Labels: google, microsoft, yahoo

Labels: google, internet, microsoft, yahoo

Labels: advertising, google, microsoft, yahoo

Labels: google, microsoft, yahoo

Labels: google, microsoft, short-news, yahoo

Live Documents is new web product developed by InstaColl, chaired by Sabeer Bhatia and an alternative to Microsoft's Office Suite that allows users to view, share and edit documents from any computer.

Sabeer Bhatia, best known for co-founding Hotmail together with Jack Smith, admitted that "a few million bucks" of Microsoft’s payment from the sale of Hotmail went into Live Documents.

Mr. Bhatia said that Live Documents would be a significant challenge to Microsoft's Office, because "we are just a few years away from the end of the shrink-wrapped software business. By 2010, people will not be buying software. This is a significant challenge to a proportion of Microsoft's revenues."

This is an important aspect considering Microsoft Office Suite accounted for a third of company's total revenues in 2007 and it is forecast to top $US20 billion in 2008.

Live Documents would give away 100MB of free data storage space per user. Companies will pay for the system, either hosted remotely or on an internal server, at a much lower price than Microsoft's licensed technology. Their first client was Aricent, an Indian software services group with 6700 employees.

At first look Live Documents is very similar to Google Apps, launched in February and used by big companies including Proctor & Gamble, General Electric and Capgemini.

But, Mr.Bhatia said that his product is superior to Google Apps in its range and quality, most crucially because Live Documents mimics Office 2007. Also the potential is great considering 500 million Office customers did not upgraded from Office 2003 and also Office 2003 is not available for Apple computers.

Download Live Documents Desktop Client

Labels: google, live, microsoft, office, web

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) is currently in development. SP3 for Windows XP Home Edition and Professional is currently planned for the first semester 2008. According to a file released with the official beta there are a total of 1,073 fixes in SP3.

Microsoft has begun a beta test of Service Pack 3 by releasing a RC to both TechNet and MSDN Subscribers and later (18 December 2007) this version was made publicly available via Microsoft Download Center.

Download Windows XP SP3 RC

Preliminary information on Windows XP SP3

Labels: microsoft, windows, xp

After a big collection of delays, since 2005, Windows XP SP3 will have a happy ending. Microsoft confirmed officially that Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be made available for download in the next couple of weeks, but looking at the history it's safe to assume that the release date to be in the first half of 2008.

They sent out emails to Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 beta testers, announcing the arrival of the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Beta Preview.

WinXP SP3 will include:

• changes to Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Windows Live Messenger;
• additional support for doing true "per-user" application installation;
• improvements on managing wireless networks (great for notebooks);
• lots of security and reliability improvements (including the ones that are available now for WinXP SP2)

As you may know Internet Explorer 7 is no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation

Microsoft reiterated that this will be the final update for the aging operating system, which debuted in 2001.

Labels: microsoft, windows

Microsoft announced the introduction of a smaller, sleeker version of the Zune player and the planned Zune Social Web site - reflect an attempt to build scale for a brand that so far has achieved only niche status. Microsoft said it had sold about 1.2 million units of the original device in the last year.

Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, said in an interview: “For something we pulled together in six months, we are very pleased with the satisfaction we got. The satisfaction for the device was superhigh. The satisfaction on the software actually is where we’d expect to see a huge uptick this year. It was just so-so on the software side.”

“I’m sure a year from now we’ll do even better,” Mr. Gates said. “But I’m blown away by what they’ve been able to do in a year.”

Called the Zune 80GB the first unit type is an 80GB model that looks almost the same as the original Zune, but is 27% smaller. This new generation of Zune can be recognized by the touchpad, which replaces a circle with a square with rounded edges. The Zune 80GB offers a 3.2" display.

The other new Zune is a flash-based portable, available in 4GB and 8GB and called, of course, the Zune 4gb and Zune 8GB. Both Zune flash units are available in red, olive, pink and black as seen below.

The new Zune players will ship in November 2007 and the price for a Zune 80GB will be $249, Zune 8GB sells for $199 and the Zune 4GB sells for $149.

