consumers make informed decisions while buying computer peripherals," said Ashim Mathur. "Microsoft Hardware takes its commitment to its partners seriously and constantly strives to make available the best products and offers to ensure that a win-win situation is always a possibility," added Ashim Mathur.

[dwarakesh]

Nine year old passes Microsoft Certified Professional examination.

A nine year old girl has become the Youngest Person to ever pass a Microsoft Certified Professional examination.

M Lavinashree from rural Tamil Nadu has become the youngest to qualify for the exam taken by techies for better job prospects.  The exam measures problem-solving skills and Lavinashree passed it with flying colours.

She broke a record held by Arfa Karim, a ten-year-old Pakistani girl.

Lavinashree has a photographic memory and hit the headlines when she was three when she recited 1,330 couplets of Universal Thirukural, a Tamil classical poem composed by a Tamil sage, Thiruvalluvar, 2000 years ago.

She has also been awarded the title, "Little Genius", in the online test conducted by Ankit Fadia and Reliance World.

However while Lavinashree is listed in Wikipedia's child prodigies her own page on the site is up for deletion this week because the editors do not feel she is notable enough.

[dwarakesh]

Fake Antivirus Peddlers Helped by Microsoft

Just weeks after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission shut down two companies accused of selling fake antivirus software, a new player has moved into the market, aided by glitches in the Microsoft and U.S. Internal Revenue Service Web sites.

Over the past four days the scammers have used so-called redirector links on Web sites belonging to magazines, universities and, most remarkably, the Microsoft.com and IRS.gov domains, said Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who first reported the activity on his blog Tuesday.

Many Web sites use redirector links to take visitors away from the site, although the Web site operators try to stop them from being misused by scammers.

If criminals can use a redirector on a major Web site like Microsoft.com or IRS.gov, however, they can make their malicious links pop up very high in Google search results, Warner said in an interview.

"Microsoft is a super-powerful site as far as search engine weight is concerned," he said.

The bad guys have tricked search engines into returning their malicious links to tens of thousands of search terms, Warner said. They've done this by using special software to add these redirector links to "tens of thousands of blog comments, guestbook entries, and imaginary blog stories all around the Internet," Warner said in his blog posting.

The IRS has now addressed the issue too, but about 20 other sites remain a problem Warner said.

The fake antivirus software, also called "scareware," installs a keylogger on the victim's computer, presumably to steal login names and passwords, and also launches fake warning popups on every Web page that the victim visits telling him he needs to buy antivirus software, called System Security. The price for the fake product? A believable-sounding $51.45.

The FTC estimates that 1 million consumers were taken in by other fake antivirus products which go by names such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe and XP Antivirus. On Dec. 10 a federal court ordered two companies, Innovative Marketing and ByteHosting Internet Services, to stop promoting these products.

[sajiv]

What good are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates without Josh Silver?

So this is Christmas. A time that we all take our gifts for granted. iPods, laptops, Wiis and other manifestations of our comfortably numb self-indulgence.

While Josh Silver, a retired physics professor from Oxford University, tries to find a way for the world's poor to see as clearly as the most screen-glued nerd.

Professor Silver's invention is so simple that you wonder why no one has thought of it before. He knows that poor people don't exactly have an optometrist on their doorstep or within their means. So he invented glasses with lenses that the wearer can adjust for his or herself. And he wants to find ways to give these glasses to the world's poor.

Professor Silver believes that half the world's humans needs their sight adjusted. So he created glasses that have plastic lenses, filled with clear liquid in sacs. Each of these sacs connects to a syringe housed in each arm of the glasses.

The syringe injects more fluid into the sacs--making them 'fatter' and therefore stronger--or sucks some out, until the wearer is happy with the visual effect. A subsequent couple of twists of a screw and the removal of the syringe delivers perfect sight without the need for health insurance or the slightly fishy breath of your local eye expert.

Some 30,000 of the Silver Glasses have been given out in 15 countries. But Silver is something of an ambitious man. He wants to find a way to get his remarkable invention onto 1 billion heads by 2020.

He's still working on the design, as currently the glasses resemble Woody Allen's rather sexless pair re-imagined by a Baroque artist.

However, their impact is already being felt by those to whom it matters most.

Major Kevin White, a former US humanitarian worker, discovered the Silver Glasses on Google and began to distribute them. He told The Guardian newspaper that the reaction was utterly moving: "People put them on and smile. They all say 'Look, I can read those tiny letters.'"

As you read these tiny letters, imagine Silver's insight that led to his ambition. While we Twitter away our lives, his imagination was captured by the thought of giving the simple gift of vision to so many who could only previously imagine what it might feel like.

One day, these people might be able to play with the software and hardware (donated by foundations, of course) that so many others will expect to find beneath their Christmas trees this year. One day, these people might be able to navigate their way around malware.

But without eyewear, their world is but a blur and many of their ambitions are merely blind.

Much good effort is put behind donating computers and other electronic wizardry to poorer countries. But without Silver's ingeniousness the inventions of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are just apples beyond reach and windows looking out to nowhere.

While we might sit around our plasmas this Christmas sniffling at It's a Wonderful Life, one tenacious physicist will be actually trying to give people a wonderful life.

[sajiv]

Microsoft probing SQL Server vulnerability

Microsoft is investigating reports of a flaw that could allow someone to remotely execute code on a system running certain versions of SQL Server.

"Microsoft is aware that exploit code has been published on the Internet for the vulnerability addressed by this advisory," the company wrote in a security advisory published on Monday. "Our investigation of this exploit code has verified that it does not affect systems that have had the workarounds listed below applied. Currently, Microsoft is not aware of active attacks that use this exploit code or of customer impact at this time."

Affected systems are: Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000), Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE), and Windows Internal Database (WYukon). Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected, the advisory says.

Microsoft said that once it completes its investigation, it will "take the appropriate action to protect our customers," which could include issuing a security patch through a service pack, in the monthly security update, or via an out-of-cycle security update.

The vulnerability was disclosed December 4 by Bernhard Mueller of SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab.

[sajiv]

Microsoft May Release Windows 7 Beta at Show

Attendees at next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) could get the first public look at Windows 7, the next version of Microsoft's client OS.

At its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles in October, Microsoft said it would release the beta early in 2009. Though nothing has been confirmed, signs are pointing to sometime in January and possibly the CES show in Las Vegas as a likely release date. CES is scheduled for Jan. 8-11.

A member of Microsoft's public relations team in the U.K. said in an e-mail that at the show, "Microsoft will be making some significant announcements including Windows 7." She did not specify exactly what the news around the OS would be. But several blogs, including All About Microsoft, have reported that beta testers are expecting a Windows 7 beta any day.

