Verizon Communications and Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled their long-awaited joint DSL service for $34.95 a month, with a $5 discount for customers of certain Verizon voice service plans. The two companies first announced a broadband partnership last June.
"Verizon Online DSL with MSN 8 will help speed the adoption of broadband by providing consumers with communication and information services that enrich the online experience while addressing important issues such as junk e-mail and online safety," Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, said in a statement.
Microsoft announced the first nongame application for its Xbox video game console Monday and touted a handful of high-profile games intended to boost the system's cachet among hardcore players.
The unveiling of the Xbox Music Mixer was the most striking announcement at the company's press conference held in advance of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) trade show here. The $40 package, set to go on sale this fall, will include PC and Xbox software that will allow owners to transfer digital music and photos from their computer to the console's hard drive.
Microsoft charged ahead with plans to turn MSN's free content services into fee-based subscription services, and pledged more of the same later this year. The launch Monday night of MSN's Radio Plus service, reported earlier, is hardly the first of MSN's paid services. The Web portal already charges for its MSN 8 online service, with or without Internet access included; for versions of its Hotmail Web-based e-mail service with extra storage; for its "The Zone" gaming site; for online bill payment; and for greeting cards.
But Radio Plus marks a significant departure for MSN in that it is the first entertainment content to get a paid version. That's an indication of things to come, according to Microsoft.
Five years ago, in a story on Bill Gates' philanthropy, Salon asked the question, "Is Bill Gates a Closet Liberal?" At the time, Gates had not yet really opened the floodgates of his charitable giving, but a close look at the causes he had supported indicated he was interested in reproductive health and family planning issues, and fighting the spread of infectious diseases, with a focus on the Third World. Since then, Gates has publicly promised to give away 95 percent of his wealth -- $43 billion as of September 2002 -- and he appears to be living up to his words.
In "Health, Wealth, and Bill Gates," a new installment of "NOW With Bill Moyers" airing Friday night on PBS, Gates talks at length about his involvement in global health issues. The interview is a fascinating, detailed look at how and why Gates is giving away his billions. One thing emerges: Gates may go down in history as the single individual who did more to help the world's neediest people than anyone who has ever lived. In the interview, Gates comes off as knowledgeable, sincere and determined to use his wealth to effect massive change. Whatever you think of his business practices, when it comes to global health he is one righteous dude.
Microsoft's plans for "Longhorn," the next version of Windows, include a new graphics subsystem, a new file system and a new security system. But, so far, users aren't nearly as excited about the features as Microsoft is.
"The breakthroughs in Longhorn will really change the landscape that consumers and businesspeople see when they look at a new PC," Will Poole, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows Client Division, said here at WinHEC last week.
Users will also have to wait awhile for the new operating system. Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., said it plans to release a prebeta developer release of Longhorn at its Professional Developers Conference in October. Two separate betas are due next year, and final release is scheduled for 2005, Poole said.
Microsoft lost nearly twice as much on its Xbox, games and consumer hardware businesses in the most recent quarter than it had a year earlier, according to a regulatory filing on Monday. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said that its Home and Entertainment division lost $190 million before taxes, write-offs and other charges in its fiscal third quarter ended March 31, compared with a loss of $97 million a year earlier.
The division's quarterly revenue fell to $493 million from $943 million a year earlier. The loss, which is mainly due to the ongoing costs of Microsoft's one-and-a-half year effort to break into the video game business, was detailed on the same day that the software giant was preparing to announce new features and games for its Xbox machine.
Microsoft's net income in the last quarter would have been almost a quarter lower if it had expensed employee stock options, the world's largest software maker said in a regulatory filing on Monday. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has said that while it understood the "economic rationale" of expensing stock options, it would continue to exclude them from earnings calculations along with other technology industry bellwether companies.
Stock-based employee compensation under the "fair value method" would have cost Microsoft $656 million for its fiscal third quarter ended March 31, the software maker said in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Microsoft's MSN unit continued a gradual unveiling of its new instant messenger application for consumers, showing screen shots of the new software and setting a summer timeframe for its release. Pictures that Microsoft posted on Monday of MSN Messenger, version 6, show new voice and video features that will bring the company's consumer IM application up to speed with both its fiercest competition and its own separately marketed IM clients.
Microsoft has waged a determined battle to wrest consumer instant messenger market share from AOL Time Warner amid similar challenges to AOL from Yahoo and countless IM start-ups. The company has sought to create buzz around the new version with an announcement in March, today's sneak peak and promises of more details to come between now and the summer launch.
Microsoft claims that the iLoo, an outhouse with a built-in terminal for Web browsing, was an April Fools' Day gag--even though it was announced May 2. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said on Monday that news that MSN UK was creating the iLoo, a portable lavatory that was supposedly going to be tested at music festivals in Great Britain this summer, was an elaborate ruse. "I can confirm it was an April Fools' joke," said Nouri Bernard Hasan, a Microsoft spokesman in the United States, told CNET News.com on Monday.
Other than the invention itself, the apparent launch of the iLoo didn't bear any indications of being a joke. For example, public relations representatives for Microsoft commented on the product. A press release, which included comments from MSN executives, was posted May 2 to the Microsoft UK Web site, where it remained available for a week.
A Swedish mobile messaging company's software will be offered for integration into Microsoft Office 2003, allowing users to send SMS (Short Message Service) messages from Microsoft Outlook.
The SMS Executive product from Stockholm-based General Wireless will be included in Microsoft Office Marketplace, a listing of products and services that work with or complement Microsoft Office. General Wireless and Microsoft will work together on the offering first in Sweden, but the agreement is global and can be extended to other markets, according to a General Wireless statement released Monday. Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash., plans to release Office 2003 in the third quarter of this year.