Workspaces 1.0 offers .Net developers a place to collaborate. Microsoft officially rolled out version 1.0 of its Workspaces collaborative development environment this week.
Workspaces is a lot like the open-source SourceForge environment, providing developers with a place to create, host and manage software-development projects for free.
The environment is aimed at developers who are writing code that is based on the Microsoft .Net Framework. Workspaces offers hooks that enable developers to integrate their projects tightly with Visual Studio .Net. Workspaces users also are able to take advantage of source-control capabilities via their choice of a Web interface or Windows Forms client (in addition to the Visual Studio .NET source-control mechanism). And Workspaces users are authenticated via Microsoft Passport.
Microsoft has thousands of job openings, but it laid off 161 employees in its consulting group on Monday, including 13 based in Redmond. It's the company's largest staff reduction since it folded its Ultimate TV division in California in January 2002, cutting 168 jobs. The 161 cuts this week are about 11 percent of the 1,500 consultants who help big customers plan, install and operate computer systems.
Microsoft is sensitive to the appearance that it's downsizing, and a spokeswoman noted that the company added 4,000 new jobs in its current fiscal year. The company also helps laid-off workers look for other jobs inside or outside the company. The 161 consultants will get placement help while they remain on the payroll for the next six weeks.
Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice are putting significant pressure on the last remaining holdouts--Massachusetts and two trade groups--to back off their appeal of the antitrust settlement.
On Wednesday, Microsoft filed two briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit opposing Massachusetts' claim that the appeals court misapplied the law when it approved the settlement between the software giant and the U.S. Department of Justice last November. Microsoft and the DOJ also slammed two industry trade groups for interfering with the case and asked that their proposals for more stringent remedies be tossed out.
Microsoft is working to tighten integration between the upcoming SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and the current Content Management Server 2002, sources said. New linkage software, code-named Spark, was dubbed by one source close to the company as "glue code similar to current integration packs." It is due within months of the new portal server software itself. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 is due late this summer or early fall.
"They needed to rewrite the current SharePoint/Content Management integration kit given the new SharePoint server architecture anyway," he said.
A federal appeals court dealt a legal setback to Sun Microsystems on Thursday, tossing out most of a preliminary injunction requiring Microsoft to carry its rival's version of an interpreter for the Java programming language.
But the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., upheld a requirement that Microsoft cease distributing certain copies of its own Java virtual machine (VM), saying that the company "exceeded the scope" of a January 2001 license agreement with Sun. The three-judge panel said the agreement only gives the company the right to include its own Java VM in Windows--not to offer it separately through computer makers or through Windows Update, which Microsoft stopped doing in February.
Strengthening cybersecurity is one of Microsoft's chief goals, even if it means delaying a product launch, Bill Gates told senior business and government officials yesterday. Although the company's flagship software has been ridiculed for years as especially ripe for hackers, Gates said that "preventing cybercrime is no longer a secondary consideration. It's central to the issue of security."
Gates, Microsoft's chairman and "chief software architect," didn't mention security flaws that have plagued the Windows operating system and its Outlook e-mail software. But he said the company is "committed to shipping products that are more secure with every release," even if it means delays.
Microsoft plans to bring its speech-recognition technology to the corporate market next year with software that lets computers respond to voice commands over the phone. The program is being tested by at least 10 customers and will be available in the first quarter of next year, said Kai-Fu Lee, a Microsoft corporate vice president in charge of the company's natural interactive services division. The program will have applications in settings including telephone call centers, helping companies save money on customer-service staffing, Lee said.
And speaking of the fastest PC on the planet, Intel just ratcheted its performance champion Pentium 4 processor to 3.2 GHz, up from the previous fastest speed of 3.06 GHz. Like its predecessor, the 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 utilizes an Intel 875P chipset, an 800 MHz front-side bus, dual-channel 400 MHz DDR SDRAM, and 6.4 Gbps of bandwidth between the CPU and the chipset. Systems based on the new PC and its supporting chipset are now shipping from major PC makers like Dell, Gateway, HP, and MPC (the former MicronPC). Curiously, none of these companies held a major press event to announce the arrival of the fastest personal computers on the planet.
Dell Computer has revealed that the next generation of its Axim handheld will include both Wi-Fi and triband radios, signaling a new wave of mobile productivity. In addition, an executive at the company's headquarters here said Dell plans to develop a device based on Microsoft's Smartphone platform.
The next generation Axim will allow users to switch between Wi-Fi networks and CDMA or GSM networks. Due out in 2004, the device will likely support 802.11g, which offers backward compatibility with 802.11b and speeds of up to 31Mbps.
The Axim will also include Bluetooth to permit synchronization with client devices, including notebooks, said Anthony Bonadero, Dell's director of wireless product marketing, during a set of exclusive briefings arranged for InfoWorld here this week.
Four wireless networking equipment makers will use Microsoft's Windows CE .Net 4.2 operating system in gateway devices for both corporate and home networks, Microsoft announced Thursday at the 802.11 Planet Conference in Boston. Device makers Abocom Systems, Accton Technology, D-Link Systems, and Mitsubishi Electric will release wireless gateway devices that use Windows CE .Net 4.2 later this year, said Jawad Khaki, vice president of Windows networking and communications for Microsoft, during his keynote address at Boston's World Trade Center.
"Windows CE uses a broad set of features to allow companies to rapidly build secure network gateways," Khaki said. Devices based on Windows CE .Net 4.2 can make use of several security protocols, including WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access), 802.1x, and PEAP (Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol).