Sun Microsystems may be warming up to the idea of selling Microsoft's Windows operating system on its servers.
Tom Goguen, vice president of operating platform marketing for Sun, said this week that while Sun currently has no definite plan to strike a deal with Microsoft to sell Windows, the vendor will consider it if customers and partners think it's a good idea.
"It depends on what our customers tell us to do," Goguen said. "If we find enough customers that say we want you to have that type of relationship with Microsoft, [we will]."
The founder of pen computing pioneer Go filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft, claiming that the software giant violated antitrust laws by trying to thwart Go's attempt to enter the PC operating system market.
The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, was filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by S. Jerrold Kaplan, Go's founder.
"Microsoft undertook to 'kill' Go by resorting to many of the same collusive and exclusionary tactics Microsoft used against Netscape, Sun, Novell...and others," according to the complaint, which was seen by CNET News.com.
Microsoft will pay IBM $775 million and give it another $75 million in credit under an antitrust settlement announced by the two companies Friday.
The settlement resolves all discriminatory pricing and overcharging claims stemming from the U.S. government's mid-1990s antitrust case against Microsoft, the companies said in a press release. The settlement also resolves most other IBM antitrust claims, including those related to its OS/2 operating system and SmartSuite products. IBM's claims of harm to its server hardware and server software businesses are not covered by the settlement.
Even as Microsoft's low-cost version of Windows reaches more corners of the globe, some analysts are wondering whether it is hitting the mark.
The addition of a Spanish-language version this week means that Microsoft is now selling Windows XP Starter Edition, a localized adaptation of the full-fledged operating system, in a half-dozen languages in various emerging markets.
Critics say, however, that the software is still not flexible enough to really meet the needs of developing countries and individuals who live there.
Microsoft has published application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow programmers to display the results of a desktop search in their choice of programs. The APIs, which were released earlier this week, are still in beta testing.
Microsoft's MSN division released Windows Desktop Search in May, a few months after Google launched its own, called Google Desktop. Windows Desktop Search already has a few features for customizing searches, such as the ability to speed up search results by creating indexes.
Published reports that Microsoft is in discussions to purchase high-profile adware vendor Claria for as much as $500 million have set tongues wagging in the security sector, with analysts and vendors questioning the software giant's motives and whether the deal will actually occur.
"Given Microsoft's emphasis on trustworthy computing and their public stance against adware, I think it would be a really strange acquisition and not the best move," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, an independent analysis firm in Kirkland, Wash. "I wouldn't be surprised if there were talks going on, but I'd be surprised if this goes through."
A new wave of spam that disguises itself as a Microsoft security bulletin contains a link to malicious software that gives attackers complete access to the infected machine, security researchers are reporting.
The e-mail, which began circulating late Tuesday, identifies itself as Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-039, and offers a link to what it claims is a patch against the Sober Zafi and Mytob worms.
In fact, there is no such thing as Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-039, and real Microsoft security bulletins offer links to a Microsoft download site, rather than to the patches themselves, said Mikko Hyppönen, director of antivirus research at F-Secure
From here on out, downloads from Microsoft Update and Automatic Updates will seem just a little bit faster. That is because Microsoft has released a non-security "critical" Windows update that places a permanent copy of the Package Installer for Windows on an end user's computer.
As a result, the footprint of downloads is made significantly smaller. The Package Installer for Windows, version 6.1.22.4, may be obtained through Microsoft Update or the Microsoft Download Center before it is made mandatory in the near future.
Less than a month after Microsoft's Windows Server Update Services enterprise patch-management platform was released to manufacturing, Microsoft has turned off downloads of the previous version.
Beginning Thursday, Microsoft will no longer be offering the predecessor SUS 1.0 for download, but some IT administrators are grumbling that the software giant did not provide adequate notice of the forced upgrade.
"If I have a SUS deployment in the works, Microsoft is now telling me that I must change right now. Microsoft is making the assumption that customers have fully deployed SUS 1.0 and have no further deployment plans. They're now making budgeting decisions for us," said one enterprise IT administrator with a high-profile company, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Microsoft's ambitious plan to bake RSS deep into the belly of Longhorn will open new attack vectors for spammers, phishers and malicious hackers, security experts say.
"It is inevitable, without a doubt. When Longhorn comes out, attackers will pounce on every new thing to see if Microsoft did it correctly. You can bet RSS integration will be one of those things attackers will want to exploit," said John Pescatore, senior vice president of research at Gartner Inc.
Looking to introduce the fast-growing content syndication technology to a mass audience, Microsoft plans to embed an RSS platform to automatically distribute feeds into Windows applications, both its own and those from developers.