In an attempt to level the playing field with Google Earth, Microsoft has scooped up Caligari, makers of 3-D rendering software. The small company's software will play a big part in enhancing the three dimensional experience within Virtual Earth. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"I am deeply convinced that union of Caligari technologies and the scope of Virtual Earth project and vision behind it creates the perfect home for us and new opportunities for each one of you as part of the Virtual Earth community," CEO Roman Ormandy said in a note to users.
Up until now, if you wanted Microsoft's Outlook e-mail client, you had to buy the company's Office suite.
However, the most recent release ? Outlook 2007 with the Business Contact Manager contact management application, which comes as a component of Office 2007 ? has been so popular with small businesses that Microsoft is now offering it as a standalone package.
Demand for a standalone release grew out of small business needs for consolidating contact information from more than one application in a single place. The standalone version enables customers to track sales and marketing activities such as organizing contacts, and customer information, according to a Microsoft statement.
The Contacts feature in Microsoft Outlook 2007 gets a huge overhaul, with a new version released this morning that includes a Business Contact Manager. But that new feature will be an option, and for some, a costly upgrade.
Since it was introduced as part of Exchange 5.5, Microsoft Outlook has had the ability to record contacts on a simple database stored on the client's system. As time went on, that contacts list was shared with Windows...for better or worse.
But the contacts system has essentially been a flat-file database, not a relational one. So while you could group contacts according to company, you couldn't exactly use that list as a way to maintain information that pertains to those contacts.
Microsoft's online advertising researchers will spend this year teaching
computers to be smart about sticking ads into video clips, and to be even smarter about targeting ads to specific Web surfers.
Microsoft showed off a handful of early-stage advertising projects at its headquarters Tuesday that may or may not turn up as part of Microsoft's Web advertising platform.
The demonstrations come just days after Microsoft's $44.6
billion bid for Yahoo Inc., which, if successful, will boost the software
maker's Web traffic and online ad revenue.
Microsoft this week is giving users and partners a sneak peak at the next version of its Visio business diagramming package.
The company is showing off the upcoming features, as well as four new add-ins, at its Microsoft Office Visio Conference 2008 this week to a conclave of 250 customers and partners gathered on the company's sprawling Redmond, Wash. campus.
It's no surprise that one of the key upcoming new features will be support for Office 2007's trademark "ribbon" ? context sensitive ? user interface, which has recently been renamed "fluent."
Conventional wisdom has it that Microsoft is obsessed with Google, and while there's certainly some truth to that, the reverse is equally true as well. That became obvious over the weekend when Google published an ill-conceived missive on the Web about Microsoft's plan to purchase Yahoo and began openly fighting the merger of the two companies' Internet operations.
"Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions," Google senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond wrote in a blog entry published Sunday.
Microsoft has announced a new "green" wireless mouse, with such environmentally-minded features as...an on/off switch.The Redmond company is gently marketing its new Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 today as being environmentally friendly due to its six-month battery life. This, according to Microsoft, will amount to an 80% reduction in battery consumption over a three-year period
How does it achieve this feat? By using a rechargeable battery, and equipping it with a battery level indicator and power switch.Seems deceptively simple for a device which also touts "High Definition Laser Technology," and Vista Flip 3D-maximized magnifier tool/tilt wheel.
Microsoft is offering a new subscription model to small businesses that will allow them to use the company's software for
less cost than the currently available licensing model.
The plan, called Open Value Subscription program, is part of Microsoft's effort to give small businesses more flexible and
affordable options for purchasing software, said Cindy Bates, Microsoft's general manager for U.S. small business.
The new plan costs about a third of the license-only expense for the current licensing program open to small business, called
the Open Value program, Bates said. The plan is cheaper because Microsoft offers upfront discounts for software purchased
through the subscription program, and also allows customers to increase or decrease pricing over the three-year subscription
period if their business needs change, she said.
Missing Microsoft researcher Jim Gray will be honored at a daylong event at the University of California at Berkeley on May 31. Gray, who disappeared Jan. 28, 2007 while sailing on his boat, has been the subject of an extensive search, but one that has thus far turned up few promising leads.
Jim Gray "It is important to note that this is a tribute, not a memorial," Oracle Vice President Mike Olson said in a statement. "Many people in our industry, including me, are deeply indebted to Jim for his intellect, his vision, and his unselfish willingness to be a teacher and a mentor."
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rebuffed Google's accusations that an acquisition of Yahoo would be anticompetitive.
The bid was made public Friday, prompting the response from Google over the weekend. Ballmer Monday at a news conference ceded
ground to Microsoft's arch rival in order to justify his company's $44.6 billion cash-and-stock offer for Yahoo, which if accepted would fall under the scrutiny of U.S. and European regulators.