Grabbing them young--very young--seems to be Microsoft's new strategy in Singapore, where the company plans to introduce its technology to children as young as six.
"Instead of normal textbooks, primary school students can use the Internet as a teacher or virtual mentor," said Zupsic. "Curriculum such as the history of Singapore can also be placed on a Web site, complete with narration to help understanding."
Microsoft has a whole line of software and hardware it can present to Singapore's next generation of computer users, ranging from educational software titles to the Tablet PC and Pocket PC operating systems and MSN, Hotmail and Instant Messenger. Although educational investments are not new to Microsoft Singapore, previous projects have focused largely on older students from polytechnical schools and universities.
Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates is seeking alliances with major Chinese banks and telecommunications firms during a two-day visit to Beijing which started on Thursday, company officials said. Gates, during a visit closed to foreign reporters, would also meet key Chinese government officials, they said, declining further comment.
China is due to announce a restructuring of its ministries next month and some, such as the Ministry of Information Industry which regulates the IT industry, are expected to get new ministers. The world's largest software maker, which pledged last year to invest $750 million in China over three years, sealed a deal with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to help it set up a security system for its online banking business.
Microsoft Corp. will cut software prices in Taiwan by a quarter to settle an investigation into unfair trade practices, the island's competition watchdog said on Thursday. It will also sell the components of its Office XP suite of software separately and share its closely guarded source code for the Windows operating system with the government, the cabinet's Fair Trade Commission said. "Microsoft Taiwan's concrete action to lower prices of Microsoft products is exactly in line with the Fair Trade Commission's goals of maintaining orderly trade, consumer benefits, fair competition and economic prosperity," the Commission said in a statement.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced $31 million in grants for what has become the singular focus of its education efforts: small high schools. This time, the world's largest philanthropy gave grants to nine organizations to help them create a new breed of alternative high schools, the places students often go when they've left "regular" schools.
The idea is to create a network of 168 schools, possibly including two private schools in Washington state, that would combine the supportive environment of many alternative schools with high expectations.
Microsoft introduced additions to Windows XP designed to make the operating system better tuned for peer-to-peer applications. The software giant on Wednesday unveiled a beta, or testing version, of the Windows XP Peer-to-Peer Software Development Kit. The programming tools are designed to let software providers or corporate developers more easily build peer-to-peer applications on top of Windows XP.
Peer-to-peer applications, popularized by file-swapping services such as Napster and Kazaa, allow individual desktop PC users to share information directly, instead of going through a centralized server to disseminate data.
David Gurle, Microsoft Corp.'s product unit manager for the company's forthcoming Greenwich real-time communications platform, said Tuesday that instant messaging needs to move beyond, well, instant messaging and become a more ubiquitous enterprise application.
Speaking at the Instant Messaging Planet Spring 2003 Conference and Expo in Boston, Gurle compared instant messaging to a teenager going through an identity crisis. To truly grow, instant messaging must have a "ubiquitous reach" into other applications, Gurle said. Instant messaging must be integrated into mobile and phone networks, he said, and become a part of vertical applications like trading and call center applications.
Now that MS CRM is out the door, could a global,.Net-based MS HRM system be next?
Microsoft plans to demonstrate at its upcoming Great Plains Convergence user conference in March its "Business Portal HRM Self Service Suite."
"Business Portal HRM Self Service Suite offers employee and manager self-service solutions that place employees and managers in control of their own human-resources information," explains Microsoft on its Convergence conference site. "Employees and managers can access their human-resources information on their own at any time, decreasing administrative costs and allowing human resource professionals to take a more substantive role in the organization."
A vulnerability in the software used by Nokia's 6210 model cellular telephone could make those phones vulnerable to a denial of service (DoS) attack, similar to the types of attacks that are commonly launched against computer networks.
The vulnerability exists in code that handles the processing of vCards, virtual business cards that can be transmitted from one cell phone user to another using the popular Short Message Service (SMS), according to the advisory posted by Cambridge, Mass.-based security company @stake.
Nokia 6210 phones running software version 05.27 or higher are affected, according to a statement by Nokia in response to the @stake advisory.
March will be the month for networking gear based on the fledgling 802.11g wireless networking standard. NetGear and SMC Networks each said on Tuesday that they plan to ship 802.11g-complaint products next month. D-Link, another networking vendor, said at the Consumer Electronics Show that it also expects to ship a similar line by the end of March.
NetGear, Santa Clara, Calif., said it plans to ship a series of dual-standard products based on 802.11a (which operates at up to 54 Mbps but on a different frequency than 802.11g) and the draft standard of 802.11g. Since 802.11b and 802.11g are compatible, the products would support all three of the 802.11 standards: 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, in Tokyo to court top government officials as Japan ponders switching to rival software, assured his hosts that the company's Windows operating system is secure, officials said Wednesday. While Japanese government computers still mostly run on Windows, concerns about costs and security from over reliance on the system have prompted politicians to urge the government to consider alternatives.
Last month, Gates pledged to continue improvements to security in Microsoft's products as part of a campaign to convince large customers that Windows software is safe even for sensitive businesses.