IT professionals interested in the stand-alone version of Active Directory for applications that Microsoft started discussing last month can find out more about the technology in a new white paper on Microsoft's Web site. Known as Active Directory in Application Mode, or AD/AM, the feature will come in Windows .NET Server, which is due out at the end of the year. AD/AM addresses one of the major criticisms with Active Directory in its debut incarnation with Windows 2000: the fact that it was inextricably tied to the server operating system and the domain structure.
Microsoft posted the white paper called "Introduction to Active Directory in Application Mode" to its Web site this week.
EDS claims that it has built the world's first Internet banking solution using .Net development architecture. The IT solutions provider has constructed a .Net-based online banking service for the Bank of Queensland. According to Microsoft, the EDS team took just under four months to complete the project. At this stage it appears that the .Net implementation is limited to providing an interface between the bank's online customers and its mainframe. Aside from EDS's claims that the project is a world first, the implementation of the .Net architecture at the bank has a second significance. Arrigo said that there are more banking solutions in development outside Queensland. However, Arrigo declined the opportunity to discuss those in detail prior to next week's TechEd conference in Queensland.
Samsung Electronics received approval Wednesday from the Federal Communications Commission for a new cell phone running Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 operating system. The device is referred to in the FCC filings as the SCH-i600 and is a clamshell-style device with a Secure Digital card slot. Samsung is the No. 2 seller of handsets in the U.S. retail market, behind Nokia but ahead of Motorola. The South Korean electronics company has made strides in the cell phone market, thanks in part to a strategy of developing combination cell phone and handheld devices. Of the top phone makers, only Samsung has agreed to use Microsoft's wireless phone software.
Devices based on Smartphone 2002 OS are meant to be used primarily as cell phones, but the handhelds can access data wirelessly and store information, such as contacts, calendar and tasks, like a Pocket PC. Devices using the Pocket PC 2002 OS, by contrast, are generally used as handhelds. They have larger screens with touch screen capabilities. Additional software can turn them into cell phones.
Microsoft is suing online retailer Overstock.com for allegedly selling counterfeit or unauthorized software. Overstock, a featured store on an MSN bargain shopping Web page, disclosed the lawsuit in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the documents, Microsoft filed the suit in February in a federal court in California, alleging that Overstock "distributed counterfeit and otherwise unauthorized Microsoft software." The software giant is seeking damages and injunctive relief, according to the documents, which were filed Wednesday.
Microsoft has the money and clout to make its friends rich and its enemies miserable. These musings are speculative, but IT organizations should consider them when evaluating their major tech suppliers. The friends of the vendors you choose will, in effect, become your partners. You'll be pressured to forsake their enemies, and companies on the enemies list will make it their mission to convert you.
Sun actively campaigned for the Microsoft Enemy No. 1 spot through Scott McNealy's tireless invective and through the company's involvement in antitrust actions. I don't think being in Microsoft's crosshairs is as much fun lately. Sun no longer has an in with the Justice Department. Even Sun's longtime champion Oracle is waffling, so Sun can only make its case to the market.
Sun Microsystems began selling its first general-purpose Linux servers this week, but Bill Joy, Sun's chief scientist and a pioneer in designing Unix, has voiced doubts about Linux's open-source underpinnings. "The open-source business model hasn't worked very well," Joy said at an event here Tuesday to introduce a squad of new software executives at Sun. A business link, he said, is important for ensuring customer support that doesn't rely on volunteer help and for letting market forces select between competing packages such as the KDE and Gnome software that give Linux a graphical user interface.
Intel is rolling up its sleeves to help improve applications that run on the handheld version of its XScale processors. The chipmaker opened a new lab this week to help software developers increase performance of applications that run on portable devices using its XScale PXA processor. Located in Chandler, Ariz., the lab is part of Intel's Wireless Communications and Computing Group. With this new lab, Intel is working more closely with developers, in some cases sending engineers to developers or bringing developers to its labs. Additionally, Intel is working on tools and techniques to improve the process of fine-tuning and creating applications.
Microsoft withdrew its free TrueType Web fonts on the eve of LinuxWorld, leaving some Linux advocates upset about the decision. Microsoft, however, said the fonts were being "abused". The TrueType fonts, once available on this Microsoft web page, were apparently pulled on Aug. 12, the first day of the LinuxWorld show here. It was unclear which Linux distributions would be affected by Microsoft's decision, although a representative of the Debian GNU/Linux organization said it had withdrawn a TrueType font package from its distribution.
In a statement, a spokesman for Microsoft said that the company withdrew the free fonts for several reasons. "Most users who wanted the fonts have downloaded them already," a company spokesman wrote in an email to ExtremeTech. "They ship with recent OS's - Windows XP and Mac OS (via Internet Explorer). Microsoft has also found that the downloads were being abused - repackaged, modified and shipped with commercial products in violation of the EULA [licensing agreement]."
Microsoft is targeting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with its recent acquisitions of Navision, a European mid-market ERP vendor, and Sales Management Systems (SMS), a specialized developer of retail software. Microsoft intends to integrate SMS point-of-sale and retail management applications with the Great Plains e-business software suite.
While most other large software vendors are focusing primarily on selling to global enterprises, Microsoft is emphasizing the SME marketplace. Microsoft has built a large cash position, and is now investing some of it to buy smaller software vendors that target the mid-market.
Microsoft's strategy is to add a .Net Web services interface to the applications it acquires. Microsoft can then sell the software as a package through its worldwide retail channels, and also through the Internet as a Web service that users can access, for instance, through Microsoft Office. Microsoft is already as much a packager and marketer as a developer of software. Each of its purchases gives it more software to market to large numbers of SMEs.
The world's largest PC maker has found an innovative way to get around a Microsoft licensing requirement, allowing the company to ship PCs without a copy of Windows or any other OS preinstalled. Dell Computer said this week that it would ship a new line of desktop and workstation PCs without any operating system preinstalled, despite new licensing terms from Microsoft that ostensibly restrict it from doing so. But the most interesting aspect of this story is that the OS-less PCs are being offered to support large customers which already purchase volume licenses for Windows. So contrary to some reports you might have seen, Dell's plan isn't to satisfy Linux enthusiasts but rather to help its largest customers avoid purchasing multiple copies of Windows for the same machines.