Furthermore, Microsoft wrote on a Web site for its Microsoft Developer Network Conferences (MDCs) that attendees of those conferences, some of which are scheduled for mid-January, can expect a Windows 7 beta DVD.

Some of the MDCs were this month and the site gave Microsoft an out if the beta wasn't released in December, saying that "the DVD will be shipped to attendees when it becomes available." A Windows 7 beta was not released at those conferences, and the next MDCs are scheduled for Jan. 13 in Chicago and Minneapolis.

Microsoft expects to release Windows 7 in early 2010, although some industry observers expect it may be out by the end of 2009 because of lackluster customer response to Windows Vista. Many business customers in particular have opted to skip Vista and run XP until Windows 7 is available.

[sajiv]

Yep, Microsoft and Sony sell game consoles too

Remember Sony and Microsoft? No? Well, neither does the average Amazon customer.

According to a release sent out by the online retail giant Friday, the Nintendo Wii and all its accessories dominated video game sales during the holiday shopping rush and not one mention was made of Sony's Playstation 3 or Microsoft's Xbox 360.

"Nintendo Wii dominated the top sellers in video games and hardware, including the Wii console, the Wii remote controller and the Wii nunchuk controller," the release reports.

What about all its competitors? Have they somehow entered the realm of irrelevance?

I'm starting to wonder if they have.

A quick glance at console sales over the past year tells you everything you need to know about the video game hardware business. With 43.75 million units sold, the Wii easily dominates the market, which is also home to 26.49 million Xbox 360 units and 18.82 million Playstation 3 consoles.

I was hoping that Sony and Microsoft would have a stronger showing during this year's holiday season and so far, little data is available to make a call on whether or not the companies did. But one thing is certain: if the world's most important Web retailer says Nintendo "dominated" the video game console market, you can bet it's not an isolated incident.

And now, as we wait for accurate console sales figures from NPD, I'm left wondering if Nintendo can push its competitors into the realm of irrelevance with a huge showing in December. After all, with such a huge lead in unit sales and little competition from Sony and Microsoft over the past year, can we really still believe that either company has the ability to beat Nintendo during this generation?

OK, OK, so I'm sure some of you out there are saying that I need to remember that the "Wii isn't a competitor" to the other consoles. Rubbish. The Wii is a direct competitor to the other consoles because it's vying for the same spending dollars that Microsoft and Sony are. To say the Wii isn't a competitor and it's not fair to compare all three consoles is ludicrous.

Say what you will about Nintendo, the Wii, and anything else the company focuses on, but one thing is clear: its hardware is dominating the video game business and Sony and Microsoft haven't been able to do anything to stop it.

[sajiv]

Microsoft gearing up for layoffs? Let's hope not



I've been competing with Microsoft for years--at Lineo, Novell, and now Alfresco. But I can't get even remotely excited by the prospect of a big layoff at the software giant, with some speculation suggesting it could go as deep as 10 percent of Microsoft's 91,000 full-time employees.

Another 9,100 people out of work is not a good thing, no matter how much you may dislike Microsoft.

I, for one, do not dislike Microsoft, and have profound respect for the company's execution and many of its products. I want to see Microsoft giving Google real competition on the Web, just as I'm glad to see Google forcing Microsoft to innovate on the desktop again. It may well be that Microsoft will be a stronger competitor for pruning its workforce, and I'm a big enough believer in the free market to think that in the long term, the people affected will be better off, too.

But I still don't want to see Microsoft layoffs. Not this Christmas. Not when the market can't absorb the displaced employees. Microsofties have families, too.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft kills fake software on 400,000 PCs   

Microsoft claims to have killed off 400,000 copies of the fake security software Antivirus 2009 from victims' computers in the last month.

December's version of the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), targeted one of the most popular phony security software packages, Antivirus 2009, and erased it. According to Microsoft, its software erased the fake from over 394,000 PCs in the first nine days of December.

It is the second month that Microsoft has been targeting such software. Last month, it killed off "Advanced Antivirus", "Ultimate Antivirus 2008" and "Xpert Antivirus" from nearly a million machines.

In December, Microsoft went after "W32/Fake XPA" which includes fake security software going by names such as "Antivirus XP," "Antivirus XP 2008" and "Antivirus 2009." Another piece of software targeted was an affiliated piece of malware, called "W32/Yektel," that works alongside W32 Fake XPA and is often bundled with it. Yektel puts fake warnings into Internet Explorer.

Newer variations of the Yektel Trojan insert phony warnings into Google search results which say that Google has detected an unregistered Antivirus 2009 copy on a victim's computer and suggests it is activated. The IE and Google warnings take users to a website where users are told to fork out $50 to register Antivirus 2009.

[dwarakesh]

Windows 7 beta leaks to Internet

Pirated copies of a Windows 7 build pegged by many as the beta Microsoft Corp. will release next month have leaked to the Internet, according to searches at several BitTorrent sites today.
A search on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, for example, returned two Windows 7 Build 7000 listings, both of which had been posted Friday.

As of Saturday afternoon, one torrent on Pirate Bay showed more than 1,800 "seeders"  the term for a computer that has a complete copy of the torrent file  and about 8,500 "leechers," or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent. The torrent is a disk image of the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, Build 7000, according to users commenting on the site and elsewhere on the Internet.

Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites, including Mininova, listed the beta build as a 2.44GB download.

This is not the first time Windows 7 has escaped from Microsoft's limited testing pool. Just hours after the company unveiled an earlier version at its Professional Developers Conference in late October, the alpha edition hit BitTorrent.

Users first reported the newest Windows 7 leak on Neowin.net's forums Friday, with the opening message and screenshots coming from someone identified as "+fivestarVIP" , who said he was from Beijing, China.

Some commentators and bloggers have maintained that Microsoft may release the beta as early as Jan. 7, after CEO Steve Ballmer delivers a keynote that evening at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he is expected to talk about Windows 7.

The successor to the perception- and problem-plagued Windows Vista will ship in late 2009 or early 2010, according to previous statements by Microsoft executives.

[sajiv]

Microsoft outlines vision of pay-as-you-go computing

Microsoft has applied for a patent on metered, pay-as-you-go computing.

U.S. patent application number 20080319910, published on Christmas Day, details Microsoft's vision of a situation where a "standard model" of PC is given away or heavily subsidized by someone in the supply chain. The end user then pays to use the computer, with charges based on both the length of usage time and the performance levels utilized, along with a "one-time charge."

Microsoft notes in the application that the end user could end up paying more for the computer, compared with the one-off cost entailed in the existing PC business model, but argues the user would benefit by having a PC with an extended "useful life."

