Microsoft has benched "smart displays" for the couch-potato set, delaying the launch of the handheld flat-panel screens until the first quarter of 2003 so that it can fine-tune the underlying software. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates introduced the software, then code-named Mira, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The company's goal was to make the software, now known as Windows CE for Smart Displays, available by this time of the year so that hardware makers could introduce devices for the holidays.
"We now expect the products to reach the market (in) the first quarter of next year," said Microsoft's Megan Kidd, a product manager responsible for the specialized operating system. "We worked hard to deliver during this holiday season, but we wanted to make sure we delivered a high-quality product. So things are a little later than we expected."
Microsoft kicked off what will be a $300 million marketing blitz for its new MSN 8 Internet access software Monday, one day before rival America Online (AOL) is set to launch the 8.0 version of its software in what has become an Internet service provider showdown. Although Microsoft's media campaign won't officially begin until it launches MSN 8 on Oct. 24, the software giant plans to rain marketing money on AOL's parade with an MSN 8 event in Superior, Wisc., Monday to show off its "superiority," while simultaneously unveiling a massive billboard in New York's Times Square.
The media bonanza, which includes online, print, broadcast, and radio ads and runs until mid-2003, is a sign of just how serious Microsoft is about gaining traction as an ISP. In fact, the campaign doubles the amount of money Microsoft spent when it launched MSN 7 last October, according to MSN Product Manager Parul Shah.
Targeting the intense security and reliability requirements in the financial services industry, Reuters on Monday launched an instant messaging service based on Microsoft's Greenwich real-time technology platform. Reuters Messaging aims to deliver not only real-time IM capabilities but also a presence-awareness technology foundation for other financial applications, according to Mike Sayers, CTO of Reuters, based in London.
"What is driving Reuters Messaging [are] the possibilities around presence awareness and how that will alter approaches to applications in the future," Sayers said. "This was a very deliberate measure to bring the presence approach into financial services -- the first application being instant messaging."
Microsoft Corp. last week detailed its plans to integrate its line of e-business software in an effort to make the applications more easily customizable while still feature-rich. Project Jupiter, which was introduced at the Microsoft Exchange Conference in Anaheim, Calif., calls for the development of tools that integrate Microsoft's Content Management Server, BizTalk Server and Commerce Server.
Jupiter will focus on four core design features. The first is providing the ability for users to create and extend business processes both inside and outside their organizations. The second addresses interoperability, or enabling companies to integrate with third-party applications. It will do this with support for Web services, so new applications built using XML will be easy to integrate.
Microsoft has opened up its "Everett" Visual Studio.Net Framework SDK for public testing after adding support for developing applications for mobile devices and improved connections to the Windows.Net Server. In an e-mail to beta testers, Microsoft said an upsurge in user demand for the upgraded .N ET Framework 1.1 SDK Beta led to the decision to convert the program into a public beta. The "Everett" SDK can be downloaded here. The software giant said the BetaPlace downloads, information pages and private newsgroups would close on November 10. The .NET Framework SDK, a key component in Microsoft's Web Services roadmap, has been revamped to include a Java development tool called Visual J#, Visual Basic.Net, Visual C++.Net and Visual C#.Net tools.
Microsoft Corp. early next year will add storage capabilities to .Net Server 2003, but vendors are already beginning to line up to exploit the new services. The Redmond, Wash., company last week unveiled VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) for volume snapshotting and VDS (Virtual Disk Services) for disk/array management. The pair should help storage hardware and software makers and business applications vendors speed product development by allowing integration with Microsoft products without custom code.
End-user file restoration capabilities, code-named TimeWarp, are included under a Shadow Copy administration tab as well as in a Previous Versions tab in the Windows XP interface, company officials said at the Microsoft Exchange Conference, in Anaheim, Calif.
Aiming to help businesses extend their Web presences with speech, Intel
and Microsoft Monday announced they are jointly developing technologies and a reference design based on the Speech Applications Language Tags (SALT) 1.0 specification submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in August.
The SALT specification defines a set of lightweight tags as extensions to
common Web-based programming languages, allowing developers to add speech
functionality to existing Web applications.
The joint effort by Intel and Microsoft will leverage Intel's telephony building blocks -- namely Intel Architecture servers, NetStructure communications boards and telephony call management interface software -- and Microsoft's .NET Speech platform to give enterprise customers a set of tools with which to build and deploy their own speech applications, and also to give ISVs, OEMs, VARs and SIs a toolset with which to build and deploy such applications for enterprise customers.
News, information and technology provider Reuters is rolling out its much-discussed Reuters Messaging, a secure, high-speed messaging service designed specifically for the global financial services industry. The new enterprise IM (EIM) system was launched at a formal event today in London, where Reuters is based.
Reuters developed the service in tandem with Microsoft. Reuters Messaging is based on the open, industry standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which means it can be integrated into the terminals and systems financial professionals use to do business, as well as work with their Microsoft Windows-based desktops.
Microsoft ranks somewhere between mega-voiced cellphone users and New Jersey Transit as a source of daily irritation, but every once in a while they do something right to keep you off balance. After I used Microsoft Money for many months, a disk problem surfaced that required reinstallation. And that required the install CD-ROM, which a search showed would require a trip to Chesapeake, Va., where it had apparently joined much of my other software as a permanent guest in Daughter One's new apartment.
There were bills to pay, it was pouring rain, and the temptation to buy online at Microsoft's Web site was too powerful. So $42.39 (including tax) later and a couple of minutes on my fast DSL Internet connection, I was the owner of Money 2003 and back in business.
When Microsoft rolled out its top-end iTV software in Portugal last year, the Redmond-based company was staking its claim to a share of the promised millions from interactive TV. TV Cabo, which has 1.2 million cable subscribers, predicted 100,000 customers by the end of last year for the service. Portugal was to be Microsoft's stepping stone to a world market.
But so far TV Cabo has attracted only around 10,000 customers, company sources said. Microsoft has not extended its top-end service beyond this small European country. A company spokesman declined to say whether it would ever do so.