On Monday morning, Microsoft's MSN division will make available a new US-based beta version of MSN Local Search, the company's Web search service that provides individuals with local search results. Additionally, the company announced that the Virtual Earth team has joined MSN Search and that Virtual Earth features, such as maps and satellite-based imagery, will be rolled directly into MSN Search. The Virtual Earth team was previously part of MapPoint, Microsoft told me.
The Virtual Earth team brings with them years of experience, which will allow MSN to deliver the next wave of Local Search enhancements to connect consumers to the local information they're looking for," a Microsoft representative told me late last week.
The lead judge of the European Union's second-highest court has proposed changing justices in the Microsoft antitrust appeal, according to several published reports.
The suggestion comes after a wave of criticism aimed at the judge heading the Microsoft antitrust case following a newspaper article he wrote criticizing other judges and clerks involved in the appeal, according to a letter sent to all parties in the case.
Reuters also reported that Court of First Instance President Bo Vesterdorf said the appeal should be transferred to a panel which he will head, primarily because public comments made by current head justice Hubert Legal, criticizing the court's
"arbitrary power."
Microsoft has filed a suit against a company in Germany that it alleges is at the center of a network of companies in the U.S. and Ukraine distributing unsolicited e-mail.
The company, which is registered in the state of North Rhine Westphalia, is the source of millions of unsolicited e-mail messages, or spam, Microsoft said Monday in a statement issued on its German-language Web site.
The English-language spam messages promote companies offering Web site design and development services, in addition to online casinos and pornographic Internet sites, according to Microsoft. Some users of Microsoft's Hotmail service have received thousands of unwanted advertising messages from Internet companies located in North Rhine Westphalia, the U.S. software company said.
Microsoft named a new head for its international operations on Monday, in a move that underscores the software maker's increasing focus on global sales, and emerging markets in particular.
Jean-Philippe Courtois has been promoted from chief executive officer of Europe, Middle East, and Africa to the new president of Microsoft International and senior vice president of Microsoft. His ascension marks the first time that Microsoft has put someone in charge of day-to-day international operations outside of the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
In late 2003, when Microsoft began offering other companies broader access to its patented technologies, the executives leading the effort said they would consider deals with anyone -- even competitors.
Turns out they were serious.
Eighteen months later, Microsoft has put together licensing agreements not only with its industry allies, but also with some of its direct competitors. Microsoft rivals palmOne, TurboLinux, Symbian and Nokia are among those who have licensed technology from the Redmond company to use in their own products.
Classrooms in Japan will be getting Xboxes, but not for playing games. Microsoft announced on Thursday that it will donate Xbox consoles enabled with video chat capabilities to all elementary and junior high schools in Tokyo's Suginami ward in hopes of helping the children become more IT-literate.
A total of 80 Xbox units will be given out to 44 grade schools, 23 junior high schools and eight other public facilities in Suginami starting in late June. The consoles will let Microsoft teach the students how to use videoconferencing to take online classes, as well as communicate with other Xbox Live-enabled schools.
Microsoft gained the support of an international group representing about 1,600 small and medium-size companies in its appeal against a European Union antitrust order.
The International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners Inc., which represents companies that develop software based on the Windows operating system, yesterday asked the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg for permission to support Microsoft's appeal, said Per Werngren, the group's president.
"We're fighting a trend that's weakening our business," Werngren, chief executive officer of Stockholm, Sweden-based software maker IDE Natverkskonsulterna, said yesterday. "It's not a matter of principle. It's a matter of our bread and butter."
Researchers at Microsoft's Cambridge, England, labs are developing a file-sharing technology that they say could make it easier to distribute big files such as films, television programs and software applications to end-users over the Internet.
Code-named Avalanche, the technology is similar to existing peer-to-peer (P-to-P) file swapping systems such as BitTorrent's, in the sense that large files can be divided into many smaller pieces to ease their distribution. End users request the file parts from other users' hard drives and reassemble them to create the original file.
The unusual March gathering, a summit of sorts between delegates of the hacking community and their primary corporate target, illustrates how important security has become to the world's most powerful software company. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates himself estimated earlier this year that the company now spends $2 billion a year--more than a third of its research budget--on security-related issues.
"It is rare that I can present to the people who are both responsible for and capable of fixing the issues that I cover," security researcher HD Moore said. But Moore did gain a better understanding of why it takes Microsoft so long to create patches and said his impression of the people who create the products have changed.
During an online Web chat on Wednesday, Windows Server Senior Vice President Bob Muglia touched on everything from a possible new home version of Windows Server, to the future of Active Directory.
Muglia reconfirmed that Longhorn Server Beta 1 will ship this summer, around the same time as Longhorn client Beta 1. And based on a comment from one of the Microsoft chat moderators, it sounds as if the current plan is to have code in testers' hands by August.