"A computer with scalable performance level components and selectable software and service options has a user interface that allows individual performance levels to be selected," reads the patent application's abstract. The patent application was filed June 21, 2007.

"The scalable performance level components may include a processor, memory, graphics controller, etc. Software and services may include word processing, email, browsing, database access, etc. To support a pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being performed," the abstract continues.

Integral to Microsoft's vision is a security module, embedded in the PC, that would effectively lock the PC to a certain supplier.

"The metering agents and specific elements of the security module...allow an underwriter in the supply chain to confidently supply a computer at little or no upfront cost to a user or business, aware that their investment is protected and that the scalable performance capabilities generate revenue commensurate with actual performance level settings and usage," the application reads.

'A more granular approach'

According to the application, the issue with the existing PC business model is that it "requires more or less a one chance at the consumer kind of mentality, where elasticity curves are based on the pressure to maximize profits on a one-time-sale, one-shot-at-the-consumer mentality."

Microsoft's proposed model, on the other hand, could "allow a more granular approach to hardware and software sales," the application states, adding that the user "may be able to select a level of performance related to processor, memory, graphics power, etc that is driven not by a lifetime maximum requirement but rather by the need of the moment."

"When the need is browsing, a low level of performance may be used and, when network-based interactive gaming is the need of the moment, the highest available performance may be made available to the user," the document reads. "Because the user only pays for the performance level of the moment, the user may see no reason to not acquire a device with a high degree of functionality, in terms of both hardware and software, and experiment with a usage level that suits different performance requirements."

By way of example, the application posits a situation involving three "bundles" of applications and performance: office, gaming, and browsing.

"The office bundle may include word-processing and spreadsheet applications, medium graphics performance and two of three processor cores," the document reads. "The gaming bundle may include no productivity applications but may include 3D graphics support and three of three processor cores. The browsing bundle may include no productivity applications, medium graphics performance and high-speed network interface."

"Charging for the various bundles may be by bundle and by duration. For example, the office bundle may be $1.00 [68 pence] per hour, the gaming bundle may be $1.25 per hour and the browsing bundle may be $0.80 per hour. The usage charges may be abstracted to 'units/hour' to make currency conversions simpler. Alternatively, a bundle may incur a one-time charge that is operable until changed or for a fixed-usage period," the document reads.

Microsoft's patent application does acknowledge that a per-use model of computing would probably increase the cost of ownership over the PC's lifetime. The company argues in its application, however, that "the payments can be deferred and the user can extend the useful life of the computer beyond that of the one-time purchase machine."

The document suggests that "both users and suppliers benefit from this new business model" because "the user is able to migrate the performance level of the computer as needs change over time, while the supplier can develop a revenue stream business that may actually have higher value than the one-time purchase model currently practiced."

"Rather than suffering through less-than-adequate performance for a significant portion of the life of a computer, a user can increase performance level over time, at a slight premium of payments," the application reads. "When the performance level finally reaches its maximum and still better performance is required, then the user may upgrade to a new computer, running at a relatively low performance level, probably with little or no change in the cost of use.

[sajiv]

Microsoft outlines pay-per-use PC vision

Microsoft has applied for a patent on metered, pay-as-you-go computing.

U.S. patent application number 20080319910, published on Christmas Day, details Microsoft's vision of a situation where a "standard model" of PC is given away or heavily subsidized by someone in the supply chain. The end user then pays to use the computer, with charges based on both the length of usage time and the performance levels utilized, along with a "one-time charge."

Microsoft notes in the application that the end user could end up paying more for the computer, compared with the one-off cost entailed in the existing PC business model, but argues the user would benefit by having a PC with an extended "useful life."

"A computer with scalable performance level components and selectable software and service options has a user interface that allows individual performance levels to be selected," reads the patent application's abstract. The patent application was filed June 21, 2007.

"The scalable performance level components may include a processor, memory, graphics controller, etc. Software and services may include word processing, email, browsing, database access, etc. To support a pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being performed," the abstract continues.

Integral to Microsoft's vision is a security module, embedded in the PC, that would effectively lock the PC to a certain supplier.

"The metering agents and specific elements of the security module...allow an underwriter in the supply chain to confidently supply a computer at little or no upfront cost to a user or business, aware that their investment is protected and that the scalable performance capabilities generate revenue commensurate with actual performance level settings and usage," the application reads.

'A more granular approach'
According to the application, the issue with the existing PC business model is that it "requires more or less a one chance at the consumer kind of mentality, where elasticity curves are based on the pressure to maximize profits on a one-time-sale, one-shot-at-the-consumer mentality."

Microsoft's proposed model, on the other hand, could "allow a more granular approach to hardware and software sales," the application states, adding that the user "may be able to select a level of performance related to processor, memory, graphics power, etc that is driven not by a lifetime maximum requirement but rather by the need of the moment."

"When the need is browsing, a low level of performance may be used and, when network-based interactive gaming is the need of the moment, the highest available performance may be made available to the user," the document reads. "Because the user only pays for the performance level of the moment, the user may see no reason to not acquire a device with a high degree of functionality, in terms of both hardware and software, and experiment with a usage level that suits different performance requirements."

By way of example, the application posits a situation involving three "bundles" of applications and performance: office, gaming, and browsing.

"The office bundle may include word-processing and spreadsheet applications, medium graphics performance and two of three processor cores," the document reads. "The gaming bundle may include no productivity applications but may include 3D graphics support and three of three processor cores. The browsing bundle may include no productivity applications, medium graphics performance and high-speed network interface."

"Charging for the various bundles may be by bundle and by duration. For example, the office bundle may be $1.00 [68 pence] per hour, the gaming bundle may be $1.25 per hour and the browsing bundle may be $0.80 per hour. The usage charges may be abstracted to 'units/hour' to make currency conversions simpler. Alternatively, a bundle may incur a one-time charge that is operable until changed or for a fixed-usage period," the document reads.

Microsoft's patent application does acknowledge that a per-use model of computing would probably increase the cost of ownership over the PC's lifetime. The company argues in its application, however, that "the payments can be deferred and the user can extend the useful life of the computer beyond that of the one-time purchase machine."

The document suggests that "both users and suppliers benefit from this new business model" because "the user is able to migrate the performance level of the computer as needs change over time, while the supplier can develop a revenue stream business that may actually have higher value than the one-time purchase model currently practiced."

"Rather than suffering through less-than-adequate performance for a significant portion of the life of a computer, a user can increase performance level over time, at a slight premium of payments," the application reads. "When the performance level finally reaches its maximum and still better performance is required, then the user may upgrade to a new computer, running at a relatively low performance level, probably with little or no change in the cost of use."

