Microsoft is building a high-end feature into Windows for speeding up data access in multiprocessor servers--a feature that to date has been available only in high-end Unix servers, the company said Tuesday. The Redmond, Wash.-based software company is working on support for a technology called non-uniform memory access, or NUMA, one method for designing large servers crammed with processors, said Sean McGrane, program manager for Microsoft's top-end Datacenter server. The support will be available in two versions of the next edition of Windows for servers, .Net Enterprise Server and .Net Datacenter. McGrane described the technology in a talk here at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, or WinHEC, where Microsoft is apprising hardware engineers of its plans, a key part of ensuring success for the company's software.
An economist testifying for Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O on Tuesday said antitrust sanctions sought by nine states were unjustified, over-regulatory and would help Microsoft's competitors rather than consumers. University of Chicago professor Kevin Murphy said the proposed settlement reached between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department even went too far in places but on balance reflected the interests of consumers.
"In contrast, I see essentially nothing to support in the non-settling states' proposal, and much to oppose," Murphy told U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in written testimony.
Microsoft, seeking to become a vital player in the budding world of digital media, detailed on Tuesday a host of software products intended to ensure its influence over music and video. Digital media such as MP3 music files or streams of video sent over the Internet must be created, edited, encrypted, encoded, indexed and distributed, and Microsoft has software involved in all these tasks, Amir Majidimehr, Microsoft's general manager of digital media, told hardware engineers at the company's WinHEC conference here.
One key part of that plan is Microsoft's Windows Media Video (WMV) format, a new way to encode video that has been under development for years and is reaching completion. "We have frozen the syntax for Windows Media Video," Majidimehr said Tuesday.
Microsoft is readying a test version of software for bringing its .Net Web services plan to mobile devices. The software maker said on Tuesday that it has posted a test version of its .Net Compact Framework, a programming infrastructure for writing mobile device Web services software, along with additional mobile device tools, to its Web site. The .Net Compact Framework works in conjunction with Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net tools to let developers write Windows-based Web services programs to run on cell phones, personal digital assistants and other wireless mobile devices powered by the company's Windows CE and Windows CE.Net operating systems.
Anyone hoping to see the next major release of Windows next year will be sorely disappointed, as various representatives from Microsoft revealed Tuesday morning that Windows "Longhorn" will not ship until the second half of 2004 at the earliest. The Longhorn delay revelation came on the opening day of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle, a forum where Microsoft often discusses future directions and strategies.
Toutonghi also noted that Longhorn would include improvements in mobility, digital media and entertainment, enhanced smart displays (Mira version 2), AV streaming and concurrency, and compatibility with new TV/client adapters that will connect next generation Media Center PCs and the "connected device ecosystem," whatever that is.
Interestingly, Longhorn wasn't the only product delayed this week. Windows .NET Server, previously scheduled to ship in the last half of 2002, will now only be released to manufacturing in that time frame, and won't actually ship to customers until early 2003. And Corona, the next generation of Windows Media technologies, has been delayed until early 2003; Corona was originally due to ship in 2002.
In yesterday's antitrust hearings, an economist testified that the nine nonsettling states and the District of Columbia's proposal to force Microsoft to reveal Internet Explorer (IE) and MSN Explorer source code would help competitors, not consumers. Economist Carl Shapiro described the plan as an "inappropriate taking of Microsoft's intellectual property" that would most clearly help Internet-access market leader AOL Time Warner.
To revive flagging PC profits, the industry must focus on building improvements compelling enough to persuade customers to part with their money, Microsoft exhorted business partners Tuesday. "Innovation is the way to profit," said Jim Allchin, group vice president of Microsoft's platform group. "We haven't spent enough time...to get (customers) to take that next step, buy the next machine, buy the next peripheral, buy the next software."
Allchin gave the opening speech here at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, or WinHEC, where the Redmond, Wash., software colossus propagates its agenda to the hardware designers on whom Microsoft depends. "We're all interdependent," Allchin said.
Microsoft's work to enhance home PCs will begin spilling out to industry partners this week as engineers arrive in Seattle to hear the latest ideas about DVD, audio, video and other consumer computing technology. Through its eHome initiative, Microsoft is hard at work trying to make PCs better for the home, especially now that the machines have finally achieved much of the long-awaited ability to do the same jobs as stereo and TV components. This week, the company will brief engineers on developments in writing DVD discs, using PCs to record TV shows, controlling PCs with a remote control, setting up home networks and revamping computer audio systems.
Antitrust sanctions that fragment the Windows operating system would set the computer industry back almost 20 years, Microsoft Corp.'s first witness told federal court on Tuesday. Jerry Sanders, chief executive of computer chip-maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc., said the personal computer standards that have formed around Microsoft's operating systems have greatly benefited consumers.
"Any relief that would fragment the Microsoft Windows platform, and thereby impair the large compatibility benefits provided by that platform, would set the computer industry back almost 20 years, all at tremendous cost to consumers and to the national economy," Sanders said.
Consumer-electronics maker Philips Electronics announced Monday that Microsoft will be giving the nod to a rewritable DVD format that Philips supports. As previously reported, Microsoft will demonstrate software this week at its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference that will support the DVD+RW format in its next version of Windows. The software giant will make an announcement at the conference regarding its DVD+RW efforts, according to Monday's release from Philips.
Microsoft's endorsement of the DVD+RW format could prove important in determining a winner in a long-running standards battle for one DVD-rewritable format. The move could encourage more PC manufacturers to incorporate DVD+RW drives into their systems, as operating system support makes adding a drive go more smoothly, said Dean Sanderson, a Hewlett-Packard marketing manager.