Labels: microsoft, music

Can Microsoft's 'Harmonica' create P2P harmony
Ever since Microsoft decided in June 2006 to ax the standalone version of its WinFS uber file system, the company has been noticeably silent about its data ... read more

Microsoft Offers Free Trial Of Office 2007 Enterprise
Microsoft has posted a free trial of Office 2007 Enterprise, the corporate edition of the new productivity suite, for a try-out by developers and IT ... read more

Microsoft To Reissue Scratched Mac Office Update
Microsoft's Mac development group will release a nonsecurity update for Office X and Office 2004 by the end of the week, and urged users who had installed an ... read more

Former Microsoft Exec Gives World's Children 'Room to Read'
In 1998, John Wood had a staff of 70 and was in charge of marketing throughout Asia for the giant US software company, Microsoft ... read more

Open-Source Group Razzes Microsoft With 'BadVista.org'
An open-source group mocked Microsoft on a newly launched Web site dubbed BadVista.org and claimed the Windows operating system is a "power grab" to steal ... read more

Third attack hits Microsoft Word
Attackers have started exploiting a new vulnerability in Microsoft Word, security vendor eEye disclosed on its Zero-day Tracker website ... read more

CA, Intel and Microsoft join forces
Computer Associates Malaysia Sdn Bhd (CA), Intel Corp and Microsoft Malaysia have jointly developed a data management solution which the IT giants claim will ... read more

Schools to Get Microsoft Vouchers From Settlement
Tennessee school systems will get vouchers for Microsoft software, about $16.40 ... The class-action lawsuit contended that Microsoft Corp. ... read more

Microsoft brings IE7's Phishing Filter up to speed
Last week, Microsoft released a patch for Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) that added some oomph to the browser's Phishing Filter ... read more

800 MHz enough to run Vista, says Microsoft
Redmond (WA) - Microsoft has an answer for all those who have been
wondering whether to buy a new computer or upgrade the hardware for Windows
Vista ... read more

Labels: around-the-world, microsoft

Stop bashing the Novell / Microsoft agreement
Fans of the GPL are still acting like Microsoft ran over the family pet in its recent agreement with Novell. This example from Groklaw ...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/?p=1626

Microsoft's muscle hasn't helped shares
... over the past month, as news of the release date of the Vista operating system and Office 2007 productivity package finally emerged, shares of Microsoft Corp. ...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061211.REDGE11/TPStory/Business

Bricked Xbox 360 leads to $5M lawsuit against Microsoft
Back in early November I covered a story about a Microsoft Xbox Live update which bricked at least one console. At the time a few ...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=183

Microsoft Sued for Bricking Xbox 360s
When Microsoft released the Fall Dashboard Update for the Xbox 360, users expected 1080p, HD DVD, WMA streaming and more. What no ...
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5291

Alcatel spurns Microsoft, goes its own way with Internet TV
The hope of Microsoft Corp. ... In November, Alcatel filed lawsuits against Microsoft for several alleged patent infringements, including three related to IPTV.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=protocols_standards&articleId=9005859&taxonomyId=141

Microsoft: No plans to release public Vista app-compat checklist
If you were wondering when Microsoft plans to publish an official list of applications that don't work well with Windows Vista, the answer is never.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=143

Microsoft makes Windows more secure
Why not? Partly because of security progress that Microsoft already had made in its last operating system, Windows XP.
http://business.bostonherald.com/technologyNews/view.bg?articleid=171470

Microsoft Files for DVR Advertisement Patent
Microsoft last week filed a patent for DVRs that addresses an issue that advertisers have been scratching their heads over for quite some time: time-sensitive ...
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5304

Berkowitz Tells NYT about Microsoft's Challenges
Steve Berkowitz, former CEO of Ask.com and now senior VP of Microsoft's Online Services Group, overseeing Windows Live and MSN, describes the challenges with ...
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/061211-115144

IT Confidential: Microsoft Is Mired In Vista, Report Says
The Vista Study Group Report is a brutally honest assessment of Microsoft's marketing campaign for Windows Vista. It was solicited ...
http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196602832&articleID=196602832&sa_type=&section=industries&subSection=News+By+Vertical+Industry

Microsoft's Vista to generate $70 billion in tech revenue
The launch of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows Vista will generate 100,000 new jobs and $70 billion in revenue to US companies in the ...
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsofts-vista-generate-70-billion/story.aspx?guid=%7BD71870EF-AA25-4342-9144-0BBBAA9175D2%7D

Labels: around-the-world, microsoft

About 1 percent of websites indexed by Google and Microsoft are sexually explicit. The strictest web filter around, AOL's Mature Teen, can only block 91 percent of them.

