This holiday season, a new breed of Windows PCs will land on store shelves. The question is whether people will go for them. Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and some other PC manufacturers will be selling upscale Windows XP computers with Freestyle, an additional software module from Microsoft that lets consumers use their PCs to record TV programs like a TiVo set-top box. Freestyle PCs will also come with a remote control.
It hasn't been determined whether Microsoft will eventually integrate Freestyle fully into the OS to create a new species of XP, or how much more Freestyle PCs will cost. Nonetheless, consumers will be well aware that they are getting something different.
Freestyle PCs could further prod consumers into thinking of their computers as the nerve center of home entertainment, a long-sought goal throughout the industry.
An economist testifying on Monday on behalf of nine states suing Microsoft Corp. for antitrust violations refused to endorse some of the states' proposed sanctions. Economist Carl Shapiro said a provision that would force Microsoft to disclose the blueprints to the access software for its MSN online service is likely to help rival America Online, but perhaps not consumers. Under questioning from Microsoft lawyer Michael Lacovara, Shapiro called the provision an "inappropriate taking of Microsoft's intellectual property." ... "I do not link such a provision to the remedial principles," Shapiro said.
Microsoft will push a number of Windows-related initiatives this week at its annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle, including new eHome technologies such as Freestyle and Mira, a new wireless technology that would require Windows clients, and the next version of Windows, code-named XP. Details about Longhorn, the next version of Windows, will be revealed publicly this week for the first time. Longhorn, which will likely ship in late 2003, will include client versions that will replace Windows XP and server editions that will replace products in the Windows .NET Server family. Microsoft has the following goals for the Longhorn release of Windows:
- PC as a trusted, secure platform
- PC fundamentals
- PC has appliance-like simplicity
- PC as a primary form of integrated communications
- PC as the center of home entertainment
- PC is the preferred mobile device
Microsoft Corp. will launch its defense in federal court this week, looking to neutralize four weeks of witnesses who backed sweeping antitrust sanctions to overcome the company's monopoly power. Up to 30 people drawn from the computer industry and Microsoft's own ranks, including Chairman Bill Gates, are expected to testify against the sanctions sought by nine states opposed to a proposed settlement of the landmark case.
Microsoft will try to convince U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that the states' demands are legally flawed and threaten the very fabric of the computer industry.
Microsoft is expected to present its take next week on "soft Wi-Fi," a new idea in wireless networking for homes and offices. The software giant will show off some details of how to lighten the number of tasks routinely given to a Wi-Fi radio, the most expensive of several pieces of Wi-Fi equipment. The tasks are reassigned to either the modem that lets laptops access a Wi-Fi network, or to the laptop itself. Soft Wi-Fi is expected to lower the radio's price tag.
Philips Electronics, ViewSonic and two Asian contract-manufacturers will build their Mira devices around Intel's XScale processor, Intel said Friday, an early salvo in what will likely be a year filled with gadget news. Mira is a portable wireless flat-panel display that contains software and a processor and can be used to surf the Web (in conjunction with a PC) or control TVs, game consoles and other devices. Unfurled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mira is similar to the Tablet PC in shape and size, which is also coming out later this year. The Tablet PC, though, is a fully functional PC squeezed into a portable flat-panel screen.
The showdown between nine litigating states and Microsoft moves into its second--and potentially most tumultuous--phase Monday, as the plaintiff states close their case and the software giant presents its first witnesses.
How tumultuous things get may depend on which Microsoft witnesses will take the stand, say legal experts. Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer are both on the list, but the software giant is still deciding which witnesses it will ultimately call, said sources familiar with Microsoft's legal strategy. Neither executive testified in court during the trial's main phase, which concluded in September 1999.
Throughout its upcoming defense, as it did during the cross-examination of some witnesses for the states, Microsoft plans to show that the states' remedy is nothing more than a hodgepodge of sanctions endorsed by competitors, sources said. During the states' phase of the proceeding, Microsoft introduced evidence indicating that AOL Time Warner, Novell and Sun Microsystems helped craft the states' remedy.
"It really was a crazy quilt of the best things competitors could think of that they could do to tie Microsoft's hands, to hobble us so we can't compete," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler. "Coming up with that fantasy list and sticking it all together into what the states call a remedy, the states are risking untold harm to the PC ecosystem and the economy."
Windows XP SP1 Technical Beta Kicks Off
Microsoft sent out invitations for the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta this week. Potential testers can choose a standalone Windows XP Home Edition upgrade, a standalone Windows XP Professional Edition upgrade, or an integrated XP SP1 beta that you can use for clean installs of the full OS. XP SP1 will ship sometime this fall.
Microsoft Preps New Management Console
At TechEd this week, I overheard the news that Microsoft will soon replace its Microsoft Management Console (MMC) with a new HTML-based console dubbed the Microsoft Management Portal (MMP). MMP's big advantage over MMC is that Microsoft is finally standardizing the UI bits so that third-party management-tool UIs will be identical, helping users move more easily from tool to tool. And because MMP is based on Web technology, you can view MMP consoles over the Internet. I'm still waiting to hear when this tool will debut; inclusion in Windows .NET Server is a possibility.
TechEd: Microsoft Releases MapPoint .NET 2.0 Demo
Microsoft has shipped a beta version of MapPoint .NET 2.0, a Web-services-compatible version of its location and mapping software that third-party software developers can access programmatically. Expected to initiate a new generation of "if you lived here, you'd be home" jokes, MapPoint .NET 2.0 is a cool example of a real-world, up-and-running .NET service. And if you're a programmer, you can access this service for free during the beta; a licensing fee will, of course, apply in the future.
Microsoft Corp. has reworked its Web-based services strategy, shifting tactics from an initial plan to act as the main gatekeeper for customer data, to providing basic software to let companies build their own versions of such services, the company said on Thursday. In March 2001, Microsoft unveiled a strategy to provide consumer and corporate Web services that would store personal data like passwords, address books and credit card numbers in a huge central database.
According to a report in the New York Times, Microsoft has cancelled its ambitious .NET My Services project--originally code-named Hailstorm--because of disinterest from partners and concerns that Microsoft would be maintaining their customer data. Microsoft .NET My Services was originally envisioned as a set of core services that would provide online email, contacts list, scheduling and calendar information, an electronic wallet, and other features. This information would then be shared with .NET-enabled applications and Web services, based on permissions established by the user.