WinInsider

Microsoft on Thursday will announce storage multipathing software for Windows 2000 and Windows .Net. Multipath input/output technology lets servers talk to storage devices across simultaneous access paths. An access path is a combination of a host-bus adapter and a logical unit number, but multipathing requires unique device identifiers besides bus addresses. "I think it's great. If you're going to have an enterprise-class server, you have to be able to have redundancy," said Nancy Marone, an industry analyst with Enterprise Storage Group Inc., in Milford, Mass. Microsoft has been trying to build its data center portfolio for storage for some time. The company launched its storage division in April and is revamping its file system for future versions of Windows.

Microsoft on Wednesday launched Works Suite 2003, a new version of the software maker's all-in-one productivity package. The new product comes as Microsoft seeks to recover from a double blow--the decisions by Dell Computer and Hewlett-Packard to stop carrying Works in favor of Corel's WordPerfect Productivity Pack on some consumer PCs. While Microsoft waited until Wednesday to officially announce the new version of Works Suite, the product started appearing on store shelves late last month.

Works Suite 2003 has a suggested retail price of $109, but some retailers already are selling the productivity package for much less. CompUSA is running a $35 instant-savings promotion that drops the price to $65 before Microsoft's $15 mail-in rebate. Staples sells the product for $80, before the mail-in rebate.

Microsoft is working on patches for several services within Windows that run with inappropriately high privileges, making the operating system vulnerable to a sophisticated attack that could lead to a complete compromise of the machine.

"This really is not a security model flaw because you can clearly implement a program not to be vulnerable to this. Higher privileged programs such as services running as system should not be taking input from lower privileged users without filtering it," said Chris Wysopal, director of research and development at @stake Inc., a security consultancy and research firm in Cambridge, Mass. "Windows messages need to be thought of as untrusted input just like network traffic. I would consider this an application design error. I think that the controversy over this is because people can't agree to whether or not the OS should be protecting applications from malicious inter-process messages. Windows does not document that the system protects from this. It is up to the application developer."

Toshiba's e310 is small, light and cheap enough to be competing with Palm OS devices instead of Pocket PCs - Jorgen Sundgot shares his thoughts on the featherweight Pocket PC. Toshiba doesn't have much of a track record when it comes to handhelds - in fact, the only handheld the company ever made before the Toshiba e310 was the Toshiba e570, which was fairly well received for its small size and versatile expansion capabilities, despite its one major drawback; poor battery life. The Toshiba e310 is thus to count as a second-generation product, and with it Toshiba pulls off the feat of trumping all other Pocket PC 2002 devices on the market both in terms of price and size.

After months of teasing and dropping hints around its digital media strategy, Microsoft will finally showcase a beta of Windows Media 9 Series, a media player that looks to turn PCs into TVs. When Bill Gates officially lifts the wraps off the software formerly known as "Corona" Wednesday in Los Angeles, it will signal the next stage in the battle between Microsoft and RealNetworks to a share of the eyes and wallets of PC users worldwide.

Gates is expected to take the stage Wednesday morning to tell the gathering that Windows Media 9 Series had won support from consumer electronics firms and technology partners looking to jump on the Microsoft bandwagon. With a revamped WM9 player promising to virtually purge buffering delays when streams are launched, Microsoft is throwing down the gauntlet to RealNetworks that this is a genuine two-horse race in the space.

As their teacher lectures, they take notes with a stylus on a thin, clipboard-size computer. When their first paper is due, students retrieve it from their tablet computers and e-mail it to the teacher. After grading the paper, the teacher e-mails it back to the student and cc's the parents. Students today may not recognize this hypothetical classroom. Perhaps they don't want to. But if Microsoft has its way, this typical school day is inevitable, as early as this school year.

While Microsoft plans to target all consumers with the tablet, the company considers it ideal for school. "We really see it replacing the notebook computer," said Kelly Berschauer, the tablet PC product manager at Microsoft. "Just like you can't live without your computer mouse today, we think the digital pen will replace the mouse."

A Circuit Judge in the state of Florida has awarded class action status to a group of lawsuits against Microsoft, which allege that the software giant violated state laws against unfair trade practices by artificially raising the price of its products. The class action lawsuit, which is just the latest of many legal challenges the company is facing in the wake of its sweeping antitrust woes, affects every consumer in Florida who purchased a PC with Windows 95 or 98, or Microsoft Office, Excel or Word, on or after November 15, 1995. Florida joins several other states, including California, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, in bringing class action suits against Microsoft.

Late today, Microsoft will unveil the Beta 1 release of Windows Media Player 9, a significant upgrade over the Media Player for Windows XP product the company is now shipping as part of Windows XP, as well as a host of other Windows Media 9 Series products that run the gamut from server-side content delivery to local media encoding. Windows Media 9 Series is the company's most comprehensive multimedia product launch ever.

Windows Media 9 Series consists of new versions of the all-in-one Windows Media Player, impressive new Windows Media Audio and Video codecs, Windows Media Encoder for encoding content in the new formats, Windows Media Software Development Kit (SDK) for developers, and Windows Media Services, which will ship as part of Windows .NET Server later this year. Many of the improvements in this revision are based around the player, which will be almost infinitely configurable; attempts at making streaming media over the Web more TV-like; and the new audio and video codecs, which will bring DVD and movie theatre-like experiences to the PC for the first time.

Microsoft has expanded on the roadmap for its Visual Studio developer suite through 2004 to give customers an indication of where the company is headed. The company posted the roadmap last week, as it had promised to do earlier in August when Microsoft vice president Eric Rudder revealed that Microsoft would synchronize the release of the next version of Visual Studio with Windows .NET Server 2003, and both products would include a new version of the .NET Framework for building and running Web services.

Microsoft plans to introduce a preliminary version of its latest multimedia software for the Internet -- Windows Media 9 -- that it promises will bring the experience of viewing video on the Web a little bit closer to watching television, Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported. The software concern is expected to tout the support of companies in the consumer electronics, software and entertainment industries for the product, which it is billing as a major upgrade for its multimedia technology. The new software from Microsoft will intensify the competitive battle between the Redmond, Wash., company and RealNetworks Inc., the Seattle concern that pioneered use of multimedia on the Internet. RealNetworks says its software already offers many of Microsoft's improvements.