[sajiv]

Windows Mobile: What Microsoft Needs to Fix

Microsoft is losing ground in wireless phones to Apple and Google. To keep up, it needs touch displays, mobile cloud computing, and its own app store

In September, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer spent a week traipsing across Europe and parts of the U.S. schmoozing 17 of the world's largest handset makers and wireless carriers. It was Ballmer's longest trip ever aimed at drumming up support for Windows Mobile, the company's software for cell phones. The trip may not have been long enough.

In recent months, Microsoft's (MSFT) mobile strategy has hit a rough patch. In the third quarter, iPhone maker Apple (AAPL) shipped more smartphones than all 56 device makers that make Windows Mobile phones combined, according to research firm Canalys. As a result, Windows Mobile slid from its position as the world's second-most popular mobile operating system a year ago to the No. 4 spot, behind Nokia's (NOK) Symbian, Apple's OS X, and Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry.

Partners Warm to Rivals
The threats don't end there. While Windows Mobile shipments continue to grow, its share could slip if, as expected, Apple begins to sell its iPhone through Wal-Mart (WMT), the world's largest retailer. And T-Mobile G1, a phone based on Android, an operating system backed by Google (GOOG), has met with popular demand. Windows Mobile's share may drop to 11% this year from 12% in 2007, says Chris Ambrosio, an executive director for wireless at research firm Strategy Analytics. "On the important issues, they are chasing the market," Ambrosio says. "And they've got to chase much faster" to ensure continued carrier and handset makers' support, he adds.

That backing is far from assured. Speaking at a conference for Symbian partners and developers on Dec. 4, AT&T (T) executive Roger Smith hinted that his company, which offers seven Windows Mobile devices, would prefer to support one type of mobile software. The remarks were widely interpreted to mean AT&T, the No. 1 U.S. wireless service provider, would eventually focus solely on Symbian. Still, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel more recently said, "Microsoft continues to be an important partner for us."

Whatever approach AT&T takes, other Microsoft Microsoft partners are clearly warming to rival software providers. And in a climate where manufacturers and carriers want to narrow the list of their suppliers to reduce costs, Microsoft may not always win out. On Dec. 9, the Android movement added 14 new converts, including British carrier Vodafone (VOD) and handset maker Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, which released its first Windows Mobile-based phone, the Xperia X1, earlier this year. Cell-phone manufacturer HTC, partly owned by Microsoft, made its first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, earlier this year.

Some longtime Windows Mobile developers are switching allegiance. Koushik Dutta, who works for a stealth startup funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, now spends as much time on Android as on Windows Mobile projects. "It will be soon mostly Android," says Koushik, who previously worked exclusively on Windows Mobile software. "I like the [Android] phone better. It's mostly a usability issue." He says Windows Mobile phones tend to lose juice fast when running graphics-intensive applications, though that's a concern voiced by some people about the G1 as well. Plus, Windows Mobile is designed for use with stylus vs. a touch interface, which is now all the rage among consumers.
Cloud Computing a Must?

But all is not lost for Microsoft. To keep partners and developers on board, analysts say Microsoft needs to adapt Windows Mobile software for use with touch interface. However, a major update may not hit the market until 2010.

Microsoft also should also follow Google's and Apple's lead in the area of wireless cloud-computing services. The move would shift energy-sapping computing power away from users' cell phones and onto the powerful servers maintained by Microsoft. Rivals are already offering such services. When you purchase an iPhone application from the Apple App Store, the payment is processed on Apple's servers rather than on an individual device. When you ask your G1 to find the nearest sushi joint, it's Google's servers and not your phone that churn out the map. In both cases, your phone doesn't do much legwork. Most of the processing is done on remote servers "in a cloud." So processing typically happens faster and it requires your handheld device to be less sophisticated—and less costly. As cloud computing spreads onto rival software-based devices, Microsoft could lose $850 million in revenue in 2012 alone, according to Bernstein Research—unless it ramps up its own efforts.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft slams security watcher

Microsoft has denied a claim by a security researcher, Laurent Gaffie, that its media player has a vulnerability that allows a hacker to take over the user's computer.

Writing in its Security Vulnerability Research & Defence blog, Microsoft said that the claim was false. The problem was a reliability problem with no security risk to customers.

Gaffie posted the flaw on the Bugtraq security mailing list, claiming that the vulnerability existed in Windows Media Player 9, 10, and 11. All a hacker needed to do, he said, was create a malformed WAV, SND, or MIDI file to compromise a PC running Windows Vista or Windows XP. He provided some proof-of-concept code he said would allow remote code execution.

However, Microsoft slammed Gaffie for publishing his claims without first contacting the software giant. The blog said that other organisations picked the report up, and claimed that the issue was a code execution vulnerability in Windows Media Player. But Microsoft found no possibility for code execution in this case. The blog said that the proof of concept code did trigger a crash of Windows Media player, but that the application can be restarted right away and doesn't affect the rest of the system.

It added that the flaw which causes the crash had already been identified during routine code maintenance and corrected in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, but there were no security problems attached to it.

[dwarakesh]

Windows 7 Pirated and Available Now

Pirated copies of a Windows 7 build pegged by many as the beta Microsoft will release next month have leaked to the Internet, according to searches at several BitTorrent sites.

A search on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, for example, returned two Windows 7 Build 7000 listings, both of which had been posted Friday.

As of Saturday afternoon, one torrent on Pirate Bay showed more than 1,800 "seeders" - the term for a computer that has a complete copy of the torrent file - and about 8,500 "leechers," or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent. The torrent is a disk image of the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, Build 7000, according to users commenting on the site and elsewhere on the Internet.

Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites, including Mininova, listed the beta build as a 2.44GB download.

This is not the first time Windows 7 has escaped from Microsoft's limited testing pool. Just hours after the company unveiled an earlier version at its Professional Developers Conference in late October, the alpha edition hit BitTorrent.

Users first reported the newest Windows 7 leak on Neowin.net's forums Friday, with the opening message and screenshots coming from someone identified as "+fivestarVIP" , who said he was from Beijing, China.

Build 7000 is what Microsoft will issue next month as Windows 7 Beta, according to other reports by Windows bloggers who have copies. Paul Thurrott, for example, posted a review and screenshots of Build 7000 today on his "SuperSite for Windows" site, naming it as the Beta build.

Although Microsoft has promised to open the beta to all users in early 2009, it has been mum on an exact release date. Information published on its own Web site earlier this month, however, hinted that the beta will be available no later than January 13.

