Whether Microsoft's .Net Server 2003, due in the next several months, is late to market or whether what's shipped is ready for mass deployment isn't really that interesting. Microsoft is working on more important developments higher up the technology stack--for example, its recently announced new application server, content management and commerce server functionality. These are the areas in which companies will see value above the bits and bytes of the operating system.
When Microsoft does ship .Net Server 2003, we can expect the usual early hiccups around security and performance--things that Redmond may not have fully ironed out. But the product will be ready for companies to use. Forrester has tested the company's Advanced Server 2000 with the .Net Framework, and its functionality is equivalent to that of many of the Java application servers sold by IBM and BEA Systems in areas like caching and resource pooling.
Between public bouts of dissing Linux, Microsoft quietly is ripping pages from the open-source playbook and taping them to its own. Examples? The most obvious is the shared-source licensing mechanism. Shared source is no GNU General Public License but does allow companies to use Windows source code if they agree to Microsoft's terms. There are other examples of Microsoft using open-source strategies.
Earlier this summer, Microsoft unveiled its ASP .Net Web Matrix "community supported" development tool, aimed at nonprofessional programmers. While Microsoft would be loath to portray its Web Matrix development/test process as akin to the open-source way, Redmond relied on partners to constructively critique daily builds.
Michael Dell is the eliminator. It's in his and the company's genes. He eliminates costs and competitors with a relentless focus on driving costs down and in forming tight relationships with customers and suppliers.
Yesterday, HP CEO Carly Fiorina categorized Dell as merely a distribution channel. Today, the Dell chairman and CEO responded by saying the direct model overshadows other skills the company has in R&D and manufacturing. In responding to a question at Gartner Symposium ITxpo about Dell's lack of innovation and R&D, Dell said that over 90 percent of the revenue comes from what the company designs and manufactures. He said that Dell has garnered 750 patents since the late 1980s.
Aiming to tame the growing complexity of enterprise messaging environments, several vendors here at Microsoft's MEC 2002 conference introduced new tools to control and secure wired and wireless messaging.
DYS Analytics rolled out Email Control for Microsoft Exchange, which allows IT managers to automate the measuring, analysis, and reporting of enterprise messaging traffic on their Exchange network. Email Control can be used to reduce infrastructure and management costs by providing more efficient load balancing and capacity planning, faster troubleshooting, and the ability to enforce e-mail usage policies, according to officials at the company, based in Wellesley, Mass.
Clearing up comments made by a Microsoft executive at a security conference in Paris earlier this week, a company spokesman said Wednesday the software maker was not considering charging for additional security options within its products. "You will not see price upgrades for additional security in our software," Microsoft Spokesman Rick Miller said. The spokesman added that Microsoft has invested some $100 million in its new trustworthy computing push to provide customers with added security within their products.
Many game players have been left in the lurch as a result of Microsoft's apparently successful efforts to shut down one of the leading sellers of Xbox hacking tools. Customers of Hong Kong-based Web retailer Lik-Sang report they've heard nothing regarding dozens of orders they placed with the site shortly before it went offline last month.
Lik-Sang was one of the top worldwide retailers of "mod chips," devices that when soldered to a game console's main circuit board will disable security components. The chips typically allow a game machine to play legally and illegally copied discs, run unauthorized software, and play game discs intended for other geographic regions.
DirectX 9.0 Beta 3 was made available for download this week, with beta testers receiving notice of the release on Wednesday. The pre-release code is designed to facilitate the creation of DirectX applications based on the upcoming version 9.0 feature set. DirectX 9.0 most notably adds a new high-level shader language -- based on C -- designed to simplify development.
"Welcome to the Beta 3 release of Microsoft DirectX 9," Microsoft beta coordinators wrote in an e-mail to testers. "We make our beta releases available to a select group of developers and enthusiasts to help us ensure that our final release is stable and secure. Your involvement is critical to this goal."
Microsoft is planning on Thursday to announce a new advertising campaign touting the Macintosh version of its Office suite. The ads, which play up the ability of Macs and PCs to get along, will begin showing up Saturday in magazines geared at Macintosh, business, technology and design audiences, according to an e-mail from a Microsoft representative. One ad features a Mac and a PC playing chess by the pool, while another shows a Mac and PC eating Chinese take-out while watching a late-night movie. "Macs and PCs have never been so compatible," read the ads' headlines. The ads encourage Mac users to go to a new Web site, officeformac.com to download a 30-day free trial of Office.
Microsoft unveiled new strategies for e-business servers and corporate instant messaging during its Microsoft Exchange Conference in Anaheim, Calif., on Tuesday. Microsoft's new offering for e-business--code-named "Jupiter"--is a comprehensive set of server operating systems for doing business on the Web. Jupiter will bring together three separately available Microsoft server products--BizTalk Server, Content Management Server and Commerce Server--into one package. Microsoft unveiled Content Management Server 2002 on Monday.
"Microsoft is mounting serious competition for IBM in e-business, and with forthcoming releases of .Net technology, the vision should turn into reality," AMR Research analyst Eric Austvold wrote in a brief Wednesday.
Last week in Minneapolis, Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) hosted its annual partner conference known as Stampede. Although the location has shifted east from Fargo, ND, when it was hosted by Great Plains, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2001, the event maintains the high energy and value to the reseller network that makes up the sales and support channel delivering the value of MBS to end users. Since the last Stampede event, much has happened in the MBS ecosystem, including the purchase of Danish vendor Navision and the announcement of new customer relationship management (CRM) functionality focused on the small and medium business (SMB) market.