InfoWorld
At this year's event in New York, expect to see a newfound concentration on practical technologies designed to eliminate important business problems rather than futuristic software and hardware. But there is one emerging area expected to draw attention: Web services.
WinSupSite
Since the dawn of the PC era, various companies have undertaken various initiatives to move computing away from keyboard and mouse-based input and towards the more natural interfaces of pen and voice. And while voice computing has seen some limited success, pen computing is set to explode with the introduction of Microsoft's Tablet PC platform, driven by a new Windows XP version logically named Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.
Microsoft has been involved in the pen computing space since 1992, when its prototype WinPad devices were designed to run a special Windows 3.x version called Windows for Pen Computing. WinPad was destined for the dustbin of history, and in many ways it was a sobering reminder that the then-current PC designs were just too primitive to effectively scale into a portable form factor with long battery life.
Microsoft Corp. unveiled new software on Tuesday that is designed to take the computer industry forward by taking a step backward -- it allows users to write with a pen rather than using a keyboard. Microsoft, the world's No. 1 software maker, unveiled its long-awaited Tablet PC software platform at TECHXNY, the big technology trade show in New York, where it became something of the star product. Jeff Raikes, Microsoft's group vice president of Productivity and Business Services, displayed the new software on a line of tablet devices designed by Microsoft partners. The new computers resemble slimmed down, small laptops, and can be used with a stylus that allows users to write and scribble on the tablet's screen and erase with the other end, just like using a pen or pencil. The computers can also be hooked up to a keyboard.
Microsoft sent to testers this week the Beta 2 release of its Wireless Home Networking hardware and software product, which is described much like current wireless gateways. An initial beta program ran until May, and this second beta phase is expected to extend through July. Testers will be asked to return beta kits, but will receive a final version once the product is complete. As Microsoft's first foray into networking hardware, this new product may prove vital to Redmond's efforts to dominate the newly-connected living room. Early this year at CES, Microsoft announced new software designed to bridge the gap between personal computing and home entertainment.
Forget the point release tomfoolery: The next Windows version--code-named Longhorn--is going to rattle some cages and change perceptions about Microsoft's role as industry innovator. Originally envisioned as a stepping stone to the Windows .NET world Microsoft was promising with Blackcomb, an even more distant Windows release, Longhorn suddenly took on a much grander role late last year, and though the company has been trying to keep it secret for fear of stalling Windows XP sales, details about Longhorn have been slipping out for months. And this week, Fortune Magazine revealed what we've long suspected: When Bill Gates stepped down from his CEO post, he did so to focus on software, and that software is Longhorn.
Microsoft Corp. shares posted their biggest percentage gain in almost two weeks on Monday, driven in part by a resurgent rumor that the software giant would give a new forecast for better-than-expected quarterly earnings. A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment on the market talk and analysts noted that Microsoft's rise was broadly in line with a rebound by other software companies. Shares in the world's No. 1 software maker closed up by 3.6 percent at $54.16 on Monday, their best showing since the rumor of a Microsoft pre-announcement for its fourth-quarter first surfaced on June 12. On that day, Microsoft shares gained 5.7 percent to end at $55.54, extending a rally that began in early June.
All major mobile operators in Europe and the United States will launch cell phones and other wireless devices in the coming year working on Microsoft software, sources close to the company said on Tuesday. Microsoft recently launched its first mobile device with British operator mmO2 called XDA, which combines a cell phone and a handheld organizer. Microsoft has also signed partnerships with some 20 other major mobile operators, including Italy's TIM, Germany's T-Mobile and Spain's Telefonica Movile, but until now details of future product launches have been absent.
"All major operators in the U.S. and Europe will bring Microsoft-based devices within the next 12 months," the source said. Microsoft last year launched mobile versions of its dominant Windows desktop computer operating system for smart phones and wirelessly connected handheld computers. This year it added reference designs that operators can take to contract electronics manufacturers to order Microsoft-based devices.
Microsoft Corp. has been quietly working since last fall on a device combining its money-losing Xbox video game console and with its digital video recorder, technology magazine Red Herring reported on Tuesday. The publication also cited a source as saying internal Microsoft estimates showed that the software giant would lose $750 million on the Xbox game console this fiscal year and $1.1 billion in the next fiscal year, ending June 2003. That compares with an estimate given to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in 1999 that the Xbox project could lose $900 million over eight years, author Dean Takahashi said. Meanwhile, Microsoft engineers have been at work for about nine months on a project combining the company's UltimateTV recorder with the Xbox, Red Herring said.
Microsoft, long a proponent of keeping source code secret, plans to publish the source code to a critical part of its Palladium project to enhance security, a representative of the software giant said Monday. The component--some thousands of lines of source code--is the basic foundation of the security proposed in Microsoft's project and, as such, is the linchpin for the software giant's trusted-computing platform.
"We will be publishing the source code because people will need to trust this," said Mario Juarez, group product manager for the Palladium project at Microsoft. "To get people to believe in what is happening in that little piece of code is critical." On Monday, Microsoft took the wraps off its project, code-named Palladium, to design new hardware and software that could better guarantee the security of user data and let companies control data that they "own" while on a consumer's PC.
Microsoft, looking to expand its desktop software monopoly into new areas, on Tuesday will announce plans for a new version of its cash cow, Office, and the launch of the first Tablet PC systems. Jeff Raikes, Microsoft group vice president, will make the announcements during a keynote speech on Tuesday at the TechXNY conference in New York. Raikes will announce that the new Office version, being developed under the name Office 11, is scheduled to ship by mid-2003. That version will include better support for Extensible Markup Language (XML), an industry standard for data description and exchange and a key technology behind Microsoft's .Net Web services plan.
The new XML capability of Office is intended to make it easier to link desktop programs, such as spreadsheets and word processing documents, into corporate data stored in customer relationship management and other business systems.