Some commentators and bloggers have maintained that Microsoft may release the Windows 7 beta as early as January 7, after CEO Steve Ballmer delivers a keynote that evening at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he is expected to talk about Windows 7.

The successor to the perception- and problem-plagued Windows Vista will ship in late 2009 or early 2010, according to previous statements by Microsoft executives.

[sajiv]

Microsoft blames leap year for Zune glitch

New York: A malfunction of some Microsoft Corp Zune music players was caused by an error in the way the device accounts for leap years, Microsoft said.

In a statement on the Zune website posted late on Wednesday, the company blamed "a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year," adding: "The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009."

The year 2008 had 366 days instead of the usual 365.

Early on Wednesday, thousands of users found they could not use the 30-gigabyte Zune model, made in 2006. Microsoft called the issue "widespread," but said users could reconnect their players after 7 a.m. EST on Thursday.

[sajiv]

Microsoft's Zune players suffer glitch

Thousands of Microsoft's Zune media players the software company's answer to Apple Inc's iPod unexpectedly conked out on Wednesday and showed users an error message, prompting references to "Y2K for Zunes." The problems appeared when people tried to start up their devices.

Frustrated users lit up Microsoft's online support forum for Zunes with more than 2,500 messages by last afternoon.

Late on Wednesday, the Redmond, Washington-based company said the outage affected only the 30-gigabyte Zune models and was caused by a problem with their internal clock. Microsoft expected the problem to clear up as the clocks ticked over to Jan. 1, though users will have to jump through some hoops to get their Zunes back to normal, including letting the batteries die down completely before the devices will restart successfully.

The crash of so many Zunes at once drew comparisons to the Y2K programming problem that stoked fears about a widespread computer meltdown in 2000 when the machines ticked over to the new millennium.

Zunes have paltry popularity compared the iPod, which owns nearly three-quarters of the MP3 market, compared with Zune's single-digit market share, according to statistics from the NPD Group. But some users are fiercely loyal, and newer Zunes have gotten positive reviews.

[ganeshbala]

Microsoft Solves Zune Bug

A software bug unprepared for the 2008 leap year has been fixed by Microsoft. The worldwide freezing of the 30GB Zune media player was solved by the company which produced it . On New Year's Eve, reports began flooding across the Internet that Microsoft's Zune media player was experiencing a worldwide meltdown, basically leaving Zune owners without response.
The problem was caused by a software that did not account for the extra day in the 2008 leap year and it affected only the 30GB Zune models released in mid-November of 2006. Microsoft was quick to respond, as it posted an entry on the Zune FAQ Web page asking users to disconnect their Zune from USB and AX power sources, allow the battery to drain, wait until after noon GMT on January 1, 2009 and then reconnect the media player.
However, some owners still couldn't use their Zune. According to some reports on various Zune forums, the devices began freezing after the startup status bar reached 100 percent. This time, a message from Microsoft addressing the issue was slow in coming, prompting a slew of angry messages on forums across the Web.
Zune was launched in November 2006 and it has failed to find a foothold in the market, as Apple's rival music player, the iPod, has continued to lead the MP3 player market. As of May 2008, about 2 million Zune players had been sold. However, in the same period, sales of Apple's iPod reached 76 million. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will have the power to fight and raise Zune's sales.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft applauds sentencing of piracy accused by Chinese authorities

Microsoft appreciated the sentencing of 11 ring leaders accused of wide scale piracy of the company's software products spanning across 36 countries, 19 products and 11 languages.

The 11 were arrested in July 2007 in a joint operation involving the Chinese authorities particularly the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and the FBI.

China has now sentenced the convicts for prison terms ranging from 1.5 to 6.5 years.

"Microsoft greatly appreciates the work of China''s PSB and the FBI in taking strong enforcement action against this global software counterfeiting syndicate," said David Finn, associate general counsel for Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft.

[sajiv]

Microsoft says Zune players working again

Many of Microsoft's Zune media players that froze up on the last day of 2008 because of a glitch involving their internal clock were functioning properly Thursday as the new year was ushered in, according to the company. However, a few people were still complaining of problems operating the devices.

Microsoft spokesman Brian Eskridge said that based on responses from customers and his review of online message forums, affected users of the 30-gigabyte Zune model were not having further problems after fully recharging their devices and powering them on again on Thursday.

"It worked for me and it seems like it's working for customers," said Eskridge, who has one of the 30-gigabyte Zune players that was temporarily without service. "From the limited time I've looked on the forums, it seems customers have had good success with it."

But, by midmorning Thursday, a few people were still complaining on one online Zune forum about their devices not booting up. Most people on the forum said their devices were working, and they encouraged people who were still having problems to be patient and let their devices fully charge before powering them on again.

A day earlier when people turned on the 30-gigabyte model, the device would freeze and wouldn't fully boot up, meaning users couldn't play music, videos and games or transfer material between their PCs and the devices.

Frustrated users lit up Microsoft's online support forum for Zunes with more than 2,500 messages by Wednesday afternoon.

Eskridge said the problem involved a bug in the model's internal clock driver that was related to how the device handles the extra day during a leap year. Last year was a leap year. When 2008 ended and 2009 began Thursday, the internal clock automatically reset, he said.

"I don't know the technical details beyond that," Eskridge said Thursday. "I just know it didn't function yesterday."

The problem did not affect users of other Zune models, he said. Eskridge did not have exact figures on how many people own the 30-gigabyte model.

[ganeshbala]

Pirate versions of Windows 7 already freely available

A download which claims to be an early build of the new Windows 7 operating system has been leaked onto P2P file-sharing websites.

User "Ofsound" uploaded a torrent on notorious file sharing website Pirate Bay, which looks like an illegal version of the much-anticipated software.

It was already unveiled to a select group last October, but the first beta was expected to be released at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

It has already been downloaded by thousands of users. At the last count, over 4,000 users have fully downloaded a 2.44GB Beta 1 Build 7000 version of Windows 7. Thousands more were in the process of doing so.

Security vendor Fortify warned that the problem with downloading this version was that there was no way of authenticating that it had not been tampered with by a hacker who could code malware into the file.

"It's highly unlikely that any IT security application will protect the new operating system from internally-coded malware," said Rob Rachwald, Fortify's director of product marketing.

"The fall-out from trying an unofficial version of the new operating system could be quite severe," he added.

Judging from most of the comments made about the Windows 7 file, many users seemed to be happy with the download.

However, a user called "Master Po", said: "This is basically Vista with a few taskbar tweaks, new wallpapers, most everything is the same. The gee whiz factor wears off pretty quickly and you'll end up going back to your main OS. It's pretty fast though."

