Microsoft, which has been carving a larger slice of the mobile device OS market, is developing a new product, code-named "Crossbow," which will incorporate features such as instant messaging, a Microsoft executive confirmed Monday.
Crossbow will have strong links with Office 2007 and Exchange 12, Microsoft's pending new office application suite and e-mail server, said Pieter Knook, senior vice president for the mobile devices and telecoms sector. Crossbow would be the successor to Windows Mobile 5.0, released in May 2005.
Microsoft's MSN portal lagged far behind rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in search growth in March, a Web metrics firm said Monday.
The number of searches on MSN increased by only 9 percent in March, compared with the same month a year ago, Nielsen/NetRatings said. Growth on Google and Yahoo, on the other hand, soared by 41 percent and 47 percent, respectively, outpacing the overall search growth rate of 36 percent from a year ago.
In terms of number of searchers, Google incrased to 2.9 billion from 2.1 billion, Yahoo to 1.3 billion from 907.8 million, and MSN to 643.8 million from 592.2 million.
The Redmond software maker is building an 'Experimentation Platform' where it will allow Microsoft and third-party developers to test new Live-based services before rolling them out.
The new site, known as the Windows Live Experimentation Platform, went live on Thursday. The site is running on top of Office Live, a set of service extensions to Microsoft Office that Microsoft released to beta testers earlier this year.
Experimentation Platform is Microsoft's latest move toward making Windows Live not just a collection of services, but a developer platform in its own right. Microsoft rivals Google, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay all are embarking on similar strategies, by exposing more services as open application-programming interfaces and encouraging developers to build mash-ups, composite applications and other consumer and business software atop their respective platforms.
The decision to outsource the University of Texas-Pan American's 17,000 student e-mail accounts to Microsoft for free was a simple one for Gary Wiggins, the school's top IT administrator.
Students hated the existing system and its limited storage, lack of features -- like a calendar, for example -- and cumbersome user interface.
"The legacy system we were moving from was so bad that the new features were very well-accepted," said Wiggins, who is the school's vice president for information technology.
The school could still create e-mail addresses ending in utpa.edu and many students were already familiar with Microsoft's Hotmail e-mail service.
Microsoft said Friday that it has hired Internet executive Steve Berkowitz to head its MSN and Windows Live efforts as part of the company's continued push to offer more online software and services.
Berkowitz, the former Ask Jeeves CEO, has been serving as head of InterActiveCorp's search business since the Barry Diller-backed company acquired the search company for $1.85 billion last year. His naming comes after Microsoft last month reorganized the Microsoft unit that handles the Windows operating system, Windows Live and MSN.
Just in time for Earth Day, April 22, the world's biggest software company is laying claim to running the largest solar electric system in Silicon Valley.
The location is in Mountain View, Calif. where Microsoft maintains a key research facility. The Silicon Valley campus will now be better able to guard against rolling blackouts that have bedeviled the region in recent years during summer months.
The solar electric system from PowerLight of Berkeley, Calif., consists of high-efficiency solar modules that convert sunlight directly into electricity. Generating 480kW at peak capacity, this system is composed of
2,288 tiles that can supply enough energy to power nearly 500 homes, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft's request to subpoena IBM in the software giant's antitrust battle with European regulators was denied by a U.S. federal judge Thursday.
Microsoft sought to obtain documents and correspondence between Big Blue and the European Commission, which issued an historic antitrust order regarding the software giant in 2004. IBM is currently a third party in the Commission's review of whether Microsoft should pay a significant fine for noncompliance of the remedies listed in that order.
Microsoft claims the requested documents could aid its defense against the Commission's "statement of objections," and has not only tried to subpoena IBM but also other third parties in the case, such as Novell. But a federal court in Boston recently rejected Microsoft's Novell subpoena request as well.
Vietnam's fledgling high-tech industry gets a major vote of confidence with the arrival Friday of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, whose visit says much about the country's success in establishing itself as a new player on the technology map.
Vietnam has been anxious to jump-start its high-tech sector, which got a big boost earlier this year when Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, announced plans to build a $300 million chip assembly and testing plant in the country.
"The decision of Intel a plant in Ho Chi Minh City, and now Bill Gates' visit is confirming the recognition of Vietnam's potential for IT development," said Truong Gia Binh, CEO and president of the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology, or FPT, the country's leading software and computer maker.
The uphill battle that tablet computing continues to face in winning favor with consumers hasn't dampened Bill Gates' enthusiasm for the technology. Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect said Friday that someday tablet PCs will replace textbooks for all students.
"We do see, over time, that the ink input for the tablet and speech input will become as important as the keyboard, not replacing it but equally important." Gates said at a news conference here.
"In fact, we see a day where every student, instead of their textbooks, will simply have their tablet computer connected up to the wireless Internet," he said. "And so the teacher can customize the material, they can quiz the student. That student can have that tablet with them wherever they go and it's actually lighter than the textbooks and more flexible, richer in terms of what it can offer."
A lawyer representing Microsoft said Thursday that the European Union was unwise to issue policy guidelines on trade secrets and the abuse of dominant positions while the software company's antitrust case is pending at an EU court.
"The guidelines reflect the anti-intellectual property viewpoint" of the European Commission, David Harfst, a Brussels, Belgium-based lawyer at Covington & Burling who represents Microsoft, said at a conference. They degrade intellectual property rights, he said.