Microsoft Archive

"Much of what Microsoft has done over the past year or so might suggest a company settling into middle age. It has overhauled its management structure, tightened its financial controls, expanded its financial reporting, started paying dividends and abandoned the high-tech currency of stock options in favor of risk-free grants of shares to employees. " Read the story at SFGate.

An editorial from Intenet Week's Mitch Wagner responds to several reader emails he's received lately from people convinced that Microsoft's dominance of the software industry is evermore. He disagrees, citing many examples of upstart products and protocols challenging and displacing the established player, even Microsoft itself.

Microsoft has backed down on plans to abandon development on its email client, because 'the situation has changed'

In order to participate in Thailand's "Peoples PC" project (in which the goverment hopes to provide 1 million low-cost PCs for the population), Microsoft has cut their price for Windows and Office together to as low as $36 -- 10% of what they sometimes charge for Office alone! They also are dropping their controversial product activation requirements for this project. Previously, the Peoples PC project was based exclusively on Linux. My take: Watch for falling margins at MS as big customers realize, in the wake of Munich and Thailand, that threats of migration to Linux can win BIG price breaks from MS...

Microsoft has released version 6.1 of VirtualPC, which includes bug fixes and enables users of Connectix Virtual PC for Mac to seamlessly transition product support to Microsoft. Microsoft has also created a new, "professional" version of Office for Mac that includes VirtualPC. The regular version of Office for Mac had its price reduced by $100, to $399.

CNET News.com's Charles Cooper says the "end of Microsoft as we know it" crowd must face the post-antitrust reality that the company is confident and stronger than ever.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said the intellectual property battle between SCO and IBM is hurting the business of Linux. Gates said the SCO controversy has exposed a fundamental weakness of Linux--that the General Public License (GPL) makes it difficult for companies to engage in the cross-licensing deals that have become standard in the software industry. That's a big Achilles heel, Gates said.

Phoenix is the next generation .NET optimization framework which will be the basis for code generation for all future Microsoft optimizing compilers," such as Microsoft's Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual C# ones, according to a description of the Faculty Summit session on the technology. On other Microsoft news, check the FAQ for the Advanced Networking Pack for Windows XP and download it.

Redmond is making waves with plans to take on Linux in government and education even as it beats the drum for new .Net conquests. It's also shaking up its own incentive program with a scheme that replaces options with shares.

The biggest new feature in both Ozone and v.Next is the .NET Compact Framework in ROM. This is a run-time layer that isolates applications from the operating system, managing memory and enforcing security. It should prevent buggy apps from crashing the device. Read the article at NewsFactor. Head over at NewMobileComputing for more mobile technology news. In another market arena, the market share for Windows in Network Attached Storage devices rose 8 percent in the first quarter to 41 percent.

In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY reporters, Microsoft founder and chief software architect Bill Gates shares his thoughts on controlling spam, competition from Linux, how Windows will evolve, software for wristwatches, what's worthwhile in life and whether Microsoft is boring.

Since Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates sent a memo 18 months ago urging the company to focus on making its software trustworthy, the company has devoted developers and money to security in its software products. But Microsoft has given short shrift to a second concern outlined in the so-called "Trustworthy Computing" memo - protecting privacy - except when forced by the government. With the hiring of a new privacy chief, the software company is hoping to improve its privacy record and keep government regulators at bay.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer talks about sharing source code, the threat from Linux and where Microsoft is going.

According to a news item at WindowsForEmbedded.com, Microsoft has launched a new program in its 'shared source' initiative. This one enables the sharing of 'platforms', allowing, for example, hobbyists 'to convert an old PC into any number of Windows CE .NET-based devices, such as a digital audio receiver,' using files downloaded from a community repository. Free and time-fused tools are available for download from Microsoft's website to facilitate the process.