For all the fanfare about its new video-game console, Microsoft was decidedly quiet last week about one of the biggest questions in the industry: the potential timing of a third installment in its blockbuster "Halo" video-game franchise.
Well, everyone except Bill Gates was quiet about it.
In a cover story published last week in Time magazine, the Microsoft chief software architect was quoted as saying that the company would have "Halo 3" ready by the time Sony releases its PlayStation 3 next year.
"It's perfect," Gates was quoted as saying. "The day Sony launches, and they walk right into Halo 3."
Now the big question is who will prevail.
After years of anticipation, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo this week showed plans for their next-generation video-game consoles, setting the stage for the competition to take place over the rest of the decade.
Robbie Bach, Microsoft senior vice president and chief Xbox officer, discussed that competition in an interview yesterday at the conclusion of the E3 video-game convention. Among other topics, he addressed the Xbox 360's prospects for profitability and its chances against the successor to Sony's dominant PlayStation 2.
Microsoft must make it easier for developers of free programs to work with Windows by June 1 or face new European antitrust charges, people familiar with the matter said.
The European Commission is threatening Microsoft with fines because the company's response to a March 2004 order doesn't go far enough, said the sources, who declined to be identified. Microsoft contends the commission's demands go beyond the original decision, they said. The Windows operating system runs more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers.
Microsoft's massive presence in the anti-virus space may be bad news for vendors leading the market, but for enterprise customers with tight budgets, it presents wonderful bargaining opportunities.
With all-out price war looming, an influential IT research firm suggests that enterprises use Microsoft's anti-virus push to negotiate better pricingand bundled servicesfrom existing vendors.
On the heels of the Windows OneCare rollout for consumers, a subscription-based package that bundles virus, spyware and firewall protection alongside data backup and PC configuration features, Gartner Inc. is predicting an enterprise-grade service will ship in 2006 for sale well below current market prices.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told a gathering of more than 100 chief executives yesterday that advances in search technologies -- including the company's recent desktop search software -- will dramatically change the way people find, catalogue and track information.
"Search has given us a glimpse of what's possible," Gates said, speaking at the ninth annual Microsoft CEO Summit in Redmond. "But we need to take this a lot further -- we need to get very direct answers."
Microsoft has sparked heated debate by claiming that Windows software is cheaper to patch than open-source alternatives.
A Microsoft-commissioned study--conducted by its business partner Wipro--outlined the main areas of so-called "cost savings" by using Windows.
The survey of 90 organizations found that Windows database servers cost 33 percent less to patch than their open-source counterparts. Respondents said on average, Windows clients are 14 percent cheaper to patch.
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, on Thursday will confirm that the first beta testing cycle for Office 12, the next version of its desktop productivity suite, will begin this fall and that it currently plans to ship the final suite of products in the second half of 2006.
Gates will make that announcement in his keynote address, titled "The New World of Work" and which he will deliver to 100 CEOs from among the top 1,000 global companies Thursday morning at the ninth-annual CEO Summit at the Redmond, Wash., campus.
If you want to know details on some of the hottest new games coming for the Xbox 360, you might want to track down the nearest Fortune 500 CEO.
That's because Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates showed off a montage of new game demos as part of his exclusive yearly gathering of chief executives here. However, during that part of his keynote speech, the video feed being shown to a handful of reporters abruptly halted. For several minutes, all that was shown was a disclaimer.
"Due to the proprietary nature of the content being televised we must temporarily suspend the audio and video portion of the broadcast," the message read.
Vowing to make RSS friendly to the everyday Web user, an MSN executive demonstrated upcoming services on Wednesday that build syndication feeds into the messaging alerts, a Windows screen saver and Web search.
During a keynote at the Syndicate Conference here, MSN Director Phil Holden said that Microsoft Corp's Internet division is taking RSS seriously and will integrate the technology across even more of MSN's online services throughout the year.
"Our goal is in making consumer adoption and consumption of RSS easier," Holden said during an interview. "We will literally put RSS and syndication in many, many places."
Microsoft has distributed enough copies of Service Pack 1 to update nearly one-fifth of the installed base of Windows Server 2003, the company estimated on Thursday.
According to Microsoft, there have been more than 1.2 million downloads of SP1 since the service pack was released to manufacturing on March 30.
Citing IDC research estimates, Microsoft said the current installed base for the two-year-old server product is 6.73 million. "The more than 1.2 million SP1 downloads in less than two months represents about 18 percent of the total Windows Server 2003 installed base," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.