Microsoft's enterprise messaging server will gain antiphishing capabilities before the end of the year, the company said Monday. Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2, due in the fourth quarter, will feature Sender ID support, the first implementation of this e-mail authentication technology in Microsoft's messaging and collaboration server.
The current version of Exchange Server 2003 features filtering technology called Intelligent Message Filter which analyzes messages and determines the likelihood of them being spam, or unsolicited commercial messages.
Microsoft took part of its MSN Web site offline over the weekend, after it learned of a flaw that could let an attacker gain access to Hotmail accounts, the company said.
The MSN Web site, http://ilovemessenger.msn.com/, contained a so-called cross-site scripting flaw, a Microsoft representative said on Monday. In its initial review of the issue, the company found that an attacker could use the vulnerability to obtain "cookies" from Hotmail users by getting them to click on a malicious URL. That could then grant access to those e-mail accounts, the representative said.
A senior Microsoft executive on Monday confirmed that the upcoming Internet Explorer 7.0 browser upgrade will ship with reduced privilege mode turned on by default to help thwart browser-based hacking attacks.
During a strategic briefing on security at the TechEd conference, corporate VP of Microsoft's Security Business & Technology Unit Gordon Mangione said IE 7.0 will be chock full of security and privacy enhancements, all aimed at addressing the biggest threats facing Web surfers today.
And then there was Dell.
In a notable step for Microsoft's Tablet PC business, the company that bought IBM's personal computer division plans to bring it into the tablet-computing market -- leaving industry leader Dell Computer the lone Tablet PC holdout among the world's top five portable computer makers.
The move by Lenovo will create a variety of the well-known ThinkPad portable computers that will use the special pen-based version of Microsoft's Windows operating system. But Dell reiterated last week that it doesn't yet consider the Tablet PC market big enough to enter.
In the operating system race thus far, Apple's incremental approach to system releases has paid off compared to Microsoft's strategy of giant leaps at long intervals.
Since Windows XP shipped in 2001, Apple has shipped five major versions of Mac OS X. Apple's Unix-based operating system started out far behind Windows XP, but is now out in front in terms of features, functionality and user interface.
Microsoft's Longhorn, scheduled for release at the end of 2006, catches up to Tiger in some areas and surpasses it in others. But if Longhorn slips into 2007, Apple could have the next big cat version released or at least waiting to spring out.
Microsoft is expecting a lot from Longhorn, the next version of Windows set to debut sometime next year. But CEO Steve Ballmer doesn't see the launch generating the consumer frenzy of Windows 95's release.
In an interview with CNET News.com, Ballmer recalled the fervor surrounding Win95's debut:
Q: We're coming up on the 10th anniversary of Windows 95's launch. You said that event generated the most excitement of any Microsoft product launch. Can you recapture some of that excitement with Longhorn?
Ballmer: I think Longhorn is going to be the biggest release we have done since Windows 95. It's going to be a big thing, but I don't think we should have expectations that we will have people lined up at midnight to buy a copy, necessarily, despite the fact that Longhorn is a huge deal. I think it's bigger than anything else we've ever done--except Win95. In a sense, technically, it's much bigger than Windows 95..
Long-range plans for Microsoft's Indigo Web services technology include enabling its use on handheld devices, a company official said at the Microsoft TechEd conference here on Monday afternoon.
This move would enable transacted Indigo services such as chats to run on devices, said Ari Bixhorn, lead product manager of the Microsoft platform strategy group.
Initially planned for inclusion in the Longhorn version of Windows, Indigo holds the promise of making it easier to develop and deploy secure transactional Web services. Indigo also will be available for Windows Server and Windows XP.
At the Microsoft Tech Ed 2005 conference here Monday morning, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will kick off the show with a keynote highlighting how the company is responding to business and work force changes.
And while Microsoft is not expected to deliver any blockbuster innovations at the conference, Ballmer and company will provide updates on the investments Microsoft has been making to deliver solutions to empower developers and IT workers, as well as Microsoft partners.
Following Ballmer on Day 2 of the conference, Paul Flessner, Microsoft's senior vice president of server applications, will give a keynote address on Microsoft's Connected Systems strategy and how core Microsoft products will play in that strategy.
Microsoft's proposal to European Union regulators for resolving its outstanding antitrust issues does not provide key concessions requested by open-source software projects, European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said on Monday.
The revelation is a blow to the developers behind projects such as Linux and Samba, which use open source or "free software" licenses. Such projects currently say they are excluded from measures imposed by the European Commission last year that are meant to restore competition in the workgroup server market.
Just weeks after releasing its latest operating system for mobile devices, Windows Mobile 5.0, Microsoft has unveiled a security and messaging features update.
Among the changes in the Messaging and Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5.0 are faster access to the Outlook e-mail client, the ability to wipe data on devices remotely and certificate-based identity authentication, the company said Monday.
The update, which will be available the second half of this year, will also see the mobile version of Outlook get a makeover. The pack will enable Windows' "direct push" technology, in which information is pushed from Exchange Server to a Windows Mobile phone or PDA without any middleware servers. Other changes include global look-up of contact information from a Windows device.