The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance has been the fastest selling Version 1 product in the history of Microsoft's volume license program, with more than 3 million licenses sold over the past nine months.
The product is only available to those customers who have a Windows Client volume license with Software Assurance, a fact that had not been an obstacle to adoption, said Brad Anderson, the general manager for the Windows and Enterprise management division, at a press conference at the TechEd IT Forum here Nov. 12.
A five-year extension of large portions of the U.S. antitrust judgment against Microsoft isn't needed and the reasons a group of states have given for continuing oversight won't fix the problems they still see, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a court brief filed Friday.
The DOJ's 12-page brief opposes an extension of the antitrust judgment, signed by the company and regulators in 2002, until November 2012. A group of states has asked U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to extend the antitrust judgment, but the DOJ has said it would oppose an extension.
In the latest reorg of its Search unit, which Microsoft announced internally to its troops on November 9, Microsoft has appointed Harry Shum to take over management of the Core Search engineering team.
Shum will replace General Manager of Microsoft Search Ken Moss. Moss has held the lead core-search managers job for more than five years. Moss is taking a sabbatical, from which, according to Microsoft, Moss will return. (A substantial number of other Microsoft managers whove taken sabbaticals have not returned to the company.)
Microsoft makes refurbished PCs its latest WGA anti-piracy target
Theres a placeholder site up now for a new Microsoft Web site known as "TechNet Edge. A few Softies have been teasing about the existence of the site for the past couple of weeks.
Im still not entirely sure what this thing is going to be. My guess? A Channel 9 (Microsofts developer forum/site) but?? for IT professionals. There are forums for threaded discussions and storage for media files of all types. Microsoft is encouraging participants to tag their content with words like "Terminal Services, "IIS, "Networking and "Security.
Microsoft's workspaces are going from cookie-cutter to custom-made.
A new Microsoft Research headquarters building, slated to open in Redmond next week, is the first Microsoft building to be constructed under a new approach that will let different groups customize their spaces based on their needs.
The company has traditionally offered individual offices, and those aren't entirely going away. But business groups in new buildings will have a choice of open floor plans and other alternative workspaces if they think those will be better for the work they do. Even in cases where there are offices, the walls that divide them will be removable if, for example, groups decide to work in closer collaboration for a few months.
Microsoft on Friday introduced a new pilot program to encourage refurbishers to install legitimate copies of Windows XP on used PCs.
The new Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher program offers a discount off the retail price of Windows XP, along with deployment tools to help refurbishers reinstall Windows and all of the relevant drivers on renewed PCs in as little as 15 minutes, said Hani Shakeel, senior product manager of the genuine Windows product marketing team.
When MAR is fully expanded, it will also help stem what Microsoft acknowledges as widespread flouting of Microsoft's XP licensing rules by price-pressured refurbishers.
Although Microsoft is still getting plenty of "oohs" and "aahs" when it demos its Surface computer, the company is finding the task of bringing the tabletop computer to market a little rougher than it anticipated.
The software maker's initial plan was to get partners with the touch-screen machines up and running as early as this month. Now it estimates it will take until spring before the devices start showing up in locations like Sheraton hotels, Harrah's casinos, and T-Mobile retail locations.
Microsoft has begun advising customers on planned changes to IE now that it has licensed technology from Eolas, however it may have accidentally let slip a release window for VIsta SP1 and XP SP3 to boot.
The Redmond company said Thursday that it will release an update in April 2008 as part of its regular cumulative update for Internet Explorer that month. Microsoft will make the functionality available via a preview release in December.
"We are simply reverting to the old behavior," senior product manager Pete LePage said. "Once Internet Explorer is updated, all pages that currently require 'click to activate' will no longer require the control to be activated. They'll just work.
Think of it as Xbox Land.
Microsoft plans to develop an upscale campus for its Entertainment and Devices Division, including its video-game console business, on a large swath of land on the western half of its Redmond headquarters.
And the project might even include its own watering hole.
Permit applications for the West Campus development reveal details that include a bar for employees amid the planned complex of four office buildings. However, Microsoft isn't talking about the project publicly yet, and it's not clear if the company actually intends to go through with that aspect of the plan.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, in Tokyo to launch new Windows Live services, played down the threat of Google on Thursday, denying the rival was ahead in any way but in online searches.
"Google is not ahead of us," he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. "In the area of search specifically, Google would lead." Microsoft on Thursday began offering its Windows Live programming package for e-mail, instant messaging, blogging and photo-sharing in Japan. The product was announced in the U.S. Tuesday.