Microsoft is preparing users of its Zune music player for the much-hyped upgrade to both the Zune device and desktop software. According to an e-mail sent out to users on Monday night, the updates will begin to be delivered automatically starting November 13. Among the new features that come as part of the update are: wireless sync, a new Zune Marketplace, and a social network built around the device.
"By accepting the updates, your Zune will have the same software that comes preloaded on all new devices," Microsoft says in the e-mail. As first reported by BetaNews in early October, Microsoft is pushing the update as an effort to keep its early adopters current with the latest features to be provided to Zune customers.
A top official from Microsoft's developer division showcased an array of new development technologies on Tuesday, including a demo of the game World of Warcraft running within the company's Visual Studio integrated development environment.
Scott Guthrie, general manager of the developer division, gave a wide-ranging keynote at Microsoft's DevConnections conference at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas.
But he seemed to especially capture the audience's attention with the WarCraft demo, which coincided with Microsoft's announcement that it would let partners use Visual Studio and its accompanying software development kit to target platforms besides its own.
Microsoft has terminated the employment of its CIO Stuart Scott, who was also a corporate vice president at the software company.
Scott's executive biography on the Microsoft Web site was updated on Nov. 5 with a note saying that "Stuart Scott's employment at Microsoft ended in early November 2007."
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that Scott was terminated "after an investigation for violation of company policies."
Microsoft General Manager Shahla Aly and Corporate Vice President Alain Crozier will assume his responsibilities until a replacement is identified, the spokesperson told eWEEK.
Microsoft has officially taken the beta moniker off the next generation of its Windows Live services, which it launched at events in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 6.
This new generation of Windows Live will be available in 36 languages and 59 countries across the world, and is the first integrated release of the services, Brian Hall, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Live business group, told eWEEK.
Windows Live is designed to focus on three main things: putting the user at the center, providing an integrated experience across everything that Microsoft does on this front and bringing the best of the Web to Windows, he said.
Microsoft and its chairman, Bill Gates, have had a vision of a totally interconnected world for nearly two decades ? ever since Gates presented his now fabled "Information at Your Fingertips" speech and video at Comdex Fall 1990 in Las Vegas.
Many of Gates' predictions ? ubiquitous e-mail and online access, wireless connectivity for devices, tablet computing, unified communications, broadband, and other parts of his "digital lifestyle" vision ? have come to pass ? if not all the way he originally envisioned them. (For instance, Microsoft initially missed the Internet's importance, preferring instead to pursue online access via its then proprietary Microsoft Network or MSN service.)
More than a year has passed since Microsoft released the latest version of its Internet Explorer browser, and the company has started taking some heat over a lack of details about the next one.
After taking five years to come out with the current Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft offered a mea culpa and said it was aiming for a new release every 12 to 18 months. But so far there has been little information about Internet Explorer 8, and no public schedule for releasing preliminary and final versions.
A few months ago, Microsoft was hedging as to whether it would deliver the final "Orcas Visual Studio 2008 code in 2007 or 2008. But as of November 5, its official: VS 2008 is going to be released to manufacturing later in November 2007.
The official "launch of Visual Studio 2008 remains set for February 27, 2008. But the VS 2008 and .Net Framework 3.5 bits will be signed, sealed and delivered sooner than that.
Microsoft seems set to debut its newest addition to the Windows Live family, a calendaring application, and is also preparing to bring several Live services out of beta, sources report.
LiveSide.net is reporting that Windows Live Calendar briefly made an appearance on Microsoft's servers, apparently for testing. It's appearance led the site to believe that a release is imminent.
Noted Microsoft pundit Mary Jo Foley later cited sources that were pointing to a release today, although as of press time the site had still not gone live. Either way, the addition of the latest calendaring application would mean the Redmond company has at least four major datebook apps, including an MSN-branded one as well as those within Windows Vista and its Outlook productivity suite.
Microsoft has committed to deliver the next version of its developer tool set and the underlying platform by the end of November.
At the company's TechEd Developers 2007 conference in Barcelona, Spain, on Nov. 5, S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, announced that the company will release Visual Studio 2008 and the .Net Framework 3.5 by the end of this month.
Microsoft also will be opening up its licensing for the Visual Studio technology to give some of its partners greater access to the IDE's (integrated development environment's) source code.
Microsoft is positioning its upcoming Windows Server 2008 operating system as a bonanza that, for Web hosting companies, stacks up well against the rival Linux platform, Microsoft officials said.
Due in late February 2008, the platform has been tuned for Web density and features other amenities for Web hosters, said Michael van Dijken, leading marketing manager for the Hosting Business in Microsoft's Communications Sector.
"Windows Server's been designed with, really, hosting in mind," van Dijken said.