[sajiv]

Microsoft sold 28 million Xbox 360s by end of 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp sold 28 million units worldwide of its Xbox 360 video game console through the end of 2008, expanding the Xbox's lead over rival Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 console in worldwide unit sales, the company said on Monday.

Xbox 360 product management director Aaron Greenberg said 2008 "was our biggest year ever in Xbox history" despite a sluggish global economy that's battered U.S. retailers this past holiday season.

Rising unemployment and tighter credit have dented U.S. consumers' purchasing power and most retailers have posted dismal sales results in recent months.

Despite problems by some publishers, the video game industry overall has bucked the trend as market researcher NPD said video games sales rose 10 percent and totaled $2.91 billion in November, proving consumers were still spending on video games at the beginning of the holiday season despite the sour economy.

Microsoft said global unit sales of the Xbox 360, which was launched about a year before the PS3, outpaced its rival by over 8 million units at the close of 2008.

Online consumer spending on Microsoft's Xbox Live online service increased 84 percent year-over-year and members of the Xbox Live community rose to over 17 million members at the end of 2008, the company said. Consumers have spent over $1 billion on Microsoft's Xbox Live online service since its launch for the 360 in 2005, according the Microsoft.

Greenberg noted "the $199 price point (of the Xbox 360) was really critical to our success this holiday." Microsoft cut the U.S. price of its entry-level console in September to $199, or $50 below Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii console.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft, Symantec, AVG, Sophos et al sued over security

A company launched a patent infringement lawsuit against a bevy of software companies in a Texas district court.

Information Protection and Authentication of Texas LLC (IPAT) alleges that Symantec, Microsoft, AVG, CA, Check Point, Comodo, Eset, F-Secure, Iolo Technologies, Kaspersky Labs, Mcafee, Microworld Technologies, Netveda, Norman Data Defense Systems, Novell, PC Tools, PWI, Sophos, Sunbelt Software, Trend Micro, Velocity Micro and Webroot Software infringe two patents it owns.

These are 5,311,591 - Computer System Security Method and Apparatus for Creating and Using Program Authorization Information Data Structures, and 5,412,717, which has the same unwieldy title.

IPAT wants all of these companies to cough up money for allegedly breaching its patents.

[ganeshbala]

Microsoft to Offer Free or Discounted Upgrades from Vista to Windows 7

According to the website TechARP.com, Microsoft is planning to offer discounted or free upgrades from Windows Vista to Windows 7 for users who will buy Vista starting July 1 2009.

TechARP.com also correctly reported the dates when Microsoft released the versions of Windows Visa to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The report stated that Microsoft is developing a new upgrade platform for Windows 7, in a similar manner as Vista Express Upgrade, which was released back in 2006.

Through Vista Express Upgrade, Microsoft offered important discounts or even free upgrades to users who bought Windows XP prior to the release of Vista, in an attempt to promote the company's new operating system.

According to the report, Microsoft will bundle the new upgrade platform in all Vista-powered machines made by OEMs starting July 1. The program will last for a limited amount of time, though. However, it seems that Microsoft has not yet decided for how long the discounted upgrade offer will be available.

Even though users will be able to do the upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, the new operating system will be deployed only after Microsoft releases it to the mass-market. This might put off some users, as the Redmond giant has not yet announced the release date of Windows 7.

Many analysts think that Windows 7 will be a hit, as there were many positive reviews of the new OS after the pre-beta release in October. Currently, many users have already deployed a new beta of Windows 7, as the M3 build 7000 of the new operating system is available on some Bit Torrent websites.

[sajiv]

Muglia on the cloud, Azure, and the economy

A long time ago, Bob Muglia worked on a Microsoft project designed to offer a variety of services in the cloud. That effort, known as Hailstorm, didn't exactly go gangbusters, and Muglia's career took a detour.

But both Muglia and Hailstorm are back. On Monday, Microsoft elevated Muglia to divisional president, a recognition of the success he has enjoyed as head of Microsoft's server software business.

As for Hailstorm, the name is gone, but many of the concepts are back, as part of the Windows Azure platform that Microsoft announced in October. Last month, I had a chance to talk with Muglia about Windows Azure, the cloud in general, as well as the economy. Here are some edited excepts from my conversation:

Is this supposed to be a slow-motion rollout with Azure?
Muglia: The way I sort of describe it is, it'll be phased--there's a whole broad set of services. You'll see some of those services go to production next year; exactly what and when, we're still working through. People are able to begin to develop right now, of course, on it, but it will happen over a period of time.

And the other thing right now is, people are still very much kicking the tires. We have quite a bit of tire kicking going on, a lot of people provisioned on the services right now, and so far, things have been going well.

What are the kinds of things that you think people will want to run in Azure?
Muglia: In terms of the classes of applications, I think you'll see two initial ones, though it's fair to say that people may have an interest in running in this environment any application they would want to run on-premises. But the initial ones I think would be your Web-style applications, which tend be Internet-connected and need geodistribution.

The other class that I think is really interesting is anything that involves working in partnership with others: supply chain sorts of applications, business-to-business, Electronic Data Interchange, those sorts of classes of applications in which you need to connect multiple organizations, and you need to deal with authentication, and you need to deal with network connectivity.

Today it's very complex with virtual private networks and password management, and a whole nasty set of problems to deal with, and Azure has some built-in services to simplify those things, including a service bus to go through firewalls and connect things over the Internet--again, any system to allow people to authenticate. Those are basics that are fundamental, that everyone will really need in this kind of environment.

So, I think you'll see those sorts of things emerge initially, but then you could just imagine all sorts of things. You could imagine people using it for (high-performance computing) applications. That's an area we're looking at, and we certainly are having conversations with a number of academic and other organizations.

In terms of the movement toward the Microsoft-hosted versions of its server products, are there some interesting things that you have come across, as you've had to do the work to get ready for that?
Muglia: There's a ton. I mean, one is, you need to move so that everything works across the Internet, which is just the right thing to do, anyway. Another thing you see is the need to have what we call multitenancy. So, to get scale on these things, you can't be dedicating even a virtual machine to a company. You need to be able to support many users, many organizations within a single instance of an application, and so that's an attribute.

There's a whole set of really interesting regulatory things that you hit when you go across the world attached to this. Turns out, some of our products, like unified communications, have VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) capabilities. Well, you go and take that to many countries of the world, and the call those telephone companies. They call you a telco, and all of a sudden, there's a conversation about being regulated like a telco, you know, in some countries around the world. That may or not be pleasant.

