Microsoft Archive

After the more-or-less positively received "You find it, you keep it" television advertisements, it seems as if Microsoft is quickly falling back to its previous mistakes of relying on easily countered FUD-like tactics. We already discussed the blog post regarding Linux on netbooks, which was easily countered on virtually every point made. However, it gets even worse: Microsoft has ordered a study detailing what the company calls the hidden "Apple tax" that you are supposedly paying if you go Apple. Now, I'm the first to state that Apple simply doesn't provide the optimal pricing for everyone, but this Microsoft sponsored study is so completely and utterly ridiculous it makes me wonder just who on earth would look at it and go "Yeah, this looks pretty convincing!"

Jonathan Shapiro, main developer of Coyotos and BitC, has announced on the project's mailing list that he has been hired by Microsoft, and that he won't be able to continue to work on Coyotos and BitC. He promises to deliver a final release of BitC, with all the intended features, but he warns that that may not be possible. At Microsoft, he's going to work on the Midori project.

After the iPhone's success with the easy installation of applications using the iPhone App Store, more and more companies have tried to implement similar application delivery models in other markets. The most recent example is Microsoft, who has launched a sot of app store for... Open source server software. Yes, you read that right.

"Working with Microsoft and director Mason Nicoll (former creative director at Digital Kitchen and Prologue), Seattle-based studio Oh, Hello brought this vision of a highly-gadgetized future to life with some slick roto, loads of tracking and, of course, silky smooth futurific animation. If this video is any indicator, the future will fuse together interactive and motion design in ways that this project only begins to imagine. Regardless of whether Microsoft is behind it, those who understand the rich nuances of time-based experienced will be well-positioned to succeed. Nathan Barr of Oh, Hello was kind enough to answer some of the more pragmatic questions I had about the project."

"From Microsoft Surface to next-generation social networking, here's a quick rundown of about 35 Microsoft Research projects from around the world that were showcased this past week at TechFest 2009 in Redmond. Microsoft Research's TechFest, not to be confused with the yearly TechFest event that occurs in India, is an annual showcase of the various technologies that the company's researchers have been working on. The 2009 event that took place last week (February 24-26) featured a few prototypes that we've already seen before, like WorldWide Telescope and Microsoft Songsmith, but there were also many that have only started to emerge out of Microsoft's research labs around the world, including those in China, India, the UK, and the US."

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer had some interesting things to say yesterday about which companies Microsoft sees as its competitors in the client operating system space. You'd think Apple was their number one competitor - and you'd be wrong. Microsoft sees two other competitors as their primary adversaries.

Common Windows problems could soon be solved by clicking a "Fix It" button. Microsoft has started putting the button on its web-based support pages that detail the most common problems hitting PC and Windows users. Clicking the button kicks off a download that, once run, carries out the series of steps needed to fix a specific problem or remove a bug. Microsoft also has plans to extend the click-to-fix system to help users recover from a crash.

After much, much, much speculation, Microsoft let the cat out of the bag today: due to weak results, Microsoft is going to cut 5000 jobs. Those 5000 jobs will disappear over the course of 18 months, with 1400 jobs being cut immediately. Quarterly results, as well as the cost-cutting measures, were made known in a press release today.

Microsoft has announced two products designed to provide users of Office 2008 for Mac with improved access to existing server-based Microsoft services. The first of the two, Microsoft Entourage for Exchange Web Services, will be a free upgrade to Entourage 2008 for Mac that will enable that email, contacts, and calendaring client to more fully benefit from the Exchange Web Services built into Exchange Server 2007. The second, Microsoft Document Collaboration Companion for Mac, will be a free Cocoa-based companion app to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac that's designed to improve document-management control for Mac users of Microsoft's SharePoint Server document-sharing technology. The app will work whether document sharing is provided by enterprise SharePoint Servers, third-party leased or subscription-based SharePoint services, or Microsoft's free (for now, at least) consumer and small-business oriented Office Live Workspace.

A recently-filed patent from Microsoft gives us a glimpse into a possible future strategy from the software giant, wherein people buy a computer, but only pay for that portion of the computer's performance and capabilities they actually use. There's a pretty detailed summary of the plan in a Cnet article that's worth a read. It actually sounds a lot like a "cloud computing" strategy for the consumer, and it all seems to make sense, until you start to really think about it.

The month of December has already been unkind to Microsoft. The software giant's Windows operating system and its Internet Explorer browser saw significant market share drops reported on back-to-back days. Not only was the November percentage drop for Windows the biggest in two years, but Windows market share dipped below a number where it has historically held tight: 90 percent. According to Web metrics company, Net Applications, Windows market share as of Dec. 1 is 89.6 percent. Meanwhile, Mac OS X posted its largest gain in two years, with 8.9 percent market share at the end of November.

To address the growing need for a PC security solution tailored to the demands of emerging markets, smaller PC form factors and rapid increases in the incidence of malware, Microsoft Corp. plans to offer a new consumer security offering focused on core anti-malware protection.

Among all the Windows 7 announcements, one of the more surprising ones was about things the new OS would not include – specifically, applications for e-mail, photos, and video editing. Instead, Microsoft decided that these programs would be updated and downloadable as part of the Windows Live Essentials. Not only did Microsoft announce Wave 3 of the Live applications on Thursday, but the company completely redesigned its online services, too.

"Since the announcement of the upcoming Microsoft Office Web Applications at this year's PDC, there has been a lot of excitement about this new service which will allow for creating, editing, collaborating, and sharing documents using the web. However, as I've followed the blog posts about this topic, I've also come across quite a bit of misinformation about the web apps, too. In an attempt to dispel some of the rumors out there, I've created this special Q&A which will hopefully answer some of your burning questions about the new web applications."