More than 13 months after Hurricane Katrina came ashore, Microsoft confirmed Monday that it is moving three of its annual conferences, including two of its largest shows, out of New Orleans -- at least temporarily.
The reason, a Microsoft spokesperson said, is due primarily to a continued lack of reliable airline service into and out of the Crescent City. "[The shows were moved] because of the logistics of moving that many people in or out of the airport," he said.
Among the shows moved for 2007 are Microsoft's popular TechEd and Windows Hardware Engineering Conferences. The third show that will move for now is Microsoft's annual gathering of its internal worldwide sales staff , Microsoft Global Experience (MGX).
The principle behind the curve--that 80 percent of the consequences come from 20 percent of the causes--is rooted in a 19th-century observation about the distribution of wealth. But it also illustrates the challenge for the builders of the next generation of Windows and Office, the world's largest-selling software packages.
The Office package, for example, has been tested by more than 3.5 million users; last month alone, more than 700,000 PCs were running the software, generating more than 46 million separate work sessions. At Microsoft, 53,000 employee computers are running test versions.
Vista has also been tested extensively. More than half a million computer users have installed Vista test software, and 450,000 of the systems have sent crash data back to Microsoft.
Microsoft plans to place advertising on MSN's Windows Live Search for Mobile service that will let users click on an advertisement to place a call for more information.
The software powerhouse said Monday is partnering with San Francisco-based Ingenio to provide the embedded ads when mobile search requests are performed with Windows Live Search. An ad will be placed above the regular search results when mobile phone users are searching with Windows Live Search. Then users can click on the advertisement and make a phone call directly to whoever is advertising--restaurant, store, service provider and so on.
One final piece of collateral information indicating that Vista is going require heavier duty graphics than do today's PCs if it is to shine is provided in RC2's Windows Experience Index. That's the hardware assessment tool previously known as the Windows System Performance rating, or WinSPR. The experience index continues to use graphics as the gating factor. My test PC was equipped with a 3.2-GHz dual-core Pentium 940, which got it a subscore of 4.8 on the processor portion of the test. However, my 256-MB graphics card rated only a 3.1. That limited the final score to 3.1, since the final rating is determined by the lowest subscore.
A recent court filing by IBM seems to point an accusing finger at Microsoft as the puppetmaster behind the long-running lawsuit between IBM and SCO, but the connection is tenuous at best.
BayStar, an investment firm, stepped up to provide SCO with $50 million in private investment in 2003.
However, one year later BayStar recalled $20 million of that, feeling SCO had squandered the money on pointless legal wrangling and wrecked its reputation and ability to sell products.
In a declaration filed last week with the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, BayStar executive Larry Goldfarb said that former Microsoft senior VP for corporate development and strategy Richard Emerson discussed "a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would 'backstop,' or guarantee in some way, BayStar's investment."
Microsoft on Monday released a new beta for its Windows Live OneCare security service, marking the first time that the anti-virus software runs on Windows Vista.
Windows Live OneCare Beta 1.5, which can be downloaded and used free of charge, is available in 17 localized editions for countries that include the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K. Earlier editions were for U.S. customers only.
Other improvements and additions to 1.5, said a company spokesman, include tighter integration with Microsoft's Windows Defender anti-spyware software, more back-up options (to USB-connected hardware and PCs on the local network), and support for Windows Vista RC1.
The head of Microsoft's German subsidiary, one of the group's largest, has thrown in the towel over differences with the U.S. headquarters.
Jrgen Gallmann, chief executive officer of Microsoft Deutschland and vice president of EMEA, resigned Friday and will be replaced immediately by Klaus Holse Andersen, current vice president Microsoft Business Solutions and Small and Midmarkt Solutions & Partner Group, Microsoft said. Anderson will report directly to Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International.
A pact between video search company Blinkx and Microsoft brings into sharp focus the growing importance of managing the mountain of online content.
The agreement comes as Internet giant Google considers whether to buy popular video site YouTube for a reported $1.6 billion and as portals look to video as the next wave of Internet content.
Blinkx and Microsoft plan to announce Tuesday that Blinx video search technology, already adopted by Lycos and others, will form the backbone for users searching for video on portions of MSN and Live.com, according to those familiar with the signed, but not yet announced, deal.
Mozilla has released Firefox 2.0 Release Candidate 2, but may be beat in the race to final by Microsoft, which said that Internet Explorer 7 would ship in October.
Firefox 2.0 RC2 went live late Friday, with the update pushed automatically to users of earlier editions of Firefox 2.0, the open-source browser's first major update since 1.5 in November 2005. Others can download RC2 in versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in 39 localized editions, including ones for Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Mongolian, Russian, and Slovakian speakers.
Later this month, Microsoft will publicly unveil a program called Express Upgrade that will allow customers who purchase Windows XP-based PCs between October 26, 2006, and March 15, 2007, to get a copy of Vista at a reduced price or for free. The program, naturally, is designed to ensure that PC sales won't suffer during the crucial holiday-selling period, since Vista is arriving in January, or about a month after the holiday selling period ends. Under terms of the program, customers who purchase a PC with Windows XP Home Edition will be able to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Basic for $49 or to Vista Home Premium for $79. Customers who purchase PCs with XP Professional, XP Professional x64 Edition, XP Tablet PC Edition, or XP Media Center Edition will get Vista Home Premium for free. Seems fair, and remember that customers who have Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, or Vista Business will be able to upgrade to Vista Ultimate directly from within the OS.