There are issues about data and where data can reside and not reside, and so that's why when you spread geographically around the world, there's a wide variety of new issues that open up that are quite, you know, quite interesting--billing issues, because obviously, there are different issues with the way the banking systems in different countries work.

Let's talk about the economy. What are you seeing when you talk with customers?
Muglia: People are afraid. I mean, I think we're all a bit afraid, at some fundamental level, because we don't know--no one knows where this is going to land in the long run.

No one really is clear as to how far the contraction is going to go and how long it's going to happen, and then there's a lack of clarity also as to how we get through this. Are we going to be tight six months of the year, then boom!? Well, maybe. That would be kind of a good viewpoint of things right now. Or is it going to be a longer period of time, with a medium period of time with sort of a slow growth.

I sort of always come back to a belief that the fundamentals will drive all of these things, and ultimately, it means that people have to produce things that others value that helps to drive the overall society forward and, you know, generate something that is of sustainable long-term value. Ultimately, one of the key things is, how can we make companies and individuals more productive and able to work together better?

So, I guess I have two questions somewhat related to that. One is, how about for you? As a business manager, obviously, you manage a fairly large business. What are the things that you might have done, had the economy continued, that you're not doing now? What are some of the things that remain priorities, and what are some of the things that you're going to let happen slower?
Muglia: Well, certainly, there's no question that Microsoft's not immune to the circumstances. There's no question about that. So we have slowed our growth. We are still growing as a company, and (the server and tools business) will grow overall this year, though I admit that we did most of our growth in Q1. We actually were incredibly successful in bringing a lot of folks on in Q1, so we would have had to slow (hiring) under any circumstances because we're outachieving our plan, but we've slowed considerably.

So if you take some of the areas in the database space, like some of these areas around business intelligence and data analysis, we're actually investing in some of those areas. But we're taking resources off some things that don't have the same kind of results and long-term potential for us to have returns, one of which was pretty public recently: OneCare, where we, you know, decided to refocus that effort into a much more narrowly focused free antimalware offering instead of providing a broader suite.

Are there other things about which you, as a business leader, are saying, this is going to have to wait a little or move slower?
Yeah. I mean, there certainly are. I think that we've looked inside, at what we're doing really in almost every one of our groups. If you look at almost every one of the things that we're doing and say, OK, there's a set of things we want to do in management, let's tighten the belt a little bit, as to where we're going. Yet we're continuing to invest in this whole virtualization and management space, coherence with Azure, all those sorts of things we're continuing to invest in.

So in each one of our business areas, we've looked at how we could reallocate and refocus, and then across the board, we've made some fairly fundamental shifts like we did with OneCare.

[sajiv]

Microsoft Names Bob Muglia President

He's kept Microsoft's server and tools business growing steadily and last year began reporting directly to the company's CEO, taking on some corporate responsibilities in the process. Now, Bob Muglia gets a new title to add to his growing portfolio: president.

Late Monday, Microsoft named Muglia as president of the company's server and tools division, making him one of only four executives with that title at the software company. Muglia's division, which includes industry-leading products like Windows Server, Visual Studio, and SQL Server, accounts for about 22% of Microsoft's total sales.

"Bob has built a culture of getting things done and done right," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in an e-mail to employees Monday afternoon. "He has championed some of our most important initiatives and helped us successfully face some of our most important competitive challenges."

In the several years he's led Microsoft's server business, Muglia has had to contend with competitive threats from Linux and, more recently, companies like VMware. The server and tools business' annual revenue is more than $13 billion today, up from about $10 billion in 2005. Going forward, Muglia will have to look for ways to compete with cloud computing and push Microsoft to help companies set up their own internal cloud environments.

Muglia is one of Microsoft's longest-serving employees, having been with the company for 21 years. In that time, he's seen his share of ups and downs, having been demoted from VP of Microsoft's .Net services group after the 2001 failure of online services platform Hailstorm, an early online identity and Web services platform that would have powered Web apps like e-mail and e-commerce for businesses and consumers.

Muglia joins entertainment and devices chief Robbie Bach, business division head Stephen Elop, and Microsoft International exec Jean-Philippe Courtois as the company's fourth president.

[sajiv]

Microsoft preps to push IE 8; makes blocking tool available

As it has done with previous Internet Explorer (IE) releases, Microsoft has made available an IE 8 blocking toolkit to allow users to keep Microsoft's browser from being downloaded automatically on their Windows machines.

In a January 6 posting to the Microsoft IE blog, company officials noted that Microsoft is planning to push the final IE 8 release via its Automatic Update (AU), Windows Update (WU) and Microsoft Update (MU) update systems. To keep the release from being pushed, customers can download the blocker toolkit from the Microsoft Download Center.

Unlike some previous versions of the toolkit, there is no expiration date on the latest blocker. The toolkit can be configured by running the registry file on client machines or via Group Policy, according to the IE 8 blog posting.

Once the final IE 8 bits are ready, Microsoft is planning to mark them as a top priority for distribution, officials said via the blog entry:

Microsoft hasn't provided a final release target date for IE 8, other than to say some time in 2009. Late last year, company officials acknowledged Microsoft would not be releasing the final version of IE 8 before the end of calendar 2008, as some company officials had claimed previously. Instead, Microsoft is planning to distribute in the first quarter of 2009 one more public test release, Release Candidate 1, before it rolls out the final IE 8.

I'm not sure if we'll see RC 1 of IE 8 this week. While Microsoft is expected to release the official version of Windows 7 Beta 1 to private and public testers over course of the next three days, the build of IE8 that is part of Windows 7 Beta 1 is still Beta 2, company officials said on January 7. (The refreshed partner test build of IE 8 that Microsoft released privately in December was designated as "RC1″ but isn't the official RC1 release, the Softies have said.)

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft offers Windows 7 beta

LAS VEGAS: Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer on Wednesday announced that a test version of the U.S. software titan's Windows 7 operating system will be available worldwide on Friday. " Users can come online and try Windows 7 at home," Ballmer said .

[ganeshbala]

Microsoft Has Big Plans For 2009

Steve Ballmer gave the inaugural speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), addressing several important aspects of the industry.

He talked about the global PC revolution, which even though has been good, it has been far from sufficient. He continued with the explanation for such an affirmation, saying that there are billions of people who haven't heard of a PC or Windows.

Mr. Ballmer expressed his firm belief that Windows "will remain at the center of people's technological solar system," and that the wide variety of available or upcoming computing devices will be united by the company's system. The lesson learnt with Vista is considered extremely valuable and the preparations for the release of Windows 7 will cover all possible issues.

