Microsoft this week plans another Vista beta 2 drop that is promised to hog fewer system resources.
At Microsoft's Velocity 2006 worldwide partner conference in Boston Tuesday, a Microsoft executive said the updated beta will be available to Technet subscribers "in a few days."
"Vista in its beta form is pretty taxing on the system. It's slow and a little non-responsive," said Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows client marketing at Microsoft.
"That piece of software is now about nine weeks old and that may not sound like a lot but at this stage, that's an old version in software terms."
"You'll see a huge difference in performance," Sievert said of the interim release, noting Microsoft is recommending 512 Megabytes of memory when testing the new code.
Two colleges are hoping to make computer science courses more attractive by including personal robots with the textbooks.
Looking to boost enrollment in introductory computer science classes, Microsoft is working with Bryn Mawr College and Georgia Tech on developing new ways to bring robotics technology into the classroom.
The software company is creating the Institute for Personal Robots in Education, which will be based mainly at the College of Computing at Georgia Tech.
For the first time, Microsoft and Yahoo will allow interoperability between the consumer versions of their instant-messaging
clients, the companies said Wednesday.
Beginning Wednesday night Pacific Standard Time, the companies will offer limited public testing that enables users of Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger with Voice to connect to each other through either service.
Once they gain access to the beta, users can exchange instant messages across the two services, as well as see their friends'
online presence, view personal status messages, share emoticons, view offline messages and add new contacts between the services.
Reports from around the Web suggest that Microsoft is moving a secret internal project on which I've been briefed into the product development stage. If true--and I have no reliable information to suggest it is--Microsoft will go head-to-head with Apple's iPod in the portable MP3 player market as soon as this holiday season. Here's what the rumors reveal.
A report in the "Seattle Times" says that Microsoft's MP3 player is codenamed "Argos" after the ship that Jason and the Argonauts used to pursue the Golden Fleece. It's being developed by people from the Xbox team, and led by J Allard, an Xbox team cofounder. According to Times reporter Brier Dudley, Microsoft is firmly behind the new player and has committed "hundreds of millions" of dollars to its development and marketing.
In an effort to sell more security products through its partner channel, Microsoft unveiled a program at its annual partner
conference this week that gives commission to partners for influencing sales.
The Security Software Advisor Program enables partners that encourage customers to buy certain Microsoft security products
to earn 20 percent of the sale of those products from the vendor after the deal is complete, said Steve Brown, director of
product management for security, access and solutions division at Microsoft.
Microsoft is steadily building a family of System Center systems management software aimed at both midsize and enterprise
customers, the company said Wednesday.
In terms of Microsoft's management tools, 2006 is proving to be a "watershed year," said Andy Lees, corporate vice president,
server and tools marketing at Microsoft during a keynote address at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Boston, which runs
through Thursday.
Lees formally introduced the latest addition to the family, System Center Essentials 2007, currently in beta testing and due
to ship either late this year or early in 2007. Focused on midmarket customers, Essentials is a Windows Server systems management
product.
Microsoft on Wednesday at its Velocity 2006 partner conference in Boston debuted a desktop virtualization licensing plan for Windows Vista Enterprise in hopes of generating more interest in its Software Assurance program.
Under the new plan users buying Vista through Software Assurance can now run up to four copies of Windows in virtual machines on a single device for a single user. The move should encourage users working with older versions of Windows to migrate more quickly to Vista because both are available through the Software Assurance program.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 may exemplify the high-tech future of video game consoles, but the company is hoping some of its avid players still pine for the good old days of Pac-Man and Frogger.
Microsoft plans Wednesday to offer some additional updated versions of popular 1980s-era games through Xbox Live Arcade, an online service that lets people download free trial games and buy them for $5 to $15.
The company will offer a game every Wednesday for the next five weeks, including some retro games with higher-end graphics and new ways to play together. The first game on offer is the log-hopping, traffic-dodging classic, Frogger.
This week, outgoing Microsoft U.S. channel chief Margo Day officially passed the baton to Robert Deshaies, who has been working the field as regional vice president of the Redmond, Wash., company's East Region Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partners (SMS&P) organization. CRN Editor Heather Clancy and Senior Writer Paula Rooney spoke with the two executives at the Velocity 2006 partner conference about the transition plan and Microsoft's shifting field and partner management priorities over the coming fiscal year. Here is an excerpt of the discussion.
Microsoft said it would appeal the European Commission's $357M fine, arguing regulators jumped the gun over demands for technical documentation.
Laying groundwork for an appeal expected within two months of today's EC decision, Brad Smith, lead counsel for the software giant, said the commission was acting hastily.
"It's hard to understand why the Commission is rushing to grade our homework before the due date we've all agreed upon," Smith told reporters in a conference call following today's announcement.