Microsoft Corp., trying to make up for the disappointing uptake of Windows Server 2000 and that software's headache-inducing Active Directory installation process, is expected to announce today tweaks to technology, programs and services for Windows Server 2003.
Bob Ellsworth, director of Microsoft's Windows Server Product Management Group, in Seattle, said that a key motivation for the reliability innovations is to convince Windows NT 4 customers to jump over Windows 2000-which has had a disappointing record of customer uptake-and head straight for Windows Server 2003. "The messaging we're using is, 'Boy, if you're on NT 4 and you haven't yet moved to Windows 2000, now's the time,'" Ellsworth said. "It's ready for prime time."
Microsoft disciplined an undisclosed number of employees who are suspected of buying discounted software and reselling it for a profit, the giant software company said on Wednesday. Microsoft allows employees to buy discounted retail software at its company store at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters for personal use, but prohibits resale. "There have been instances of policy violation and we've taken appropriate action," said Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake. Drake would not comment on what disciplinary action Microsoft had taken or how many employees were involved.
In Building 30 in a corner of Microsoft's corporate campus, a cadre of engineers and executives are hatching a bold plan to swallow up another $10 billion market: software for small and medium-sized businesses. Microsoft, facing slower growth of its core Windows business after a decade of frenetic growth, has made a splashy drive into consumer electronics with its Xbox video game console and its futuristic plans for a new generation of "smart" appliances wired with its software. But analysts say that the success, or failure, of its less-celebrated, but equally new Business Solutions division could prove to be the bigger and more immediate influence on its future sales growth.
Microsoft's Windows Datacenter Server has been about more than technology features since its launch in late 2000. Fittingly, the tightly controlled support program that makes Datacenter Server so different from other Microsoft server operating systems is getting a complete overhaul for the Windows Server 2003 launch. Microsoft unveiled details of the program Wednesday, including the new name, the "Windows Datacenter High Availability Program."
Microsoft launched Windows 2000 Datacenter Server along with the Windows Datacenter Program in September 2000, about six months after the launch of the other versions of Windows 2000. In addition to being far more scalable than any previous Microsoft server operating system, Datacenter was only sold by OEMs as part of complete, Microsoft-approved configurations. Each OEM had to offer 24x7 support for Datacenter and all the system components under the Windows Datacenter Program.
Microsoft is laying the foundation for what it calls its "iWave" product launches later this year. Specifically, the software vendor aims to get the most bang for its marketing and messaging buck out of the Office 11, XDocs and SharePoint 2.0 product releases expected in June.
Rather than just "casting products out willy nilly, they're trying to get orchestrated," a Microsoft insider said. In preparation for that strategy, the vendor is planning a "massive investment" of marketing and incentives for its field-sales force and partners around those three products, said other sources close to the company. The goal is to rationalize the rollouts and eliminate product confusion, they said.
Two thousand years from now future generations may be studying everything about your daily life - from your choice of breakfast cereal to the naughty Web sites you perused today. A new Microsoft research project, called MyLifeBits, is designed to record every aspect of a person's life to a hard drive - from photos and home videos to phone calls made, e-mail sent, and Web pages visited. "This is a journey that we're taking. It became really a quest to essentially cyberize everything," says Gordon Bell, a pioneer in the field of personal computers who is heading up MyLifeBits. "I want to ... essentially use it as my surrogate memory."
The next major release of Windows won't be ready for a couple of years, but it's already taking shape. We checked out a leaked pre-beta version of the successor to Windows XP, code-named Longhorn, that we found on the Internet. Though Microsoft declined to comment for this story, company bigwigs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have given some broad hints about Longhorn. In numerous speeches and published reports, they've promised a totally revamped OS built on a new file system that gives users a single route to data, regardless of how that data is created or where on a PC or network it's stored.
The new file system wasn't implemented in the alpha code we looked at. But Longhorn Build 3683 does contain a few intriguing interface tweaks--mostly still under construction--that indicate where Microsoft is heading.
Microsoft's announcement of its use of SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology), which uses FM signals to send one-way information to small devices such as watches, shows the trend toward digital convergence. Bill Mitchell, Microsoft's general manager of SPOT, talked with InfoWorld Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz about convergence, the Direct Band Network and SPOT, and the push for smart devices.
InfoWorld: Do you consider SPOT an example of digital convergence?
Mitchell: Certainly, but we also look at it as an example of disaggregation; where once you had a technology [wireless] that was at a premium, now you can build intelligence into any device that is small, with low power, and inexpensive.
In a filing this week with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Microsoft denied that it secretly plotted to "plunder" UK cellular phone maker Sendo, which sued the software giant late last year for allegedly stealing Sendo's intellectual property. Microsoft also filed a countersuit against Sendo, accusing the company of breach of contract, and asked the court for a change of venue. The Sendo lawsuit was filed in Texarkana, Texas because the company has a small US office there. Microsoft and Sendo had been working on a Smartphone design that ran Microsoft software.
Microsoft is continuing to clamp down on employees who buy software at cost and then resell it. The company confirmed yesterday that it has taken "appropriate actions" against an undisclosed number of workers at the Redmond software maker.
They are suspected of abusing Microsoft's practice of selling software to workers at cost. Company policy restricts such software to personal use, and reselling it is forbidden. Violations of the policy are punishable by sanctions that include immediate termination.
The actions follow the firing and arrest in December of former Microsoft director Daniel Feussner for allegedly stealing $9 million worth of Microsoft software. Feussner, 32, is now free on bond but subject to electronic monitoring, pending trial.