A lot has happened in the past month. A lot of new info about Longhorn for which we got complete wrap-up, and other Microsoft products and technologies, such as: iWave; DVD enhanced support for Windows; new MSN services; Publisher 2003 beta info; Athens - then new PC; more info on 'Palladium'; some info on Blackcomb, and what are Microsoft plans to integrate Blackcomb technology into existing products; new processors from AMD and Transmeta to support Smart Display devices; .NET and its documented superiority over Java (not kidding); and of course more of legal problems for The Dark Side; and ton more... including videos and screenshots of upcoming Microsoft products.
PeopleSoft reacted frostily Friday afternoon to this morning's news that Oracle is attempting to purchase it for $5 billion. In a statement released by the company this morning, PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway said the cash tender offer was "atrociously bad behavior from a company with a history of atrociously bad behavior." Added Conway: "Obviously, it's a transparent attempt to disrupt the acquisition of J.D. Edwards by PeopleSoft announced earlier this week."
In the statement, PeopleSoft attributed Oracle's move in part to PeopleSoft's "[gaining] marketshare against Oracle in the past few years. If anyone needed any further validation of the strength of the J.D. Edwards acquisition, we heard it today from Oracle."
Curiously, this will come as a surprise to some people, but according to a report by the security experts at mi2g, open source post boy Linux is losing the security fight, big time, to Windows Server. Yep, you read that right: In May 2003 alone, 19,208 successful breaches worldwide were recorded against Linux-based corporate and government systems, while only 3,801 breaches were recorded against similarly-oriented Microsoft Windows Server systems. Percentage-wise, over 75 percent of all server-based breaches occurred on Linux systems during this time period, while Windows systems were responsible for just 15 percent of breaches. Furthermore, Windows-based systems were found to be far more resilient than Linux-based systems during the Iraq war months, from March to May 2003, the report says, a time of increased hacking activity. The company, which has been tracking server attacks since 1995, now oversees a database containing over 220,000 individual attacks and over 7000 hacker groups. So why are Linux servers being so easily compromised? The security experts say there are several main reasons: First, most Linux servers are improperly configured and do not come with decent default security configurations. Second, there isn't a coherent "trustworthy computing" initiative in the open source community. Third, because Linux is becoming more popular in the server world, it's a more obvious target. And fourth, Frank Stallone. In other words, everything I've been saying about Windows, Linux and security was not only true, but evolving in a wonderfully predictable way. Isn't it time we stopped all the bogus "Windows isn't secure" baloney when there is a far less secure competitor out there, just waiting to be compromised?
Ask not whether standalone IE is dead. Instead, ask if it's just one of many technologies that will only be available embedded in Windows. Folks seem surprised that Microsoft is admitting that it has no plans to continue to do separate versions of Internet Explorer post IE 6, service pack 1. I'd actually be more surprised if Microsoft were going to perpetuate IE as a standalone browser.
Microsoft spent a lot of time and energy during the Department of Justice antitrust case to "prove" that Internet Explorer and Windows are inextricably joined. In the end, the feds went along with Microsoft's argument. So, how would it look if Microsoft continued to market IE as a standalone product, after it claimed it was not?
Combating open source is just one of a handful of missions with which CEO Ballmer has charged employees for the months ahead. While most reports on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's annual memo to employees have focused on Ballmer's comments on open source, Ballmer had lots more to say than the predictable "Redmond takes all competitors seriously."
Ballmer outlined six corporate missives in the leaked employee memo that went out on Wednesday. Ballmer told the 55,000-plus company employees Microsoft needs to charge ahead with:
- providing more "integrated innovation"
- improving customer responsiveness
- making Microsoft's platforms best for developers
- delivering simple, valuable "experiences and services"
- reigniting customer enthusiasm by telling "Microsoft's story" and
- building the talent pool and increasing productivity
Microsoft on Thursday said it hired a veteran IBM lawyer to oversee intellectual property at the world's largest software maker. Marshall Phelps will assume the newly created position of deputy general counsel for intellectual property and also become a corporate vice president.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, which spends more than $4.3 billion annually on research, said that it needs to boost its expertise in managing its growing intellectual property portfolio, which includes approximately 3,000 U.S.-issued patents and over 11,000 trademark registrations worldwide. Phelps, who worked at IBM for 28 years, will report to Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel at Microsoft.
European Commission investigators are seeking more evidence on whether Microsoft Corp. uses its Windows Media Player software to discriminate against rivals, putting in jeopardy the commission's deadline of next month for ruling on the 4-year-old antitrust case.
Regulators in Brussels, Belgium, have sent a 61-question survey to film and music companies to bolster their case that the world's largest software maker is using Media Player to hamper competing formats such as Apple Computer Inc.'s QuickTime and RealNetworks Inc.'s RealPlayer.
With rival Linux winning business away from Microsoft's Windows operating system, the delay could undermine Competition Commissioner Mario Monti's central case that Windows gives the software maker an illegal monopoly in the market for servers.
Responding to customer complaints, Microsoft says it plans to simplify its patch technology and to expand its automatic update service to include more products. In a white paper released late Wednesday, the software giant identified four areas where it plans to make improvements over the next 12 months: in patch quality, in delivering information to its customers, in broadening the number of applications supported by its automated update technology and in simplifying the way that patches are applied.
Microsoft this week gave customers a sneak peek at forthcoming development and management tools which are part of company's multiyear plans for the product. In interviews with CNET News.com at the company's TechEd customer conference here, Microsoft executives sketched out the company's product release plans for next year. High on the agenda were products designed to work with the next major release of the Windows desktop operating system, code-named Longhorn.
Longhorn has become the centerpiece of Microsoft's future product strategy. Underscoring the importance of the operating system upgrade, CEO Steve Ballmer, in a memo sent to Microsoft employees on Wednesday, said that Longhorn was "even bigger, perhaps, than the first generation of Windows."
Some chalk Microsoft's success up to innovation and technical ability. Others attribute it to the software maker's knack of exploiting other people's inventions. Personally, I give the credit to its negotiating skills. There are few, if any, organizations in the world today with the same prowess in drafting contracts as the Redmond, Wash.-based behemoth. Time and time again, Microsoft manages to craft cagey deals that make friends out of enemies--or that compel friends to engage in alliances they might not otherwise want to make. Founder Bill Gates isn't evil, as conspiracy theorists like to allege--he's just the Otto von Bismarck of his day.