This summer, Microsoft will release Office 2003, a core component of the company's XML strategy that will serve as the user interface for end-users' interaction with XML. Jean Paoli, Microsoft's XML Architect and one of the co-creators of the World Wide Web Consortium's XML 1.0 standard, sat down with internetnews.com to discuss XML and Microsoft's vision for Office 2003.
Paoli, one of the leaders of the SGML community before that technology evolved into XML, joined Microsoft in 1996 after serving as technical director of GRIF S.A., a leader in the creation of SGML authoring tools. Once at Microsoft, Paoli jump-started the company's XML activity by creating and managing the team that delivered the software that XML-enabled both Internet Explorer and the Windows operating system. With a specialty in building end-user markup editing tools, Paoli is now a member of Microsoft's Office team.
As Office 2003 edges closer to launch this summer, Microsoft has begun to provide greater clarity into its strategy for the productivity suite, including the reasoning behind its decision to release it in six different editions, or stock keeping units (SKUs).
Only the Professional Enterprise Edition and Professional Edition will include support for custom-defined schemas. According to Microsoft XML Architect Jean Paoli, XML schemas are collections of XML tags that define the elements of an XML document and therefore the structure of information. A custom-defined schema is an XSD file written by the company that uses it (or by a contractor hired by the company) in order to define the tags that company will use in its XML. XSDs are written by developers in development environments like Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET.
At a mini-trade show this week on the Microsoft campus, Microsoft Research members showed off some of the James Bond-like future technologies the company is investigating, including a gesture-based computer interface straight out of the Tom Cruise flick "Minority Report," in which the user moves onscreen windows by flicking his wrist. Dubbed GWindows (for Gesture Windows), this technology could see the light of day within a few years, Microsoft says (though I'm sure Apple will ultimately take credit for it). Other technologies showed off this week include MyLifeBits, a new personal information database that takes advantage of storage gains to record all of life's moments digitally; SkyServer, an astronomy database, PageTurner, which incrementally checks Internet searches to find updated information and No Spam @ Any Speed, which attacks the spam problem with an interesting cryptographic puzzle solution. If most of this stuff sounds kind of pie-in-the-sky, you've forgotten how fast the computer industry moves. And if the past is any indication, you'll also soon be reading yet another story about how Microsoft never innovates too.
Microsoft has begun to take steps to prevent antitrust settlement violations, including employee training programs, as part of the agreement it reached with the U.S. government last November. Microsoft detailed the measures in a joint status report it filed with plaintiffs in the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Thursday. The software giant also took pains to outline information sharing agreements between the parties that protect its proprietary information from leaking to the public.
The company is also taking internal steps, such as providing antitrust training to employees, to prevent future violations and to ensure that it meets stipulations under the settlement. Microsoft said in the filing Thursday that it has established an antitrust compliance committee of the board of directors, appointed a compliance officer, provided required annual antitrust training for officers and established a Web site for third-party complaints.
Microsoft Research is plugging away at one of the growing dilemmas in computing: so much data, so little time. Scientists in the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant's labs are experimenting with new types of search and user interface technology that will let individuals and businesses tap into the vast amounts of data on the Internet, or inside their own computers, that increasingly will be impractical or impossible to find.
A prototype application called "Stuff I've Seen," for instance, will store every screen that has popped up on a given computer monitor for a year. Another prototype called "Ask MSR" allows users to pose queries using the natural flow of language, asking "Where is Saddam Hussein?" for example.
Like America Online, Microsoft's MSN Internet service is feeling the pinch of competition from both high-speed and budget dial-up ISPs. Microsoft on Tuesday reported that MSN in the first quarter witnessed a decline of 300,000 subscribers from the preceding quarter, leaving the second-largest Internet service provider with 8.7 million total subscribers. Company executives attributed the decline to further churn among subscribers who signed up for MSN as part of multiyear PC rebate programs with offline retailers such as Best Buy that have begun to expire.
BEA Systems, IBM, and Microsoft on Wednesday submitted a major standard proposal for Web services to OASIS, snubbing similar work underway at the Worldwide Web Consortium.
The trio, all major players in the development of Web services standards, submitted a specification for Business Process Execution Language, or BPEL, which was co-authored by SAP and Siebel Systems. Twenty other businesses have signed on as co-submitters, and OASIS has started the process of forming a technical committee to develop the spec, Microsoft and IBM officials said. BPEL is a specification for orchestrating multiple Web services in automating a complex business process between companies.
Systems Management Server 2003 hit the beta 2 phase, moving the management server further along the track for its planned September release, Microsoft announced this week. SMS 2003 is the long-awaited and frequently delayed successor to SMS 2.0, which is four years old this month. SMS enables distribution, asset management and remote troubleshooting of Windows-based desktop and server systems.
The key enhancements in SMS 2003 are mobile support for laptop users; Active Directory integration; more scalable software metering and reporting; and a Trustworthy Computing-related security review of the code.
Sun Microsystems reported a slim quarterly profit on Wednesday, reversing a year earlier loss as revenue declined for the eighth consecutive quarter amid tough price competition for computers that manage data networks.
"We want credit for not blaming SARS or the war," Chief Executive Scott McNealy joked, referring to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome illness sweeping Asia, and the U.S. war on Iraq, which many companies have said weakened business.
Analysts said that other computer makers had seen some weakness in high-end machines but not as much as Sun, which designs most elements of its systems, in contrast to most rivals who buy software and hardware parts from big suppliers.
One week before its long-awaited launch of Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said it is rolling out a new umbrella brand for its array of server software. Windows Server System is the portfolio name that will now encompass more than a dozen Microsoft server software products. Windows Server 2003 will be the foundation for the Windows Server System line, with all of Microsoft's business server software becoming part of the brand.
The line includes Microsoft's e-business server products such as BizTalk Server, Commerce Server and Content Management Server; its SQL Server data management software; its Exchange Server, SharePoint Portal Server, Project Server and forthcoming Real-Time Communications Server; and its management and security server software.