Microsoft Archive

"Microsoft's search engine, Bing, was used in 10.7 percent of U.S. online searches in August, according to a new report by research firm Nielsen. That placed it third in the rankings behind Yahoo with 16 percent and Google with 64.6 percent. Microsoft’s month-over-month gain of 22.1 percent in market share suggests that the search engine may have legs even after Microsoft’s supporting ad campaign, estimated at costing between $80 million to $100 million, runs its course."

Microsoft is creating a 501.c non-profit organization (called the CodePlex Foundation) that will support open source projects from the community. That's a little funny since proof was uncovered that they were providing anti-Linux training in this very same week. The foundation is different from the CodePlex website, launched in 2006. The website is rather a complementing factor to the foundation, or vise versa. A FAQ about the project said, "The Foundation is solving similar challenges; ultimately aiming to bring open source and commercial software developers together in a place where they can collaborate. This is absolutely independent from the project hosting site, but it is essentially trying to support the same mission. It is just solving a different part of the challenge, a part that Codeplex.com isn't designed to solve... We believe that commercial software companies and the developers that work for them under-participate in open source projects."

According to a leak from a BestBuy employee, Microsoft is initiating a sort of "Anti-Linux Training" course for the employees, and those who take part in the said training are rewarded with a copy of Windows 7 for only ten dollars. The leaked screenshots of the campaign show Microsoft's comparison of its own system with an obscure "Linux" and how Windows is better in every way including security, "free downloads", and software and hardware compatibility.

Geeks.com, home of many digital media players, sent in the Zune 120 GB for a spin. In the eve of the upcoming Zune HD release, how do these players stack up against the iPod? Read on to find out.

"Microsoft announced Thursday that the next edition of Microsoft Office for Mac will be released in late 2010. The new edition of the venerable office suite will include Outlook for Mac, a new application that will replace Entourage." Whilst the new Outlook:Mac will not offer feature parity with the Window version, it will be written in Cocoa and feature tighter integration with OS X including Spotlight. My Take: So it only took Apple integrating Exchange support into OS X for Microsoft to finally 'fix' the abomination that is Entourage.

No, the corporate logo and Windows logo are both staying the same, but a trademark application has been unearthed describing Microsoft's new logo that will brand its upcoming retail stores, two of which have already been announced. In simplified terms, the new logo seems to be a block representation, of the Windows logo we have all come to know and love. Sort of what you'd expect your seven years old child to build out of construction paper. As a glimpse into what the Microsoft Store will be selling, the official document also states that the logo will brand "retail store services and online retail services featuring computers, computer hardware, software, computer games, computer peripherals, portable music players and accessories, personal digital assistants, cell phones and accessories, video game consoles and accessories, webcams, books, clothing, back packs, messenger bags, computer bags and novelty items." What about toasters?

Just when you thought the world couldn't get any crazier, something happens that makes you move your expectations of the world up a few nothces. We already have to deal with the browser ballot, but that's not the only ballot Microsoft will deliver. Hold on to your panties, as Microsoft will also offer a file format ballot in Microsoft Office 2010. On a happier note, Microsoft makes a whole load of promises to the EU about opening up technologies and file formats.

Microsoft for the first time has named Linux distributors Red Hat and Canonical as competitors to its Windows client business in its annual filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The move is an acknowledgment of the first viable competition from Linux to Microsoft's Windows client business, due mainly to the use of Linux on netbooks, which are rising in prominence as alternatives to full-sized notebooks.

As Microsoft had already confirmed, it's going to open a line of retail stores later this year. Last week, Gizmodo published a set of detailed slides supposedly detailing the shopping experience Microsoft is going to implement. Today, Microsoft has confirmed those leaked plans are real (but not finalised!), while also announcing the first two store locations.

"Microsoft violated the GPLv2 when it distributed its Hyper-V Linux Integration Components without providing source code, says the Software Freedom Law Center. The violation was rectified when Microsoft contributed more than 20,000 lines of source code to the Linux community last week. The drivers are designed to improve the performance of the Linux operating system when it is virtualized on the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V hypervisor-based virtualization system."

Microsoft presented its financial results for the past quarter, and Ars analyses them. "Redmond sees revenues drop both quarterly and year-over-year. But its earnings per share are up a bit from last quarter, suggesting it has found a way to manage the pain. Online Services and Entertainment both felt serious hurt."

Sometimes, some things are just too good to be true. Earlier this week, Microsoft made a relatively stunning announcement that it would contribute some 20000 lines of code to the Linux kernel, licensed under the GPL. Microsoft isn't particularly fond of either Linux or the GPL, so this was pretty big news. As it turns out, the code drop was brought on by... A GPL violation.

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 (SP2) was released today. This midcycle free update is designed to improve speed, stability and compatibility. SP2 delivers highly requested features throughout the suite as well as a new tool, Document Connection for Mac, that helps improve access and browsing to documents on SharePoint Products and Technologies and Microsoft Office Live Workspace.

It all started with some free lunch four years ago, and then it morphed into a free patch. Along came Moonlight and some other developments, and now Microsoft has donated 20,000 lines of driver code to be included in the Linux tree. Yes-- Microsoft contributed drivers to the Linux community.