Microsoft says in late March it will release to manufacturing the latest version of one of the most significant administration tools in its emerging System Center brand.
The company is in the final phases of readying System Center Operations Manager 2007 for market, according to Netherlands-based Windows enthusiast site Techlog.nl. The statements came at Microsoft?s System Center Airlift -- a five-day partner technology event held in downtown Bellevue, a few miles from Microsoft?s Redmond campus. Attendees attend 300 and 400 level technical sessions presented by various System Center product teams.
Adobe Systems and Microsoft scored high marks for security among scripting language environment providers, according to a recent survey by Evans Data.
According to Evans Data, Adobe Flex and Microsoft ASP.Net AJAX, previously known by the code name "Atlas," took top honors for security among popular scripting language offerings.
In the study, titled the "2007 Scripting LanguagesDevelopers Choice Report," Evans Data surveyed more than 400 developers about 12 scripting languages: Ruby, ASP.Net AJAX, Flex, Python, Cold Fusion, PHP, Action Script, XAML, JavaScript, Perl, VB Script and Tcl, the company said.
Microsoft landed in the Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site.
While Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no.
Microsoft hasn't quite gotten Windows Vista out the door but it has already started working on the first service pack for the new system. But if you're thinking you'd like to be on the list for testing it, that may be difficult.
Windows enthusiast site Bink.nu reported this week that Redmond has sent out an e-mail to selected Technology Adoption Program participants asking them to nominate testers for Vista Service Pack 1.
"TAP is looking for customers and partners [to] actively test and provide feedback on Windows Vista SP1 to help us prepare for its release in the second half of CY07. Customers must be willing to provide feedback and deploy pre-release builds into production environments," the e-mail states, according to Bink.nu.
Microsoft is releasing software development kits for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and the Microsoft Office Project 2007 platform on Jan. 23.
The kits, which provide a complete platform API reference, also give technical guidance and sample code to help developers create Office business applications, a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK.
These solutions allow employees to use their productivity applications like Office to access information they need from their organizations' back-end systems.
Microsoft plans to ship an update to Windows Live OneCare on January 30, marking the first time the antivirus and PC maintenance tool will be sold outside the U.S.
The release of OneCare version 1.5 is slated to coincide with the consumer launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft's long-awaited operating system update. The new OneCare version, as expected, will also run on Vista, Microsoft said in a statement Tuesday.
OneCare is Microsoft's first consumer security product, released in May. It combines antivirus, antispyware and firewall software with backup features and several tune-up tools for Windows PCs. Microsoft is going head-to-head with security companies such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro.
Without further adieu, Microsoft released its ASP.Net AJAX 1.0 technology, formerly called Atlas, to the Web on Tuesday.
ASP.Net AJAX 1.0 enables Web developers to build AJAX-style Web applications by integrating
with the .Net Framework and the Microsoft platform. ASP.Net AJAX is a free framework for building interactive, personalized
Web experiences. It functions with the Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, and Opera browsers.
Microsoft's AJAX offering first debuted in a preview version in October 2005, and another preview with a Go-Live license,
was offered in March 2006. The Go-Live license enables live deployments of the technology.
A collection of hackers from around the globe are claiming to have taken the first steps towards defeating the copyright protection scheme used by HD-DVD, one of two contending next-generation DVD formats. The copy protection scheme, called the Advanced Access Content System, or AACS, includes a few levels of protection, and hackers have only been able to bypass some of them. So the system they've developed isn't universal, but will only allow copying of particular HD-DVD titles. And here's some interesting news for Blu-Ray fans: While Blu-Ray does indeed use AACS as well, Blu-Ray also utilizes a separate level of protection that can kick in should AACS be rendered ineffective. That may have literally just happened.
More than two months ago, I called on Microsoft to take out the botnets and their perpetrators. The call may have been answered.
Microsoft has invited security experts to its Redmond, Wash., campus for super-secret meetings on Thursday and Friday. The two-day event is so hush, hush that eWeek.com has a story about the meeting of security minds.
Real escapade would be some Black Hat live chatting the event over IRC, because he or she had hacked one of the participant's computers.
Seriously, all ribbing aside, this week's meeting is potentially a watershed event for Microsoft. The proliferation of botnets and increasing number of zero-day vulnerabilities put Microsoft, its customers and the whole Internet at risk. Microsoft is one of several companies capable of putting on the Marshall's badge and standing up to the marauders terrorizing the Netizens. Microsoft is right to rally the security good guys into a posse of botnet hunters.
It's probably not in Microsoft's new "Genuine Facts File" lesson plan, but piracy has actually reshaped the software giant in a positive way. That's the take one industry analyst about Microsoft's latest anti-piracy initiative today.
An outgrowth of last years Genuine Software Initiative, Genuine Facts File hopes to inform Windows users about four areas important to Microsoft: counterfeiting, intellectual property, staying legal and software licensing.
The education campaign is the third part of GSI, a program launched last year focusing on enforcement, software and education as a ways to battle Windows piracy.