Microsoft announced on Tuesday two new programs for those looking to move to its next generation of developer tools software.
First, the company said that the retail version of Visual Studio 2010 Professional will come with a one-year trial version of its MSDN program, known as MSDN Essentials. Though they won't get access to as full a range of free Microsoft software, MSDN Essentials subscribers will get access to Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, and SQL Server 2008 Datacenter R2 for development and test use, along with 20 hours of Windows Azure use.
After eschewing Windows Vista, small businesses are starting to consider moving away from Windows XP, Microsoft Vice President Brad Brooks said in an interview on Tuesday.
"Windows Vista was a generation of the operating system that was passed up by small businesses; they stayed with XP," Brooks said. "We're seeing a lot of trends at retail that are telling us small businesses are starting to come back in the marketplace."
In particular, Brooks said that office and electronics retailers are starting to stock more PCs with the professional version of Windows 7. "That's a good early indicator for us."
Microsoft released its new identity management software at the RSA conference on Tuesday and is working on a prototype national ID card system in Germany that is designed to give consumers control over the amount of personal data they share with specific organizations.
German citizens will be using new electronic cards starting in November and the prototype project using Microsoft technology is being developed in order to roll out a pilot project in the same time frame, Scott Charney, corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, said in his keynote.
Microsoft's chief financial officer said on Tuesday that the company sees business spending picking up over the next 18 to 24 months and expects to benefit as companies buy more PCs and servers.
"We feel very well-positioned for growth as the economy recovers," said Peter Klein, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in San Francisco. Klein, whose speech was available via Webcast, said that the majority of large businesses are making plans to deploy Windows 7.
Although it is not open to the press this year, Microsoft is using this week's TechFest internal science fair as an occasion to talk about some of the work it is doing to find new ways of connecting with computers.
Some products have already come to market, such as the multitouch features of Windows 7, while others are close, such as the Project Natal Xbox add-on. But Microsoft sees those as just the beginning of a world in which the way that we interact with computers is fundamentally altered.
"The transition to a natural user interface will change everything from the way students write term papers and play computer games to how scientists study global population growth and its impact on our natural resources," Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, said in a statement.
In his keynote at the RSA security conference on Tuesday, Scott Charney, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Trustworthy Computing, suggested that the security industry should follow the health care model of quarantining infected PCs to prevent them from being used to send spam and conduct denial-of-service attacks.
In a follow-up interview afterward, Charney elaborated on his vision for reducing the damage from botnets and explains how infected computers should be kept off the Internet just like doctors quarantine sick people and smokers are restricted as to where they can light up in public.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is excited about his company's Bing search engine and its aggressive search strategy. But it can be hard to measure that enthusiasm since he's almost always in sales mode when talking about anything related to Microsoft.
So it's worth taking note when Ballmer restrains himself, as he did occasionally during a Q&A keynote here at the Search Marketing Expo here Tuesday morning.
For example, when asked about the success and future of the Bing Cashback program, Ballmer was guardedly optimistic. Cashback rewards registered users when they buy certain items found using the Bing search engine.
Microsoft left little doubt Friday that it was one of the companies leading the charge against Google worldwide.
In a blog post entitled "Competition Authorities and Search," Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner said part of the motivation for Microsoft and Yahoo's search deal was "we are concerned about Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume." The post comes at the end of a week in which European authorities asked Google to explain its search algorithms after complaints from competitors--one of which is owned by Microsoft.
During the Windows Phone 7 Series unveiling on Feb. 15--and afterward, in discussions with Microsoft executives--it became very clear that Microsoft intended to work with its hardware partners to streamline the number of devices running the new smartphone operating system.
This seems the logical move, given that an operating system centered on touch screens will work on a more limited number of form factors. Also, as demonstrated by Microsoft's booth at January's Consumer Electronics Show, Windows Mobile runs on enough (wildly) different models of phone to make it a hair-tearing nightmare for any marketing guru attempting to establish a consistent brand "look" in the manner of BlackBerry or Apple.
Microsoft is intent on eliminating the Waledac botnet and is using the legal system to help.
Tim Cranton, Microsoft's associate general counsel, wrote Thursday on the company's blog that Microsoft has been shutting down Waledac by working with technology partners and taking legal action.
In response to a complaint filed by Microsoft, a federal judge issued on Monday a temporary restraining order to shut down 227 Internet domains believed to be run by cybercriminals spreading the Waledac spambot.