WinInsider

Sendo has begun offering developers an early version of its Windows-Powered Smartphone 2002 handset, the Z100, as it prepares to launch the device this summer. Z100 is likely to be one of the first phones to use the Smartphone 2002 software. On Friday Sendo began taking orders for the Z100, although the devices will be available in limited quantities, and only to those whom Sendo judges to be legitimately creating developer applications. US developers will also have to ensure that the phone does not cause interference with nearby receiving televisions and radios, as the Z100 hasn't yet received Federal Communications Commission approval. Sendo expected to begin shipping the device to developers on Wednesday, following the UK's double bank holiday.

Global software piracy is on the increase costing the industry almost $11 billion. The worst offender is Vietnam where an estimated 97 per cent of all software is unlicensed. It was followed by other offenders including China where 94 per cent of software is illegal, Indonesia (89 per cent), Ukraine (89 per cent) and Russia (88 per cent). According to the Business Software Alliance's (BSA) latest survey global software piracy grew from 37 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2001. Said Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of BSA: "For the second year in a row, we have seen a rise in software piracy around the globe. This is an alarming trend despite our extensive efforts to enact laws and develop educational programmes that promote a safe and legal online. "This study reinforces the need to continue working aggressively to educate consumers and law enforcement agencies around the world that piracy is theft - plain and simple - theft that is robbing the global economy of hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wages and tax revenues," he said.

Microsoft will more quickly retire old code in its Windows operating system and other software as a result of the company's four-month-old "trustworthy computing" initiative, the company's lead bug basher said in an interview. "A lot of the (coming) design changes are to remove this feature or turn that one off by default," said Steve Lipner, director of security assurance for Microsoft and the man on the ground for the company's trustworthy computing initiative. He added that when Microsoft is faced with a choice between removing old, possibly insecure code and keeping a feature to please a small fraction of customers, increasingly security is winning out. "Do we think that things will be retired more quickly? Sure," Lipner said.

Rather than expect dramatic evolutions, programmers should utilize the Web services "plumbing" already in place, such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and XML Schema, and focus on applications, SOAP co-founder and current Microsoft executive Don Box said during a keynote speech here on Thursday.

Speaking at the XML Web Services One conference, Box, an architect at Microsoft, urged developers to focus on innovations at the application level. "Unless you're a big platform vendor, the place where you should be thinking about innovating is applications. The plumbing is boring" and is nearly completed, Box said. He cited the recently announced Google Web APIs service, for conducting searches over Google from within applications, as an example of an exciting application.

Gates no longer runs Microsoft. He gave up the chief executive role 2 1/2 years ago to his best friend and longtime management sidekick, Steven A. Ballmer. The burly, eats-nails-for-breakfast Detroit native thrives on the discipline of organizational management the way Gates thrills to the intricacies of technology. In 2000, Gates gave his pal free rein to restructure the way Microsoft manages finance, sales, product development, marketing, even strategic planning. And Ballmer took him up on it, big time.

Today, after a transition that had its rocky moments, it's clear that a new era has dawned at Microsoft: The powerhouse that Gates built is being reconstructed by Ballmer. And Gates doesn't seem to mind. Ask Gates about Ballmer's thumbprint on the company, and he laughs at the understatement. "Thumbprint? He's got big thumbs," Gates says. "Steve's the No. 1 guy, and I'm the No. 2 guy....I have a strong voice, a strong recommendation, but Steve has to decide."

Microsoft said on Friday it was talking with the European Commission over allegations it rigged its operating system software to work better on its server software than rival products. "There are discussions," Jean-Philippe Courtois, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, told reporters at a European business forum. "We are anxious to get this legal case behind us." John Frank, Microsoft associate general counsel for Europe, said the U.S. software giant would like to discuss a settlement once the issue became clearer for European Union officials.

Microsoft announced this week a new technology, TrustBridge, that will let businesses share user identity information between applications and organizations. Microsoft, IBM, and Verisign developed the new technology. A Microsoft spokesperson said, "TrustBridge technology will allow different organizations using the Windows operating system to exchange user identities and interoperate in heterogeneous environments using industry-standard XML Web services protocols including Kerberos, WS-Security, and forthcoming protocols in the WS-Security family. Federated identity management makes it easier for businesses to build deeper and more dynamic relationships with customers, partners, and suppliers, and helps mobile employees increase their productivity. ... WS-Security is a security specification that defines a standard set of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) extensions or message headers for exchanging secure, signed messages in a Web services environment."

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called on employees to take more responsibility for leading the high-tech industry and reshaping the software maker's image. In a memo sent on Thursday, Ballmer called on Microsoft's 50,000 employees worldwide to improve relations with customers through a renewed focus on value and integrity. "Customers expect us to hit a very high bar in terms of product and support quality, delivering on our commitments, and providing excellent customer-focused decision making," he wrote.

Ballmer reiterated a familar theme in the 2,700-word memo, as he emphasized the importance of Windows leading the way for other companies to follow. He cited Longhorn, the next major version of Windows due sometime in 2004, as an important platform for leadership and business. "We have decided to line up significant innovation in most businesses around big platform innovations--Longhorn will prove the value clearly," Ballmer wrote.

Fate of Microsoft's Java Tools in Hands of Programmers
At a Visual Basic .NET users group meeting in Redmond this week, representatives from Microsoft said that the fate of the company's Java programming tools was in developer's hands. Currently, Visual J# is in limbo, with a new Java Language Conversion Assistant (JLCA) tool designed to port J# (Java) code over to C#, Microsoft's new .NET-oriented langauge. But if the company finds that enough Java programmers want to work with that language natively and not move to C#, it will rethink Visual J#. That's the story, anyway.

Readers Find Fault with Nader
A number of readers were upset with Ralph Nader's suggestions that the US government use its buying power to influence the design of security features in Microsoft's products. Certainly Nader is a catalyst for ... disagreement. But the real issue here shouldn't be government blackmailing of Microsoft, governmnet sponsorship of Microsoft's foes, or any other things that seem to be part of Nader's plan. Instead, various government agencies should choose those solutions that make the most sense for them, regardless of whether the solutions come from Microsoft, Apple, or an open source company. And if that means Microsoft gets fewer sales, fine. I don't think it's unreasonable for any institution, be it corporate, government, or education, to approach Microsoft and ask the company to prove to them that they got security right before purchasing some major new upgrade. After all, the company has failed in this regard enough in the past to warrant such an investigation.

E3 was a pretty successful event for all three console manufacturers, who all debuted significant software, hardware and online developments. Microsoft opened this year's show with their huge Xbox Live announcement and carried that momentum throughout the week. Here are the post-E3 nominations picked up by Microsoft and third-party Xbox software publishers: Eight different Xbox titles received Best of E3 2002 nominations, one more than both GameCube and Playstation 2 (who had seven each). Blinx: The Time Sweeper (Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox) received two nominations, including Best Console Game. It was joined by "Psychonauts" (Double Fine Productions/Microsoft for Xbox) in the nominations for Best Original Game.