The long and oft-delayed journey toward the release of Windows Vista entered the home stretch Oct. 6 when Microsoft released what is likely the final test build, Release Candidate 2.
"Microsoft expects the RC2 build to be the last interim release before the product is released to manufacturing. As we stated from the beginning of Windows Vista development, the quality of the product will always be our first priority. That said, Microsoft continues to target Windows Vista availability for volume license customers in November 2006 and general availability in January 2007, although the final delivery will be based on quality," a spokesperson told eWEEK.
A developer who was recently awarded Microsoft's MVP status distributes adware with the software he creates, security professionals said Friday. Microsoft's own malware scanner pegs the MVP's software as a threat.
Cyril Paciullo, the creator of Messenger Plus -- an add-on to Microsoft's Windows Messenger/Windows Live IM client -- announced in a blog entry Thursday that he'd been given an MVP Award. Microsoft's MVP program honors developers and others who Microsoft believes made significant contributions to users in the past year.
Microsoft and EMC announced this week they are further expanding their cooperative marketing relationship by working to integrate Office SharePoint Server 2007 with the storage company's content Documentum content management product.
Under the agreement, EMC commits to bring to market new solutions that tightly integrate Documentum with multiple Microsoft products and technologies including SharePoint Server 2007, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, SQL Server 2005 and enterprise search solutions.
Their positions on the Forbes list aren't in jeopardy, by a long shot, but Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer both received slightly smaller bonuses last year, according to a new filing.
Microsoft's annual proxy statement, filed Wednesday, showed bonuses of $350,000 each for Gates and Ballmer in the fiscal year ended June 30 -- down from the $400,000 bonus awarded to each the year before.
The company bases executives' bonuses on their annual performance against specific objectives. The filing said the board determined Ballmer's bonus based on measures including revenue, profit, customer satisfaction, development of the company's leadership and achievement of major product development objectives.
Microsoft will introduce a new system for fighting software piracy with its upcoming Windows Vista and Windows Longhorn Server
operating systems, the company said Wednesday.
Called the Microsoft Software Protection Platform, it's a collection of technologies that aims to do better at detecting pirated
versions of Windows, and will also force unauthorized versions of its software into a limited-functionality mode, encouraging
users to obtain a legal copy.
People using unlicensed copies of Vista will be blocked from accessing certain features, including a new interface design
called Windows Aero, and software for fighting pop-up s called Windows Defender, Microsoft said. The company
has already used a reduced functionality mode with Windows XP.
Microsoft has filed an appeal of the $357 million fine levied by the European Commission this summer, the company said.
The Commission fined Microsoft in July for failing to allow its rivals to interoperate with Windows and refusing to unbundle its media player from the Windows operating system.
"The deadline for filing the appeal was October 2 and the deadline has been met," Microsoft spokesperson Anne-Sophie Debrancion told internetnews.com.
The European Court of First Instance confirmed that it received the appeal via fax yesterday afternoon, mere hours before the deadline expired.
It has been an annus horribilis for Sony. The Japanese electronics company has been hit with a string of embarrassments that have dented its reputation for quality.
Already reeling from a string of laptop battery recalls, Sony saw its shares drop nearly 3 percent Tuesday amid fresh worries about the upcoming release of its much-anticipated PlayStation 3 video game console.
Sony has already twice delayed the product's launch amid intensifying competition from rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.
Microsoft this Friday will ship the final pre-release version of Windows Vista and, unexpectedly, will name the release as Release Candidate 2. Previously, Microsoft had publicly asserted that it would not ship an RC2 milestone release of Windows Vista. But don't let the name fool you: RC2 is really just a standard interim build of Vista and will not be given out to millions of users as was RC1.
The RC2 build is 5743, and Microsoft is currently testing it internally. As with the previous interim build, 5728, RC2 will be given out to beta testers, MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and a random, limited selection of Consumer Preview Program members.
According to a report in "The Financial Times," European Union antitrust officials in the European Commission have expanded their investigation of Microsoft's upcoming OS, Windows Vista. The EC is now investigating whether the inclusion of encryption and handwriting-recognition features in Vista will undermine Microsoft's competition.
Microsoft was allegedly warned of these concerns in a letter in July, said "The Financial Times." So far, it's unclear whether the software giant has responded.
Microsoft has bolstered its group-policy desktop management offering with the acquisition of New Hampshire software vendor
DesktopStandard.
Under the terms of the cash deal, Microsoft is acquiring the company's GPOVault, PolicyMaker Standard Edition, Registry Extension,
Software Update and Share Manager products. Microsoft plans to integrate them into its Group Policy Management Console,
which sets standard policies -- such as which users have access to certain information or applications -- for desktop and
laptop computers across an enterprise, said Praerit Garg, a senior director in the Microsoft Windows Enterprise Management
division.