The edition of Silverlight that Microsoft touted from the beginning as having the C# and .NET functionality that its 1.0 edition lacked, is evolving from what it had described as an upgrade into a major overhaul. Since its inception, Microsoft has continually been developing two versions of its programmable Web graphics platform Silverlight. In fact, on the very day of its public premiere, the company introduced developers to what was being called the "1.0 beta" and the "1.1 alpha.
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The 1.0 version enables Web pages to communicate with the WPF/E library from .NET Framework 3.5, to produce rich graphical, interactive displays and panels that are controlled with JavaScript.
Microsoft released the first service pack for Exchange Server 2007 on Thursday, fixing software bugs and adding some new features
to make the product more stable and useful for business customers. However, Microsoft's Exchange partners said there are still
improvements that could be made so the latest version of Exchange can provide customers with a more complete end-to-end messaging
architecture.
Users can download Exchange Server 2007 SP1 from Microsoft's Web site. Anticipating the long-awaited release of Windows Server 2008 early next year, Microsoft added support for that product into
SP1 as well as features that allow for integration between Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007.
Portals are so twentieth century. Or are they? Joanne Bradford, chief media officer for Microsoft's MSN site, is brushing aside any criticism that online portals have seen their best days. Speaking at VentureWire's Consumer Technology Innovations conference here today, she said the portal concept, and MSN in particular, are alive, well and getting plenty of Microsoft's investment money.
Asked if portals were "dying a slow death," Bradford said quite the opposite. "Everything is looking more like a portal these days if you look at Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. I think there's a reverse portal phenomenon going on where you stuff the tail back in the head and make it mean something."
Visa and Weyerhaeuser, two companies that have faced antitrust challenges of their own, are siding with Microsoft to oppose the proposed extension of its landmark U.S. antitrust deal.
In a joint filing, the companies ask U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to consider the precedent that would be set if she grants a request by California, New York and other states to continue oversight of Microsoft for another five years. Most of the 2002 antitrust deal, known as a consent decree, had been set to expire this month.
As the country recovers from numerous helpings of turkey and stuffing, Microsoft finds itself continuing to fend off two considerably less digestible security threats, both coming about during the Thanksgiving holiday.
On Sunday night Symantec and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) revealed that a vulnerability in Apple Inc.'s QuickTime program could allow hackers to ride streaming video right into a network or workstation. The exploit, Symantec confirmed, is in the wild and could seep into Windows XP or Vista OS via a specially crafted video link.
Lawyers for plaintiffs in a case brought against Microsoft over Vista's marketing have claimed that even the software giant's marketing director was confused by the prelaunch campaign in the U.S.
The case involves the way Microsoft marketed PCs as "Windows Vista capable" prior to the consumer launch of the operating system in January.
Plaintiffs Dianne Kelley and Kenneth Hansen claim Microsoft was not telling the truth when it put the "Vista capable" logo on PCs that would be capable of running only Vista Home Basic. They contend that "Vista capable" implies that the machine is able to run all versions of Vista, rather than just the pared-down Home Basic version.
Environmental watchdogs at Greenpeace have turned their attention to Microsoft and Nintendo, which they say are using toxic chemicals in the manufacturing processes for their video game systems and other products. And while both companies are near the bottom of Greenpeace's list of environmentally friendly electronics companies, Microsoft can at least take heart in one statistic: Nintendo scored dead last, and was the only company to score zero points out of a possible 10 in the rankings.
Microsoft Tuesday was still examining the details of a vulnerability discovered by a hacker that appears to exploit an eight-year-old flaw in Windows.
So far, the company has not announced plans for a patch. In addition, the company would not confirm that the issue is based on a vulnerability first discovered in 1999 in the Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol in Windows. Nor would the company commit to the fact that any fix is under development.
New tests have revealed that Windows XP with the beta Service Pack 3 has twice the performance of Vista, even with its long-awaited Service Pack 1.
Vista's first service pack, to be released early next year, is intended to boost the operating system's performance. However, when Vista with the Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta was put through benchmark testing by researchers at Florida-based software development company Devil Mountain Software, the improvement was not overwhelming, leaving the latest Windows iteration outshined by its predecessor.
The Microsoft Learning Group on Monday said it has made some incremental improvements to the benefits package that it issues to those who achieve Microsoft Certified Professional status. According to a press release issued by the company, improvements include better access to troubleshooting information online, better transcript management and quicker updates to certification information.
The key benefit is broader access to Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and technical support information that was previously only accessible to Microsoft Partners and those who earned the Most Valuable Professional designation.