Microsoft is selling its Dealerpoint software business to Reynolds and Reynolds in a deal worth about $7 million, the companies said Wednesday. Microsoft developed Dealerpoint in 1998 as part of its CarPoint auto service. Dealerpoint, managed by Microsoft's MSN division, helps car dealers manages leads that come in from the Internet and other sources.
Reynolds and Reynolds, a Dayton, Ohio-based software company that specializes in the automotive industry, will acquire the software, customer contracts and business assets, spokesman Bob Sadowski said. The companies expect to complete the deal by June 30.
When Linux first appeared on Microsoft's radar a few years ago, senior company executives regularly disparaged the upstart operating system as everything from being a "cancer" to "Pac-Man-like." And that was when they were in a kind mood. But Microsoft's rhetorical offensive boomeranged, drawing even more attention to the open-source movement--exemplified by the Linux operating system and the General Public License (GPL) that governs it.
How much more of a factor in the server market do you think Linux can become?
Linux is not impacting the Windows installed base nearly as much as it's impacting the Unix installed base. There's the Windows paradigm of a comprehensive, integrated, easy-to-use stack of technologies and then there is the Unix approach, which is a piece-parts approach where the customer integrates those parts into the ultimate solution.
Microsoft will release new tools Wednesday that are intended to help businesses get more bang for their buck with three of its productivity applications: FrontPage 2002, Project Standard 2002, and Visio 2002. Microsoft's Right Tools Toolkits are aimed at customers in five specific fields -- human resources, accounting and finance, sales and marketing, government, and projects and process management -- and are intended to help them get more use out of their software, the company said.
Each toolkit includes templates that make it easier to create Web pages, charts and other documents related to the particular field, as well as "cheat sheets" that show how to perform common tasks more quickly, said Melanie Cosklo, lead product manager for Microsoft's productivity applications.
Microsoft Corp. announced Tuesday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire privately-held Web conferencing service provider PlaceWare Inc. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close this quarter, were not disclosed. In tandem with the acquisition, Microsoft announced today that it has formed a new business unit, the Real Time Collaboration Group. Former Stanford University professor Anoop Gupta, a senior researcher in Microsoft Research's Collaboration and Multimedia Group, will head the new business unit. Gupta will report to Jeff Raikes, group vice president of Productivity and Business Services at Microsoft.
It was the dream of many a Windows NT 4.0 Web site administrator applying the daily or twice-daily reboot. A Windows 2000 system that would just stay up. This month in its monthly survey/ of Web sites around the world, Netcraft found a Windows 2000 site that hasn't needed a reboot in more than two years.
"This month is the first time that a Windows 2000 site has appeared in the 50 top sites which have the longest period of time since last reboot," Netcraft's monthly survey notes. "When we first started graphing web servers uptime in the summer of 2000, many people were skeptical that a Windows machine would ever make the top 50. Perceptions change, and although two years is exceptional, several Windows 2000 sites have run for more than a year without a reboot."
Microsoft released to manufacturing Tuesday the Microsoft CRM software that's had the industry buzzing since its announcement a year ago. The software should be shipping in North America in about a week from several hundred resellers, according to Microsoft. More than 200 customer orders are already waiting, a spokeswoman said.
Microsoft CRM is only available for purchase now in the U.S. and Canada, but localized versions for Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Latin America are scheduled for release in the second half of 2003, Microsoft said. Pricing for the software ranges from $395 per user, plus 995 for the server, to 1,295 per user and 1,990 for the server, depending on the package chosen.
Microsoft on Monday announced availability of SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3, featuring a monitoring API, error reporting enhancements, and increased performance for Microsoft's server database. Fixes are included for analysis services, manageability, and replication as well. A highlight of the service pack is a new monitoring API allowing DBAs or third-party tools, such as Precise/In-depth for SQL Server, to diagnose problem processes, according to the company.
Other updates to boost serviceability include an error reporting function enabling Microsoft to be automatically notified about critical errors. Multi-server administration also is improved.
The final judge's order requiring Microsoft to distribute Sun Microsystems' version of Java gives Microsoft a deadline of 120 days after Feb. 4 to include Sun's Java with all versions of Windows XP and with all Web browsers that include .NET functionality. U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Motz of Baltimore delayed his order until Feb. 4 so Microsoft could appeal his decision.
Motz also ordered Microsoft to start offering as a download Sun's Java run-time environment (JRE) as a recommended update within 30 days of Sun giving Microsoft an updated copy of its version of Java. That 30-day download deadline was Microsoft's suggestion.
As Sun had asked, Motz's order also prohibits Microsoft from carrying a version of the JRE that's incompatible with Sun's version. But the judge noted that third-party computer makers are allowed to decide for themselves whether to carry Sun's Java.
At this week's LinuxWorld Expo conference, the handful of Microsoft employees tasked with defending a world where software isn't free are ready to meet head-on the open-source believers. The Microsofties will be armed with their shared-source licensing presentations, their Services for Linux demos and their Embedded Windows XP wares.
Microsoft is sending some of its crack GotDotNet evangelization team into enemy territory. The GotDotNet team is a skun-kworks operation of folks working on Web services, XML development aids, and other .Net-related tools and technologies inside of Microsoft.
After dominating the desktop, burrowing into the Internet and bursting into the video game market, Microsoft Corp. is making progress at getting firmly into the palm of your hand. Already a force in software for personal digital assistants, Microsoft is ramping up efforts to provide the operating systems for those devices' close relative: the next generation of "smart" cell phones that can handle e-mail, digital photos and other data. Microsoft splashed into the smart-phone scene in Europe last year with a device sold by the British wireless carrier Orange.