In a surprise move, Microsoft has postponed its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2008 from next spring to next fall, leaving many industry observers with a simple question: Why?
The conference was pushed back due to "industry feedback," a company spokesperson told InternetNews.com. Adding that Microsoft had no further comment, the spokesperson referred to the company's WinHEC site.
"We are pleased to announce that WinHEC 2008 will be held in the fall of 2008 on the West Coast. We have re-scheduled WinHEC for the fall in response to industry feedback," according to a statement on the Web site.
The recent jump in Microsoft's stock price was on the minds of shareholders during the company's annual meeting Tuesday -- but not necessarily with a sense of satisfaction.
During a question-and-answer period, executives were asked to address the recent stock sales by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, board member Jon Shirley and some executives that followed a sharp increase in the stock a few weeks ago.
"The talk out of Wall Street is that this showed a certain lack of confidence in the future of where the company is going," shareholder Peter Schroeder of Seattle said, addressing executives during the meeting at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. He noted that the stock has been slipping in recent days.
In one of its biggest update days in memory, Apple late Wednesday patched 41 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X, rolled out the long-anticipated update for Tiger, quashed 10 bugs in the Windows version of Safari, and upgraded a slew of other applications.
Only an update to iPhoto, one of the Apple-branded applications bundled with Macs, is relevant to users running Leopard, the new operating system introduced three weeks ago.
With the release of version 2.0, Windows Live OneCare is no longer just for one PC; Microsoft now wants to inoculate entire home networks with its computer care service.When it launched OneCare in May 2006, Microsoft risked alienating its close security partners such as Symantec and McAfee by entering a market it previously avoided. Now, the Redmond company is upping the ante by going after families with multiple PCs in their homes.
Windows Live OneCare 2.0, which is sold as a retail package but branded like Microsoft's other online services, includes a new centralized interface for monitoring the security of all computers on a network, and running maintenance tasks without having to visit each PC manually.
The latest version of Microsoft's entry-level accounting program for small businesses released on Thursday can handle accounts in Spanish and English, and integrates with more online banking services than the previous version.
Office Accounting 2008 is a basic set of accounting tools that lets users do general tasks such as managing budgets. It also has special features for people who perform lots of transactions on eBay and handle payments through PayPal, the auction site's online money transfer service.
The forthcoming launch of SQL Server 2008 will see Microsoft focus its considerable resources on the issue of licensing, to win customers from rivals Oracle and IBM.
"Our challenge, now we have picked off a lot of the low-hanging fruit, is to attack the traditional Oracle strongholds," said Matt Dunstan, Microsoft's U.K. marketing director for databases.
Dunstan, who is in charge of the battle with Oracle and IBM, said Microsoft will exploit weaknesses it sees in Oracle's licensing and customer treatment. It is a bold strategy from a company that has itself frequently been pilloried for its licensing policies, but Dunstan clearly thinks Oracle's licensing is a weak spot.
Microsoft has released a preview release candidate for Windows Vista SP1 to a large group of beta testers.
The software maker released the first, private Vista SP1 beta to some 12,000 pre-selected testers in September. At that time, it also promised a larger public beta was in the cards but declined to say when it would be available.
The RC preview beta, which was released late Nov. 14 and includes changes to the setup and installation experience made as a result of tester feedback, was made available to 15,000 pre-selected beta testers, just 3,000 more than the first beta.
Bill Gates, regarded as one of the world's brightest and richest, made a mistake.
It was a small error, but one that highlights the larger challenge behind his decision to spend less time working for the massive company he founded 30 years ago.
On Tuesday, at Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting, Gates told the audience that it would be his last meeting as full-time chairman of the company.
In fact, Gates will remain the sole full-time chairman, but next year he will become a part-time employee.
Microsoft has released yet another build of its first planned service pack for Windows Vista on Wednesday, opening up the patch to a broader base of testers. While the first public beta of SP1 was shipped to 12,000 testers, this latest build opened up the test to 3,000 additional people. Smaller groups have been receiving private builds since the spring of this year.
The targeted release date still seems to remain as the first quarter of 2008, although the Redmond company is so far staying silent on any word when wider public betas will be available. Details on exactly what will be included are somewhat scarce, although Microsoft is promising to include all fixes issued since the release of Vista last fall plus several new features.
Microsoft plans to unveil a new platform, based on its game technology, that will bring visualization and simulation capabilities to the masses.
The Microsoft ESP platform, which the company will roll out Nov. 14, will include a software development kit.
Drew Lytle, group manager of Microsoft ESP, said the platform brings immersive games-based technology to training and learning, decision support, and R&D modeling for military and commercial aviation organizations.