He also confirmed the partnership with Verizon, through which Microsoft will provide its customers with a mobile search tool. The deal has been signed for a period of five years and will go into effect later this quarter. The new offer will provide users with voice commands, location-based searches, and several other useful details for people on the go, featuring gas prices, movie times and even data on local businesses. In addition to all these aspects, Microsoft will also manage Verizon Wireless' Mobile Web service.

This represents a great business move for Microsoft, as Verizon is just days away from becoming the biggest cellular service provider in the United States – which will happen once it complete the acquisition of Alltel. Surely this represent a win-win situation, with Verizon looking to provide the best possible services to its clients.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft Postpones Windows 7 Beta Release

Microsoft  has delayed the release of the first public beta of Windows 7 due to heavy traffic, and is working on putting more network infrastructure in place to support demand, according to a Friday afternoon post to The Windows Blog.

Brandon LeBlanc, a communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team, said Microsoft is delighted by the overwhelming interest and will post an update to the blog once the additional capacity has been added and Windows 7 Beta 1 is ready for public downloads.

"We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and I'll be posting here again soon once the beta goes live," LeBlanc wrote.

Some eager Windows 7 beta testers expressed their dismay in the comments section of the blog post.

"I've been trying to download all day, and all I got was 'server busy'," wrote one poster. "Logistically speaking, [BitTorrent] would have been a life saver here," wrote another poster.

On Wednesday evening at the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Friday launch date for Windows 7 Beta 1 and called Windows 7 "the best version of Windows ever."

Windows 7 will be more reliable than previous versions of Windows, and will boot faster and have longer battery life, Ballmer told CES attendees. At CES, the buzz around Windows 7 was strong, based on snippets of conversation heard in the hallways and conference rooms during the event.

Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN testers were able to download the Windows 7 beta on Wednesday. According to the CRN Test Center, Windows XP users cannot upgrade directly to the Windows 7 Beta, although they can upgrade from Vista systems with Service Pack 1 installed.

Microsoft says it has yet to make a final decision on what will or won't be included in the generally available version of Windows 7, but advises only clean installations of operating systems during the beta phase in any event.

[dwarakesh]

IE 8 is on its way

There are signs that the next browser from Microsoft is about to be released.

Yesterday the software giant posted a toolkit to block the upcoming Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) from downloading and installing automatically when it is officially released. This is odd, given that IE8 is not out there yet, and is being seen by avid Microsoft-watchers as a sign that the software giant is about to lift the lid on its new browser.

Normally it releases the tool three months before the launch of its browser, so the smart money is on an April Fools' day release.

Microsoft's company blog says that Redmond would push IE8 to users via its Windows Update and Microsoft Update services when the browser is finished. The blocker makes changes to each PC's registry so that companies will not suddenly find that their browsers have updated and wonot work on their network.

Jane Maliouta, IE program manager, said that Microsoft had done a lot of work to make sure that sites that worked with IE7 will work with IE8. However, many IT organisations will still want to test the browser before it is deployed.

The blocker is basically an executable blocker script that creates a new key in the Windows registry to halt automatic downloading and installation. It has no expiration date, and can't prevent users from manually updating their machines by grabbing IE8 from Microsoft's download site.

Microsoft wants to distribute IE8 using its Automatic Update system as a  "High Priority" update in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and "Important" in Windows Vista and Server 2008. The blocking tool, however, downgrades IE8 to an optional download.

[sajiv]

Microsoft's Live Mesh top innovation at the Crunchies

Last night I attended the Crunchies award ceremony, where Facebook took top honors as the best overall start-up (See the full list of Crunchies award winners). The awards are based on a popularity contest via votes cast through the Crunchies Web site and with input from the Crunchies Committee, consisting of co-hosts GigaOm, Silicon Alley Insider, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and advisors.

The most surprising winner for the evening was in the Microsoft's Live Mesh, which won in the category best technology innovation/achievement. The competition included Facebook Connect (the runner-up), Google Friend Connect, Google Chrome, Swype and Yahoo BOSS.

Given that Microsoft is often vilified by the Web 2.0, start-up community, and the stellar competition in the category, it's hard to imagine that Microsoft won without a little help from the Crunchies Committee. On the other hand, the Microsoft community is large and mighty and perceptions are slowing shifting to be more positive about the openness of the giant software company. In any case, it's a deserved award, which was accepted by Ray Ozzie, the chief software architect at Microsoft, and David Treadwell, who runs the Live Services Platform.

Live Mesh is essential glue for synchronizing files with all the devices a user might touch, and as a kind of information bus for identity, notifications, and other Web services. Microsoft, with its huge footprint, is uniquely positioned to provide a universal, operating system- and device-agnostic syncing foundation.

Ozzie and his team are working on a complete transformation of the back end and the front end, moving from PC-centric to multi-screen, he told me during a brief conversation at the Crunchies. Microsoft's Azure cloud service is another key part of the transformation, but is lagging behind Live Mesh. "2009 is still a learning year for Azure, just as 2008 was the Mesh," Ozzie said.

The challenge for Azure is moving the massive scale Microsoft platforms like XBox Live, to the Azure cloud-services architecture. "In 2009 Azure will be more mature, you'll see some large-scale usage," Ozzie said. But it won't be until 2010 that Azure is ready for prime time.

Ozzie is mindful of the profound changes culturally and technologically among its developers that Microsoft must undergo to realize the Live Platform and Azure cloud services vision. "When we are in an environment with technological and environmental change, you have to focus on these new huge constraints, but also new opportunities for destruction or rebirth," he said during a Crunchies interview with Om Malik.

[sajiv]

Microsoft NEW Technology Microsoft Surface

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=LtKQNwqNLLk&feature=PlayList&p=FDAB3A825EAF47CC&index=0&playnext=1

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft Resolves Download Issues for Windows 7 Beta

Microsoft's newest OS- Windows 7 might just be in its beta stage but that hasn't stopped people from going bonkers over it online. Microsoft had set a download limit of 2.5 million users at any given time on Friday but heightened excitement in the online community resulted in Microsoft shutting down the servers in order to add "some additional infrastructure support." As a result, sometime on Friday downloads were put on hold.

However, on Saturday Microsoft announced, through a blog, that the 2.5 million download limit had been removed and that the company's servers would allow downloads in excess of the previous limit. It was further mentioned that users would be able to download the public beta of Windows 7 till January 24th.

The huge interest surrounding Windows 7 is in light of the supposed claims that the OS offers more stability, lesser boot-up and shut-down times and is also not beset by the compatibility issues that plagued Vista when it was first introduced. We will of course keep you updated on all news on Microsoft's latest. Expect it sometime in 2010, or if Microsoft thinks we are being good, sometime sooner.