Microsoft will offer a Windows Live "installer" that will download and install software to access multiple online services, said Kevin Johnson, the president of Microsoft's Platform and Services Division.
During his presentation at Microsoft's Financial Analysts Day on Thursday, Johnson mentioned the Windows Live installer, saying that the company would begin beta testing it this summer.
He described it as a single download that will let consumers connect to multiple Live-branded hosted services, such as e-mail and messaging. People will be able to access these services from different devices, including PCs and phones, he said.
Microsofts next version of its small-business/home productivity suite, due imminently, will be free and ad-funded.
Microsoft Works 9.0 which will be the new products name, if Microsoft opts to stick with its current nomenclature might also debut at some point as Microsoft-hosted low-end productivity service, as many have been speculating. A hosted version of Works would give Microsoft a head-to-head competitor with Google Docs & Spreadsheets and other consumer- and small-business focused services, analysts have said.
Microsoft has released to Windows Server 2008 beta testers two new hot-fix packs for Windows Vista, which improve performance and reliability, along with the operating system's compatibility with drivers and hardware. The 12MB worth of fixes are expected to make their way into Vista Service Pack 1 later this year.
Some of the changes noted by testers are better file copy performance, faster boot times, improved compatibility with newer graphics cards, and better performance in games with advanced visuals. According to some enthusiasts, these patches contain the fixes they have been waiting for. Microsoft has not commented on the now-leaked hot-fix packs, which are available for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista.
Popfly, Microsoft's mashup tool for non-programmers, stands to tap a ripe market for the software giant. The man behind the idea, John Montgomery, group program manager for Popfly, discusses his thinking on the concept with eWEEK Senior Editor Darryl K. Taft.
So, what was it that prompted you to raise your hand in the first place to deliver this?
There were a couple of things that happened. One was I'd been sitting in developer marketing for a very long time and watching sites like MySpace and Facebook grow and realizing that every person who tricks out their MySpace page is a developer. But Microsoft had no offering for them and, in fact, nobody had an offering for them. The tools if you look at how you customize a MySpace page, it's awful.
Microsoft is developing a new research group intended to quickly develop new search and advertising technologies and rapidly deliver them to advertisers and customers.
The new center, the Internet Services Research Center will be part of Microsoft's research group and work closely with its MSN Web portal and other groups across the company, according to a statement.
A Microsoft spokesman said the center will be based in Redmond, Wash., with teams also located in Silicon Valley and Beijing.
"We're committed to delivering better, faster search results for our customers and more creative, effective ways of delivering value for advertisers," said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of Microsoft's search and advertising platform group, in the statement.
Microsoft hasn't divulged detailed plans for the next release of its Zune music player, but a company executive last week offered hints that seem to support reports that a flash memory-based Zune and an 80GB device could be in the works.
It hasn't been a matter of if Microsoft plans to expand its Zune product line beyond the several 30GB players it has on the market, it's been a matter of when. At its annual financial analyst meeting last week, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, said Microsoft plans to "broaden" the Zune brand with new styles, capacity sizes, and price points as well as new features, though he did not reveal the timing of releases or exact product specifications.
Microsoft is relying on green technologies in its newest datacenters, including one in San Antonio where it is breaking ground on Monday.
The San Antonio building, one of several in the works at various locations, will be 500,000 square feet and contain tens of thousands of servers, said Michael Manos, senior director of datacenters at Microsoft. The company announced it would build the center in San Antonio earlier this year.
The first phase of the facility will be operational in July next year, he said.
What's it like to have a job where you have regular roundtable discussions with executives and have a barbeque in the backyard of the richest man in the world?
Is it possible to work with a company that is so eager to invest in your ideas you feel that as big as you can dream they will back you up, and where your only grievance is that you are having such a great time, you almost forget that it's real work?
Just ask Nina Sundberg, who interned in the server and tools division of the systems management group at Microsoft.
Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail Webmail service remained inaccessible to a portion of its users for several hours on Friday, but the problem has been resolved.
Windows Live Hotmail, which has about 310 million active users worldwide, became unavailable between approximately 6:30 a.m.
U.S. Pacific Time and "late morning," a spokeswoman for Microsoft said.
She declined to specify how many users were affected, saying only that the problem affected "a limited set of customers." The problem, which erupted during maintenance work for Windows Live Hotmail, didn't lead to any loss of data for users, according to the spokeswoman.
Microsoft: friend of open source software? That's what a new website from the world's largest proprietary software company would have you believe.
The site, titled "Open Source at Microsoft", went live Thursday, according to Bill Hilf, General Manager of Platform Strategy at Microsoft. The new site, Hilf wrote in a blog entry, "clearly outlines Microsoft's position on OSS by providing specific information about Microsoft, the OSS community and the interaction between the two."
The website, which can be found here, has four main sections currently: Participating, Partnering, Growing and Learning.