Filters with less restrictive settings block 40 percent of sexually explicit sites, according to the study of random web sites by Philip B. Stark, a statistics professor at University of California, Berkeley. He estimated that 1.7 percent of search results at Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, MSN and Yahoo Inc. are sexually explicit and 1.1 percent of web sites cataloged at Google and MSN fall in that category.

Labels: aol, google, microsoft, short-news

Techworld has chased down a series of half-truths, unsubstantiated accusations and mysterious goings-on surrounding a sponsored survey. In fact, this time it was three sponsored surveys, all on the exact same topic. Phishing sites are present in huge numbers these days, and anti-phishing solutions are selling points for the two new browsers - Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. It makes good sense then to run these tests covering every product in the market ... read more

Labels: firefox, microsoft, mozilla, short-news

This is good news for all webmasters and web developers out there! Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are joining in supporting the Sitemap protocol.

As part of this development, the protocol was moved to a new namespace, www.sitemaps.org. If you've already submitted a Sitemap to Google or Yahoo! using the previous namespace and version number, they will continue to accept it.

If you haven't submitted a Sitemap before, check out the documentation on www.sitemaps.org for information on creating one. You can submit your Sitemap file to Google using Google webmaster tools. See the documentation that Yahoo! and Microsoft provide for information about submitting to them.

Labels: google, microsoft, tutorial, web, yahoo

Microsoft hooks and reels in phishers
... Both Microsoft and rival browser developer Mozilla have included anti-phishing functions in their latest browsers which warn users when they try to visit ...
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7389/53/

Firefox has a password flaw
... Newsfactor also reports that "neither Mozilla nor Microsoft has released a patch for the problem, but users can avoid (the) attacks simply by disabling their ... http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/11/firefox_has_a_p.html

Labels: around-the-world, microsoft

Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP was released. You can download the final version from http://www.microsoft.com/ie.

Microsoft worked hard to deliver a safer browser that makes everyday tasks easier. The new Phishing Filter and the work in IE7 around networking and ActiveX opt-in will help keep users more secure. IE7 also delivers a much easier browsing experience with features like tabbed browsing, shrink-to-fit printing, easily customizable search box, and a new design that leaves more screen real estate for the web site you’re viewing.

IE7 also made CSS improvements and RSS experience improvements.

But there are many problems still. For users there may not be many problems, but for web developers there are still compatibility bugs. I do not understand why the websites can't look the same in different browsers. In Firefox and Opera ... the compatibility issues are few, but one you switch to IE7, not to say IE6, the problems begins. There are to many to explain them here.

It's sad because I really like the IE7 features and layout and stability, but these web developers related problems are keeping me away from it.

Labels: ie7, microsoft

News of Office Online also marked the occasion. Microsoft plans to relaunch Office Online with productivity tools that will be paired with the business-oriented Office Live service.
That disclosure included this synopsis of Office Online:

Office Online provides the business tools customers need to enhance their productivity. It offers the standard Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs found in the software package, with the additional benefit of downloadable products and services.

The current Office Online only offers add-ons for users of the shrinkwrapped productivity suite, so it appears that Microsoft will finally meet Google's challenge in the online application area when the new version launches.
Microsoft claims it can touch a combined reach of 112 million unique users per month with its cross-platform strategy. Bradford talked more about Microsoft's bold challenge to the ad industry in a statement about their advertising business:

"As today's consumers spend more and more time online across various digital devices like mobile phones and video games, advertisers are finding they can no longer reach their entire target audience by advertising on a single medium," she said.
"Microsoft is uniquely positioned because of our extensive global audience, high level of consumer engagement, and engaging ad opportunities across Microsoft's platform to connect advertisers with a million different audiences of one. We're addressing the reality of media fragmentation and enabling advertisers to get back to what they do best: creating engaging and creative ads."

