Microsoft Corp., in a highly unusual move, is offering to financially back two rival bidders for AT&T Corp.'s cable-television business as it tries to thwart a third bidder, AOL Time Warner Inc.
Microsoft is backing both Cox Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., two cable concerns that made separate, competing offers to acquire AT&T Broadband, AT&T's cable unit, according to people familiar with the situation. The software company's interest in backing the competing bids stems in large part from its interest in blocking AOL.
A fierce competitor of AOL, Microsoft is concerned about the media company's ability to get its hands on AT&T Broadband, the nation's largest cable-TV business, according to people familiar with the situation. If AOL were to win, it would catapult the company to the No. 1 spot with more than 25 million cable subscribers. With $36 billion in cash at its disposal, Microsoft is trying to keep AT&T's 13.7 million cable subscribers in the hands of a friendly ally.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was optimistic on Monday that software and technology advances over the next decade will increase productivity in the same way as during the 1990s.
The blending of technologies such as "tablet" computers and wireless Internet software, with continuously improving hardware, will come together to serve computerized workforces and transform home entertainment, he told business executives in Madrid. Gates last month showed prototypes of Microsoft's Tablet PC, a notebook computer that lets users jot notes and diagrams as if on paper.
Dell Computer has named Avanade the preferred consulting company to help customers install Dell servers using Microsoft's top-end Datacenter version of Windows, the companies said Monday.
Datacenter is the most powerful version of Windows 2000. It runs on servers with as many as 32 CPUs, though in practice that configuration is rare. Dell, Intel and Microsoft long have promised that their products would be simpler to use and less expensive than current high-end server systems such as Sun Microsystems' Unix computers. However, in making Windows servers more powerful, the allies have found they must adopt many of the same technologies and practices that raise the cost of Unix systems. Reducing crashes requires carefully tested software, limited hardware configurations and tight control over the addition of new software.
The long-running stalemate between AT&T Broadband and Excite@Home finally came to a head this weekend when over 600,000 AT&T customers lost their cable modem Internet connections after Excite cut off AT&T from its network. Excite@Home had been locked in bankruptcy court and was negotiating with cable access providers such as AT&T, Comcast, and Cox Communications to keep its networks up and running. The company reached tentative deals with Comcast and Cox, but was unable to do so with AT&T. As a result, 850,000 AT&T customers who access the Internet through Excite's network were dropped Friday. But AT&T, which had been working to build its own networks in those areas, was able to restore connections immediately for about 250,000 people. The remaining 600,000 customers should be back online within ten days, the company says.
It's so nice to see the words "class action lawsuit" in a sentence without having to mention Microsoft. (Doh!) The online service everyone loves to hate (AOL) was dealt a legal blow this week when a federal judge ruled that a deceptive advertising class action lawsuit could proceed against the company. It seems that AOL customers in Florida and Kansas were stung by promises of $19.95 monthly fees in early 2000, only to see the rate quickly rise to $23.95. The suit alleges that AOL didn't notify customers of the fee hikes in a timely manner, and didn't alert customers when the numbers they were calling were toll calls. No fan of AOL, I recommend breaking up the company into separate OS and application companies. Or something.
Microsoft will revamp management responsibilities within its MSN Web site network, giving Senior Vice President David Cole responsibility for Microsoft's online arm in a new Personal Services Group formed within the company. Cole also oversees Microsoft's new personal services initiative, based on its .Net Internet strategy, that will deliver a wide variety of personalized Internet content to users as well as Microsoft's speech-recognition software efforts and consumer services such as its Hotmail free e-mail service. Cole will report directly to Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. He previously reported to Group Vice President Bob Muglia, who will now work in the company's Windows group, with Group Vice President Jim Allchin. Muglia will focus on Microsoft's storage data management strategy.
Thanks to ActiveWin for the link. There is nothing like a bad news!
On the surface, it was just another turn of the endless cycle of software release, hole discovery, and patching: operating system vendor Red Hat issued an advisory Tuesday warning the world about a serious security hole in a file transfer program that comes with Linux, and urged customers to download a patch. There was just one problem: Red Hat's advisory jumped the gun on what was intended to be a simultaneous multi-vendor release, carefully coordinated by the government-funded Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), and scheduled for December 3rd. Caught off guard, other Linux vendors were rushing Wednesday to finalize their own patches for the hole-- a memory-allocation bug in the ubiquitous Washington University WU-FTPd program.
In an e-mail to Microsoft employees, CEO Steve Ballmer on Thursday sought to explain the terms of the company's legal settlement with the government while also exhorting workers to meet the obligations and restrictions outlined in the settlement.
"I take this settlement very seriously and am personally committed to making it a success and ensuring that everyone at Microsoft complies fully with the terms," Ballmer wrote in an e-mail seen by CNET News.com. "This settlement imposes important restrictions and obligations on us as a company, and on many business units and individual employees. Every Microsoft employee has a responsibility to understand these restrictions and obligations and to conduct our business accordingly."
Microsoft Corp. today recognized more than 750 outstanding members of its online peer-to-peer communities with the prestigious Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award at its annual MVP Summit. This year's award winners come from over 40 countries and collectively helped more than half a million customers last year alone. MVPs demonstrate exceptional voluntary participation, thought leadership and a sincere passion for helping Microsoft's customers. Lori Moore, vice president of Product Support Services at Microsoft, hosts this year's event, and Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates will deliver the keynote address.
IBM and Oracle like to think they are the titans duking it out for supremacy in the database market. But another titan, Microsoft, is gaining ground. In fact, Redmond is even going after Unix users with the one-two punch of SQL Server and Windows 2000. SearchWin2000's Assistant News Editor Edward Hurley spoke with Peter Urban, a senior analyst with AMR Research, about the enterprise worthiness of SQL Server.
Oracle and IBM would make just that point. Their databases run on many operating systems. Is this a major issue for users?
Peter Urban: To some companies, it's important that a product run on Solaris or HP-UX. But I see the tide changing. Companies don't care so much what operating systems it runs on as long as it's stable. For big companies with a lot of old legacy systems, then SQL Server may not be so good. But I could see every large company here and in Europe having SQL Server databases for departments. The challenge is for it to become an enterprise-wide database.