Although insisting that a sudden change in top management is not related to news that Windows Vista has slipped its schedule, sources inside the company say that Microsoft has promoted a veteran executive to head its Windows efforts, according to news reports.
Steven Sinofsky, 40 and currently senior vice president of Microsoft Office, will move to take over the Windows division, according to a story Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, quoting unidentified sources within the company.
The move is seen as significant, but it is not unusual for the company to shuffle executives as part of larger and frequent reorganizations. For example, the Journal story points to last fall?s reorg of the entire company by CEO Steve Ballmer from seven separate businesses down to three.
Tuesday's announcement that Microsoft is delaying the launch of its much-anticipated Windows Vista has spawned some crowded virtual water coolers.
Around the Web, there are some warning that the new January 2007 release date will put holiday PC sales in serious jeopardy. Others say retailers are better off getting through the holiday mania and other planned Christmastime product launches, so they'll have more time to help customers with the new operating system.
Some are critical of Microsoft, saying the move is disappointing consumers, partners and stockholders. Still others commend the software giant for taking the extra time to launch a solid product right out of the box. And that all just scratches the Net surface.
Microsoft said Tuesday that it will significantly increase the availability of its Xbox 360 videogame consoles, after production problems that have made the popular game systems difficult to find on store shelves.
Beginning this week, the company said it would distribute two to three times as many Xbox 360 consoles to retailers each week than it did before.
The uptick comes as the company has added a third manufacturer, Celestica Inc., and brought component supplies up to full production levels.
Apple is getting a lecture on its security response process from the unlikeliest of places. In a classic flipping of the script, a Microsoft program manager who regularly serves as the public face of the software maker's security response process rapped Apple for the way it handles security guidance to customers.
In a series of entries on his personal blog at Stepto.com, Microsoft program manager Stephen Toulouse called on the Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple to hire a security czar and revamp the way information is released when Mac OS X updates are shipped.
Bill Gates made his pitch to expand Microsoft's behind-the-scenes role on the Web Monday, trying to win over a crowd of people who work on some of the world's largest commercial Internet sites.
Addressing a Microsoft-sponsored conference on Web development and design, the Microsoft chairman outlined his company's programs for writing Web-based software, including a system for making souped-up online services that work with new elements of the company's Windows operating system.
At next week's Convergence business-solutions conference, Microsoft will take the wraps off yet more software that it is lumping under its newly minted "People-Ready" brand.
Microsoft will unveil next week technology designed to integrate its Dynamics CRM application with its Dynamics GP Great Plains ERP applications.
Microsoft will make the announcement at next week's Microsoft Convergence conference, its annual event for Microsoft Business Solutions customers. This year's Convergence will be in Dallas.
Microsoft is designing a new handheld gaming device that can also play music and video in a potential challenge to market leaders Sony, Nintendo Co. Ltd. and Apple Computer Inc., according to published reports.
The company has assembled a crack team of engineers from its Xbox division to work on the product, which may take a year or even two years to reach the market, the reports said.
The project is being led by game executive J Allard and directed by Greg Gibson, the system designer behind Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, according to a report in Monday's San Jose Mercury News. Microsoft reorganized its gaming and entertainment divisions to assemble the team for the project, an indication of how seriously it is about building a successful rival to Sony's PlayStation Portable, the paper said.
Microsoft is beginning to articulate a concrete plan for turning Windows Live into a developer platform. Here at Microsoft's Mix 06 conference on March 20, Microsoft officials explained in a session on Windows Live how the company is thinking about making Windows Live appeal to third-party developers, not just to Microsoft's own product teams.
Microsoft has been mulling how best to articulate its Windows Live developer story for several months, as noted on the LiveSide.Net Web site. To help simplify its message, Microsoft has consolidated its content and tools for Windows Live developers on a single Microsoft Developer Network site.
Microsoft today announced its largest European Internet TV contract.
Deutsche Telekom said it will use Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software to bring television to 50 German towns by the end of 2007.
While the two companies didn't release terms of the contract, the agreement is the software giant's second largest IPTV pact next to a $400 million deal with AT&T signed in 2004, Microsoft said in a statement.
Deutsche Telekon said it will use Microsoft TV software to power the telecom's "T-Home" 50 Mbps VDSL service, bringing video to subscribers in 50 German cities.
Microsoft said today that consumer versions of its next-generation version of Windows would not hit the market until January 2007, dashing plans that it would be on PCs for sale during the 2006 end-of-year holiday season.
During a conference call today to detail the road map plans for Vista, however, Microsoft said it is on target to go into broad consumer beta to approximately two million users in the second quarter of 2006.
Jim Allchin, Microsoft's outgoing co-president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, stressed that Vista would be completed this year and available for businesses. "We decided to make it directly available in November via our volume licensing programming," he said, with "broad consumer and PC availability in January, 2007."
Some customers lined up to support the move, despite the fact that Vista will miss the 2006 delivery that had been promised by Microsoft.