Microsoft has won approval for its Offfice Open XML document format from international standards body ECMA International.
ECMA's General Assembly voted by 20-1 in favor of the standard at a meeting in Zurich on Thursday afternoon, and will now
submit the format to the International Organization for Standardization for its approval. The vote against came from
a representative of IBM
A standardized document format will make it easier for competing software companies to develop products that can interoperate
with one another and to edit the same documents. Products meeting the standard could find favor with governments, or other
organizations concerned about interoperability.
Microsoft on Wednesday said that it will reach its goal of shipping over 10 million Xbox 360 video game consoles to retailers by the end of 2006, giving it a commanding lead in the next generation video game market. But the Xbox 360 has what is, perhaps, an even more important lead over the competition from Sony and Nintendo: There are over 160 game titles available for the Xbox 360, compared to just a handful each for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. And some of those titles, like "Gears of War," are already considered absolute classics by video game fans. Neither the PS3 nor the Wii has yet to attract such a title.
There's a new TV station on the Web, and it's broadcasting in Windows Media.
Late yesterday afternoon Eastern Standard Time, a friend living in Britain instant messaged about news channel France24. The station had started Internet broadcasts, in English and French, ahead of its availability via satellite or cable.
While broadcasting now on the Internet, the full launch of the France24 site will take place later today.
The initial, broadcast site delivers beautiful Windows Media Video streaming--and not in some little box. France24 shows how companies can innovate around Windows Media formats. I'm rather surprised there is no Microsoft press release trumpeting the Windows Media broadcasts.
Microsoft is ready to let users start poking around the stacks.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company announced that will release the beta version of its Live Search Books application tomorrow.
This is an important part of the company's strategy to turn its Windows Live platform, which it just took out of beta in the last few days, into a hub of experiences that create customer loyalty, thereby driving incremental advertising revenue gains.
Windows Live offers consumer-oriented services and software, and is being offered alongside the MSN portal as a complementary service. The MSN search engine has begun to redirect users to Live Search.
Dell and Microsoft, not well-known for data storage products, indicated Dec. 6 that they want to improve their market share in that sector and seriously compete in the $30 billion market that is currently led by Hewlett Packard, EMC, NetApp and IBM.
In a joint announcement at the Storage Decisions conference in Las Vegas, the two longtime PC partners introduced a new unified, networked storage server system for file and application data. The system delivers "enterprise-class manageability, versatility, and performance for businesses of all sizes," a Dell spokesperson said.
Many of the software trends that percolated in the industry in 2006 will gather more steam in 2007, but several stand out
as contenders to change the game for the market in the new year. Below are some of the key software trends to watch for in
2007.
Windows Vista ... again
Just when you thought it was over, the chatter surrounding Microsoft's long-delayed Windows client update has only just
begun. 2007 will be a crucial year for the OS, which will finally make its mainstream debut to consumers at the end of January.
Portland, Oregon, became the latest city to launch a municipal wireless network, starting a free, ad-supported service featuring
localized content and services from Microsoft's MSN.
The network, being built by MetroFi Inc., went live in a few central neighborhoods on Tuesday and is intended eventually to
provide Internet access in 95 percent of the city's indoor and outdoor spaces.
Cities and counties around the U.S. want to build wireless networks to promote business and tourism, provide Internet access to residents who can't get or afford wired broadband, or add another
choice to the usual options of cable or DSL.
Microsoft on Tuesday released the first community technology preview of its upcoming PerformancePoint Server 2007, the vanguard of its planned push into the business intelligence market.
Scheduled for a mid-2007 release, PerformancePoint -- formerly code-named BizSharp -- will replace Microsoft's Business Scorecard Manager 2005 software and incorporate the technology that Microsoft picked up in its April acquisition of analytics firm ProClarity.
The initial CTP includes the BSM technology along with planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial consolidation features. A second CTP, scheduled for early 2007, is slated to add ProClarity's analytics tools.
A U.S. district judge on Tuesday praised the schedule set up in a revamped technical documentation project that's part of
the 4-year-old antitrust settlement between Microsoft and the U.S. government.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, hailed a new plan that would deliver
58 documents related to Microsoft's software communication protocols by Dec. 15, with more documents coming in February, April
and May.
Kollar-Kotelly in May approved a two-year extension to parts of her antitrust judgment against Microsoft because of ongoing problems in the technical documentation for Microsoft's
software communication protocols.
They say in space, no one can hear you scream. In Microsoft's UniveRSS, feeds are a real screamer.
Last night, colleague Ryan "Security Watch" Naraine forwarded a link to Microsoft's testing, 3D RSS reader. I confess that I hadn't seen this little application. Microsoft's Frank Arrigo blogged about UniveRSS last week.
UniveRSS showcases 3D capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation. RSS feeds appear as three dimensional cubes, or "feed galaxies," that spin around to reveal contents. The spatially displayed content makes the UniveRSS name quite appropriate. Users can expand the cubes to display feeds and Internet Explorer icon for linking to source content.