It's turning out to be a busy day for Microsoft's legal team. The software maker on Thursday lost its bid to have a full appeals court review I4i's patent case in which the Toronto company was awarded both millions in monetary damages and an injunction against the inclusion of custom XML features in Word. Separately, meanwhile, the company is suing a maker of Xbox add-ons over that company's Xbox 360 controller.
Microsoft is planning a new Windows conference for May, but it sounds like Windows 8 won't be on the agenda. The Windows Summit, as the Redmond, Wash., event is known, is aimed at helping software and hardware makers create products that work with today's versions of Windows and Internet Explorer. The three-day event, for which Microsoft quietly began registering people last week, will be held May 25-27.
"Windows Summit 2010 is an opportunity for partners and developers to interact directly with the Windows Team and learn to build great products based on technologies in Windows 7 and Internet Explorer," Microsoft said, in response to my query about the conference. The company said it is for those hardware and software developers "who are looking to engage with Microsoft on an intimate level or who haven't engaged with Microsoft in the past 18 months."
It happens every couple of years. Microsoft's newly installed head of small-business efforts goes on the road to talk about how the company sees vast potential in the huge numbers of underserved firms that all want the capabilities of big business software without the cost or complexity. The new executive assures me that Microsoft gets it and promises Redmond is rededicating itself to the market.
Microsoft and Ford have worked closely for more than three years on the Sync in-car communication, navigation, and entertainment system, and today the companies announced their partnership has branched out into energy management for electric vehicles.
At the New York International Auto Show today, the two companies announced that the 2011 Ford Focus Electric will be the first vehicle to utilize Microsoft Hohm for automation and optimization of charging. Hohm is a cloud-based service that provides actionable info on your energy consumption that Microsoft first debuted nine months ago.
I was intrigued to see an article in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Monday describing the "challenge" that Microsoft Office faces from Google's free tools. I don't believe that Google's free tools--Google Apps, which includes Google Docs--represent a technical or financial challenge to Office at all, so I was curious to see whether I had missed something.
If you read the article, you'll discover a lot of speculation and little actual meat. It states that Google Apps "performs similar tasks to Office," which is like saying that a horse and buggy performs similar tasks to a Cessna. The WSJ reports that Google Apps has "gathered steam" in recent years and its users benefit from "reduced costs and administrative hassles" (which I assume means "reduced costs and fewer administrative hassles," but whatever).
Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system scored high satisfaction numbers from users in a recent survey. However, only 10 percent of Windows XP and Windows Vista users also reported they would upgrade to Windows 7 within the next six months. A Forrester analyst suggests that Windows 7 has broken the usual pattern of users primarily acquiring the new Windows OS when purchasing fresh hardware. Windows 7 has sold 90 million copies since its release in October 2009, according to Microsoft.
About 86 percent of surveyed Windows 7 users said they were satisfied with the operating system, according to a recent report by analyst company Forrester Research, but only 10 percent of Windows XP and Windows Vista users said they planned to upgrade to Windows 7 within the next six months.
Microsoft extends its Windows 7 Enterprise Trial program until the end of 2010, allowing IT professionals a 90-day trial of Windows 7 Enterprise Edition. While Microsoft says the extension is due to popular demand, recent statements by the company suggest that Windows 7 is not being adopted by businesses in the same way as by consumers. Altogether, Microsoft says, it has sold 90 million copies of Windows 7 since the operating system launched in October 2009.
Microsoft has extended its Windows 7 Enterprise Trial program to Dec. 31, 2010. While an official blog post says the extension was "due to popular demand," recent executive comments suggest that Windows 7 is experiencing slowed uptake among enterprises and small and midsize businesses.
Toyota Motor and Mazda Motor announced a deal under which Japan's top automaker will supply its hybrid technology under license to Mazda, in the latest linkup within the fast-changing auto industry.
Japan's No.1 and No.5 carmakers have been discussing the possibility behind the scenes since last spring as the popularity of gasoline-electric cars surged in Japan with the help of generous government subsidies.
Hybrid cars, which improve fuel efficiency by twinning internal combustion engines with electric motors, are seen as crucial for automakers to boost sales in the coming years as governments introduce stricter environmental regulations.
The real Dell 2.0
C|Net
When, in 2006, Dell first started talking about reinventing itself under the "Dell 2.0" moniker it seemed as if "Dell 1.2" would have been a more apt tagline. Michael Dell himself admitted that "Dell 2.0 is about evolving, not revolution." Dell 2.0 was seemingly still very much tied to a historic PC worldview and remained suspicious of all but the most nominal of research and development investments.
Since that time, we've seen significant change in the IT industry. Hewlett-Packard acquired EDS and 3Com. Oracle bought Sun. Cisco and EMC got cozy. EMC brought its VMware subsidiary closer. In short, the big IT vendors collectively swung the pendulum away from the horizontal mix-and-match layers that characterized the industry since the rise of distributed computing in the 1980s. Rather, the "New Horsemen" seek to deliver integrated hardware and software stacks that shift the effort of making things work together from the customer to the vendor and, not incidentally, gives the winning vendor a bigger slice of the IT pie.
David Webster had a pretty busy year in 2009, trying to convince the world that Windows 7 was their idea and adding the word Bing to their collective vocabulary.
That said, Microsoft's chief marketing strategist doesn't foresee much time to rest. This year, all Webster has to do is persuade consumers that Office is cool, that Mom and Dad need their own Xbox, and that a Windows Phone can be a credible alternative to the iPhone. Luckily, Microsoft is willing to spend a few bucks to do all that.
"We're in a mode now where we are spending more money on advertising...than we have ever spent before," Webster said, during a lunch meeting last week. Microsoft doesn't break out figures, but the company is expected to spend roughly the same amount on advertising in 2010 as it did last year.