WinInsider

Andrew Kass is a general manager in the Microsoft Developer Division who has been in charge of developing the company's Visual Studio Team System product line for about a year. Kass, formerly senior vice president of product development at S1, replaced Rick LaPlante, who had envisioned Microsoft creating a team development product and who handpicked Kass to replace him and carry out that vision. In his first press interview since joining Microsoft, Kass told Senior Editor Darryl K. Taft his goals for the Redmond, Wash., company.

Microsoft has put the brakes on its Soapbox video-sharing site while it implements new technology to detect videos uploaded by users that could have copyright restrictions.

Soapbox -- Microsoft's answer to Google's YouTube -- was opened up to a public beta last month with all users allowed to upload videos. That privilege now only applies to registered users, and the site is not accepting new registrations, said Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft's online services group.

Microsoft is trying to constrict Soapbox's growth while it gains control over its 45,000-strong video-clip library in a sensitive legal environment, Sohn said.

Microsoft's developer division wants you.

Long known for its aggressive courting of professional developers, the software company is now viewing all its systems as development platforms and is trying to empower developers at every level to write applications for the various platforms.

"We have to think about the whole spectrum of software development," said S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft's developer division. "That definitely is our focus."

Somasegar said that although the professional developer is still the core target for Microsoft's developer division, "there is 'n' number of people that are involved with software development of some sort." With Microsoft's broad and varied platform focus, "Windows is a platform, SQL Server is a platform, Office is a platform, Live Services is a platform, Xbox is a platform," he said.

Microsoft said late Wednesday that it has inked a patent swap deal with Fuji Xerox that paves the way for the companies to use each other's technology.

The companies did not disclose financial terms of the agreement, except to say that money will change hands. Funds will flow in both directions, Microsoft, but it declined to say which way it expects the balance to tilt.

The deal is the latest in a series of such cross-licensing deals for Microsoft, which has worked in recent years to both file more patents and to more aggressively license its technology.

Hijackers are getting access to Xbox Live gaming accounts, credit cards and PayPal accounts with repeated calls to support staff, who are easy prey for social engineering stunts.

Going against Microsoft's own privacy policy, Xbox Live telephone support personnel are giving away gamer tags based on made-up information. One gamer who requested anonymity shared with eWEEK a taped telephone conversation in which he called the Xbox Live phone support number on March 21 and wound up getting a valid gamer tag based on simply making up a name and the state in which he supposedly lives.

Windows Mobile 6--Microsoft's generally modest update of its operating system for handheld devices and smart phones--will debut by midyear with enhancements for e-mail and editing of Office documents.

Previously known by the code name Crossbow, Windows Mobile 6 simplifies e-mail account setup and also provides new shortcuts to a multitude of common e-mail management tasks such as replying to all or deleting a message.

You can flag messages more easily, as well as view a history of activity with contacts in your address book. In addition, you can read messages formatted in HTML, where applicable.

Nellie Kroes, the top antitrust official in the European Union (EU), told the European Parliament this morning that she is concerned about Microsoft's continued market share gains in the workgroup server market. These gains, she said, are coming three years after the EU determined Microsoft had illegally abused its desktop computer dominance to improve its station in other markets. The issue, apparently, is that the EU's attempts at curbing Microsoft's behavior have been largely unsuccessful.

"Microsoft is constantly gaining market share and that is what is worrying me in the workgroup server operating market," she said. "As a consequence of [Microsoft's] abusive behavior, [the company is] getting positive results. That's not acceptable in my opinion."

In an attempt to pull its search efforts out of a slow spiral, Microsoft Wednesday formed a new group to focus on search and advertising, and named two executives to head it.

Microsoft announced that Satya Nadella will join the Platform Services Division next month to lead the newly formed Search and Ad Platform Group. Nadella will report to division president Kevin Johnson. Nadella is currently corporate vice president responsible for Microsoft Business Solutions, which includes developing and marketing the Microsoft Dynamics line of business products.

Microsoft is frequently dinged for having insecure products, with security holes and vulnerabilities. But Symantec, no friend of Microsoft, said in its latest research report that when it comes to widely-used operating systems, Microsoft is doing better overall than its leading commercial competitors.

The information was a part of Symantec's 11th Internet Security Threat Report. The report, released this week, covered a huge range of security and vulnerability issues over the last six months of 2006, including operating systems.

The report found that Microsoft Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006.

It's not like he needs it to beef up his resume, but the world's richest college dropout is finally getting his degree.

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, will speak at Harvard University's commencement ceremony in June and like all commencement speakers will receive an honorary degree from the institution.

It's hard to guess if Gates, the wealthiest person in the world and co-founder of a company that brought in US$44 billion in revenue last year, cares. But the programming whiz who once dropped out of Harvard will likely feel some sense of satisfaction.