Microsoft is releasing details of its plans to comply with the antitrust settlement reached with federal prosecutors last year. As part of that settlement, Microsoft agreed to open up the Windows desktop to middleware competition. With the release of Service Pack 1, due later this year, it will do just that. This solution won't be enough for the nine states still pursuing the antitrust case. They want Microsoft to completely remove the underlying middleware code. Whether or not that can be done without crippling Windows is one of the main issues still being argued in that Baltimore courtroom.
Of course, all that middleware code could be removed. It's absolutely possible to have an operating system with no built-in multimedia support or HTML rendering, mail, or instant messaging capabilities. The question is: Would you want to use it?
Sure, it's possible--even probable--that companies other than Microsoft would offer new modules to supply these functions. Software developers could then, presumably, use the services provided by these modules to bolster their apps. But all those middleware apps would have their own programming interfaces through which other apps and the operating system itself would access them. This means that applications developers would have to decide which of these programming interfaces to support--with no discernible advantage to users. In other words, developers would have to work harder just to stay where they are today.
Consider: Since the merger was announced on Jan. 10, 2000, the company's value has decreased by a mind-blowing $160 billion. Last month, AOL Time Warner took a $54 billion quarterly write-down -- the biggest quarterly loss in U.S. history. (To put that in perspective, the entire U.S. newspaper industry is worth $55 billion.) Last week, as new CEO Richard Parsons assumed the company's reins, he signaled that a back-to-basics approach was in order, one that would focus on improving the fundamentals of the company's individual business units.
In recent weeks the news media have lavished saturation coverage upon the company's woes. But almost all of the attention has focused on the its incredible shrinking stock price; the prospect of layoffs; or the new parlor game among analysts and pundits of predicting what the empire's breakup might fetch.
An online survey conducted recently by a Microsoft partner indicates that the software giant is considering producing a kit that would let people use an Xbox video game console and a TV to access entertainment files stored on their PC. The survey, sent to registered Xbox owners, was conducted by Greenfield Online, a research firm that has worked extensively with Microsoft's MSN online service. It appears to focus on Freestyle, an extension to Microsoft's Windows XP operating system aimed at turning PCs into digital media jukeboxes, although the survey refers to the product as "NewPC."
"Microsoft is clearly looking at ways to extend your (Windows) XP content to the living room," Gartner research analyst P.J. McNealy said. "They've had a difficult time going through the set-top box, so this would give them another avenue."
At the Pocket PC Summit, which opened yesterday (Tuesday) in Philadelphia, leading vendors are showing off their wireless solutions for Microsoft's Pocket PC as well as the first database for a smartphone device. The Windows-powered Smartphone 2002, previously known as Stinger, competes with Symbian's and Palm's phone software platforms.
At the show this week, Sybase subsidiary iAnywhere Solutions, a provider of mobile and wireless solutions, will introduce a beta program for its UltraLite Component Suite, which opens its SQL Anywhere Studio to developers using Visual Basic, Appforge, embedded VB, ActiveX, and JNI (Java Native Interface). The UltraLite Component Suite includes AppForge Ingot, which is used with the AppForge add-in to Visual Basic to create cross-platform applications for Palm, Pocket PC, and Symbian-based devices; ActiveX control, for use with embedded Visual Basic or Internet Explorer; and Java class libraries.
Some changes include Windows Installer (msi) was updated from 1.3 (SP2 level) to 2.0 rendering some installers completely useless (Trend MicroT PC-cillin 2000 are affected). Others are a direct response to Security concerns and implementation of fixes ASAP with the addition of Automatic Updates to the Control Panel of Windows 2000. This feature was limited to Windows Millennium & Windows XP respectively but has now found its way into Windows 2000 through SP3 making this as significant as SP3 was to Windows NT 4.0 in its day.
Another is a completely new feature also expected to debut in Windows XP SP1 and is also a response to the recent developments in the Antitrust trial against Microsoft. It is called Configure Programs and is sub level to Add/Remove Programs. It lets you decide when you have more than one browser, email, media player, instant messenger, java vm installed which will be the main program used throughout the system. It also lets you "hide" core components like Internet Explorer which will be a useful tool for OEM's no doubt.
Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor manufacture, said on Wednesday that its next-generation Itanium 2 processor aimed at high-end servers and super computers performs as much as 2 times better than computers using first-generation Itanium chips. The chipmaker, based in Santa Clara, California, also said that Itanium, Intel's second 64-bit chip, is on track to be introduced in the middle of this year. A 64-bit chip crunches data in 64-bit chunks, compared with 32-bit chunks found in Intel's current Pentium and Xeon processors. Because the chip can crunch more data in the same amount of time, it boosts the performance of the processor, which is aimed at supercomputers and high-end servers used by financial services, insurance companies and in other industries that maintain and manipulate vast amounts of data.
Welcome to the home of the future -- at least the Microsoft version.
It has a front door that unlocks using biometrics instead of keys and a kitchen that reads recipes aloud, but no whiz-bang gadgetry in the bathroom. In fact there's no bathroom at all. At least not yet. Featuring technologies that are five to eight years away from being offered to the public, the prototype "Microsoft Home" at the company's Redmond, Washington, campus allows researchers to test concepts surrounding how people will use technology in their everyday lives in the future.
Visitors use a touch screen to ring the door "bell" and leave text or voice messages, while a smart card can provide access to a chute for leaving packages and mail in a secured area. After a resident enters, the computer system can set the lights, blinds, temperature, music and TV to the individual's preferences automatically or upon voice commands. The home computer system featured a female voice that sounded less personable than the cunning HAL spaceship computer from the film "2001: A Space Odyssey".
Eager to embed its .Net environment in enterprise application deployments, Microsoft is working to give companies the ability to transform and manage internal Windows-based apps as .Net-enabled Web services. In a move to leverage third-party Web services development efforts, Microsoft will this week announce a three-year alliance with emerging application developer Softricity. Microsoft's aim is to leverage Softricity's SoftGrid platform and ServerGuard component to encapsulate and to priority-redirect small portions of application code without rewriting that code. The result is designed to improve the speed and management of applications running in the .Net environment, said Dewey Forester, business development manager for the platform strategy group at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash.
Intel, the world's leading microprocessor maker, routinely slashes prices in order to drive demand for new products and fend off competition from Advanced Micro Designs (AMD), but the company's latest price cuts are unusually large, with certain chips falling in price over 50 percent. This weekend, Intel announced its new microprocessor price list, with steep price cuts all around, but most so for the company's new mobile Pentium Processor - M (Pentium 4M) chips, which haven't sold as well as expected.
On the desktop front, the Pentium 4 2.4 GHz was reduced in price 29 percent, from $562 to $400; the 2.26 and 2.2 GHz parts fell 43 percent, from $423 to $241; other Pentium 4 desktop chips were reduced up to 32 percent. Intel's mobile processors saw even bigger reductions. The Pentium 4M 1.7 GHz fell 53 percent, from $508 to $231, while the 1.8 GHz version fell 48 percent, from $637 to $348. The 1.6 GHz Pentium 4M was reduced 51 percent, from $401 to 198.
In a meeting with Windows XP Lead Product Manager Greg Sullivan the week of May 20, 2002, I got the low-down on Windows XP Service Pack (SP1), an important upgrade to Microsoft's fastest selling operating system of all time. Here's what I found out.
Enhanced Security, Reliability and Compatibility
XP1 SP1 will include a roll-up of all of the security patches that have been released for Windows XP since that product RTM'd last year, Sullivan said. This includes critical updates that were created during the extensive Trustworthy Computing code review that occurred in February/March 2002. "The Windows Division underwent a rigorous code review," he told me, "We've changed our entire software development process because of the Trustworthy Computing initiative." XP SP1 will also include Windows Messenger 4.7, a new version that includes updated security features and the Add/Remove capabilities required by the consent decree compliance. Windows Messenger 4.7 will become available as a free download as well, shortly before SP1 ships this fall.