The age of the family sitting around the television to watch one of three channels and see all the ads in commercials has long faded into history. Instead, Microsoft wants to be a single point of contact for advertisers to reach consumers through a multitude of media channels.
Only a couple of those channels will be available immediately. MSN and Windows Live, Microsoft's portals for the online community, are the first options for advertisers. Microsoft expects to have options to reach Xbox and the Office Online community soon, followed by Windows Mobile and Microsoft IPTV.
The takeaway from Microsoft's announcement is their true cross-platform solution has not arrived yet. While Microsoft's vision offers an encouraging look at the future for online advertising, it is not complete yet.
The first step to slaying the Google dragon won't be a spear strike to a vulnerable point, but more of a feint and defend with its Advertising Week announcement. Make no mistake, though, the company is moving to sharpen their attack in the future.

 

 

The software giant Microsoft is set to announce the global launch of a coordinated advertising business, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, in a push to bring more users to their side and combat Google in the advertising space.

The Digital Advertising Solutions is designed to connect advertisers with audiences across a range of platforms including PCs, Xbox video game console, Mobile phones and PDAs.

Joanne Bradford, the corporate vice-president of global sales and marketing at Microsoft, this new service is set to reach audiences across multiple media, unlike the other advertisers.

"As today's consumers spend more and more time online across various digital devices like mobile phones and video games, advertisers are finding they can no longer reach their entire target audience by advertising on a single medium" she said.

 

Microsoft claims that its new advertising package offers advertisers the ability to reach more than 465 million consumers each month across the MSN network and millions more through Windows Live, Xbox Live and Office Online.

"Microsoft's advertising business is growing quickly and becoming more sophisticated. It is our responsibility to clearly articulate to advertisers how they can apply our broad set of assets and relationships to reach consumers across the many digital touch points of their day." Bradford, typically to a VP, said.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com

Labels: google, microsoft

Microsoft will deliver the 7th version of its Internet Explorer browser to consumers via its Automatic Updates service, but the company will give enterprises a tool to make corporate desktops bypass the update.

Microsoft plans to release the final version of IE 7 in the fourth quarter of 2006, with the browser going out via AU soon after

, said Gary Schare, director of IE product management.

Some of the new features available in IE 7 include built-in support for RSS feeds, tabbed browsing and improved security, including an antiphishing filter.

Source: http://www.cio.com
Link: Internet Explorer 7 Homepage

Labels: ie7, microsoft

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday said it would purchase health-care software technology called Azyxxi, which was developed by a group of three physicians to gather patient information from numerous sources and make it instantly available to caregivers.

Azyxxi first rolled out in the emergency department at MedStar Health's Washington Hospital Center in 1996. It gives physicians instant access to patient data that includes things like x-rays and other diagnostic scans, along with routine clinical information.

Microsoft will hire Feied and Dr. Fidrik Iskandar, who also helped create the software, along with about 40 workers from its development team. Dr. Smith will serve as chief clinical liaison to Microsoft and remain chairman of Washington Hospital Center's emergency medicine department.

Additionally, Microsoft said it formed an alliance with Columbia, Md.-based MedStar, the largest health-care provider in the Baltimore and Washington region, to deliver collaborative applications as the technology becomes commercially available.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com
Link: Microsoft on Washington Hospital Center

Labels: microsoft

Mr Gates's 30-year reign saw him preside over a dramatic expansion at the group which, for so long the market leader, became known as the "Evil Empire".

In a memo sent to Microsoft employees, Mr Gates and chief executive Steve Ballmer struck a similar tone, outlining what they see as the company's ethos.

"First, we take an incredibly broad view when it comes to innovation ...We nurture small teams, and we do large scale projects ... Innovation is the top priority for the company," they said.
"Second … we hire the most brilliant and passionate technical people ... And third, we're patient, we're relentless, we keep working and investing and listening to our customers and improving our products until we rise to the top."

