Following the publication of comments from Microsoft product manager Dan Leach that Outlook Express is headed for obsolescence, Redmond has had an apparent change of heart. Microsoft says it now plans to continue development of its consumer e-mail client, although it is unclear how the company will deliver future enhancements.
"Recent comments indicating that no new work is being done for Outlook Express are inaccurate. Development for Outlook Express is ongoing," a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews. "Improvements and updates will be made available and delivered to customers."
Having survived the second stage of the Blaster worm over the weekend, Microsoft started a new Web site to remind consumers that they may not be out of the woods yet. The site, www.microsoft.com/protect, details steps to protect a PC from the worm, which remains a threat to Windows-based machines that haven't been patched.
The site includes instructions for downloading the patch that corrects the flaw exploited by the worm. Over the weekend, Microsoft thwarted the second stage of the attack by, among other measures, taking down the specific Microsoft Web site that the worm was directing infected computers to target.
A high-ranking Microsoft executive says U.S. companies should be barred from taking e-mail addresses off the Internet to find targets for unwanted e-mail ads. Senior Vice President Maggie Wilderotter, who runs business strategy for Microsoft, said yesterday that the practice of harvesting used by spammers should be banned. The federal government should strengthen the ability of Internet service providers to sue senders of spam on behalf of customers, she said. Wilderotter spoke at the Progress & Freedom Foundation's summit in Aspen, Colo.
Software developers can begin developing applications for the next generation of smart phones based on Microsoft's operating software, as the company has posted a software development kit (SDK) for Windows Mobile 2003-based Smartphones on its developer Web site.
Like Windows Mobile 2003-based Pocket PCs, Smartphone 2003 devices will run software based on Windows CE .Net 4.2.
The SDK, posted Thursday, includes support for the Microsoft Visual Studio .Net 2003 IDE (integrated development environment) and the .Net Compact Framework, which will be built into the ROM of Windows Mobile 2003-based Smartphones. The framework includes support for XML Web services, and allows developers to create applications that will run across a range of platforms.
The SCO Group's legal battles against Linux took center stage at the company's partner and customer conference, as executives displayed the lines of disputed code and vowed to continue the fight.
McBride said pattern-recognition experts hired by SCO have ferreted out a slew of infringing code in Linux. "They have found already a mountain of code," he said. "The DNA of Linux is coming from Unix."
"I can understand one or two lines being in common," said the head of the SCOsource division, which is charged with maintaining the company's intellectual property rights surrounding Unix. "But when you're talking about this level of variables being the same.the comment sections all being the same, it's problematic."
Sontag then showed, in a series of slides, Linux code that he claimed had been literally copied from Unix. He said numerous comments, unusual spellings and typographical errors had also been copied directly into Linux.
Microsoft Business Portal gets an update this week with promised new human resource and key performance measurement capabilities. Release 1.2 of the portal, which initially shipped in April, adds a promised Human Resource Management (HRM) Self-Service Suite and a Key Performance Indicators (KPI) module.
HRM Self-Service Suite includes modules for Employee Profile, Employee Pay, Time and Attendance, Recruitment, and Skills and Training. These modules tie into the Great Plains U.S. payroll and human resource applications and cost $500 each.
It's perhaps the last place a Linux enthusiast would expect to find all the software needed to run a Linux office for 1,000 people -- the Redmond headquarters of Microsoft.
The software giant, which considers Linux one of the biggest threats to its business, recently finished installing all the hardware and software needed to do just that in its Enterprise Engineering Center, where Microsoft recreates business customers' systems to test and demonstrate Microsoft software deployed on their networks.
Understanding Linux's strengths and weaknesses is key to competing with it, says Microsoft strategist Martin Taylor. The stack of servers is solely for research into the open-source software, in which the underlying code can be downloaded, shared and modified freely.
A scheduled denial of service attack against Microsoft's main software update Web site did not materialize Saturday, as computers infected with the W32.Blaster worm failed to find their target. Blaster's author provided the incorrect domain address for windowsupdate. The address specified in the worm's code, windowsupdate.com, simply forwards users to the actual Windows update site, windowsupdate.microsoft.com, according to Mikko Hyppönen, head of antivirus research at F-Secure Corp. in Helsinki.
On Thursday, Microsoft delisted the windowsupdate.com domain name, calling it a "nonessential address."
That solution also removed the threat of collateral damage from the attack, because requests for windowsupdate.com would never leave infected machines, slowing down the Internet, according to Sean Sundwall, a Microsoft spokesman.
The SCO Group on Sunday said that it has compiled a list of all the large companies with numerous servers running Linux and warned that it would not hesitate to drag them into court if they refused to pay for UnixWare licenses.
In his most definitive warning to corporate Linux users to date, SCO CEO Darl McBride told eWEEK here on Sunday ahead of the start of the company's annual SCO Forum 2003 on Monday that there are some 2.5 million servers running Linux and that SCO has "identified by name those companies running many of them.
"We are in the process of contacting them about coming into compliance and taking a UnixWare license from us. If they refuse to do so, we will sue them directly and see them in court," he said.
From Ditto: On August 15th, 2003, Windows Messenger 5.0 has officially RTWed. We are very excited, and want to thank all of our beta program testers for spending their time and effort discovering bugs, providing feedback, and helping to make the release better than it would have been without you.
One of the major changes for this version has been converting the setup to be MSI-based. There have been issues during the conversion, and our team wants to provide you with the best information we can to help you move from pre-release versions to the RTW build as easily as possible.
With any beta testing, we recommend you image your test machine to truly get rid of possible problems, but you can uninstall previous builds by:
- Quit outlook, Outlook Express, and any other program that may use the WM APIs
- Exit WM5
- Make sure msmsgs.exe is not in Task Manager's process list (control-shift-escape, second tab)
- Start->run: "msiexec.exe /x {ABEB838C-A1A7-4C5D-B7E1-8B4314B10138}"
- Click Yes when prompted
Once this is finished you should be able to install the RTW build of Windows Messenger 5.0 without incident.
We will keep this BetaPlace program around for a few weeks to help facilitate everyone's move to the RTW build.
Again, we can't thank you enough for taking your time and effort to help test this release, and you've made a significant difference in the final product. In addition, we've gathered feedback and feature requests that will influence future versions.
The Windows Messenger Product Team