Think every two to three years for a new SQL Server release. Expect a newly rebranded mobile version of SQL Server that will run on the Windows client. And watch for new tools tie-ins, according to the Redmond software giant.
Microsoft outlined in very broad strokes its long-term data storage vision on April 6 at a customer lunch in San Francisco.
Microsoft is rebranding its SQL Server Mobile Edition product as "SQL Server Everywhere," and is planning to release a first Community Technology Preview test build of a new version of that product in the summer of 2006, with final availability slated in some time in the second half of 2006. The new SQL Server Everywhere release will run on Windows CE, as does the current product, but also on Win32 and Win64 platforms.
Microsoft has acquired Lionhead Studios, whose founder, Peter Molyneux, is one of the best-known independent video game developers in the business.
The acquisition was announced jointly Thursday by Microsoft Game Studios and U.K.-based Lionhead, the developer of such hit titles as "Fable," "The Movies," "Black White" and others.
The integration of the two outfits is official as of Thursday, the companies said. They would not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
The idea, the companies say, is that Lionhead will begin creating games exclusively for the Xbox 360 and Windows platforms. And that makes sense, say industry observers, because Lionhead and Microsoft Game Studio already had a close working relationship, what with the Xbox- and Windows-only "Fable" selling more than 2 million copies to date.
Microsoft has won its biggest-ever contract for mobile-phone software, an order from the U.S. Census Bureau that covers 500,000 handsets.
Microsoft expects to increase its mobile unit's sales to $1 billion in one to three years, from $337 million last year, and break the dominance of Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry.
"Up until now, BlackBerry had the market for themselves," Pieter Knook, a Microsoft senior vice president, said. "That landscape has changed."
Sales of handsets with Windows will double to 20 million units in 2007 as corporate customers opt for those devices instead of the BlackBerry, Knook said. They still would be just a fraction of Microsoft's almost $40 billion in annual sales.
While Microsoft's Windows Hypervisor technology, code-named Viridian and currently under development, will not be ready when Windows "Longhorn" Server ships sometime next year, company officials are optimistic that it will be available "sooner rather than later." But they are not yet prepared to say exactly when "sooner" might be, especially in light of the recently announced slips in the release of Windows Vista and Office 2007.
Viridian is technology that will run beneath the operating system and manage resources for multiple virtual machines.
Lucent Technologies has filed a patent infringement suit against Microsoft over the same MPEG-2 decoding technology at the center of a 2003 legal dispute.
According to the formal complaint, filed March 28 in U.S. District Court in San Diego, the telecommunications equipment maker is suing Microsoft for patent infringement against Patent No. 5,227,878, titled "Adaptive Coding and Decoding of Frames and Fields of Video," which was issued to Lucent in 1993. The patent concerns MPEG-2 video encoding.
Charles Simonyi, the former Microsoft software developer who's credited with creating a self-documenting programming style called Hungarian Notation, could make a trip to the International Space Station next year onboard a Russian spacecraft. The billionaire was one of the key developers of both Microsoft Word and Excel back in the mid-1980's.
"A preliminary contract with Simonyi has been concluded for spring 2007," said Alexei Krasnov, the head of manned spaceflight programs at Russia's Federal Space Agency.
Contracts for Russian space flights currently fetch about $20 million and include training and a week in orbit with two professional astronauts. Simonyi is worth about $1 billion, according to Forbes.
Microsoft released on Tuesday an upgraded version of a wireless optical mouse intended for laptop users and plans to introduce two new desktop mice--one laser and one optical--by this summer.
All of the new products rely on the company's High Definition technology, which is aimed at supplying improved mouse responsiveness, at least six months of battery life, and smoother tracking over uneven surfaces. According to a statement, Microsoft has sold more than 1 million products from the High Definition line since its debut in September.
The Wireless Optical Notebook Mouse 3000, which sells for $29, is billed as an upgrade to the company's best-selling Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse.
In a rare discussion about the severity of the Windows malware scourge, a Microsoft security official said businesses should consider investing in an automated process to wipe hard drives and reinstall operating systems as a practical way to recover from malware infestation.
"When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit," Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, said in a presentation at the InfoSec World conference here.
Microsoft is working with partners to come up with a directory of add-on applications for Office Live that will be ready when the full version of the service goes live later this year.
Marja Koopmans, director of partner strategy and execution for Office Live, said Tuesday that the company is working in a pilot program with several partners that are developing applications for Office Live using Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Access.
Once Office Live is available, those services can be purchased either directly from those partners or through a directory that will be available in each of Office Live's three service plans, she said.
Microsoft on April 4 announced the formation of the BioIT Alliance, a cross-industry group created to enhance the ability to use and share biomedical data, at the Life Sciences Conference and Expo in Boston.
The working group will take on a series of "proof-of-concept" projects to understand how Microsoft's platforms can enhance the integration of the life sciences and IT.
"Advances in our understanding of the human genome promise to revolutionize medicine and open the door to therapies that are tailored to individuals," said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft, in a statement.