At its annual TechEd conference, Microsoft on Monday introduced Windows Storage Server 2003- the successor to its popular Windows Powered NAS product. Already, OEMs are lining up to license the latest version. Hewlett-Packard and EMC have both indicated they'll release products featuring the new file server near September -- the same time Microsoft says the product will ship.
According to Charles Vallhonrat, a product marketing manager at Hewlett-Packard's infrastructure and NAS division, HP is already working with Microsoft and is receiving code. This, he says, is an extension of a long-standing partnership with Microsoft. HP released its first NAS product based on Microsoft code in July 2000.
The world's biggest software company Microsoft, fighting for a foothold on the mobile phone market, launched its mobile phone in Sweden on Tuesday just two weeks after similar plans in Germany suffered a setback. The launch of the phone with the Nordic region's biggest operator TeliaSonera comes after German operator T-Mobile , Europe's second largest, shelved plans to launch a Microsoft handset on May 15 for an unspecified time. It gave no reasons.
Industry sources said the German delay was due to technical glitches, but Microsoft marketing manager for mobile devices in Europe Peter Wissinger denied technology was at fault.
Microsoft on Tuesday added the Office moniker to its upcoming enterprise instant-messaging software in a branding move intended to heighten the product's appeal to potential business buyers. The software giant said the application will now be called Office Real-Time Communications Server 2003. The branding change comes nearly two months after the company said the product would be called Real-Time Communications Server 2003. The software was developed under the code-name Greenwich.
RTC Server will have one principal function when it is released in the summer: convincing businesses about the merits of enterprise instant messaging. Microsoft is trying to sell a secure IM client to companies already using its server software.
Microsoft has promoted Margo Day to vice president for U.S. Partners. Day had been general manager of that group. In her new capacity, she continues to report to Andy Lees, corporate vice president, U.S. marketing, sales and partners. Her promotion was made official inside the company earlier this month but was not disclosed publicly. Several solution providers gave Day high marks for her channel advocacy.
"She exemplifies the channel-friendly, energetic execution of programs, partnerships and initiatives Microsoft really needs to revitalize [its] commitment to partners," said Rand Morimoto, CEO of Convergent Computing, an Oakland, Calif. Microsoft solution provider. "Margo is an exceptional listener and communicator....people put their trust in her and she does not disappoint."
Microsoft will put into effect new value-added benefits for Software Assurance this September designed to entice more Select and Open license customers to buy into its upgrade and maintenance program. As part of the changes, Microsoft will give live technical support on server software, free training vouchers and eLearning training, as well as home use rights for Office at no cost to holders of Software Assurance. On the downside, however, the software giant has no plans to cut the price of its software or offer live technical support for its desktop products at this time.
Listen closely to what Microsoft is not saying about SCO Group's open-source operetta.
Microsoft is not telling corporate managers that the use of open-source applications might land them in hot water with patent attorneys. And Microsoft is not saying that the open-source development community is a hotbed of misappropriation of private property. This is not because Microsoft disagrees with the above. But it's just so much easier to give the dirty work to SCO.
Ever since SCO filed a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM for allegedly misappropriating Unix technology that wound up in the Linux operating system, rumors have been rife about Microsoft secretly bankrolling the litigation. Oliver Stone has yet to uncover a connection, but conspiracy buffs who already see the hand of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates everywhere have since seized upon Microsoft's deal, announced last earlier this month, to license Unix technology from SCO.
A new worm has been spreading rapidly across the Internet, sometimes pretending to be an e-mail from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, antivirus vendors said Monday. The worm, a variant of the Sobig worm called Sobig-C, was discovered Saturday and spreads via e-mail and network shares, according to Network Associates. It contains its own SMTP engine for creating outgoing messages and e-mails itself to addresses on the victim's system.
Sobig-C arrives as an e-mail that poses as a message from bill@microsoft.com or from addresses it finds on the victim's hard drives, according to Sophos. The infected e-mail may have subject lines such as "Re: Movie" or "Re: Approved" and a variety of attachments such as screensavers (.scr).
IT is still critical for a competitive advantage, stressed a Microsoft official Monday morning at the TechEd 2003 conference here, while also touting Web services and providing product road maps. As part of these road maps, Microsoft revealed a delay in delivery of the Yukon database planned for 2004.
Paul Flessner, Microsoft's senior vice president for the Windows Server division, was quick to reject recently published reports contending that IT no longer offers a competitive advantage because everyone has it.
"Everyday, our job together is to propel IT forward," Flessner said. "If you stagnate, you die in this environment, and that's part of the value of IT."
Conceding that Microsoft has been part of a "crisis in complexity" in IT, Flessner offered up Web services and Microsoft's plethora of products such as Windows Server 2003 as a next wave of computing.
Microsoft provided additional details on Exchange Server 2003, the next version of its e-mail server product, as it made release candidate 1 (RC1) of the product widely available Monday. With the RC1 release, Exchange Server 2003 will be available in Standard and Enterprise Editions, and some changes have been made to the Standard Edition that could result in cost savings for users, Microsoft said. Furthermore, extensive upgrade tools are available to help users upgrade from Exchange 5.5, Microsoft announced Monday at its TechEd conference in Dallas.
In the latest salvo in the Web services platform wars, Microsoft Corp. this week will announce that a major security company has found its .Net Framework better than IBM's WebSphere for building and deploying secure Web applications and services. The report, prepared by @Stake Inc. [said] that .Net Framework is superior to WebSphere in the areas of ease of securing applications and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) security.
@Stake, of Cambridge, Mass., is set to release the report at Microsoft's Tech Ed conference in Dallas, sources said. In the report, @Stake said that "Microsoft engaged @Stake" to do the competitive security analysis. The security consulting company said it spent more than 1,500 man-hours on the analysis and applied more than 100 test cases to both technologies.