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"It's worth it because it's so cheap, but sometimes it sounds like I'm underwater," said Cowie, a 28-year-old San Francisco Web consultant who uses Net2Phone's service to call his family in the United Kingdom. "You need a headset or microphone, and I don't think people will be happy talking into a computer screen."
The new Windows XP operating system includes communications software that promises to make the quality of Net-based calls comparable to that of traditional phones. More important, struggling Net phone companies believe that the software giant's mere presence will provide a much-needed boost to the long-dormant market.
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Most of MSN's sites and services are undergoing hardware upgrades in preparation for MSN.NET. There is also a major bandwidth upgrade planned for next month which will increase the total potential thuroughput from MSN's sites and services to 5 Gigabits per second. MSN's long range plans show total thuroughput going up to 12 Gigabits per second by 2004.
Microsoft Passport will be undergoing their first major upgrade to v2.0 in 10 days, the 26th. There should not be a major visible change, as most of the enhancements are in the backend. The only visible changes will be to sign-in/sign-out designs, as well as your Passport member services pages where you can edit your personal information. Other visible changes are only visible to Windows XP users. You will also see Microsoft Passport rolled out in the next few weeks at a number of third party sites...which will dump their own authentication and wallet system in exchange with Passport.
According to an article in the New York Times today, even if people choose to file against Microsoft, for whatever reason, the case is unlikely to come to trial soon enough for them to successfully prove that they have been harmed. The first group of class actions, which the Times notes are furthest along, are not scheduled to be heard until August 2002, before Judge Stuart R. Pollack of California Superior Court in San Francisco. So far, more than 118 cases have been waiting for a hearing for almost 3 years.
Without a firm remedy from the government, experts believe it is unlikely that any of the dozens of private law suits will have any effect on Microsoft's practices. Although the company has amassed substantial legal costs in defending itself thus far, the article states that it would take an enormous fine to make an impact on Microsoft before it thought twice about continuing antitrust activities.
Last week, an appeals court judge overturned a lower court ruling that would have divided Microsoft into two companies. In the wake of this decision, a new Gallup poll finds public sentiment about Microsoft little changed over the past several years. While relatively few people have followed the case closely, most Americans hold a favorable view of the company and think that Microsoft's domination of the software markets has been mostly good for the economy, consumers, and the computer industry. These views are even more positive among the "attentive public" -- those who say they have followed the case closely. Overall, 60% of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of Microsoft, while just 17% have an unfavorable opinion, and 23% are unsure. The attentive public is also more supportive of Microsoft in the lawsuit. Among all Americans, 34% say the case should be dropped. Americans are also upbeat about the effect of Microsoft on the economy, consumers, and the industry -- more than six in 10 say the company's domination of the software markets in each area has been positive. (First read on ActiveWin)
Microsoft to Wire UK Park Bench for Web Surfing. A stroll in the park could soon become a surf on the web after Microsoft wires up what it says will be the world's first park bench with Internet access. The software giant's British web portal will place the techno-seat in Bury St. Edmunds in southeast England. Visitors to the city's Abbey Gardens will be able to connect their laptops to the Internet for free through a connection on the bench, although MSN is still testing the best technologies to achieve this. It says it hopes to have the net chair ready by August or September. "The bench is a metaphor for the Internet slipping into every day usage -- it's as everyday as a park bench,'' said an MSN spokesman.
Windows 2000 Magazine and IBM come together to deliver great presentation of Microsoft .NET. It was made available quite some time ago but it you did not see it, then it is new to you.
Guess we're not the only ones tired of the Microsoft antitrust suit: Even the Department of Justice wants to wrap things up. After Thursday's news that New Mexico would bow out of the antitrust lawsuit against the software developer, the DOJ on Friday asked an appeals court to bump the case back down to a lower court to decide whether the software developer should be split up. The DOJ could have taken another month to sit on its decision of whether to appeal the latest ruling -- a setback for Judge Jackson's decision to break up the monopoly - to the Supreme Court.
Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows Review of Windows XP RC1.
Windows XP has finally entered that final, almost boring, stage of development, where the product doesn't change that much from build to build, but bugs are squashed, the user interface is refined, and small visual changes are added in a bid to improve its fit and finish. Since the release of Windows XP Beta 2 in late March, very little has changed: The product is still a world-class upgrade to both Windows 9x/Me and Windows NT/2000, and most of the improvements are subtle rather than monumental.
Software giant Microsoft last week contacted U.S. Justice Department chief Charles James to propose new settlement talks in its antitrust suit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Citing people close to the case, the paper said that Microsoft contacted James shortly before the company announced its plans to ease some license restrictions in Windows, the world's top-selling operating system.