http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:20:28 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/22597/Microsoft_Merges_Windows_Server_Azure_Divisions/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22597/Microsoft_Merges_Windows_Server_Azure_Divisions/ "In a much anticipated move, Microsoft has created the Server & Cloud Division within the Server & Tools Business that merges the Windows Azure and the Windows Server & Solutions groups. The move shows that Azure isn't just an advanced development project for the software giant, and the company is ready to make money from it. Microsoft says its strategy is to create 'a single organization focused on delivering solutions for customers that span on-premises data centers and the cloud'. Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, SQL Azure, Visual Studio, and System Center are all part of this strategy that includes both on-premises and cloud solutions. Microsoft notes it is the only company in the industry that can offer its customers the choice to tap into a server platform, a cloud platform, or both." Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:12:17 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 6 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22566/Falling_PC_Prices_Pit_Microsoft_Against_PC_Makers/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22566/Falling_PC_Prices_Pit_Microsoft_Against_PC_Makers/ Plummeting prices of PCs are great news for consumers, but are a disaster for hardware makers. Microsoft isn't cutting them any slack with Windows pricing. Will PC price drops catch up with Microsoft in other ways? Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:24:04 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 29 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News shaneco http://www.osnews.com/story/22558/Microsoft_Office_2010_To_Ship_in_June_2010/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22558/Microsoft_Office_2010_To_Ship_in_June_2010/ "After several Web sites today claimed to having seen a possibly inadvertent notice from Microsoft claiming June as the release month for its forthcoming Office 2010 (we looked hard and couldn't find it ourselves), a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that June is indeed the ship month." Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:52:50 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 11 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22533/Microsoft_on_Silverlight_vs_Standards/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22533/Microsoft_on_Silverlight_vs_Standards/ During Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference the company's President of Server and Tools, Bob Muglia, and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie talked to a select group of reporters and bloggers about a variety of topics - including Silverlight. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:11:55 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 143 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News poundsmack http://www.osnews.com/story/22529/Microsoft_Delays_Open_Source_Release_Windows_7_Tool/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22529/Microsoft_Delays_Open_Source_Release_Windows_7_Tool/ Microsoft has delayed the open source release of their Windows 7 USB/DVD tool, which contained GPL code. "As you know, Microsoft recently committed to making the source code as well as binaries for the Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool available this week, under the terms of the General Public License v2 as described here. While we worked extremely hard to try and get the code ready for release by today, we still need to test and localize it. Our goal is now to release the tool in all languages on the same day in the next few weeks. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to make the Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool available once again." Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:06:51 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 24 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22509/Microsoft_To_Open_C_VB_Net_Compilers/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22509/Microsoft_To_Open_C_VB_Net_Compilers/ "Microsoft, which has been pursuing concurrent improvements for its Visual Basic and C# programming languages, plans to open up compilers for the languages and add capabilities for asynchronous programming and immutability. Discussed at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, the blueprint for the two languages will feature compilers as services and accommodations for multicore processors, said Luca Bolognese, program manager for the languages group at Microsoft." Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:29:25 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 9 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News AlexandreAM http://www.osnews.com/story/22508/Microsoft_Makes_Big_Azure_Announcements_at_PDC_2009/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22508/Microsoft_Makes_Big_Azure_Announcements_at_PDC_2009/ "Microsoft's Ray Ozzie significantly blew past the basic Exchange, SharePoint and SQL database hosting services with the Azure announcements at PDC 2009 yesterday. The announcements also blow right past Amazon EC2 and targets Microsoft at Google, Force.com (Salesforce.com's cloud), OpSource and others offering hosting on demand, web services and bus interconnection services in the cloud. Microsoft peeled back last year's Azure onion, showing us how Microsoft wants to do much more than just offer computing platforms or hosted Microsoft products." Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:56:55 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 2 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22494/Microsoft_Roundup_Bugs_Holes_Patents_and_GPL_Violations/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22494/Microsoft_Roundup_Bugs_Holes_Patents_and_GPL_Violations/ Thom's down with flu, so to avoid moving a lot of interesting news to pg.2, I am creating a combined item here covering a number of Microsoft related news items submitted to us. Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:20:17 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Microsoft 40 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22454/Microsoft_Shows_Off_Another_Minority_Report_UI_Concept/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22454/Microsoft_Shows_Off_Another_Minority_Report_UI_Concept/ Whether you like Microsoft or not, the Redmond giant does have one thing going for it: the company's research division. Working together with several universities and other institutions, Microsoft Research works on the soft and hardware of the future, ranging from research operating systems to insanely cool things like what Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie showed off during the Microsoft College Tour '09 (more videos). Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:24:45 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 17 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22449/Click-to-Run_Streaming_Microsoft_Office_2010_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22449/Click-to-Run_Streaming_Microsoft_Office_2010_/ Click-to-Run is a new technology Microsoft are introducing to allow you to test out Office 2010 quickly and easily, by literally streaming the app to your computer from the Internet into a virtualised space. Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:30:07 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Microsoft 13 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22409/Microsoft_s_Signature_Initiative_Crapware-Free_Computers/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22409/Microsoft_s_Signature_Initiative_Crapware-Free_Computers/ We all know that Microsoft doesn't actually make computers. It makes the software, and then lets an almost infinite amount of manufacturers build computers that can run its software. These manufacturers often make a mess of things, delivering computers filled to the brim with crapware. What would happen if Microsoft made computers? Well, for one, they would be void of crapware. Two, they would help users install the software they want before leaving the store - including software from competitors. Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:51:35 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 60 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22394/Microsoft_To_Open_up_Outlook_pst_Format/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22394/Microsoft_To_Open_up_Outlook_pst_Format/ Anyone who has ever dealt with Microsoft Outlook will know the .pst file format - it's the binary, undocumented file in which all data from Outlook is stored - emails, contacts, calendar, you name it, it's in there. Microsoft has announced that it will release detailed technical documentation on the Outlook .pst data format. Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:28:06 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 39 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News poundsmack http://www.osnews.com/story/22390/MS_Sees_Stronger_Earnings_than_Expected_Revenue_Still_Declined/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22390/MS_Sees_Stronger_Earnings_than_Expected_Revenue_Still_Declined/ "Microsoft announces another quarter of revenue declines, but results were still stronger than expected, thanks to what Microsoft executives referred to as 'cost discipline' and a streamlining of business divisions. With the release of Windows 7 on Oct. 22, consumers and businesses may be in the mood to buy new PCs and Microsoft products." Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:31:45 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22358/Silent_Install_Firefox_Plugin_Backfires_on_Microsoft/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22358/Silent_Install_Firefox_Plugin_Backfires_on_Microsoft/ Whilst it's not okay in Microsoft's eyes for Google to install a plugin into Internet Explorer, increasing the potential surface area of attack, when Microsoft do it to Firefox, it's a different matter. Now a security hole has been found in a plugin that Microsoft have been silently installing into Firefox. Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:27:27 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Microsoft 46 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/22339/Microsoft_Sponsors_Family_Guy_Episode/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22339/Microsoft_Sponsors_Family_Guy_Episode/ Those who enjoy the popular television show will be happy to know that November 8, 2009 will feature a variety show from the makers of Family Guy, and it will play for its entire allotted time without any commercial interruption-- courtesy of Microsoft. The company has made a deal with Fox to have Windows 7 propaganda integrated into a special entitled "Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show," which will include varied live-action Family Guy musical performances, animated shorts, and celebrity guest appearances. Just how the show will be used to advertise Windows 7 is unclear, but the folks at Microsoft say that "you'll see us deeply integrated into the content... you'll hear a lot about how Windows 7 can help you simplify your PC -- it's simple, fast and easy to use." So sit back in the lazy chair on November 8th, take a bite out of your Windows-branded toast, and enjoy. Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:18:02 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Microsoft 21 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News