Microsoft is calling on developers to ensure applications and Web sites are compatible with Internet Explorer 7 Release
Candidate 1 for Windows XP, which the company will make available on Thursday.
RC1 means IE 7 is nearly ready for prime time. IE 7 RC1 for Windows XP is a feature-complete version of the browser that is
expected to be released in its final form in the last quarter of the year, said Margaret Cobb, group product manager for the
IE team at Microsoft.
She called IE 7 RC1 for Windows XP a "call to action" for Microsoft's developer community, who can use the public release
to ensure compatibility between the browser and applications so there will be no snags when IE 7 is in its final release.
Turns out tiny Madden, Miss., isn't quite as small as Microsoft's Xbox team thought.
In a publicity stunt for "Madden NFL '07," the company and Electronic Arts staged a huge celebration in the town Tuesday and announced plans to give everyone in Madden -- population 74, Microsoft believed -- a free Xbox 360 game console.
But that number came from an initial count given to Microsoft by Madden Postmaster Bulus Leflore, based on his understanding of the population in the main part of town. He initially wasn't told about the giveaway and said Tuesday that he thought Microsoft was asking just as part of planning the event.
Microsoft on Wednesday said it has an exclusive deal to provide online advertising to fast-growing Facebook, an important step in Microsoft's uphill battle to catch up with rivals Google and Yahoo.
The agreement to sell and display banner ads and sponsored links on the popular social-networking site connects a second large Internet company to Microsoft's advertising network and platform, called AdCenter. The Redmond, Wash., company has also signed A9.com, Amazon.com's search engine.
Facebook is a solid win because it delivers to advertisers a prized demographic, college and high school students. But Microsoft will still need to show that newly developed AdCenter can deliver a solid return to advertisers and revenue to Facebook. Other than saying the agreement is for three years, Facebook declined to release financial details.
Some Office 2007 beta testers can test drive a forthcoming service from Microsoft that helps users manage wireless connections
when they are using Wi-Fi hotspots.
According to the Techlog.org blog, Microsoft this week allowed select beta testers of Office 2007 to preview a forthcoming
service called Windows Live WiFi Center. Office 2007, in beta 2 now, is expected to be available to business users by the
end of the year, and consumers in early 2007.
Microsoft confirmed through its public relations firm Wednesday that Windows Live WiFi Center is now available in a "limited,
managed beta."
The service will offer users a simple and secure way to locate and connect to Wi-Fi "hotspots," or networks, globally, Microsoft
said. It will also provide users with encrypted connections for secure and nonsecure wireless network connectivity.
Microsoft executives may have a hard time talking about open source software without getting their blood up, but the company appears to be taking a pragmatic approach when it comes to Windows Vista and the growing popularity of the Firefox browser.
The company has opened its Microsoft Open Source Software Labs -- until now the domain of commercial projects -- to non-commercial open source developers.
That revelation came this week when the labs' director made the offer on public Web sites, including Mozilla.org and Google's Mozilla.dev.planning.
Microsoft on Tuesday said it believes corporate customers are adding more Windows servers to Software Update Services 1.0, despite plans to stop publishing updates over the add-in component as of Dec. 6.
Microsoft has been telling customers that they need to migrate to Windows Server Update Services 2.0, which was released last year. WSUS supports Windows Server 2000 and 2003, and Windows XP operating systems, the same as SUS. WSUS, however, also receives updates for Office, Exchange and SQL Server.
Microsoft is considering discounts or other promotions during the holidays to entice consumers to upgrade their PCs with Windows Vista, even though the new operating system isn't due to hit store shelves until January at the earliest.
Any end-of-the-year effort to spur PC purchases would likely please many retailers and computer manufacturers, who fear disappointing sales during the crucial holiday as consumers wait for the highly anticipated and long-delayed software.
Web users who've had the frustrating experience of mistyping a common or popular Web-site URL and inadvertently landing on
a page full of pay-per-click ads may soon have relief due to a new campaign by Microsoft
The software company Tuesday filed three lawsuits against so-called "cybersquatters" that have purchased Web site domain names
that contain names that are Microsoft's registered trademarks so they can lure Web browsers to sites of pay-per-click s.
Cybersquatting refers to the practice of including the name of a popular brand or company in a URL that is set up to deliver
pay-per-click ads or other content that has little value to the user, and is not connected to the brand or company contained
in the URL.
On of the hottest online trends is to get people to create and contribute their own material -- things like reviews, photos and videos.
But will user-generated content work for video games? Microsoft plans to find out.
The company is coming out with a new software development program meant to let technology hobbyists, students and others with relatively basic skills create their own games for Windows and Xbox 360. The company is due to announce the program, XNA Game Studio Express, today at a Microsoft game conference in Seattle.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer was quick to reply when recently asked why the company wasn't pursuing acquisitions more aggressively.
"We are buying more companies than we have ever bought," Ballmer said in response to the question at Microsoft's annual meeting with financial analysts.
In fact, the company significantly picked up its pace of acquisitions in its recently completed fiscal year -- making 23 deals, compared with nine the year before.
And Microsoft doesn't appear to be slowing down, announcing a few more deals since the June 30 end of its 2006 fiscal year.