Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday will detail the roadmap for its software-as-a-service .Net strategy at a media event at its Redmond, Wash., campus. Sources told eWeek that while the focus of the event will be "directional" in nature rather than product oriented, it will be used to announce Release Candidate 1 of the much delayed Windows .Net Server familyReal-Time Communications (RTC) Server. A source working on Wednesday's .Net event said presentations from executives like chief software architect Bill Gates will be used to outline the vision and roadmap for .Net.
Gates and other executives will cite examples of customer adoption of .Net and what they see as the "tidal wave" of acceptance of the strategy among customers as one of the greatest achievements thus far, given the skepticism and misunderstanding that plagued the .Net strategy for some time after it was announced in 2000.
Microsoft said on Tuesday it will expand sales of its Xbox video game console to a number of countries in Asia this year and also said two more of its games passed the million-sales mark. The company also said two more Xbox titles, its own "Project Gotham Racing" and Tecmo Ltd.'s "Dead or Alive 3," have passed the million-unit sales mark, joining its own "Halo" on that list.
Microsoft noted that its sales have increased 131 percent in the United States since a $100 price cut in the console itself in May, which it claimed was a larger sales increase than its competitor, Nintendo and Sony, both of which also cut their hardware pricing in May. Last week Microsoft said it had sold 3.9 million units of the Xbox worldwide through the end of its fiscal year in June, with 20 million units of software sold as well.
The new connecting software, released Tuesday, will link Microsoft's .Net Framework to Oracle's database software. Previously, Microsoft offered a general data-access technology, called ADO.NET, to link Oracle's and other maker's databases into the .Net Framework. The new connector improves data access speed by two or three times, said John Montgomery, group product manager for Microsoft's developer platform division.
The new software connector, called .Net Framework Data Provider for Oracle, is available as a free download on Microsoft's MSDN developer Web site. The software giant already offers a similar connector for its SQL Server database and is considering providing one for IBM's DB2 database software, Montgomery said.
Borland Software Corp. is beefing up its Linux development tool this week with new support for C++, along with existing support for Borland's Delphi. Borland's Kylix 3, which will be unveiled Tuesday, delivers new functionality to the Scotts Valley, Calif., company's Linux tool, including expanded support for Web services and compliance with Web services standards, Borland officials said. Borland's announcement means the approximately 2 million C++ developers worldwide will be able to develop Linux-based C++ applications in on a proven, commercial development environment, the company said.
A flaw found in newer versions of the PHP Web server scripting language could allow attackers to crash, and in some cases control, computers over the Internet, an open-source developer group announced Monday. The vulnerability affects versions 4.2.0 and 4.2.1 of PHP, according to the PHP Group. The flaw compromises different computer architectures in different ways: Web servers running on Intel IA-32 hardware could crash, while other systems, including Sun Microsystems' Solaris, could allow the attacker to infiltrate the computer.
The flaw occurs because of a problem in the way PHP handles the memory allocated for data recovered from customer forms on Web pages. Such data is known as POST data, after the HTTP command name, and could be formatted by an attacker in a way to compromise the Web server.
Intel Corp. is moving up the introduction of its Pentium 4 processor running at 3.0 gigahertz, an industry source said on Monday, as the world's largest chipmaker looks to tap the benefits of efficiencies in its chip manufacturing. Santa Clara, California-based Intel, the world's No. 1 chip maker, now plans to have the processor to PC makers in time for the year-end holiday shopping season, the source said.
Intel had planned to introduce the 3.0 gigahertz Pentium 4 processor, the brains of a personal computer, by the end of the year. In additional, Intel also is accelerating the introduction of its Pentium 4 running at 2.80 gigahertz, bringing that product rollout to the third quarter, compared with a prior introduction date in the fourth quarter.
The Microsoft name has been a misnomer for years. The world's largest software manufacturer has long sold mice, keyboards, and joysticks, and with the introduction of Xbox last Christmas, the company leapt wholeheartedly into the gaming-console market. Now, Microsoft has decided to enter the home-networking market, announcing plans to begin selling products before this coming Christmas season. Microsoft has given very few specifics, merely saying that it will be introducing a line of products that will give users everything they need to run a wireless network. The products will adhere to the Wi-Fi 802.11b standard, which is widely used by today's wireless LANs.
Orange UK is evaluating a reference design for a Stinker smartphone (aka Microsoft Smartphone 2002) produced by contract manufacturer HTC. The network is already believed to have struck a deal with Sendo for its much-delayed Z100 phone, also based on the Stinker platform. The vanilla Canary reference design contains few surprises. It's based on Texas Instruments OMAP 720, weighs 95g and is a triband GSM/GPRS device. Delays in getting Microsoft's GPRS stack to stay up long enough to salute have contributed to delays in shipping Stinkers so far, as Microsoft itself has acknowledged. HTC claims the device allows 3 hours talktime or 100 hours of standby. There's USB and MMC support. The Canary boasts a 176x220 64,000 colour display.
Groove Networks plans to integrate support for Microsoft's online collaboration technology into its future applications, the company said Monday. Both Groove and Microsoft's SharePoint Team Services focus on online collaboration for people working together on projects. But Groove's product uses desktop software, while Microsoft's service is largely delivered over the Web. Groove, which released the second major version of its software in April, plans in the fall to offer an update supporting SharePoint Team Services. One of the more important features would let people access offline, as well as online, content and automatically synchronize between the two.
RealNetworks will unveil a new open source version of its media streaming software Monday that will support multiple file formats for audio and video, including those that use Microsoft's Windows Media technology. The new software package dubbed "Helix," first reported by The New York Times, is scheduled to be unveiled at a press conference at 10 a.m. PDT. The Helix software includes tools such as Helix Universal Server and Helix Producer.
RealNetworks is already playing up the hype for Helix. On RealNetworks home page, the company touted "a major industry announcement" in a large font and urged site visitors to come back later. However, Helix details were discovered elsewhere on RealNetworks's Web site. RealNetworks wasn't immediately available for comment.