Microsoft made a great move July 18 when it acquired Winternals Software, a purveyor of Windows diagnostic software, including the Sysinternals line of freeware utilities.
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of using the Sysinternals tools while laboring to identify the source of a mysterious slowdown crippling the Windows XP-based laptop of a friend of mine. With the view that Sysinternals offered into the inner workings of Microsoft's typically closed operating system, I was able to track down the troublea corrupt Windows Update log file that the system kept trying to read, causing the drive to thrash endlessly.
A power outage took Microsoft infrastructure poster child MySpace down this weekend. What happened to the companySQL Server backup/failover plans -- if they had any? Who's to blame when a Web site crashes? The site owner? The hoster? The supplier of the back-end software?
The blame game doesn't seem to have started at least not publicly in the case of MySpace.com, the latest mega-Web site to go down.
MySpace is one of the largest sites on the Web. As of February 2006, there were more than 64 million registered MySpace users, with 260,000 new registered users signing up each day. The site was garnering 23 billion page views per month, according to Media Metrix data.
Microsoft this week forecast its Xbox 360 game console sales will total as many as 15 million by the end of its fiscal 2007, which ends June 30 of next year.
The company expects to have shipped more than 10 million consoles by the end of this year. By the end of June 2007, the company expects its sales to total between 13 million and 15 million units since the launch.
Its forecast for its fiscal 2007 is to ship between 8 million and 10 million Xbox 360 game machines.
The bullish forecast could help give the company an edge in the game console wars against its main rivals, Sony Computer Entertainment and Nintendo. Microsoft faces a tough fight against the two Japanese companies, particularly since its first Xbox never fared as well as the PlayStation 2, and because Sony will launch its next generation console, PlayStation 3, later this year. But an early launch for the Xbox 360 should help the company both in gaining users who want a next generation console immediately and in giving it time to figure out ways to lower production costs.
Microsoft seems to be getting this right.
The company today released the first public beta of Exchange Server 2007, as well as a public beta of Forefront Security for Exchange Server. The new beta comes months after the company released another beta to a limited number of partners.
Based on initial feedback from developers during the first beta round, the company is confident it will be able to bring this product to market on time.
Given its recent history of well-publicized delays and missteps with other parts of its business, not least of which Office 2007, this is no minor accomplishment.
If Windows Vista is pushed back from its target January 2007 release, the financial impact could run between $200 million and $400 million, the company's chief financial officer said Thursday.
During the quarterly earnings call with analysts, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said that a slip in Vista's release to Q2 2007 would cost the company hundreds of millions.
Currently, Vista is on track for a November release to corporations with volume licensing agreements in place, and a January debut for all others, Liddell said.
update
After trying for years to compete with the iPod through an array of partners, Microsoft confirmed Friday that it plans to directly go after Apple Computer with its own rival, Zune.
Confirming weeks of rumors, Microsoft said it will launch music software and players under the Zune brand, though the software maker left plenty unsaid in its confirmation.
"Today we confirmed a new music and entertainment project called Zune," Chris Stephenson, a general manager of marketing for the software maker, said in a statement. "Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year."
Amnesty International accused Yahoo, Microsoft and Google on Thursday of violating human rights principles by cooperating with China's efforts to censor the Web and called on them to lobby for the release of jailed cyber-dissidents.
The London-based human rights group also called on the Internet companies to publicly oppose Chinese government requests that violate human rights standards.
"The Internet should promote free speech, not restrict it. We have to guard against the creation of two Internets - one for expression and one for repression," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty's U.S. branch, in a statement.
While Exchange 2007, the upcoming e-mail, calendaring and messaging server from Microsoft, is still based on the Extensible Storage Engine, a derivative of the Jet database store, the company says it remains committed to unifying this with the SQL Server database store going forward.
They just don't know exactly when yet.
Officials such as Terry Myerson, the general manager of the Exchange Server product group, argue that there is ultimately more value for customers by staying on the Jet engine in Exchange 2007, the second, public beta of which is expected to ship as early as late July, with the final product likely in late 2006 or early 2007.
Buoyed by improving multi-year license renewals, Microsoft will invest $900 million in sales and marketing to drive Vista, Office 2007 and Xbox 360 deals during the 2007 fiscal year, executives said Thursday.
In a conference call today detailing its fourth quarter and 2006 fiscal year results, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said the Redmond, Wash., software giant will spend $450 million to launch and market those three key products over the next 12 months, and invest another $450 million to strengthen its sales force and field sales organization to sell those major upgrades.
Microsoft on Thursday unveiled a new low-end personal finance program that it's selling only electronically. It marks the first time Microsoft has used a download-only distribution model for its consumer software.
Priced at $19.99, Money Essentials includes fundamental finance tools that focus on online banking, including ones that automatically categorize expenses and generate e-bill reminders.
Microsoft also launched 2007 editions of the other SKUs in its Money family, ranging from the $49.99 Money 2007 Deluxe to the $89.99 Money 2007 Home & Business.