Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, whose company has been at odds with the U.S. government over antitrust violations, said on Thursday it was working closely with the Justice Department to fight cybercrime.
"As we think about private and public partnerships, we have to say that this (partnership) is key," said Ballmer, as he outlined the dangers of cybercrime to the European Policy Center, a private think-tank. "We've worked very closely, for example, with the Department of Justice in the United States to get additional funding for FBI efforts to target cybercrime," he said. "They simply didn't have enough people who were technically expert," he added. "We've loaned our experts but we also think it's very important that government have its own experts as part of the policy process in these issues."
At the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco this week, Microsoft will demonstrate continued strong momentum for its Windows CE .NET and Windows XP Embedded (XPe) platforms as the company works to shore up a long-term commitment to its embedded Windows products, both internally and with its partners. Microsoft doubled shipments of its embedded products in 2001, and that the company now controls almost 20 percent of the embedded market. Since Microsoft released Windows CE .NET in early January, more than 50,000 people have downloaded the product's software emulator, which lets developers create OS images on a PC without needing to physically access the underlying hardware.
"We're also introducing a CE .NET device emulator, based on the larger Emulation Edition that was previously made available," said Megan Kidd, product manager for the Embedded and Appliance Platforms Group (EAPG). "It's much smaller--only 3MB--and it lets users view and test an OS image in a read-only view. This makes it easier for users to test images and application compatibility. It will be up on the Windows Embedded Web site [Wednesday]."
Microsoft discusses new partnerships with Philips and LG Electronics. Both companies will be building the new Mira device expected to ship at the end of the year.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said on Wednesday that Germany's SAP SAPG.DE had agreed to link its software to Microsoft's new .NET platform. "SAP users will be able to use .Net in close conjunction with SAP applications," Ballmer told a press conference at the CeBIT technology fair in the German city of Hanover. "SAP support for .Net is an important milestone for us," he added. Microsoft says its .NET technology can tie different corporate networks together and make it easy to share data with partners and customers.
To achieve the long-elusive goal of easily finding information hidden in computer files, Microsoft is returning to a decade-old idea. The company is building new file organization software that will begin to form the underpinnings of the next major version of its Windows operating system. The complex data software is meant to address a conundrum as old as the computer industry itself: how to quickly find and work with a piece of information, no matter what its format, from any location.
For those using Windows, this will mean easier, faster and more reliable searches for information. Replacing its antiquated file system with modern database technology should also mean a more reliable Windows that's less likely to break and easier to fix when it does, said analysts and software developers familiar with the company's plans.
Microsoft has added four consumer-electronics giants to the stable of companies committed to making the Mira wireless Web tablet. Royal Philips Electronics, LG Electronics, Tatung and Trigem will join ViewSonic, NEC, Fujitsu Panasonic and a host of contract manufacturers in line to participate in the development of Mira, a lightweight device with an integrated flat-panel screen for remotely reading Internet content.
Unlike many other Web tablets, Mira actually doesn't function as an independent computer. Instead, it effectively relays data and commands back and forth from a PC via an 802.11 wireless network and Windows CE.Net, the latest version of CE. Letting the PC do most of the heavy lifting saves on battery life.
Deutsche Telekom has agreed an alliance with software giant Microsoft to offer mobile services to corporate customers, the companies said on Wednesday. The services will center on mobile access to corporate networks and email through handheld or laptop computers. Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft already have some test sites running at companies in Germany, a Deutsche Telekom spokesman said. Deutsche Telekom will also work with Microsoft to optimize the U.S. giant's Stinger software, used for smart phones which can handle email and other accessories, the spokesman added.
Software maker Compuware Corp. on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit accusing IBM of copying its software code and acting as a monopoly in the mainframe computer market, in a case that recalled antitrust complaints raised against IBM in decades past. International Business Machines Corp. took advantage of its dominance of the business market for mainframe computers to compete unfairly against independent software markers, said the suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The new Xeon MP processors, code-named Foster, come in 1.4-, 1.5- and 1.6-GHz speed grades and are said to be faster than competitive RISC chips from IBM, MIPS Technologies, and Sun Microsystems, according to Intel of Santa Clara, Calif. Intel's Xeon MP chips are geared for 32-bit, "multiprocessor" computer systems, such as 4-, 6-, and 8-way (or higher) servers. Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett Packard, IBM, NEC, Tyan and Unisys are expected to ship platforms, based on the new Xeon MP processors, according to Intel.
Previously, Intel's fastest chip in the "multiprocessor" segment was a 900-MHz, Pentium III processor. But the new Pentium 4-based Xeon MP chips are 20-40% faster than its Pentium III lines, said Lisa Hambrick, director of enterprise product marketing at Intel.
The new offerings are aimed to expand Intel's 64% market share in the "multiprocessor" MPU space, according to Hambrick. In this arena, Intel claims its chips are faster than competitive RISC processors, including IBM Corp.'s PowerPC and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Sparc MPU, she said. "We already outperformed Sun's machines [with the Pentium III processors]," she told SBN.
AOL Time Warner--owner of major record label Warner Music Group and America Online, the world's largest Internet service--confirmed the posting is authentic but declined to comment on its plans. CDs present a daunting security problem for the record labels. Created before the advent of the Internet and the MP3 file format, CDs can be easily copied, or "ripped," onto computers and subsequently traded on file-swapping networks such as Morpheus, Kazaa and LimeWire--a practice that the recording industry blames for declining sales.