Looking to find a way to let peer-to-peer communications traverse NATs and firewalls in a single bound, Microsoft and Cisco Systems today announced that they are jointly endorsing the Interactive Connectivity Establishment methodology.
ICE, which is not yet ratified but currently under consideration by the Internet Engineering Task Force, is designed to allow people to communicate across NATs and firewall, which can be a barrier to VoIP and other types of rich media communications, according to Russell Bennett, program manager, Real Time Collaboration Group.
Microsoft China and Satyam Computer Services have agreed to work together in Greater China to tap what they hope will be growing demand for complex IT systems from large businesses in the region, they announced Thursday.
The two will establish the Satyam Microsoft Adaptive Solution Center, featuring a broad range of IT offerings from Satyam built around Microsoft products. The Chinese market is maturing and demand for IT strategies from multinationals in the region is on the rise, the companies said. Greater China generally includes China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Microsoft has stunned some in the British reseller community by allowing a discount dealer to sell secondhand volume licenses, opening the floodgates for a used-software market in the U.K.
Disclic this week began offering secondhand software licenses from insolvent or downsizing companies to other businesses with Microsoft's blessing.
"Yes, we are doing that," said Jonathan Horley, a director at Disclic. "It's been in planning for a year and a half. Previously, a lot of companies didn't see software licenses as an asset, but this helps them see that."
Although formally launched on Monday, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 won't be generally available until Dec. 1. The product has been available for download by MSDN subscribers since shortly after the release to manufacturing a few weeks ago. MSDN terms prohibit uses other than development and testing.
With the launch on Monday, Microsoft also posted a 180-day evaluation version of SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition. The company also handed out copies to launch attendees.
Microsoft will issue service packs next year for both Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005, its package of tools for developers.
The news was posted Monday on a Web log by Microsoft employee Scott Wiltamuth, a visual C# product service manager, on Microsoft's Developer Network Web site. The same day, Microsoft hosted galas in places such as San Francisco and London for the launch of Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and a new beta version of BizTalk Server 2006, a software trio designed as an XML and Web services-oriented applications platform.
Bill Gates and a rising Microsoft leader are exhorting the company to act "quickly and decisively" to realign its business around online services -- calling for a major overhaul to rise to a challenge as big as when Gates first acknowledged the Internet's significance a decade ago.
In a confidential Oct. 30 message to Microsoft's top executives, Gates made it clear that he considered the new Windows Live and Office Live online services, unveiled two days later, only the start of a fundamental shift in the company's business.
Users of Microsoft's Software Update Services will have to wait a little longer to obtain Microsoft's latest security patch, the software vendor said Wednesday. Microsoft issued a patch fixing three critical graphics bugs in the Windows operating system Tuesday, but the company has been unable to deliver the software to users of its SUS corporate update service, Microsoft said Wednesday.
Microsoft Program Manager Bobbie Harder acknowledged the problem Tuesday in a post to an SUS discussion forum written shortly after Microsoft issued the November security patch. Harder said that the SUS update would be available by approximately 5 p.m. Pacific Time Tuesday.
Microsoft expects to sell up to 3 million of its new Xbox videogame consoles within 90 days of the console's launch, an executive said Tuesday.
Bryan Lee, chief financial officer with Microsoft's Home and Entertainment unit, told investors and analysts at the Harris Nesbitt Media and Entertainment Conference that the company is aiming to sell between 2.75 million and 3 million consoles worldwide within 90 days following its Nov. 22 debut in North America.
The North American debut will be followed by a Dec. 2 launch in Europe and a Dec. 10 launch in Japan.
Beyond the usual hard sell for Microsoft, Steve Ballmer had another message for the 3,000 developers who showed up in San Francisco on Monday for the unveiling of updates to the company's flagship database programs and developer tools.
In a speech ostensibly devoted to SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server, Ballmer staked out what he saw as the key business differences separating his company from other software makers--including the growing cohort that makes up the open-source community.
Microsoft's chief executive officer later sat down with CNET News.com to explain that while Oracle and SAP might enjoy a more cordial relationship with the Fortune 500, Microsoft's ambition was to become the "grand consolidator of everything else."
Microsoft has a new name for its anti-spyware program, and unlike some of its choices for other products, there's no question this time about whether it has the right to use the moniker.
But the software developer who signed over that right isn't happy about the way Microsoft secured it.
Late last week, the company announced that it would begin using the name "Windows Defender" for the anti-spyware program that it plans to offer as part of its flagship PC operating system.
That was a surprise to Adam Lyttle, a 22-year-old developer from Adelaide, Australia, who developed a program of the same name for preventing online sites from making unwanted changes in a computer's settings.