Now that a Yahoo acquisition is off the table, Microsoft is moving quickly to "fix" its online branding problem, an executive said Tuesday.
Microsoft has been criticized for the introduction of the Live brand, particularly because it didn't fully replace the MSN
brand. That has created some confusion in the market because some services from Microsoft, like Hotmail and Messenger, have
both brands, and it's difficult to determine if there is a difference between the differently branded services.
Now that Microsoft has pulled its acquisition bid for Yahoo, it plans to focus on solving its branding problem, said Kevin
Johnson, president of Microsoft's platform and services division, speaking in Seattle on Tuesday at the Search Marketing Expo
conference.
Microsoft Corp is making its Windows operating system available to low-cost desktop PCs, as cheaper laptops enjoy booming demand globally, the software giant said on Tuesday.
"Distributors, retailers or end-users, people are really looking for Windows-based devices," Steven Guggenheimer, vice president for Microsoft's original equipment manufacturing business, told reporters at Computex, the world's second largest computer show.
Microsoft's customers and partners have made it clear that they want Windows on their Netbooks and Nettops, he said.
Managing a massive Windows installation has already been likened to administering a colossal database. Today, Microsoft added new functions to its Installer for setup packages, that really does start treating Windows like one.Download Windows Installer 4.5 from FileForum now.
In the last major update to Microsoft's Windows Installer package, used by setup software to ensure proper installations, a feature was added to capture the running state of applications, suspend them, and restart them after setup. This was reportedly necessary for installing updates to Windows Vista; but outside of Vista itself, it's a feature that, frankly, hasn't seen much use -- in fact, quite a bit of software out there still seems to work fine with Installer 3.1.
Microsoft announced Monday it has hired a former European diplomat to lead its dealings with the European Union. The company's aim is to help the company face down legal and regulatory threats, among which are investigations regarding its controversial document interchange formats.
Meanwhile, a fourth nation has appealed the recent ratification of those formats as an International Organization for Standardization standard.
Slated to start July 1, former General Electric executive John Vassallo will be Microsoft's vice president of EU affairs as well as associate general counsel. At GE, he was senior counsel and director of European affairs. He has also previously served as Malta's ambassador to the EU, NATO and Belgium.
Microsoft this October will launch Community Technology Previews of the three primary components of its Oslo project for model-driven
software development, a company official said at the TechEd 2008 conference in Orlando, Fla. on Tuesday.
These components include a modeling tool, a repository, and a declarative programming language, said Steven Martin, director
of product management for the Microsoft Connected Systems Division. The CTPs will be offered concurrently with the Microsoft
Professional Developers Conference, held October 27-30 in Los Angeles.
With Oslo, first detailed by Microsoft last fall, the company is looking to refocus application development to have models themselves become applications. Collaboration is
a critical focus as well.
It's fitting that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates delivered his final publicly scheduled speech as a full-time Microsoft employee
on Tuesday to a roomful of software developers.
Gates started as a developer 33 years ago when he co-founded Microsoft, and the developers of the Windows OS are a primary
reason the company is an industry powerhouse.
The latter is not lost on Gates, who kicked off the TechEd Developers conference Tuesday morning, addressing what is perhaps his company's most loyal audience. He acknowledged their importance to his company.
The latest version of Microsoft's ERP software for upper-midmarket customers is now generally
available, Microsoft announced Monday.
Major new components of Dynamics AX 2009 include a centralized "compliance center" that Microsoft has characterized as a "one-stop
shop" for compliance-related information, and "self-service" BI, which enables users to access KPIs
directly from the client.
"We're really trying to bring BI to the masses," said Kees Hertogh, director of product management.
Also, a workflow engine allows users to set internal rules around common processes, such as setting the maximum cost of a
hotel room reimbursement on an employee's expense sheet, Hertogh explained during a product demo.
Mobile phone chip giant Qualcomm on Monday showed off a mini-laptop that could cost around $299 and offer quick wireless access
to the Internet via 3G mobile telecommunications networks.
The laptop, made by Taiwan's Inventec, is small and streamlined because the low-power chips inside don't need much space to
disperse heat. But it runs on a Linux OS, which is less familiar to most people than Microsoft Windows.
Microsoft Windows Mobile 7, which is made for chips used in mobile phones, will be more laptop friendly than older versions
of Windows Mobile, said Luis Pineda, senior vice president at Qualcomm, on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei.
The only certainties in life, the saying goes, are death and taxes. But for IT pros and home users alike, there has been a
third one for the past three decades: Bill Gates as the leader and public face of Microsoft, the software vendor he co-founded 33 years ago.
Along with Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, Gates is one of the two most seminal figures -- or at least widely recognized personalities -- from the PC revolution that
eventually begat both the dot-com era and today's Web 2.0 movement. And because of his fabulous wealth, and all of the controversy
that Microsoft has generated because of its market dominance, Gates may be the only IT industry executive familiar even to
members of the general public who aren't at all tech-savvy.
BetaNews has learned further details concerning the extent of the partnership between HP and Microsoft. In addition to the Live Search agreement, the computer maker would also install Silverlight, meaning that Microsoft's answer to Flash could potentially now reach millions of new computer buyers.
The plug-in is necessary to run the newest version of the Live Search toolbar, so there would really be no way for the application to not be installed. Today the world's largest computer maker, the company that now embodies two of Microsoft's most vocal opponents with regard to Web tactics no longer has any reservation about giving Microsoft prominent placement.