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Microsoft unveiled a new high-tech facility in Reston, Virginia, Thursday, in a move that it hopes will put it in better stead with the federal government, and could potentially net the software maker a lucrative "homeland security" contract. The US$25 million Microsoft Innovation & Technology Conference Center will showcase systems for use by government agencies and defense contractors, the company said, as well as house the latest in secure computing and telecommunication facilities. Additionally, the software maker said the site will eventually contain "secured facilities for classified meetings with intelligence agencies," as well as a Government Solutions Center.

Microsoft Business Solutions division is preparing a first beta release of its B2B partner-networking software-Microsoft Business Network-for delivery in October, with the final product expected in the first quarter of next year. MBN, a product developed by the Great Plains Software team within Microsoft Business Solutions, is a kind of electronic data interchange network designed to connect suppliers to their customers. Unlike a traditional EDI system, MBN will offer users a choice of HTML or XML to share their business documents and data.

On Thursday, Microsoft executives demonstrated MBN to some of the 2,000 reseller partners attending the company's Stampede conference here. Underneath the MBN covers are Microsoft's .Net Framework and BizTalk Server technologies, company officials said. MBN will provide transaction management via a Microsoft Outlook-based interface.

eWEEK Labs examines how Web services has and will change your company's core IT foundation, from security to database access, development, mobile computing and directory integration.

It's not that Web services are particularly efficient or fast, either. Just the opposite: The text-based protocols used by Web services typically require 10 times the bytes of a binary protocol to send the same information and have to be transformed at both ends into binary form, a relatively slow and CPU-intensive process. Moreover, a glaring lack of security infrastructure has been obvious to Web services observers ever since the technology was first discussed. However, what is more important than all these issues-important though they are-is that never before has such a large portion of the technology industry agreed on a single way to call functions on a remote system.

Nearly a year has gone by since Microsoft and the federal government proposed a settlement of their four-year antitrust battle. California and eight other states have fought on, arguing the settlement wouldn't go far enough to prevent the company from stifling competition. Soon, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly will decide if the settlement serves the public interest or if Microsoft should face stricter sanctions sought by the holdout states. Microsoft has portrayed itself in the past year as a kinder, gentler software giant, touting its compliance with the settlement terms even before the deal becomes official. Yet critics say the past year provides even more evidence of the need to rein in the company.

Thursday morning, Microsoft announced the launch of its long-awaited broadband home networking hardware line, which includes wired and wireless kits and standalone products such as base stations and networking adapters. Designed to allow consumers to quickly and easily share broadband Internet connections and create wired or wireless home networks, the new Microsoft hardware is most clearly differentiated by its simple software setup, which is consistent across all of the products. The company says that wireless networks, especially, have just been too difficult for average users to implement in the past.

A computer-industry trade group took a shot at Microsoft's credibility Wednesday, alleging that the recently released Windows XP Service Pack 1 violates the software giant's pending antitrust settlement. In a 12-page letter sent to Assistant Attorney General Charles James and to Elliot Spitzer, New York's attorney general, ProComp, a group partially funded by Microsoft competitors, charged the company with "at least six separate and ongoing violations" of one section of the proposed agreement.

Microsoft, however, took issue with the group's claims. "We had a whole beta process for Service Pack 1 where we sought and received feedback from industry and government," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler. "It's unfortunate, by hardly surprising, that this group, which is backed by our competitors, chose to play politics rather than participate in the process." Regarding the ease with which consumers can get their hands on Service Pack 1, Desler said, "SP1 is a critical update. In addition to Set Program Access and Defaults, SP1 contains critical security updates and other things. It's easily available and in wide distribution."

Microsoft continued to add to its growing stable of applications software on Tuesday by adding two new "industry solutions" to its Microsoft Business Solutions portfolio. At its Stampede 2002 reseller conference here this week, Microsoft unveiled a Professional Services Automation (PSA) and point-of-sale Retail Management System to its Great Plains/Navision/bCentral family of products and services. These two solutions are similar to a number of other vertically-targeted "accelerator" bundles that Microsoft is selling through its solution-provider partners. Both bundles are aimed at "business decision makers" in small businesses, mid-size users and low-end corporate customers, company officials said.

Microsoft and AT&T Wireless Services unveiled on Wednesday a service on Wednesday that would let users look at a map displayed on a mobile phone to find driving directions, other users and the locations of business contacts. The service, which uses Microsoft's .NET technology aimed at making software and information work seamlessly on the Web, is the first product announced since Microsoft and AT&T Wireless said in August that they would partner to provide wireless data services.

So-called location-based services, which many consider a key application for mobile devices, are expected to be a strong incentive for users to switch to next-generation mobile networks. The two companies showed in a demonstration how a mobile phone user could find nearby points of interest, drop-off boxes for courier packages and driving directions to contacts. Location-based services have yet to take off in the U.S., while in Japan, mobile phone companies already offer services that let users find restaurants, movie theaters and directions on their cell phone displays.

Microsoft this week put out a second version of the handheld edition of its SQL Server database. SQL Server 2000 Windows CE Edition, or SQL Server CE 2.0, is available immediately for download. In Microsoft's view, a core benefit of the SQL Server CE software, both 1.0 and 2.0, is that it presents a unified programming target -- SQL Server -- for database developers across all server and client levels.

Aside from the usual performance enhancement work, Microsoft crammed several new features into the compact database. Its Query analyzer has an improved user interface for object management. A query processor includes new intrinsic functions and parameterized queries. An improved storage engine adds index pulls, upload-only features and support for 249 indexes per table. A connectivity wizard facilitates setup of security and connectivity options for data replication. An on-device query tool allows stored queries and schema viewing on the device.

Siebel Systems' choice of Bill Gates as keynote speaker at its customer conference next month is raising some eyebrows. Most software companies would no sooner welcome Microsoft into their market than court an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, will address a throng of Siebel customers at its User Week 2002 in Los Angeles on Oct. 21. Siebel is the leader in the $11.3 billion market for customer relationship management (CRM) software, which helps companies track sales, marketing and customer service activities.