Microsoft is preparing to release privacy guidelines based on its own internal practices in hopes of getting companies to adopt more cohesive standards for safeguarding people's personal information.
Microsoft will issue the hefty document Thursday, urging commonsense practices such as clearly telling customers why a company collects personally identifiable information like e-mail addresses or phone numbers.
Among other things, the document also calls for companies to make a business case for why the information is needed and recommends they delete data no longer needed for that purpose. Microsoft also recommends internal practices that can help keep personal information such as credit card numbers from accidentally getting into the wrong hands.
Microsoft said it has made changes to its Windows Vista operating system in response to concerns raised by antitrust officials in Europe and Korea.
"Constructive dialogue followed...and Microsoft has made changes in each of the three areas," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel. He noted that the Commission provided the clarity the software giant was seeking in order to make the changes. "It's a lot easier to abide by the speed limit when you know what the speed limit is."
Smith noted, however, that despite these changes, there is no guarantee that the European Commission will ultimately be satisfied with Vista and forgo any antitrust penalties.
Microsoft later this month plans to release a converter that will let Word users open documents saved in the OpenDocument format. The plug-in for Word, set for release Oct. 23, is the first installment of Microsoft's plan to add support for the OpenDocument, or ODF, standard, which has gained interest from government customers.
By the end of the year, the open-source project building the converters will move past simply opening documents and add the ability to save documents created in Word in the ODF format, said Brian Jones, a Microsoft Office program manager. A first prototype of this "Save to ODF" Word add-on will also be made available later this month.
Microsoft announced plans Thursday to reshape the internal structure of its Windows engineering division, trying to set the stage for smoother operations after the upcoming release of the delayed Windows Vista.
Separately, the company's shares reached their highest closing price since November 2004, finishing trading up 2.5 percent, at $28.22. The rally follows recent milestones indicating that Microsoft is getting close to finishing Windows Vista after five years of development.
The dominant PC operating system is the Redmond company's biggest source of profit. Windows Vista is scheduled for release to businesses in November and to consumers in January.
Port80 Software, a Microsoft partner, has released a new survey showing that the Microsoft Internet Information Services 6 Web server has overtaken the Apache open-source Web server among Fortune 1000 Web sites.
In the survey released on Oct. 11, Port80 Software said IIS 6 more than doubled its market share over the last year, to 27 percent. However, IIS 5 remains the most popular Web server among Fortune 1000 users, according to the survey.
Meanwhile, Port80 Software said IIS 4, 5, and 6 deployments combine for a 54.9 percent share of all Fortune 1000 corporate sites versus Apache's 23.3 percent share.
On Tuesday, Microsoft shipped a beta version of Virtual PC 2007 to testers, providing its Virtual PC customers with the first version of the product to natively support Windows Vista. Virtual PC is a virtual machine (VM) environment in which virtual guest operating systems can run in a window under physical host operating systems.
Virtual PC 2007 is a 32-bit application, but it can run under both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows and supports only 32-bit guest OSes. It supports both Intel's and AMD's microprocessor hardware virtualization features and provides dramatically better performance than the current shipping version, Virtual PC 2004. I was told that Virtual PC 2007 will support Windows Vista's Windows Aero user interface, but the current beta only supports the Vista Basic UI.
Microsoft is still talking with partners who are complaining about how the Redmond, Wash. developer has set up Windows Vista's security, but it won't budge from its decision to lock down access to the kernel, a company security manager said Thursday.
"Vista is not completed yet, and we're sitting down with everyone," said Stephen Toulouse, senior product manager with Microsoft's security technology group. "We're still gathering feedback" about Vista's security, he added.
That might seem to leave open the door to changes in how Vista implements the security features that third-party vendors have questioned, including plans to bar access to the kernel in the 64-bit version of the upcoming OS as well as not allow competitors to turn off Vista's Security Center dashboard. Rivals Symantec and McAfee have gone public in the last month with criticisms of both features, and have charged that Microsoft's decisions will make Vista less secure, not safer.
A new Microsoft initiative aims to educate parents about ratings and technological restrictions for video games -- a move that may elevate the company's profile in the national debate over children's access to violent and explicit games.
Microsoft plans to start the multimillion-dollar campaign, including advertising and a 20-city bus tour, today in New York.
It reflects the company's position that existing protections and greater awareness are preferable to government regulation or laws imposing penalties for selling inappropriate titles to minors. Courts have overturned such laws on First Amendment grounds in Washington and other states.
Microsoft is testing social networking software that would enable mobile phone subscribers to send instant messages, pinpoint each other's location and share photos.
In developing SLAM, the Microsoft Research Community Technologies Group hopes to provide an easier way for people to communicate with family and friends. The software is available for download at no charge.
An easier method for social networking on a cellular phone could be attractive to adults from 18 to 26, who, according to Forrester Research, are the biggest users of data services. So-called Generation Yers have been most successful in integrating the phone into their lifestyles.
Microsoft said on Thursday that it's buying Colloquis, a maker of natural language-processing technology used to provide automated customer assistance.
The software maker said it will use Colloquis' technology to offer a managed service called Windows Live Service Agents. The service will be based on the Colloquis' existing technology, which has been used by Cingular Wireless, Comcast, Panasonic, Cox Communications and others. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.