Microsoft has grouped all its online resources for hardware and driver software makers in a new portal site, a move the company believes will ultimately result in a better computing experience for PC users.
Windows Hardware and Driver Central was announced on Monday, a day before the start of WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference), the annual conference where Microsoft tells hardware makers about its plans for the Windows operating system.
The portal offers an improved search feature and includes white papers, software and hardware specifications and archives of online presentations, said Brad Carpenter, director of Windows Hardware and Driver Quality at Microsoft.
On Monday, eEye Digital Security introduced a new solution for securing Microsoft Web servers that integrates its SecureIIS Web Server Protection software with its REM Remote Enterprise Management System.
Enterprise Web Protection (EWP) combines SecureIIS, which provides application-level intrusion-prevention, with REM, which acts as a central console for management of security events and policies on the Web servers.
"SecureIIS becomes an agent on the server, and the core enterprise offering is the console," said Firas Raouf, COO of eEye Digital Security, based here.
So David Nelson decided to upgrade his company's Web site, switching to a high-speed service and MSN 8 -- Microsoft's new technology, touted as a guardian against spam and porn. It was Nelson's bid to bring his fledgling Westminster, Colo., company, Assembly Source, into the new age of Internet commerce.
But Wednesday, while he was trying to make the switch from dial-up, Microsoft refused to register his e-mail address -- assemblysource@msn.com -- because, he was told, the name begins with "ass." Assembly Source, which sells industrial manufacturing equipment, was blacklisted and automatically booted from Microsoft's system.
Microsoft will disclose more details about the next "big" version of Windows and show off prototypes of smart set-top boxes and PCs at its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this week.
Microsoft's new Longhorn operating system, expected to debut in late 2004 or early 2005, will likely feature new file systems for pictures or games without having to detour to the control panel, according to recently disclosed information on test versions. The operating system also will come with new versions of Windows Messenger, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player.
Microsoft will take an open approach to systems management with its initiative for simplifying corporate data centers, with plans to let products from Hewlett-Packard, Computer Associates International and other vendors manage servers and software that conform to its Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), a Microsoft official said this week.
Like efforts underway at Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, DSI aims to make it easier to deploy and manage software across large groups of servers and storage equipment. The idea is that CPU power and storage will be assigned to applications automatically as demand dictates, making more efficient use of resources. Microsoft first discussed its efforts in March, saying the various components would be rolled out over three to five years.
The Department of Justice and Microsoft are close to announcing an agreement on how much Microsoft can charge companies to use technology it was ordered to share under last year's antitrust settlement. The issue is one of the few untied threads from last year's antitrust settlement.
Though the agreement is expected shortly, government and company attorneys said they had not made as much progress as hoped earlier in resolving their differences on royalties paid to the software giant. The discussion came during a conference call with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly yesterday.
Where has one of the world's biggest software vendors been - and where is it going - on the hardware front. When you think of hardware, you seldom think of Microsoft. But there is a fairly 200-person hardware team operating inside the company.
May 2 marked the 20th anniversary of this hardware division. We asked Matt Barlow, Microsoft hardware director for worldwide marketing/business development a few questions about where the division's been and where it's going.
MS Watch: Could you revisit the history of the division a bit?
Barlow: We have created a flash timeline to commemorate the past two decades of the division - this can be viewed here. This timeline shows the long history the hardware group has enjoyed of introducing innovative products to the market that strengthen the connection between the computer, the software and the user.
Microsoft has released a customer preview of its recently acquired Virtual Server technology. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said the Virtual Server code, acquired from Connectix in February, has been in beta testing for 60 days. Once available only on mainframe and Unix servers, virtualization technology enables server consolidation by allowing customers to run multiple instances of operating systems and workloads on the same server.
The forthcoming product will let customers run their legacy NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 workloads while testing new Windows Server 2003 workloads simultaneously on the same server. Windows Server 2003 was released on April 24.
WinHEC also is one of two key shows where Microsoft will provide further details about Longhorn, Directions on Microsoft lead analyst Cherry said. IDC Research Analyst Alan Promisel calls WinHEC a sort of "coming out party" for Longhorn. "For many it will be the first opportunity to sit down and get briefed on the finer aspects of Longhorn," he said.
Other future technologies Microsoft will talk about include three-dimensional user interfaces that make it easier to work with large documents electronically, according to Gartner Fellow Martin Reynolds. The large, high resolution displays that Microsoft will show in the new Innovation Room may be a prelude to the 3D user interface.
Microsoft said on Friday it had dropped London-based Bartle Bogle Hegarty Limited as the European advertising agency for its Xbox video game system, moving the account to Interpublic's McCann-Erickson unit. Microsoft slashed Xbox prices in Europe last month amid a fierce battle for market share with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's Game Cube.
London-based BBH, 49-percent owned by France's Publicis, won several awards for its Xbox ads, and recently launched a campaign for Xbox Live in March. One commercial, however, that graphically showed the birth of a baby who then fast-forwarded through life and slammed into the grave -- the slogan was "Life is short. Play more." -- was banned by British regulators.