What if you built an OS and no one wanted it? That's the situation Microsoft faces now, as its European Union (EU)-mandated Windows XP N editions are met with a complete lack of interest from PC makers and consumers.
Retailers in Europe report that there's no interest in the XP N versions. The problems are price and perception. Despite lacking a key feature of the mainstream XP versions, the XP N editions are priced identically to their non-N counterparts. Too, the lack of a media player means that XP N buyers need to manually download a media player, which, believe it or not, is still a daunting process for many people.
Some testers reported on Wednesday that they had downloaded a new beta version of Microsoft AntiSpyware (version number 1.0.613). They also reported that Microsoft had extended the beta-expiration date for the product from July 31, 2005, to December 31, 2005.
The pending refresh is not Beta 2, however, Microsoft executives said. Beta 2 will be released "some time later this year," they said.
"We are going through with a refresh of the (Microsoft AntiSpyware) beta," said Paul Bryan, director of product management with Microsoft's security technology and business unit. "We are testing this right now a bit, making sure that things are OK" before releasing to all testers.
Microsoft's refresh of its home-entertainment-hub operating system could go gold in August. Microsoft is in the final stretches of testing an update to Windows XP Media Center 2005 expected to ship this fall.
The update is currently at the Beta 2 test stage, according to
Neowin.net, Neowin said the update will include the following:
- Native digital cable support;
- Content protection;
- Improved burning (digital-rights management, network, Hi-def, DVD-RAM);
- Platform security; and
- Support for additional languages and locales
Organizing and editing your ever-growing collection of digital photos can be a daunting prospect. Microsoft's Digital Image Suite 2006, which will be available on July 5, aims to make the process easier. The application leads you through the tasks of labeling and sorting your photos, correcting colors and composition, and producing slide shows you can burn to CD. The $100 package is an upgrade from Digital Image Suite 10, but users of that version may notice little that is new.
Gregory Maffei is taking his finance experience with Microsoft and heading over to Oracle. The enterprise database company said Maffei will take over as CFO as of July. He will also oversee Oracle's legal department, human resources, manufacturing and distribution and global real estate. The former CFO for Microsoft from July 1997 to January 2000 said he is thrilled about the new position.
Maffei leaves his position as chairman and CEO of 360networks, where he has worked since leaving Microsoft in January 2000. The company is a regional fiber optic network provider to telephone companies, businesses and federal agencies. He has also served as chairman of the board for Expedia before it was bought up by USA Interactive in March 2003.
Microsoft has added a new alert bar to its Hotmail service that notifies users when the sender of an incoming e-mail cannot be verified. The technology utilizes Microsoft's Sender ID Framework, which is designed to cut down on the number of spam messages and phishing attacks flooding customer inboxes.
Sender ID is one of a number of new standards proposed to combat spammers and has been backed by large service providers such as America Online. The technology was initially met with concern over its proprietary nature, but Microsoft subsequently opened up Sender ID to ensure compatibility with Sender Policy Framework, a competing anti-spam technology.
Citing growing fears of litigation in the IT industry, Microsoft has expanded a program that helps protect PC makers and other partners against intellectual property litigation related to the use of its software, the company said Thursday.
When disputes over intellectual property arise, a defendant's channel partners are often also pursued over the alleged IP violations, said David Kaefer, director of business development in Microsoft's intellectual property and licensing group.
"It is fairly common for the channel to be the place where an IP holder chooses to assert a claim," he said. "The reason behind it is the channel often is in the least strong position to defend itself."
Microsoft plans to announce on Friday that it is expanding its support for the Web publishing standard Really Simple Syndication.
Most typically, RSS is used by news publishers and bloggers to notify subscribers when new information has been posted. It is also used by podcasters to alert listeners to new available audio.
Microsoft is proposing an extension to RSS that would allow it to better support ordered lists of information. Today, RSS feeds are sent and read merely as a stream of messages, with the order being determined according to the time the messages were sent.
Windows Mobile 2005 should make its debut by fall, both in new devices and in for-pay upgrades to at least some existing Windows Mobile 2003 models.
The first major upgrade in almost two years, Windows Mobile 2005 offers improvements ranging from support for flash memory (which won't lose data when your handheld loses power) to more capable versions of Microsoft Office apps and a Windows Media Player upgrade. For enterprise customers with Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft has also announced an upgrade pack with instant messaging, synchronization, and security features.
The most recent build of Longhorn--Microsoft's next Windows--has some impressive visual touches, including the kinds of translucent objects found now in Apple's OS X, and more powerful ways of finding files. But it doesn't yet exhibit any breakthroughs in productivity, or promised features such as security improvements and smarter connections to handheld devices.
We tested the 64-bit version of the latest code released to developers and have also viewed demonstrations of a subsequent build. The first beta version of the operating system is due for release this summer.