But Microsoft watchers will take issue with all of those statements. It has been some time since the company launched a truly innovative product, many would argue. Google looks to be winning the battle to recruit the top talent. And if you use Microsoft products - and if you're reading this on a PC, you almost certainly do - you'll probably have been hit by a bug at some time.

Microsoft needs rebooting
The executive reshuffle was not unexpected. RBC Capital markets noted there has been "a changing of the guard" across the tech sector with founders handing over to professional managers. "Larry Ellison at Oracle has ceded to his two presidents, Michael Dell has handed the reigns over to Kevin Rollins, Scott McNealy has left Sun," the broker said.

But this latest handover comes as Microsoft faces intense pressure from several rivals – not least from Google. Senior executives have admitted it has failed to keep pace with the step-change in its industry heralded by the explosion in internet-driven services.

Its failure to innovate – the company has been branded a brilliant marketer but technologically sluggish – has been reflected on Wall Street.

Microsoft's market value, of around $225 billion, eclipses that of Yahoo ($43bn) and Google ($118bn). But while Microsoft continues to perform well, booking first-quarter sales of about $11 billion, its shares have turned in a lacklustre performance.

The stock traded down 12 cents at $21.95 today, close to a four-year low and down from a 52-week high of $28.38. The stock has slipped steadily since 2001, when it traded at around $35.

Moreover, there is no obvious quick fix. Bill Gates's departure (he still owns around 9 per cent of Microsoft) was likely to have a "minimal impact" on the share price, analysts at Lehman Brothers said this morning. "Slowing PC demand, increased spending and potential Vista [Microsoft's new operating system] delays are likely to be primary driver of stock over near-term," it said.

Part of the problem has been the relative attractiveness of Microsoft's smaller, nimbler, younger rivals. Credit Suisse analysts favour stocks invoved in on-demand services delivered over the internet and open-source software companies, who share their blueprints with anybody who wants to see them. Companies such as salesforce.com and Red Hat, respectively.

"Microsoft is accelerating spending in order to respond to these and other emerging technology threats," the broker said. "And we would advise investors to stay on the sidelines until we see some signs that the company can generate an attractive return on these investments."

After 30 years leading the market, Microsoft has to prove itself again. So far, progress has been painful. In April, the stock lost around a tenth of its value in one session when the company suggested investment to take on a growing band of rivals would hurt future earnings.

"This effectively takes the wind out of the sails of investor sentiment at a time when investors were beginning to warm up to the prospects for accelerating earnings momentum," analysts at Goldman Sachs warned.

That "warming up" on Wall Street came last year after a leaked memo emerged written by Ray Ozzie, the iconic developer best known for his work on Lotus Notes who will take on Mr Gates’s role as chief software architect.

In it, he admitted that Microsoft had taken its eye off the ball in the crucial area of internet search and other web-based fields such as internet telephony.

"We knew search would be important, but through Google’s focus they’ve gained a tremendously strong position," he said. "While we’ve led with great capabilities in Messenger and Communicator, it was Skype not us that made VoIP [voice over internet protocol] broadly popular and created a new category."

The admission followed a massive restructuring of Microsoft in September, which saw the company sweep seven business units into three divisions.

At the time Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said: "There’s a whole set of decisions that might have had to percolate to Bill Gates … because the seven business groups are now contained in these three divisions, I think that ought to lead to crisper, faster actions on certain kinds of decisions we need to make."

Now, it seems, those decisions will percolate to Mr Ozzie and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. At the top of their agenda will be ensuring a clean introduction of Microsoft’s new products.

The company currently earns more than half its revenues – and the vast majority of its profits – from its Windows operating system and Office, a package of software that includes things such as the word-processor Word.

Vista, a new operating system, has stoked optimism – along with the next version of Microsoft's Office software – that the company will see improved growth. The Xbox gaming console already looks to have been a success – largely, perhaps, because it beat rivals Sony and Nintendo to the market.

But several of the new product launches have been far from smooth. Vista in particular has been hit by several embarrassing delays.

Moreover, those web-based "on-demand" services that Wall Street likes so much pose a massive threat to Windows and Office. Web-based software sees applications offered as online services, rather than as tools hosted on an individual PC – the model which Microsoft has milked for decades.

