Windows Vista already includes a P2P-enabling technology known as Teredo. But for the forthcoming Windows 7, Microsoft is contemplating adding such features as metered connections, distributed hash tables, and something called 'green P2P.
For the Xbox 360 game Halo 3, P2P technology is "key to the whole experience," said See-Mong Tan, Microsoft's director for P2P networking. Now, Tan tells us, the company is pursuing more options that could bring new legitimacy to a technology that is still berated today for its heritage in anonymous file-sharing.
Without a viable alternative to Microsoft's acquisition bid, Yahoo Inc.'s management may "soon be forced to accept reality and sell the company," an analyst predicted Thursday, as a tech news site reported that the two sides have talked informally.
Six weeks after Microsoft made its unsolicited, $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet icon, Yahoo's options appear to be running out, wrote Jeffrey Lindsay, a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst, in a note to clients. Lindsay wrote that he expects Yahoo's upcoming quarterly financial results to be "mediocre," which could increase the pressure to consider Microsoft's offer.
It turns out some in EU have concerns that its aggressive pursuit of Microsoft will have a negative effect on corporate investments in Europe. In a speech this week, former EU president of the Court of First Instance Bo "Duke" Vesterdorf said that slowing investment in the EU could result in slowing innovation and consumer suffering, the exact opposite of the effect the EU was shooting for when it went after Microsoft. Amazingly, Versterdorf said he regretted that Microsoft never appealed his court's decision against the company, though such an appeal had little chance of success.
Microsoft hasn't yet snagged Yahoo, but it plans to acquire another company it hopes will boost its online advertising yields: Rapt, of San Francisco.
Rapt sells advertising yield management tools for online media companies. The tools are designed to predict demand for advertising
and optimize the price and placement of ads, improving revenue.
Microsoft plans to incorporate Rapt's tools and consultancy business into its Atlas Publisher Suite. That will allow it to offer publishers an integrated service to manage advertising sales, it said.
Reports yesterday and today stating Microsoft confirmed its Windows 7 release date for 2010 appear to be very premature, as the statement those reports were based on is the same boilerplate language the company has produced for months.
An oft-repeated statement from Microsoft's spokespersons on the release timeframe for the next version of the Windows client, currently code-named "Windows 7," continues to make the case that the product remains slated for a development phase extending some three years after Windows Vista's general availability release, which was in January 2007.
Joanne Bradford, who has headed the advertising sales efforts around MSN, is leaving the software maker to head to Los Angeles-based ad agency Spot Runner, where she will be executive vice president.
Bradford, who has been at Microsoft for six and a half years, was the company's public face last May at its annual Strategic Account Summit, where Microsoft met with MSN's largest advertisers.
Yesterday, Nortel and Microsoft jointly announced four new unified communications products designed to help bring together enterprise voice, data, e-mail and other systems.
The products are part of the companies' Innovative
Communications Alliance, which now offers 10 products jointly developed by both companies, the announcement said.
The four new offerings are: Nortel Converged Office for Communication Server 1000: Integrates Microsoft's Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communication Server 2007 with two versions of Nortel's telephony server: 1000 IP-PBX and CS 2100 IP-PBX.
Ease of use was a big emphasis on stage at Convergence 2008, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer noting the Microsoft Office-like interface of Dynamics products in his keynote address.
At the Orlando, Fla. event, which is happening today, Microsoft demonstrated a preview of Dynamics AX 2009, which is scheduled for release in the first half of this year.
The event was also the forum for announcing closer ties with EDS. Microsoft and EDS are planning joint development and marketing efforts around Microsoft Dynamics CRM, targeting midmarket call centers and enterprises.
Microsoft and Yahoo are holding informal merger discussions, marking a shift from the "radio silence" that previously existed between the two companies, according to a source familiar with the talks.
A lot has changed over the past two weeks, compared with February 1 when Microsoft issued its unsolicited buyout bid for Yahoo, which initially valued the company at $31 a share.
"Yahoo has shown some willingness to have a conversation and talk," said the source on Wednesday. The source noted the Redmond giant has since come to the conclusion it may never get a formal rejection letter from Yahoo.
In testimony before the Committee on Science and Technology at the United States House of Representatives Wednesday morning, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates implored Congress and the President to "act decisively" to ensure that the country maintain its global leadership position in technology innovation.
Gates's testimony focused on three key themes: education, research, and immigration.
Fueling K-12 and Post-Secondary Education Gates said the United States faces a crippling shortfall in scientists and engineers and that the private sector alone can't solve the problem.