Microsoft Archive

Microsoft Talking Big for Servers

Microsoft 8 Comments
"For years, Microsoft has argued that servers containing only a handful of processors are good enough for most of the world. But now, with the advent of huge Intel machines and the approaching release of a new version of Windows that will run on them, the company is changing its tune. For heavyweight business computing jobs such as housing a large company's sales transaction database, Microsoft's preferred philosophy has been to share the load among lower-end servers grouped into a "cluster". It's been a tough sell, however, with large corporations sticking with mainframes or Unix servers." Read the report at News.com.
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Interview: Ballmer Speaks Out

Microsoft 20 Comments
Under the leadership of CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft is free to turn its attention to such initiatives as acquisitions, .Net, shared source code and a more componentized Windows. Ballmer addressed these issues and others, including why Office 11 requires Windows XP, in an interview at Microsoft headquarters, in Redmond, Wash., with eWeek. Read the interview at eWeek.
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Ballmer: ‘Tablets Will Displace Laptops’ and Gates: ‘PCs are the Past’

Microsoft 43 Comments
Although tablet PCs represent just a sliver of the PC market today, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer says the new category could eventually account for one-third of all computers--by supplanting the laptop. However, Microsoft is to shift focus from PCs to other computer gizmos: Software giant Microsoft will emphasize devices other than the personal computer in the coming year, Chairman Bill Gates said Sunday. Microsoft's attention is on Internet services, multimedia devices, handheld computers and tiny chips to make everyday objects computer-powered, Gates said.
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Here’s the Plan for Software

Microsoft 11 Comments
"If there's one thing an effective empire builder needs, it's a good map. Microsoft's map for reshaping and reviving the world of business software can be found on floor two of Building Four on the company's campus, in the office of a technology strategist named Norm Judah. The map itself doesn't look like much. If anything, it resembles a microchip design or possibly an org chart gone mad. But this poster-sized piece of cardboard is nothing less than a schematic of how business works. Not how Microsoft works. How business works." Read the article at Fortune.
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Microsoft’s New Open Source Mess

Microsoft 35 Comments
"What a mess. Less than a week after a court-approved deal ends the antitrust case, Microsoft's back in the spotlight. The latest Halloween memo portrays your company as utterly obsessed with the open-source software movement but utterly confused about how best to proceed. I can only imagine the state of confusion. Microsoft has tried to persuade developers and users for the last four years that there's no there there--and to no avail." Read the editorial at ZDNet. In the meantime, Business 2.0 posted a story called "Fighting Microsoft the Open-Source Way": Apple, IBM, and Sun have opened up their software code to the public in their battle against Redmond. It just might work. And here is another, interesting, editorial about the DOJ settlement. Update: Another one at PCWorld.com.
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Microsoft a Problem for Software Rivals

Microsoft 11 Comments
"The software industry has two problems as it looks to jump-start Web services -- expected to be the next big thing in business computing -- the economy is weak and Microsoft is strong. So, when executives and chief technology officers gathered in Monterey, California on Wednesday for Merrill Lynch's Shaping Software 2002 conference, conversation centered on Microsoft Corp. -- the industry's 800-pound gorilla -- and still-slumping corporate spending." Read it at Reuters.
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Halloween VII: Survey Says…

  Submitted by Joseph Childrose Microsoft 7 Comments
"The document reproduced below was presented at a Microsoft internal Linux Strategic Review held at the Microsoft offices in Berlin during Sept. 2002. I received it on 5 November 2002." ESR's review for OpenSource.org.
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Microsoft to Open Up Office File Formats?

Microsoft 30 Comments
A ZDNet article discusses Microsoft's upcoming version 11 of Office, that will use XML to make Office files more interoperable with "Web Services." Analysts quoted in the article note that this is a risky strategy for Microsoft since it will chip away at the file format stranglehold that Microsoft has had for many years. The more open and interoperable Microsoft makes Office, they say, the more likely that alternatives to Office will be able to co-exist, or even replace it in the corporate sphere.
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Critics Say Microsoft Is Up to Old Tricks

Microsoft 67 Comments
As Microsoft awaits court approval of its landmark antitrust settlement with the government, the company has angered some competitors by tightly limiting the technical data it promised to release. Microsoft says the restrictions are normal for the software industry and do not violate the terms of the settlement. But competitors contend that Microsoft's actions are reminiscent of the behavior that led to the antitrust case and reinforce their claim that the entire settlement is inadequate.
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Ballmer on Linux, Licensing and .Net

Microsoft 92 Comments
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer knows what it's like to be in the hot seat. The company he leads has been under fire for a controversial new licensing programme that raised prices considerably for some customers. A high-profile initiative to deliver web services is on the rocks. And the threat from the open-source Linux operating system is stronger than ever. Read the interview at Silicon.com.
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Ballmer: United, We’ll Stomp on Linux

Microsoft 93 Comments
Linux is the only serious threat to Microsoft's increasing dominance of the market for server operating systems, according to new research from IDC. Although Microsoft cannot compete against Linux on price, the company will use its community of professionals to outsmart the open-source movement, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told an audience of Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) in London on Monday.
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Microsoft Spies for the US, Chinese Claim

Microsoft 63 Comments
"What you are about to read is a true story. China thinks Microsoft software contains secretly embedded code that the United States government can manipulate at will. So, in case of war between the two countries, a Pentagon official can hit a switch and--presto!--cripple China's computing infrastructure. A senior Microsoft executive, who often confers with the Chinese (sorry, no names), told me this tale. I thought he was joking. He wasn't. Some people in the Chinese government actually believe it's true." Read the report at ZDNet.
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Microsoft’s Jim Allchin on XML, Web Services and Linux

Microsoft 52 Comments
"They are a very serious competitor. Their community is very, very good, and we're hard at work trying to follow that model. Obviously...the way (Linux) work is done--I think about it in a more componentized way. I believe in integration because I believe it makes peoples' lives simpler. On the other hand, I consider componentization to be a great attribute from an engineering perspective. Then there are things I don't want to learn from them. It's very hard to innovate when you're in a decentralized mode. Look at the Linux kernel. Do you think there's a lot of innovation there? It's not that they're not great developers--they are. I have great respect for them, but I think it's hard, because of the model, to do. They can do innovation--great innovation--in small pockets. There's quite a dichotomy there and there are some advantages. But in terms of some of the innovations for the future, I don't want to adopt that model." Read Jim Allchin's interesting interview at C|Net News.com.
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