Microsoft is ratcheting up its software-plus-services strategy with a new offering known as Office Live Workspace that is due later this year and that will let customers access, share and collaborate on documents online.
But there is a catch: Users will not to able to edit the documents they are viewing through a browser unless they have Office installed on their computer.
"You need Microsoft Office to edit Office documents, but if you do not have it installed you can view Office documents in a browser both Internet Explorer and Firefox will be supported and can comment on them," a Microsoft spokeswoman told eWEEK Sept. 30.
Microsoft is testing a way to present video advertising that's less annoying to Web surfers.
Instead of forcing MSN Video visitors to watch an ad before every clip, Microsoft now shows one ad before their first video selection. The next ad appears after at least three minutes of viewing -- and it won't interrupt a video midstream.
The change is part of an MSN Video site redesign that went live in the U.S. Wednesday. In a statement, Microsoft said the new tactic lets people channel surf without being interrupted by a commercial every time.
Microsoft will hold a event on Tuesday in Redmond to herald the second generation of Zune music players, BetaNews has learned.According to sources close to the situation, both Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Design and Development chief J Allard will be on hand for the event. The main part of the announcement will center around the players, which will include the first flash memory based Zunes.
Entering the flash-based device market is very important for Microsoft, as the category is by far the most popular. While the Zune has managed to grab a 10 percent share of the HDD player segment, overall that has amounted to about a 3 percent share of the market in general.
U.K. companies with "high potential" can now get a helping hand from Microsoft, the software giant said Monday, as it launched a new program to support start-ups.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said the aim of the so-called Startup Accelerator Programme is to help those companies that show enormous potential but find it difficult to get started in the right way. A similar program has been running in the U.S. since August.
"Software offers huge opportunities for new U.K. businesses, but even great ideas and groundbreaking innovation are sometimes not enough to bring long-term success," Ballmer said.
Video game enthusiasts in the United States plunked down about $170 million on copies of "Halo 3" in the 24 hours after the Xbox 360 game went on sale, Microsoft said Wednesday.
The company claimed the first-day total makes it "the biggest entertainment launch in history," topping first-day sales of the final "Harry Potter" book and the box-office opening of "Spider-Man 3." It also surpassed the $125 million in first-day sales for "Halo 2." "Halo 3" fans preordered more than 1.7 million copies of the game, and more than 10,000 stores opened at midnight Monday to start selling, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft and its hardware partners are trying to bridge the divide between home computers and televisions this holiday season with the release of several "media extenders."
These TV set-top boxes will connect wirelessly to computers running the Home Premium or Ultimate flavors of Windows Vista and enable users to use their TVs to watch movies, TV shows and Internet video that is stored on their computers.
Microsoft planned to announce the prices and more details about the extenders Thursday at the DigitalLife trade show in New York.
U.S. senators on Thursday injected themselves into a high-stakes dispute between Google and Microsoft over whether the search giant's proposed acquisition of display advertising company DoubleClick presents antitrust or privacy concerns.
But after the hearing, which lasted almost two hours, it was still unclear where most of the senators stood. The top Democrat and top Republican on the Senate panel seemed more interested in asking questions than adopting the common congressional tactic of forcefully arguing on behalf of Google or Microsoft.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), the subcommittee's chairman, said at the outset that he would approach the topic with an "open mind," and by the time the hearing ended, that apparently hadn't changed.
Although the release of the next version of Office for the Mac has slipped into next year, Microsoft is ready with the pricing and packaging options. The product will come in three flavors. The standard version, known simply as Office 2008 for Mac, includes PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Entourage and will sell for $399. A $499 Special Media Edition also includes Expression Media, a digital media cataloguing program that Microsoft acquired from its 2006 purchase of iView Multimedia.
Both the Special Media Edition and the standard Office for Mac also include the ability to connect to an Exchange Server, as well as some actions for Automator, Mac OS X's built-in scripting tool.
A security expert who once worked for Microsoft has said he may dump the company's Windows Media Center in favor of Ubuntu-affiliated LinuxMCE after struggling with the software giant's digital-rights management software.
Jesper Johansson--a former senior program manager for security policy at Microsoft who moved to Amazon in September last year--wrote in his blog on Monday that he may drop Windows Media Center for LinuxMCE, a free open-source add-on to the Kubuntu desktop operating system, because problems caused by Microsoft's digital-rights management (DRM) software have proven so difficult to fix.
Novell says its Linux business has grown by 243 percent over the last three quarters, and it largely credits its deal with Microsoft. Novell has reached $100 million in revenue from Linux over the nine-month period, thanks to the close working relationship it has had with Microsoft since the two companies signed their collaborative deal in November. As part of the deal, Microsoft offers support for Novell's Suse Linux, and the two companies are working on making their respective software interoperable.