Microsoft has a formal new program to lure independent software vendors from Linux and Unix to Windows.
Launched Dec. 16 as a pilot program, the initiative is called NXT, with the tagline "What's next for ISVs." Microsoft is aiming the program at ISVs with existing non-Windows solutions that drive $5 million or more in revenues. Microsoft is offering incentives and resources to help those ISVs quickly port their applications from Unix or Linux to Windows or from competitive databases to SQL Server.
Before the Xbox 360 launched in November 2005, Microsoft announced 90-day and 6-month sales goals for the game system and noted that it intended to take advantage of its head start on the sales floor to secure dominance over rival next-generation systems from Sony and Nintendo. With the 2005 holiday sales season behind us, however, it's clear that sales goals for the Xbox 360 were too ambitious. Plagued by insufficient parts supply and manufacturing capacity problems and an arguably unwise plan to launch Xbox 360 in three major geographical markets within a span of weeks, Microsoft was unable to meet demand. Now, the company is focusing on how many consoles it can sell by mid-2006 because it will miss its 90-day goal.
The United States Patent & Trademark Office completed a reexamination of two Microsoft patents and decided to let them stand.
The patent office ruled that there was no prior art to invalidate Microsoft's '517 and '352 patents, covering aspects of the file allocation table file system, which is used to keep track of the location and sequence of specific files stored on a PC's hard drive, a floppy disk or a Flash memory card.
The Public Patent Foundation, a non-profit that works to improve patent quality and invalidate what it considers bad patents, requested the reexamination in June 2004.
The Microsoft Partner Program got high marks from industry analysts at IDC in a recent survey comparing the channel programs of 25 top software vendors.
The report, "Worldwide Software Channel Program 2005 Vendor Profiles," was published by Framingham, Mass.-based IDC in December and posted on Microsoft's Web site this week. In the study, IDC places Microsoft in the best spot of its "leadership grid" for software partner programs.
IBM's partnering program graphs close behind Microsoft's. Other vendors in the coveted upper right square of IDC's grid include Progress, Oracle, CA, Novell, BEA and Sun.
Back in early December 2005, Microsoft publicly announced that it planned to ship a code-complete version of Windows Vista internally by the end of 2005, setting the stage for a future code-complete Community Technical Preview build that the company would issue to testers. However, sources at the software giant now tell me that the company didn't make this milestone, and Microsoft now plans to ship a code-complete Windows Vista version internally by January 31, 2006 instead.
A new agreement with Apple Computer commits Microsoft to making Word, Excel and other Office programs for Macintosh computers for at least five more years.
The deal, announced Tuesday at the Macworld Expo, doesn't include an investment in Apple by Microsoft, as a previous agreement did. But people inside Microsoft's Mac Business Unit say they hope it alleviates concerns among Mac users about Microsoft's continued plans to make Mac software.
"This official commitment should leave no doubt in your mind that we're here to stay, and we're in it for the long term," said Roz Ho, general manager of the Mac Business Unit, announcing the agreement on stage Tuesday morning with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs.
Windows XP Media Center Edition OS may not yet be the standard home entertainment hub that Microsoft hopes it will be, but analysts said that could all change once the company releases the next consumer client version of the Windows OS later this year.
Though Microsoft has not gone public about whether there will be a separate Media Center release for Windows Vista, it's very likely the company will eschew a separate edition in favor of building Media Center features directly into the edition of Vista that goes out on most consumer machines, said Matt Rosoff, analyst with Directions on Microsoft.
Remember that old gasoline ad about putting a "tiger in your tank?" How about Windows in your gas pump? Attendees at the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week got a preview of a gas pump sporting a Windows CE logo. And it?s
not just for show.
Austin, Texas-based Dresser Wayne showed off a pump it plans to ship soon that will feature a version of Windows CE embedded as part of what it calls its iX Technology Platform. Besides dispensing gas, the pump -- dubbed the Ovation iX fuel dispenser -- aims to simplify drivers? lives, according to the company.
Microsoft today announced that it is slightly modifying its support lifecycle to provide what it calls "more predictability" for customers.
The change was driven by the end of support for Exchange Server 5.5. That occurred on the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 2005. But this is the first "Patch Tuesday" of the new year and, despite the end of support 10 days ago, Microsoft released a security bulletin and patch for a critical vulnerability in the aging e-mail server.
So from now on, product support periods, which traditionally end at quarterly cut-off dates, will be extended to the date of the next regular security update for that product.
Microsoft is slowly but surely showing more of its planned software-as-a-service add-ons for Windows, most of which will be ad-supported.
Microsoft didn't show off many new Windows Vista bells and whistles at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. But company officials did drop hints about some of the new Windows Live add-on services in the Redmond pipeline.
Windows Live is the brand name for the growing family of services, many of which originally launched under MSN, that will be add-ons to Windows. Most of these services are expected to be free and ad-supported.