The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) said Thursday will add two seats to its board of directors, a move that may help heal a rift between the group and Sun Microsystems.
Sun is getting left behind on Web services as it tries to come up with a non-Microsoft approach to the technology, according to one industry analyst. "Sun has been fighting a losing rearguard action on this thing from day one. This is a battle that Sun has been battered and bloodied on," said Will Zachmann, president of Canopus Research, in Duxbury, Mass. Meanwhile, .Net has become a much stronger platform for Web services, he added.
Court findings that Microsoft Corp. unlawfully protected its monopoly for personal-computer software can be used in a suit by California computer owners seeking billions of dollars in damages, a judge said yesterday. The ruling is a significant setback to the company, which had sought to keep the findings in the federal government's antitrust lawsuit from being used in the California case. The consumers claim they were forced to pay inflated prices for software because of Microsoft's monopoly.
"You've just taken care of half the case," said Ernest Gellhorn, an antitrust law professor at George Mason University. "That's an enormous victory."
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Paul Alvarado said jurors in the trial, set for February, should be given a judge's findings from the federal government's antitrust case that Microsoft illegally protected its Windows monopoly for personal computer operating software.
Microsoft on Thursday reported its first-quarter net profit more than doubled, topping even the most optimistic forecasts, as revenues surged on its new licensing plan and reseller sales. Microsoft's shares soared in after-hours trade following the release of results, trading at $53.20, up from a close of $50.77 on the Nasdaq. For the first fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, the world's largest software company said its net profit was $2.73 billion, or 50 cents per share, up from $1.28 billion, or 23 cents per share, a year earlier when it took a charge of 20 cents per share on investment impairments. The Redmond, Washington-based company three months ago had forecast a net profit of 42 cents or 43 cents per share.
A criminal investigation is under way into a break-in that took place last week on a Microsoft Web site for beta testers, Microsoft said Thursday. The site, BetaPlace.com, is aimed at people who test Microsoft products. Available at BetaPlace are unreleased versions of Windows and other Microsoft products, as well as keys to activate the software, said one beta tester, who asked not to be named.
"We can confirm that there was an illegal intrusion & last week," said a Microsoft spokeswoman in the U.K. "Due to the ongoing criminal investigation and our desire to apprehend the person or persons responsible, we can not comment further on any details."
Apple Computer on Wednesday reported a fourth-quarter net loss after writing down the value of some investments and taking a $4 million restructuring charge. With the investment write-down, restructuring and other items, Apple posted a net loss of $45 million, or 13 cents per share, on revenue of $1.44 billion. That compares with a net profit of $66 million, or 19 cents per share, on revenue of $1.45 billion in the year-ago quarter. Excluding items, Apple met expecations with a profit of $7 million, or 2 cents per share. Analysts were expecting the company to post earnings of 2 cents a share, according to First Call. Revenue was expected to be about $1.435 billion.
The research chief of Microsoft said on Thursday copy protection technology was not enough to stop software piracy and that a strong legal system was the best defence for intellectual property. "The best way to protect intellectual property is through the legal system," Rick Rashid, the head of Microsoft Research, told Reuters in an interview in Beijing.
Rashid had been asked if Microsoft's research team in China -- a country notorious for rampant illegal copying of software, movies and music -- was working on stronger anti-piracy measures for products like the Windows operating system and Office set of productivity programmes.
Dell has replaced Hewlett-Packard as the No. 1 maker of personal computers worldwide, market research firm International Data Corp. said on Thursday. "Dell is clearly the No. 1 worldwide at this point, by enough of a margin so that it's not a matter of statistical error," said IDC analyst Roger Kay. "Their lead is in the range of 5 percent." Hewlett-Packard took the No. 1 spot from Dell earlier this year when it bought Compaq. Dell shares were up 58 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $27.60 in late morning trading on the Nasdaq while Hewlett shares traded down 6 cents to $12.88 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Unisys, a company selling high-end Intel servers that run Microsoft Windows and compete with Unix systems from Sun Microsystems and others, has found two new customers for its 32-processor ES7000 server. Fortis Health bought three for its core insurance business, one with an eight-processor partition using Intel's new Itanium processors for analyzing numbers, Unisys said Tuesday. Itanium systems with Windows are putting new pressure on Unix servers, the mainstay of high-end business servers.
In addition, Unisys will collaborate with the Cornell Theory Center (CTC) on putting ES7000 servers to work in supercomputing applications. Two systems will be used, one with Itanium processors and one with Intel Xeon processors. The Cornell Theory Center also has a deal with Dell Computer to assemble lots of lower-end servers into a cluster that acts as a single supercomputer.
Microsoft's marketing machine has always worked like clockwork: New versions of the company's software would roll out, and customers would faithfully update their products to get enticing new features. With .Net, its far-reaching technology initiative that is reshaping product lines, the company is counting on nothing less. In fact, the success of technology architecture is crucial for Microsoft to keep revenue rolling in from its operating systems, server software and desktop products.
The technical vision for .Net has been widely praised, and the first tangible piece of the program--the Visual Studio.Net development tools--is a quantum leap ahead of earlier versions by all accounts. But so far, with a few exceptions, customer adoption of the .Net concept has been sluggish.
Microsoft and business software maker Siebel Systems are planning to announce a new marketing and development agreement next week that may involve the software giant making a minority investment in Siebel, securities analysts speculated this week. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech at Siebel's annual user conference in Los Angeles on Monday. The two companies will reveal details about a financial agreement and exclusive development plans during Gates' appearance, according to Brent Thill and George Gilbert, analysts at investment research firm Credit Suisse First Boston.
Under the terms of the pending agreement, according to the report, Siebel has pledged exclusive support for components of Microsoft's next-generation Web services technology, called .Net Framework, in the next release of its popular customer relationship management (CRM) suite. Siebel will also invite Microsoft sales reps to meetings with its largest accounts, the report claims.