WinInsider

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the company probably will make fewer acquisitions than in previous years as the company focuses on developing products in-house. Microsoft spent $1.45 billion to acquire European small-business software maker Navision A/S last year. In 2001, Microsoft paid $1.1 billion for Great Plains Software Inc., a U.S. maker of similar software.

Microsoft on Tuesday showed off a prototype of its controversial security technology at its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. The prototype of the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, formerly known as Palladium, is based on real and emulated hardware, said Peter Biddle, product unit manager for the software giant. Small applications running on the technology demonstrated its security features.

The prototype is the first public showing of the controversial technology which Microsoft hopes will help secure its future in the corporate market. Critics fear the technology will result in consumers losing control of their PCs and data and that Microsoft could use the technology to lock up market share. Others argue that the software and hardware could help lock down corporate data.

Developers will get a chance to preview Microsoft's planned PC security technology at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in October, said Mike Nash, corporate vice president to the security unit for Microsoft.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates earlier Tuesday unveiled the The Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) technology at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHec) here.

Nash, during the first public demonstration of the NGSCB technology in a briefing at the conference, said the pre-beta preview for developers will consist primarily of a software emulation.

Attention MSN Photo users: You have two weeks to subscribe to MSN 8 or download your photos if you don't want to lose them. On May 22, MSN is planning to offer its photo service only to subscribers of MSN 8, an Internet service that bundles online services such as e-mail and instant messaging with dial-up access for $21.95 per month. Currently people do not have to pay to store photos with MSN Photo.

The move is the latest effort by MSN to turn formerly free services into paid ones. MSN already has started to charge for some services that used to be free, including extra storage in Hotmail in-boxes. In an attempt to get more paying customers, Microsoft has said it intends to make other services exclusive to MSN 8 subscribers.

Microsoft's next conquest could be your telephone. The Redmond, Wash.-based computing giant is working on future versions of its Windows operating system which will better interoperate with the telephone and other communications devices, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday.

In future versions of Windows, phone calls will be routed through the PC, while voice messages will be turned into e-mails that can be read. E-mail also will serve as an application for delivering voice messages, Gates said in a keynote speech delivered at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.

Ditto let me know again about MS IM 5 beta, here is the scoop...

Dear Microsoft Beta Tester,

Welcome to the beta release of Windows Messenger 5.0 Beta. We are excited to be offering this Beta widely, in order to get feedback on what you like and don't like about our product.

We will be providing support for the beta program through newsgroups and BetaPlace. BetaPlace is Microsoft's technical beta web community where you can:

Download the beta release
Report bugs online
View status of your bugs
Receive up to date program information and downloads
Update your contact information
Obtain general beta testing guidelines and information

Thank you for participating in this beta program. We look forward to your valuable feedback.

Windows Messenger 5.0 Beta Group

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates put out a call for the technology industry to exploit growing innovations, such as enhanced graphics, in a constrained corporate IT spending environment.

Gates, in a keynote at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), also demonstrated new PC and network hardware and software designs that, he said, could enhance price/performance and the functionality of the personal computer for several years into the future.

Upstart chip maker Transmeta will be on board as a Microsoft reference design partner for its next generation of Smart Displays, Transmeta said in a statement. The announcement comes as Microsoft kicks open its Hardware Engineering Conference in New Orleans, and means that Transmeta, which makes energy-efficient Crusoe processors, will have a seat at the table in the design of next-generation wireless touch-screen systems that run Windows CE .NET.

According to the Transmeta statement, Microsoft brought the company on board after several OEMs "expressed interest in developing for the Transmeta processor architecture."

The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), better known by the code-name Palladium, will be a major feature of the next client version of Windows and is getting the spotlight here at Microsoft's conference for hardware partners.

NGSCB will combine work within Windows to hardware engineering changes by Microsoft partners to give users additional security and privacy protection. Current plans call for NGSCB to be integrated into the Windows "Longhorn" client operating system as a subset of Windows functionality.

While the idea that Palladium will be part of Longhorn has been the stuff of rumor, speculation and off-the-record interviews, the announcement Tuesday by Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference gives the idea some real substance.

Those Windows Error Reporting messages the operating system throws in front of users every time an application crashes? You know, the ones that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says it's so important to send because they'll drive error correction at Microsoft?

Take solace from the annoyance in the knowledge that Microsoft is bugging its industry partners just as much to exploit the information surfaced by the error reports, which feed a system at Microsoft known as "Watson."