Microsoft said late Thursday that Windows.Net Server, the successor to its Windows 2000 Server operating system, will not ship during the first half of 2002, as Microsoft had earlier indicated. The company now hopes to issue the first release candidate--or near-final testing version--sometime in the summer and a final version later in the second half of the year. Conceivably, many customers might not receive the product until next year.
The product pushback could have another unforeseen benefit: giving Microsoft customers more time to update their server operating systems from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2000.
Microsoft can use the extra time to beef up .Net Server's security features, in response to Chairman Bill Gates' "Trustworthy Computing" initiative. In a mid-January e-mail to Microsoft employees, Gates said the company must make security a top priority, even more than new product features.
"We sort of expected this delay, especially after they started the trustworthy Windows initiative, that they might want to include more stuff in .Net Server to take advantage of that," said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. I think people would have been skeptical if Microsoft had delivered a brand-new product without tying (in) whatever it is they learned from this trustworthy Windows initiative they're hyping."
Microsoft Corp. and the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday they had agreed to modify their antitrust settlement in response to criticism that it contained loopholes that could be exploited by the company. The changes filed with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly were described as "refinements," although Microsoft and the government deleted an entire provision that had been attacked for harming computer makers' efforts to protect patents on their hardware. "The modifications announced today simply make this effective settlement even better," said Charles James, the department's antitrust chief.
Microsoft Corp. is pushing ahead with a campaign to try to get Internet users to switch to the software titan's MSN service from industry leader AOL, offering $50 cash to new subscribers. The latest deal offers new subscribers a $50 refund if they pay for at least three months of MSN dial-up or high-speed Web access, Microsoft said. Microsoft's last MSN push came last October, when it updated the MSN software and revamped its family of Web sites in a bid to lure people away from AOL.
There is no better news than a bad news about crappy shit that some call 'Linux'
Programmers have found a vulnerability in Linux that could allow protective firewall software to grant malicious computer users access to protected networks. The flaw, which affects versions 2.4.14 through 2.4.18-pre9 of the Linux kernel, is in a component of the Netfilter firewall software. The component is involved when two computer users chat directly with each other using the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) system.
Information sent across the Internet is broken up into tiny "packets," each with "from" and "to" addresses, indicating who's sent the information and where it's intended to go. So-called firewall software transmits or screens out these packets based on the address of the sender.
Windows XP Service Pack 1 will deliver support for technologies that could allow PC makers to extend computers beyond more staid desktop and notebook designs. Service Pack 1 will introduce support for Mira "smart" display devices, the Tablet PC and the multimedia-oriented Freestyle graphical interface.
"This update will be similar to putting a new coat of wax on your brand-new car," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan. "It will provide a roll-up of critical updates and enabling technologies for devices like Mira, as well as new types of PCs like the Tablet PC and Freestyle PCs."
Depending on availability of the beta, or testing, versions of the service pack, PC manufacturers could debut new Windows XP products for the holidays. Hewlett-Packard, for example, hopes to deliver a hybrid PC-home entertainment center built around Freestyle, an interface wrapping together Windows XP's digital multimedia features, such as music, videos and television. Among other changes, consumers would be able to navigate the interface using a remote control rather than a keyboard.
Speaking at the 2002 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), currently running in Adelaide Australia, Microsoft's chief technical officer Craig Mundie reaffirmed the importance of the protection of intellectual property and copyright within the software industry.
"The problem with general public license advocates is that they don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize software," Mundie said, attacking the notion of open-source software.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do," said Mundie.
In expected legal filings, the Justice Department and Microsoft on Wednesday night rebuffed some of the stiffest critics of their landmark antitrust settlement. They also had some concessions to offer, as the software titan and the Justice Department, as previously reported, for the second time made minor modifications to their early November settlement deal. The first set of modifications allowed nine of 18 states to join the settlement. Nine other states and the District of Columbia rejected the deal, choosing to continue on with the litigation.
The settlement modifications, some addressing issues the litigating states raised, and a legal brief filed Wednesday asking U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to dismiss the states' claims, appear to be part of a strategy to put an end to the case with the settlement, say legal experts.
Microsoft hopes to win over software developers while they're still young. Microsoft on Thursday released software development tools aimed at college-level computer science students, in an effort to produce a fresh crop of software programmers loyal to its Windows and .Net technology.
Michael Bronsdon, Microsoft's lead product manager for academic developer marketing, said that Visual Studio.Net Academic is the company's first offering that specifically targets students and teachers. The software maker, which competes against Sun Microsystems, IBM and other Java supporters for talent, is offering its tools at a heavy discount to students and schools in hopes of enticing more--and younger--people to use its technology.
This technology showcase is an on-demand, streaming media presentation about real customers who have built real applications using Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework. In this presentation, we talk with three companies who have made key investments in .NET, and we discuss the benefits and challenges these companies have experienced with .NET. We also drill into the technical details and code for some .NET tips and tricks our guests want to share with the developer community.
Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O on Wednesday asked a federal judge to dismiss the stringent antitrust sanctions that some state attorneys general want to impose on it, saying the states are trying to "displace" the Justice Department's decision to settle the case. Trying to bolster its legal argument before the start of remedy proceedings against the company, Microsoft told the judge that the nine states still pursuing the case are overstepping their authority by proposing sanctions that go beyond the Justice Department's settlement deal.
"Under well-settled legal and constitutional principles, the non-settling states are limited to seeking redress for state-specific injuries caused by Microsoft's conduct," Microsoft said in its brief. "They cannot displace the United States in its role of establishing national competition policy."