Last month, for the first time publicly, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates acknowledged that Linux is "very pervasive." Microsoft also spells out the threat from Linux and open source in its most recent 10-Q quarterly SEC filing. In the document, Microsoft states that "to the extent the open source model gains increasing market acceptance, sales of the company's products may decline, the company may have to reduce the prices it charges for its products, and revenues and operating margins may consequently decline."
Privately, Microsoft staffers had been fuming for years about Linux, and jumped all over the credibility of studies that show the open source operating system gaining a foothold. In a way, Redmond ought to be glad Linux came along when it did. For now we know Microsoft was a lot closer to the truth than most thought when it denied it was a monopoly.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates Wednesday unveiled plans to help developers more easily create applications for mobile devices that use its operating system software. At a speech at the Microsoft Mobility Developer conference in New Orleans, Gates gave details about the company's tools for building applications that run on handheld devices. Microsoft hopes the software will entice developers, particularly those in corporations, to write customized business applications using Microsoft's Pocket PC and Smartphone operating systems.
"We want to make it easy for the 7 million Windows developers to build applications and services for the emerging wireless data market by providing familiar, yet customized tools," Gates said in a statement. "It's truly an exciting time for mobile application developers and the industry--there are incredible opportunities."
Despite recent claims to the contrary, there may be a Windows server operating system code-named Longhorn after all, a Microsoft executive said yesterday. Just last November, Microsoft officials said that the next major Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn, would be a client-only release (see story). But Brian Valentine, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows division, told Computerworld yesterday that that announcement was "a bit premature" based on engineering planning.
During an interview at the Microsoft Management Summit here, Valentine said that some of the new client capabilities being enabled in Longhorn, such as richer collaboration and integrated storage, will require infrastructure services on top of the server operating system. How those server operating system additions will be packaged and delivered has yet to be decided, he said.
As the nation readies for war with Iraq, Ted Turner, vice chairman of AOL Time Warner and CNN founder, told attendees at CTIA 2003 here that he believes war is just bad business. "We've got to spend all of this money to blow up Iraq, and then we've got to go out, rebuild it and pay for that, too. I mean it's really bad business--not to mention that a lot of people are going to get hurt," Turner said.
Considering conquerors such as Alexander the Great as great leaders, Turner said he now works harder to emulate heroes of peace, such as Martin Luther King Jr. "I changed over from being a man of war to being a man of peace," Turner said. "I'm doing just the opposite of what our president is doing."
Microsoft plans to release in June a new software program designed to help small companies route and process the mundane paperwork of business--purchase orders, invoices and the like--over the Web. Microsoft discussed the new product, called Microsoft Business Network, at its Convergence conference in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday. The new program, which requires that Microsoft Office be installed in order to run, is intended to help companies with less than 1,000 employees lower administrative costs and errors by reducing data-entry tasks, Microsoft said.
Microsoft has pushed back the launch of a partnership with Verizon Communications, a key element in the software giant's efforts to combine its Internet software with broadband access. The new service, which was slated to debut at the beginning of the year, is now expected to be launched sometime before the middle of the year. The agreement, announced last June, called for Microsoft to bundle its MSN 8 Internet service with Verizon's high-speed DSL (digital subscriber line) access. The deal is exclusive, allowing MSN to be the sole provider of consumer online services to Verizon's DSL customers.
Microsoft on Tuesday said the companies delayed the launch to work out some tweaks in the service's set-up and installation process. The Redmond, Wash., giant also wants to make some improvements in the overall product, although the company declined to mention specifics.
Network Associates, which provides security systems, said on Wednesday it will provide a new customer help-desk system that will work with Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT.O customer management software. The companies, which signed a letter of intent, said the new system will allow help-desk workers to be more productive by combining customer information, service requests, e-mail, and a variety of specialized functions into a single software package.
Network Associates said it will integrate its "Magic Solutions HelpDesk IQ" with Microsoft's Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, software. Jeff Honeycomb, president of Magic Solutions at Network Associates, said that the new offering would be able to take advantage of the sales networks that two companies have built to sell their software and services.
The open-source faithful have been harsh critics of Microsoft's shared source licensing plan and justifiably so. They have claimed that Microsoft has attempted to ride the coattails of the GNU General Public License (GPL), while simultaneously slamming the GPL as contaminating everything in its path. Even some of Microsoft's own employees, such as David Stutz, the former Microsoft manager in charge of Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) Shared Source program, have expressed frustration with Microsoft's licensing rhetoric.
Microsoft Business Solutions - the division at Microsoft comprised of Great Plains, Navision and Microsoft's bCentral small-business team - is unveiling several new applications and services at its Convergence customer and partner show in Orlando that kicks off Wednesday. Here's a primer on what's on tap.
- MBN (Microsoft Business Network)
- Business Portal
- MBF (Microsoft Business Framework)
Microsoft's latest Windows software isn't all about the desktop. It's a new version of Windows Server 2003 that will be the first in several years. While it is conventional wisdom that Linux is its biggest competitor, my thought is that Linux will have to take a back seat to the real challenge: Getting people to convert from NT. Surprise: Microsoft's secret enemy is itself.
At CMP Media's XChange conference last week, a representative from Redmond stated that there are at least 4 million NT servers out in the wild that are ripe for upgrade. (And that isn't counting all the ones on Microsoft's own network either. Or maybe it is.)