Game Market Watch Conference concluded its two day gathering Tuesday with a flashy demonstration of new gaming content from Microsoft Game Studios and a lukewarm forecast for console game growth from Jupitermedia analysts.
Having evolved from best selling parlor games like Solitaire and PC simulator games, Shane Kim, COO for Microsoft Game Studios, has been one of the guiding forces behind Microsoft's gaming maturity in a cutthroat industry that requires its key business players to "have a strong appetite for risk," said Kim.
A federal appeals court judge on Thursday expressed serious doubts about a lower-court order requiring Microsoft to incorporate Sun Microsystems Inc.'s SUNW.O Java programming language in the Windows operating system. Judge Paul Niemeyer, one of the three judges hearing Microsoft's appeal, sharply questioned whether the must-carry preliminary injunction was needed to prevent imminent harm to Sun and the Java program while a trial was conducted.
Niemeyer, who dominated questioning during an hour of presentations from both sides, also criticized the legal basis of the injunction issued late last year by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Baltimore.
Microsoft has agreed to a government request for minor changes in its Windows operating system to make it easier for consumers to use software from rival companies to browse Web pages, listen to music and send instant messages.
Windows will now have a more prominent icon for a program that allows customers to make such changes. It also will include instructions describing exactly how to make those changes, people familiar with the decision said Thursday. Microsoft developed the program under its antitrust agreement with the Justice Department.
The program, known as "Set Program Access and Defaults," lets consumers specify which company's software is routinely used for activities such as sending e-mails and instant messages, Web surfing and listening to music or watching movies.
Is Sun Microsystems Inc. really a force in the PC operating system market? That question was the crux of the hearing Thursday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit here. Judge Paul Niemeyer took control early in the hearing in which Microsoft sought to appeal a federal district court ruling that it must ship Java with every copy of Windows the software giant sells. Niemeyer challenged Sun's lead attorney, Lloyd "Rusty" Day, almost immediately when he stood to argue for Sun's case.
"If your concern is about the PC operating system market and your client is not in that market, why do you care?" Niemeyer asked Day after setting the tone with two initial questions about Sun's claims.
"First of all, we are in that market," Day claimed, saying that Sun sells Solaris on the Intel platform.
"Well, the district court judge got it wrong, right?" Niemeyer asked, driving in.
"No, he didn't get it wrong," Day attempted.
Niemeyer then said: "In order to get relief, you have to be injured in the relevant market ..."
As Day continued to struggle to make his point, Niemeyer laid bare the Sun case and cut the Sun attorney short several times. Day argued that Motz based his findings on the fact that the "potential" harm from Microsoft could be deferred by his injunction.
"You just gave it away there!" said Niemeyer said. "A 'potential' competitor-you have to be a competitor there" in the relevant market to be granted relief, the judge said.
Microsoft is about to make it easier for just about anyone to buy its low-cost Office suite designed for students and teachers. The company will modify the licensing terms for its teacher and student productivity suite when Office 2003 ships this summer. This is an apparent attempt to lower the cost of Office for consumers without actually repricing it and thus could spur greater adoption in the consumer market, say analysts.
The licensing changes extend an existing strategy adopted with the 2001 release of Office XP Standard for Teachers and Students. In October of that year, Microsoft dropped the price of the product to $149, but some retailers offered the suite for as low as $110--or about $330 less than the otherwise identical version for people who are not students or teachers.
It was an unlikely venue to discuss his retirement plans, but Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer revealed how long he plans to continue running the world's largest software company during an Eastern Washington University alumni breakfast Tuesday.
Ballmer said he'll work at least 14 more years, which would give him an extraordinary 17 years as chief executive. That's more than double the average tenure of chief executives, 7.3 years, according to a study last year by Booz Allen Hamilton, a McLean, Va.-based research company.
The timing also would leave Ballmer, 47, running the company for several years after Chairman Bill Gates is expected to retire. In a recent Seattle Times interview, Gates, 47, said he plans to retire in about 10 years.
The Apache Software Foundation has released a patch for its Apache 2.0 HTTP Server to thwart a "significant" denial-of-service vulnerability. Apache, which makes the popular open-source Web server application, released version 2.0.45 to fix a denial-of-service (DoS) problem. A DoS attack floods a network with data, rendering it inaccessible to legitimate queries.
The vulnerability in version 2.0.44 affects all platforms, according to the advisory. But Apache issued a specific warning for OS2 users, noting that for them the new patch still had a DoS vulnerability. That outstanding issue will be fixed with the upcoming release of 2.0.46, but Apache said it was too important to delay the 2.0.45 patch. The foundation urged, "All Apache 2.0 users are encouraged to upgrade now."
Continuing its push to make Windows Media 9 Series the de facto standard in digital media, both on and beyond the PC, Microsoft Thursday unveiled an alliance with independent film exhibitor Landmark Theatres, under which Landmark will equip each of its 53 theaters across the United States with digital cinema playback systems based on Microsoft's technology.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said the deal marks the largest digital cinema theater circuit installation to date in the U.S. It also brings the efficiencies of digital distribution to independent film whereas most digital installations to date have focused on the largest screens and multiplexes, which are geared toward Hollywood blockbusters.
A preview of an upcoming version of Microsoft's MSN service has leaked onto the Web, offering an early glimpse of the software giant's ever-evolving online strategy. The new software, dubbed MSN 8.5, comes five months after launching MSN 8, which it considered the most significant update of its Internet service since its inception. A Microsoft spokesman would not confirm that the download is authentic, but a version downloaded by CNET News.com included branding and copyright information consistent with Microsoft's products. As of early Thursday morning, the link to the beta software was still live.
Lawyers for Microsoft will be back in court on Thursday hoping to convince an appeals court to reverse an order forcing the company to carry Sun Microsystems Java programming language in the Windows operating system. A three-judge panel in Richmond, Va. will hear arguments from Microsoft and Sun over whether it should uphold a Java "must-carry" order imposed by a lower court judge in December.
Microsoft is hoping to persuade the judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that the "must-carry" order is "unprecedented, unnecessary and doesn't serve the public interest," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said. "We're going to make the point that this hasn't been done before," Desler said.