Microsoft Archive

In yesterday's annual strategy memo to Microsoft employees, CEO Steve Ballmer declared: "Noncommercial software products in general, and Linux in particular, present a competitive challenge for us and for our entire industry, and they require our concentrated focus and attention."

If the software developed by a Filipino company that enables Windows programs to run on Linux is indeed meant to propagate "open source computing," then the firm should give it away for free, the head of Microsoft Philippines told INQ7.net. "If they can't do that, it is just like any other commercial software business," Antonio Javier, managing director of Microsoft Philippines said, referring to the David middleware program developed by SpecOps Labs.

The software giant ventured into hostile territory on Wednesday to argue its case during a live debate over the future of the Linux desktop.

In an email, Microsoft outlines the reason why they think that customers have stuck with Windows despite Microsoft's shortcomings. He attributes their loyalty to the high costs of switching away from their existing heavy investment in the Windows Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). In fact, Microsoft feels that the pressure from Linux will lead the company to innovate more. In the meantime EU published their verdict (in PDF).

Competitors with fresh ideas are hot on the heels of the software behemoth, writes Faisal Islam.

Research and development, or R&D, is a big deal with the Gates Gang. After all, in 2003, they spent over (all figures US) $4.6 billion on it. For a company that had revenues of $32.1 billion in the corresponding period, this is an impressive figure and to put in perspective, they spent $6.5 billion on sales and marketing during the same period. Clearly, R&D is important to the company. Read the article at Canoe.ca.

Would you invest your hard-earned dollars in a company like this? Its revenues soared an average of 36% through the 1990s, but now it's heading into miserly single-digit growth. It has long been a powerful engine fueled by major updates of its products, yet the next major one, an unprecedented five years in the making, isn't expected until 2006. The company hasn't made much headway in newer, promising markets. And its share price is stuck exactly where it was in mid-1998. Not buying, huh? Well, tough luck: You probably already own a piece of this rock, says Yahoo! Finanace.

Cringely editorializes: "When I wrote last week about my conclusion that the legal system -- any legal system -- is unequipped to change Microsoft's monopolistic behavior, I had no idea that within 24 hours, Sun would be throwing in the towel, trading its so-called principles for $1.95 billion in cash. So I guess I was right. Only now, a few thousand readers out there expect me to blithely produce an answer to the problem of what to do to bring Microsoft into the civilized world. Well, I say it can't be done".

Microsoft will continue the trend of integrating managed code support in major product releases—first with SQL Server 2005 and later in the Windows Longhorn operating system.

The EU antitrust case against Microsoft is a battle over the future technical standards for Hollywood films, online music and other forms of digital entertainment, analysts say.

Microsoft's chief software architect recently returned from one of his fabled "Think Weeks" full of ideas on mesh networking, unified networking and more, says eWEEK. Elsewhere, the Internet firms riding a 'mini bubble' said Gates. Update: Another one with Bill: "Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years".

Testimony during the second week of trial in the consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota has revealed (free reg. req.) some embarrassing internal documents from Microsoft which were not disclosed in the bitter 1997 federal antitrust lawsuit that focused on the company's attempt to control the browser markets in the 1990's.

In a decision that could affect consumers, competitors and PC makers, the European Commission requires Microsoft to unbundle Media Player from Windows and pay a $613 million fine.

From the PR: :"Microsoft Corp. today took another step forward in its strategy to make the business value of speech technology more broadly available to mainstream enterprise companies as Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates launched Microsoft Speech Server 2004 at the co-located AVIOS~SpeechTEK Spring 2004, Microsoft Mobile Developer Conference (DevCon) 2004 and Fawcette Technical Publications' VSLive! San Francisco 2004 events." Elsewhere, Microsoft has announced XNATM, a powerful next-generation software development platform. XNA empowers developers to deliver breakthrough games while combating rising production costs and ever-increasing hardware complexity.