An appeals court on Friday rejected Microsoft's challenge to a $142 million trial loss over patents on a way to prevent software piracy.
"Substantial evidence supports the jury's verdict" that Microsoft infringed two valid patents owned by closely held z4 Technologies Inc., the appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled.
The dispute is over a method for using product-activation codes to prevent the use of software by multiple users. Microsoft argued that the patents obtained by closely held z4's founder, David Colvin of Commerce Township, Mich., are invalid and weren't infringed.
An expedited beta period is planned for the artistic development environment upgrade, which will now enable programmers to build multi-player games for Games for Windows Live.
For the better part of the 1980s, it was the reason young people entered the realm of programming: to have the opportunity to build something worthwhile on their own on a computer, that's as much fun to make as it is to run, and to exploit that real chance of making it commercial. The greatest game programmers of the 20th century entered this industry through a back-door flung open wide...one that was shut throughout the last decade, as commercial games became multi-million-dollar productions by design.
Microsoft's emphasis on improvements to security features in Windows Vista may have undermined business adoption of the OS
as many business and enterprise customers are still holding off on upgrading to the OS nearly a year after its release to
them.
Microsoft spent a good deal of time and money to ensure Vista's security after Windows XP and applications running on it proved
susceptible to devastating worms like Blaster, Slammer, and MyDoom. Though Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 2 to
remedy some vulnerabilities, the company decided that security would be a top priority for the next major Windows release,
said George Stathakopoulos, general manager of Microsofts Response and Product Centers.
Microsoft has tweaked its Windows Live OneCare self-updating PC care service to better meet the needs of small user group environments.
Windows Live OneCare consists of a set of security and performance tools, all managed by a central console. Security features include anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall feature with automatic updates. Performance tools include backup and restore and a tune-up feature that handles routine maintenance of all PCs on the small network. A "health meter"essentially a dashboardmonitors each computer's protection level and health, along with how to fix problems.
Microsoft has tapped a former Sun Microsystems and IBM executive to lead its North American sales and marketing.
Robert YoungJohns, who most recently was president and CEO of performance management software vendor Callidus, is now president
of North America sales and marketing as well as a corporate vice president at Microsoft. In his new role, which begins Dec.
3, YoungJohns will manage an 8,500-person sales force and report to Microsoft COO Kevin Turner.
As promised earlier this month, Microsoft announced this week it is shipping the final code of Visual Studio 2008, the latest release of its flagship integrated development environment.
The company said in early November that it was on target to have VS2008 ready for shipment this month, even though the product's formal launch won't take place until next year. Along with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server, VS2008 is set for a big gala launch event in Los Angeles on February 27, 2008.
Starting today, Microsoft Developer Network subscribers can download VS2008 and .NET Framework 3.5.
Microsoft this week won a years-old patent infringement case involving technology it used to speed the boot time of Windows XP. Acceleration Software International Corp sued Microsoft for infringing on its 1999 patent in XP, and a loss could have cost the software giant up to $900 million. However, an east Texas jury found that Microsoft did not infringe on the patent. In fact, it also found that the patent was invalid because "it was obvious" (yes, seriously) and was pre-existing technology at the time of the patent grant in 1999. Now, a US District Court is actually considering a Microsoft allegation that Acceleration Software International illegally withheld information about the pre-existing technology when it filed its patent application. Nice little twist, that.
Microsoft recently tapped Reed Sturtevant, a Lotus, Radnet and Idealab vet, to spearhead concept development in its spiffy new Cambridge, Mass. facility.
The high-rise building along the Charles River is about two blocks from Lotus Development's old headquarters building. Microsoft is beefing up its East Coast presence with its new Cambridge facility. It is also conveniently close to the MIT campus, which is no accident.
The high-rise office houses some of the Softricity staff. Microsoft acquired Softricity and its virtualization know-how last year. That group, now dubbed Softgrid, is in the One Memorial Drive building; it will also be the location of Sturtevant's new team, which he's building now.
A blogger is making dormant rumors that Microsoft is looking to buy Yahoo active again after a Microsoft executive outlined plans this week for the company to improve its online search market share from about 10 percent to 30 percent.
Former Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget, who writes for the popular liberal blog The Huffington Post, posited Friday that there is no way Microsoft could achieve this goal on its own, so an acquisition may be in the works.
His comments come after Microsoft President of Platforms and Services Kevin Johnson outlined the company's online search goal at a UBS investor conference in Seattle on Thursday.
Microsoft didnt release only a refreshed test build of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 this week. It also quietly posted an updated test build of Windows Server 2008.
Testers with pre-approved access to Microsofts private Connect download site can grab the Windows Server 2008 November Community Technology Preview. The build number is 6001-17042-071107-1618.
No word yet from testers on whats new in the latest Windows Server 2008 build. Its not yet quite Release Candidate 1, but the Softies are getting closer.