When Microsoft releases the first beta of its Longhorn version of Windows, it will include a nearly complete version of the product's Web services-based communication framework, code-named Indigo, a Microsoft product manager confirmed this week.
A Microsoft partner familiar with Indigo's product development cycle told the IDG News Service at the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference that engineers working on Indigo, which Microsoft promises will simplify the creation of Web services, had nearly finished their work.
Back in December 2003, Microsoft shuffled its Windows platforms group and created the unified Core Operating Systems Division (COSD). COSD's charter: To ensure Windows "engineering excellence." What's happened since then? Slowly but surely, COSD has been finding its way, according to one of the key movers and shakers on the COSD team, Rob Short, corporate VP of Windows Core Technology.
Allchin ended up hand-picking a team of people -- almost all of whom were Windows client and/or server veterans with impressive and lengthy pedigrees -- to focus on what are considered the core components of Windows. Specifically: the kernel, I/O (input/output) system; core devices; setup; and all the build properties.
Microsoft is in search of customers to evaluate its upcoming Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access add-on to Live Communications Server 2005. A beta is expected within the next 30 days.Communicator Web Access, code-named Budapest, extends the full capabilities and presence of LCS to the Web for users that cannot install or easily access the Office Communicator client. Microsoft says that Budapest will be cross platform and compatible with most commonly used Web browsers.
Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Inc. officials are sharing more and more these days, from ID management specs, to racks of servers, to keynote appearances at trade shows.
That doesn't mean the two have ceased competing, however. And nowhere is that competition more evident than on the programming-language front.
Sun's Java and Microsoft's C# are still going head-to-head. And the "fathers" of the languagesSun's James Gosling and Microsoft's Anders Hejlsbergare laser-focused on building out their respective platforms.
European regulators raided the offices of Intel and a number of PC-related companies early Tuesday as part of an antitrust investigation into the chip giant.
As part of the dawn raid, European Commission officials and national competition authorities in Milan, Italy; Munich, Germany; Madrid, Spain; and Swindon, England, descended on several Intel offices, a Commission representative said and an Intel representative confirmed. The officials also visited a number of companies that manufacture or sell computers.
In hopes of drawing more gamers to its new Xbox 360 platform, Microsoft on Thursday announced it had obtained the exclusive rights to produce massively multiplayer online games (or MMOGs) featuring the Marvel characters. But fans will have to wait; the first game isn't expected until 2008.
The deal is the first for Marvel on a MMOG, and the first for a Microsoft console. Microsoft already had struck some deals with companies for games on the PC side. The Xbox 360 is expected to be launched in November.
At Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference here, eWEEK senior editor Peter Galli and senior writer Renee Boucher Ferguson continue their conversation with Allison Watson, vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group.
Peter Galli: Doug Burgum's the senior vice president of Microsoft's Business Solutions group performance bonus must have been very small, given the partner questions he's been facing.
One after the other, they were very angryabout the verticalization, about the fact that they didn't understand the policy, about the fact that the sales force often doesn't know the product and weren't responsive. His response was, "Well, we hope it gets better by next year."
Goliath settled with David on Wednesday, when Microsoft settled a patent infringement suit brought by Alacritech.
San Jose, Calif.-based Alacritech sells a line of TCP/IP network interface cards that circumvent sludgy network protocol processing to speed the delivery of data in servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices.
Both Microsoft and networking giant Broadcom agreed to license the SLIC architecture used in the accelerators. Broadcom will incorporate it into its Broadcom NetXtreme II technology, to be used with Windows Server 2003.
At Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday, security officials announced they fixed three critical vulnerabilities.
The vulnerabilities open the door for remote code execution by malware writers, allowing them to completely take over the user's machine. Once accomplished they would have full administrative rights to view, change or delete data on the hard drive.
The first is a critical font-parsing vulnerability in Microsoft Word affecting Microsoft 2000/XP and Microsoft Works 2000/2001/2002/2003/2004 users. The vulnerability can be exploited if a user opens a specially crafted Word document, which would install a malicious program onto the computer.
Microsoft's long-standing attempt to meld the personal computer and the entertainment center has taken a very literal turn -- spawning a piece of hardware that is simultaneously a television remote control and a PC keyboard.
The company's hardware division today is unveiling what it calls the Remote Keyboard, designed for use with computers running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition software. The wireless keyboard, with remote-control buttons in addition to traditional computer keys, is meant to be used while leaning back in the living room.