Swiss consumers are now able to use their high-speed Internet connections to view television as part of a service that Swisscom
AG officially launched on Tuesday after delaying the offering for more than a year.
The Bluewin TV service uses the IPTV software platform developed by Microsoft
The service will initially offer more than 100 TV channels and more than 500 video-on-demand films. Additional features include
an electronic program guide with details of current and upcoming programs, a live pause function and remote recording via
mobile phone or the Internet.
Microsoft distanced itself from a group lobbying for restrictions on AT&T Inc.'s proposed acquisition of BellSouth, saying it won't seek to influence regulators weighing the purchase.
The company, a founder of the It's Our Net Coalition, pulled its name from the member list after deciding not to weigh in on the $82 billion deal, spokeswoman Ginny Terzano said Monday. The group wants net neutrality rules to bar telephone and cable providers from charging new priority-access fees.
The 172-member coalition last week urged the Federal Communications Commission to impose "meaningful and effective net neutrality safeguards" on the BellSouth deal. The group wants the FCC to bar AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, from favoring some companies over others that offer the same type of Web content or services, depending on how much they pay.
Microsoft this week quietly announced it is dropping the highly touted renaming of SQL Server Mobile Edition to SQL Server Everywhere Edition.
Due to the complications of changing the name so late in the product's release cycle, the company will delay the release of the latest version for an indefinite period of "several weeks." Instead, the pending product will now be dubbed SQL Server Compact Edition or SQLce.
SQL Server Everywhere Edition was until recently scheduled to begin shipping to customers in November. The delays are mostly attributable to needing to change the product's localization and documentation, according to statements on a company blog. However, Microsoft still hopes to get the final product out by the end of the year.
Microsoft has struck licensing deals with two companies in China that will incorporate technologies from its Beijing research lab into their products, promising the Redmond company a piece of the resulting revenue in return.
The deals with Comtech Group Inc. and Hunan Talkweb Information System Co. are the first of their kind for Microsoft in China. They include technologies for viewing videos on mobile devices and for turning photos into cartoon sketches.
It is the latest step in Microsoft's long-standing effort to build its business in China. The agreements are notable in a country where rampant software piracy and generally low regard for intellectual-property rights have made it tough for international technology companies to do business.
PHP on Windows is no longer an oxymoron.
Microsoft is officially helping to fund a joint effort with PHP vendor Zend to ensure that PHP works well on Microsoft's server platforms.
"We're announcing a multi-year agreement to make sure that PHP is a first-class citizen on the Windows Server platform," Zend co-founder Andi Gutmans told internetnews.com. "PHP has never really run very well on Windows. It does run on Windows but it doesn't perform very well; there are a lot of reliability problems."
Among the technical improvements that Zend and Microsoft will be making is a FastCGI component of Microsoft's Internet Information Services.
Microsoft plans to file more than 50 lawsuits worldwide against online merchants who allegedly peddle counterfeit software on popular auction sites, the software giant said Monday.
The actions include 15 lawsuits in the U.S., 10 in Germany, 10 in the Netherlands, six in France, and five in the United Kingdom, Microsoft said. Additional cases are being filed in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Korea and Poland, the company said.
"This is a worldwide enforcement against sellers of counterfeit software on online auction sites," said Matt Lundy, a senior attorney at Microsoft. "We're finding more and more that auction sites are becoming a popular way for counterfeiters to distribute counterfeit software to consumers."
Microsoft on Monday said it shipped a new version of Windows Media Player, a week after the company had initially hoped to debut the new jukebox player.
The software maker posted the free download of Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP after months of testing the new program, which includes built-in support for Urge, a subscription music service co-developed with MTV.
The release of Urge and the new media software have been somewhat overshadowed, given that during the year since Microsoft announced its plans, it has decided to offer its own Zune player and companion subscription service. The $250 Zune is set to go on sale in mid-November.
Microsoft revealed the launching Oct. 30 of two new financial software products, Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 and Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007, both of which are designed for small and home-based businesses.
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is a financial management software created for just starting out businesses and home-based businesses that currently use old mannerisms to run their business such as pens, calculators and spreadsheets.
In an interview with eWEEK, Rajat Taneja, general manager of Microsoft's Small Business Applications and Services organization, said that it was time for small businesses to move onto new and improved business management solutions.
PC manufacturers that expected to get their hands on the final version of Microsoft's Windows Vista OS on Nov. 1 may have to wait several weeks for the OS, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.
Microsoft originally targeted next Wednesday for Vista's release to manufacturing, but a last-minute bug that "took most of the Vista team by surprise," caused an unexpected delay, said Ethan Allen, a quality assurance lead at a Seattle high-tech company that tests its products for Vista. Allen also oversees the Web site TheHotfix.net.
Manufacturing costs for Microsoft's Xbox 360 video-game console have been falling faster than expected, the company disclosed last week. Even so, it looks like gamers will need to wait awhile for a price cut.
One reason is that Microsoft continues to lose money on the Xbox 360 -- albeit to a lesser degree than it has in the past. But more notably, the Redmond company's game console is already positioned to have a price advantage over Sony's PlayStation 3 when the competing machine is launched next month.