If Google would agree to make a preliminary injunction become permanent in a lawsuit Microsoft filed against it related to a former employee who has gone to work for Google (Profile, Products, Articles), the matter could be settled, Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) said in a statement issued Tuesday.
"We can settle this lawsuit tomorrow if Google will agree to take today's preliminary injunction, keep every word without a single change, and enter it as a permanent injunction that will last until July 18, 2006," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in the prepared statement. Doing so would sidestep a trial and the need to pay lawyers outside of the company, he said.
Microsoft's PDC 2005 mission: To broaden its developer base. But will programmers find Redmond's new technologies in the pipeline hot enough to pledge all their loyalties? Developers always have been the target audience for Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC). Going into PDC 2005, the company's message isn't wavering. It is, however, expanding. Microsoft is seeking to grow substantially the group it defines as "developers" by making available to them new tools and interfaces that it is hoping to convince them to use in building their next-gen applications.
Microsoft will announce next week a number of enhancements to its subscription-licensing program, including Vista, Eiger and Virtual Express additions. Microsoft is continuing to seek to undo the negative perception many customers share about its Software Assurance subscription-licensing program. On September 15, the company is set to unveil via Webcast the latest bunch of new benefits designed to entice more customers to sign up for Software Assurance.
Microsoft is grappling with "a lot of smart competitors," including Google and Apple, who are ahead of the Redmond company in some key markets, Bill Gates acknowledges.
But the Microsoft chairman on Tuesday said his company remains the overall industry leader, and he compared the current rivalries to legendary ones with Lotus, Novell and WordPerfect -- situations in which the Redmond company ultimately overcame steep odds to prevail.
Microsoft Wednesday demonstrated its new toolset aimed at helping software graphic design experts and developers work better together. During his keynote at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) here, Eric Rudder, senior vice president of the server and tools business at Microsoft, officially unveiled the Microsoft Expression Studio suite of tools for designers and developers. The suite consists of the "Acrylic" Graphic Designer tool, the "Sparkle" Interactive Designer tool for creating animation and other graphics, and the "Quartz" Web Designer tool, Rudder said.
Microsoft pulled the database mirroring technology from SQL Server 2005 with less than two months to go until the long-awaited database server platform ships. In a letter to customers on Wednesday disclosing the decision, Microsoft senior vice president for server applications Paul Flessner also confirmed Microsoft's commitment to the Nov. 7 launch date for the database and announced the release of the September Community Technology Preview of SQL Server 2005.
Microsoft's on-again, off-again Windows Sidebar feature, a prominent new interface element that could make it into the Windows Vista desktop, is definitely on again. The Sidebar user interface element got a big boost this week when Microsoft vowed at the Professional Developers Conference 2005 in Los Angeles that it would debut for testers in an upcoming Vista Community Technology Preview.
In most demonstrations so far, Microsoft has presented the Sidebar as a column along the right-hand border of the screen that is wider than the Taskbar.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the Community Technology Preview of Windows Vista and Technical Preview of its LINQ Project are aimed at ISVs and developers but that solution providers are fast becoming part of that world.
In an interview with CRN at its Professional Developer's Conference, Microsoft's chief software architect said the forthcoming Windows Workflow Foundation in Vista and LINQ XML query language extensions for C# and Visual Basic, both formally announced at the conference here, afford new opportunities for service partners.
Microsoft will try to extend the dominance of its two biggest software franchises with a set of significantly redesigned Office programs to be released in conjunction with the next Windows operating system.
Microsoft showed the next version of its widely used Office productivity software for the first time Tuesday -- revealing a new approach that abandons the standard drop-down menus in favor of a "ribbon" that presents the commands in a thick strip across the top of the window in such programs as Word and Excel.
The revamp to Rollup 1 Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is a "high-priority" update rather than a security update, Microsoft said Tuesday, when it issued the pack. In its advance notification for Patch Tuesday, the software maker said it would deliver a nonsecurity update but did not provide any further details.
The "v2," or second version, of the pack tackles four problems encountered by Windows 2000 users after they installed the original bundle. There are additional glitches, but those will be resolved in individual fixes, Microsoft said in a posting to its Web site.