Microsoft is staking a huge amount – not least a $2 billion research and development budget – on its own web-based Windows Live project, in which Mr Ozzie has been deeply involved. Its success is key.

But some industry watchers are asking whether Mr Gates’s successors have the cut-throat quality that has driven Microsoft for the past 30 years.

Some cited the example of Apple, Microsoft’s smaller rival, which floundered after the departure of Steve Jobs and only found its feet when he returned – and introduced the iPod.

Others simply don't believe the new generation are mean enough. Through its history, Microsoft has had to deal with massive competition and anti-trust cases in several territories.

"Ozzie’s reputation is stellar," analysts at Credit Suisse said. UBS called him a "well-accomplished technocrat". But could the technologically visionary Mr Ozzie face down the European Union with the fervour of a Gates?

"Without its competitive, hard-core leader involved in daily decisions, will Microsoft still be the bold and brash company that forced competitors out of business ... ‘The Evil Empire’? I say it won't," Mary Jo Foley wrote on Microsoft-watch.com.

"I think Microsoft is going to morph into a very different place ... Ozzie and Mundie … seem to be a lot kinder and gentler leaders than Gates - even the public-relations-schooled family man and philanthropist Gates."

It is hard not to conclude that Mr Gates chose to get out of Microsoft just as the going got interesting.

Source: The Times Online

Labels: microsoft

What would Microsoft be without Bill Gates? The world will begin to find out two years from now, when Gates gives up his daily role at the company in order to focus more of his attention on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

That’s according to a BusinessWeek Online report published Friday.

Gates’ announcement about the 2008 disengagement appears to be merely the next chapter in a gradual moving away from having highest-up control ofMicrosoft ( News - Alert). For example, the position of CEO was given away six years ago to Gates’ friend, Steve Ballmer.

According to the BusinessWeek report, Gates noted at a press conference that, despite his diminishing role at Microsoft, he plans to hold onto the title of Chairman indefinitely.

The position of Chief Software Architect, currently held by Gates, will gradually be taken over by Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie.

Full name: William Henry Gates III
Estimated wealth: $50 billion (richest man in the world, according to Forbes)
Current Microsoft Title: Chairman and Co-founder
Philanthropy: Founded Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000
Family: Wife, Melinda, and three children

Source: tmcnet.com

Labels: microsoft

With both Yahoo! and Microsoft steadying paces to fend off everything-Google, Yahoo! will be releasing a "custom" version of Microsoft's latest Internet Explorer browser with Yahoo! Search as the default search engine. With Microsoft installing Windows Live search as the default search provider in the normal version of Internet Explorer 7, much to Google's chagrin, that default search real estate inside the world's most popular internet web browser is proving to be, well, worth possibly billions (of dollars and searchers).

While Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 is hardly a revolutionary browsing experience, Yahoo's changes seem to be, according to this article, little more than window dressing on top of features already on top of Yahoo's toolbar that's been available for Internet Explorer 6 and he newer version 7 for some time now. Is Yahoo! scared that its customer experience is being quashed by Google and Microsoft? It should be -- Yahoo! needs any leg up it can get.

While still an incredibly popular internet destination -- and a worthy competitor on all fronts to Microsoft's Live search and Google search -- it does not own the conduit to get to its properties -- the web browser. With Microsoft owing that market, and with the Google-Firefox alliance, Yahoo! needs all the tools it can muster to ensure the path to its wide array of services are in front of customers as fully as possible.

Labels: ie7, microsoft, yahoo

After years of letting Internet Explorer 6 languish with no new development, prompting criticism from both outside and inside the company, Microsoft promised that they would shift their priorities and deliver a steady stream of updates to their venerable browser.
The company released IE 7 Beta 1 to the public in January. While some applauded the new features, others were perplexed by the bizarre user interface arrangement—specifically, the menu bar being sandwiched between the address bar and the tab bar. Some felt that the browser was still playing catch-up to competitors such as Firefox. Beta 2 went public in April, after Microsoft announced that the layout and rendering engine for IE 7 was "feature complete" and that no new changes, other than bug fixes, would be made outside of the user interface.

Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3, wich is the last beta, will be available in August 2006. Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 won’t contain major interface updates, but will fix some bugs.

"Unfortunately, extensibility in IE7 is not where we want it to be," said Microsoft's Max Stevens, lead program manager in charge of IE 7's user interface. "We don't expect there to be many changes between now and ship, though this is definitely an area we're investigating for our next release."

Source: http://news.softpedia.com
Download: IE7 Beta2

Labels: ie7, microsoft

Microsoft Corp.'s negotiations to use Adobe Systems Inc.'s technology in its new Office business software broke down earlier this week and Adobe threatened legal action, Microsoft's top antitrust lawyer said on Friday.

The previously undisclosed talks between the two sides centered around Microsoft's plan to allow users to save work under Adobe's Portable Document Format, or PDF, within the company's Office 2007 suite of applications and its new Windows Vista operating system. Adobe objected to Microsoft building the "save as PDF" option into Office and Windows, arguing that the ability to save a document in a fixed document format, such as PDF, is a separate product and should not be free, Microsoft said.



"Adobe has been threatening legal action," said Dave Heiner, Microsoft's head lawyer for its antitrust group within its law department. He declined to comment about whether he expected Adobe to file an antitrust suit.

Adobe declined to comment on the nature of its discussions with Microsoft, but company spokeswoman Jodi Warner said it has discussed with regulators around the world its concerns that Microsoft may abuse its "monopoly" position.

In the past, Microsoft has run afoul of regulators in the U.S. and Europe, in part because officials deemed the company's strategy of bundling features, such as a Web browser and media player, into its dominant Windows operating system as anti-competitive.

In order to avoid a legal clash, Adobe requested Microsoft remove the "save as PDF" option from the new Office and wanted to have users download the "add-on" function for a fee, said Heiner, who is also Microsoft's deputy general counsel.

Further, Adobe asked Microsoft to also remove the ability to save a document under Microsoft's XML Paper Specification, or XPS, format -- a rival to Adobe's PDF technology -- and then charge a fee to add the XPS feature into Office.

Microsoft agreed to remove the built-in ability to save a document using both the PDF and XPS file format from Office, but refused to charge users a fee to download the two formats because there are rival products that already allow users to create PDF documents for free.

"It's really come down to this pricing issue and we're not willing to do that" said Heiner.

San Jose, California-based Adobe charges for the popular Acrobat document-sharing software to create PDF documents, while giving away a PDF reader to view the formatted documents. It also faces increasing competition from Microsoft which is targeting the design market in a potential threat to the businesses Adobe has built providing graphics software tools. Adobe chief executive, Bruce Chizen, told Reuters in February that he considered Microsoft to be the company's biggest concern.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft argues that Adobe offers for free the technical specifications to allow other software companies to build applications that allow users to save documents using PDF. A competing software to Microsoft's Office from Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and an open-source product called OpenOffice allow users to save in PDF.

"It seems (Adobe's) new position is that the PDF standard is now open to for some to implement, but not all" said Jonathan Zuck, president for the Association for Competitive Technology.

Source: Reuters.co.uk

Labels: adobe, microsoft

The JPEG format for compressed image files is ubiquitous. How could Microsoft hope to replace it?

The company detailed its Windows Media Photo file format at the Windows Hardware Engineering conference. In a comparison of the two file formats, an image that had been saved with 24:1 compression had more detail than one saved in a JPEG format, although some say it was a little distorted.

Most digital cameras save JPEGs with a 6:1 compression, but a Microsoft spokesperson said that images saved as Windows Media Photo files should offer better pictures with higher compression levels.

The compressed files will save on storage space, which is an advantage for consumers, and feature technology that allows for only part of an image to be compressed. In addition, manipulating an image by rotating it will be achieved more quickly, as the file does not need to be decoded and then encoded again.

If Microsoft can drum up enthusiasm for the new format, it will still take time before it reaches consumers, although it could be in use as early as 2008. For professionals to take it seriously, companies like Adobe and Apple will have to be won over by the format, and offer support for it in their software.

Labels: microsoft