Microsoft is expected to release a beta three version of its next Windows Server, code-named Longhorn, as a community technology preview in early March, industry sources say.
The upcoming CTP would be the first public milestone for Longhorn because it will be more widely distributed to partners and customers. Microsoft quietly released a CTP in December to select partners, and the Redmond, Wash., software giant previously said it would release a beta three version in the first half of 2007.
Now that Windows Vista and Office 2007 shipped this week, Microsoft is turning up the heat on its server complement, according to one industry observer. "Beta three will be a CTP soon," said the source, who pegged the current release date as March 7. "February is all about Vista/Office launches.
Microsoft said Thursday it will for the first time license protocols in its instant messaging, e-mail, and collaboration technologies to rivals so that they could create programs that work smoothly with the company's server software.
The move could be seen as a bid by the Redmond, Wash. software developer to placate antitrust regulators in Europe, where competitors continue to file complaints with the European Union's watchdog agency. Just last week, IBM, Sun, and other rivals that make up the European Committee for Interoperable Standards sent a letter to the EU's Competition Commission charging that Windows Vista violates EU antitrust law.
Jumping seven places from its rank the year prior, Microsoft came in first place in national corporate reputation according to a survey released by Harris Interactive on Feb. 1.
Falling behind Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson ranked second in corporate reputation, and 3M ranked number three.
"Sixty-nine percent of respondents rated the reputation of corporate America as either 'good' or 'terrible.' This context makes the significant RQ score increases among companies like Merck, Royal Dutch Shell, AT&T, Apple, Microsoft, 3M and others that much more impressive. Corporations today need to measure, understand and holistically manage their corporate reputation and leverage it as an asset. Those who do, find that ratings and rankings take care of themselves," said Robert Fronk, senior vice president for the brand and strategy consulting group at Harris Interactive.
Microsoft said Thursday it is shipping Intelligent Applications Gateway 2007, a combination of its Internet Security and Acceleration Server with Whale Communication's virtual private networking software.
IAG 2007 combines Whale's secure sockets layer virtual private networking and Web application firewall products with ISA Server. They are integrated to provide a single, consolidated appliance for network perimeter defense, remote access, endpoint security management and application-layer protection.
Microsoft has signed up more than 100 partners who say they will support its Network Access Protection, or NAP, technology for protecting the network from edge devices such as roaming laptops through quarantine and remediation, the company said Thursday.
The announcement comes on the eve of next week's RSA Conference in San Francisco, where Microsoft and 40 or so of its partners plan to demonstrate momentum around NAP.
"This is an important milestone in industry acceptance of NAP," said Mike Schutz, group product manager in Microsoft's edge and security organization. Among the vendors demonstrating at RSA, Schutz said to expect to see the major antivirus showing interoperability with NAP and hardware and switch vendors showing NAP "authentication at the switch."
The Microsoft executive who oversaw the launch of the Zune music player, its challenger to Apple's dominant iPod, plans to leave the company.
Microsoft described the expected departure of Bryan Lee, 43, as a personal decision not related to the performance of the product. Before the Nov. 14 launch, the company acknowledged that it faced an uphill climb against the iPod, and it reiterated Wednesday that Zune has so far met its expectations.
Some analysts were skeptical of Microsoft's explanation. Lee was one of the two top executives leading the Zune project.
A Turing award-winning scientist who leads Microsoft Research's eScience Group, and whose seemingly spontaneous innovations have touched nearly every aspect of technology, including financial databases, astronomy, and geography in a career that spans four decades, remains missing at sea since having signaled home from his sailboat last Sunday night.
US Coast Guard search vessels and aircraft have thus far been unable to locate any trace of the 40-foot craft belonging to Jim Gray, age 63, who set out alone for the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco on a personal mission to scatter his mother's ashes.
To accompany the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft yesterday announced the final release of a toolkit for assuring that applications will run correctly under the new system.
Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit version 5 is designed to identify compatibility issues when using Vista and IE7 -- for instance, which applications have problems with Vista's new User Account Control feature. It can also be used on Windows XP Service Pack 2 to help identify compatibility issues when using Internet Explorer 7.
Microsoft has released the final version of its new IM client optimized for Windows Vista.
Windows Live Messenger 8.1 offers enhancements that make it more compatible with Vista, which had its widespread consumer release on Tuesday.
Updates in the IM client include new looks for emoticons, contacts, and display photos that take advantage of Vista's new
and improved user interface, Microsoft said.
Microsoft also added the ability to send an SMS to a phone number or add phone numbers for contacts
by clicking on a cell-phone icon in the client's main window. Also new is the ability to send a personal message when users
want to add a new contact to their contact list.
Technology will greatly impact the way people choose educational institutions, according to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
Speaking at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum here Wednesday, Gates laid out his vision for just how technology is going to transform learning.
"We need to be humble in making predictions of how technology will affect education," Gates said, because people made big predictions about how TVs, video tapes and software would influence education that haven't come true.