At the Microsoft CEO Summit two years ago, Chairman Bill Gates joked with executives about writing a new book because of the poor rankings of his older books on Amazon.com.
Gates -- who today will welcome more than 100 chief executives to the Microsoft campus for the CEO Summit -- may not have been joking after all.
The author of "The Road Ahead" and "Business @ the Speed of Thought" is planning to write a new book that addresses how coming technological innovations will change communications, entertainment and the way big institutions do business.
Microsoft does not appear in any imminent danger of losing much market share on the desktop productivity front to any Linux or open-source competitors.
In a presentation at this week's Gartner Symposium/ITxpo here in San Francisco titled "Client OS and Office ? Charting a Course to Longhorn," Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst, said that just because Linux is free does not mean it is cheap.
Among the impediments to using open-source office software products among businesses are compatibility and fidelity issues.
Microsoft hopes its head start in the next video-game console generation will help its Xbox 360 benefit from the same type of market phenomenon that lifted its Windows operating system to dominance.
Microsoft's top Xbox executive said he wants to see the forthcoming console gain an early lead in market share so it can achieve a "virtuous cycle" -- in which game publishers make titles for the machine because it has a large audience, and the resulting plethora of titles makes that audience grow even larger.
The Windows Server Roadmap, a handy document on Microsoft's Web site with rough delivery date guidance, got an update this month.
Windows Server Update Services, Windows Server 2003 "R2" and a beta of Windows "Longhorn" Server remain on tap for this year, according to the roadmap.
Next year will still bring a beta 2 of Longhorn Server, and now Microsoft has also committed to a second service pack for Windows Server 2003 in 2006. The first service pack for Windows Server 2003 took nearly two years to arrive.
Smaller retailers know that the competition is all around them. Competitive advantages don't come easily, but Microsoft, a company that knows a thing or two about competitive advantages, says PC-based point of sale systems can provide the edge small retailers need.
While the company has long offered its Retail Management System for mid-market retailers, today the software giant announced the release of Microsoft Point of Sale, which according to Mike Dickstein, director of Microsoft Business Solutions Point of Sale Solutions, is aimed single-store businesses.
Microsoft is readying a new security tool to add to its arsenal. The newest member of Microsoft's growing security-focused product family is the "Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP," according to beta testers who requested anonymity.
The toolkit, which is currently in private beta test, is designed for users who are sharing computers in businesses and homes. It is especially focused on users of shared computers in libraries, cafés, schools and other similar environments, testers said.
On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed that its upcoming Xbox 360 video game and home entertainment system with offer integrated Media Center Extender functionality that will allow the device to interact with a Windows XP Media Center 2005-based personal computer. However, this simple description only hints at the digital media prowess of Xbox 360. In addition to offering a Media Center interface that is, in some ways, superior to that of many Media Center PCs, Xbox 360 will also aggregate content from networked PCs running other XP versions, and will directly connect with Apple iPod, Sony PSP, and a slew of other portable devices.
Microsoft and Pepsi will give away an Xbox 360 video game console every 10 minutes for nine weeks, starting in August, the companies said on Tuesday.
Pepsi said bottle caps for its Mountain Dew soda will contain special codes that can be entered in personal accounts at the Web site Every10Minutes.com/. Users can then choose which drawings to enter, or save up all their codes and enter them in a single drawing.
Microsoft last week released the first private beta for a new product code-named Maestro, a server-based business performance management score card application that is expected to ship in the last quarter of the year.
Maestro is designed to help users perform deep analysis by using Microsoft Office to build, manage and use score cards and key performance indicators, said Chris Caren, general manager of Microsoft's Business Applications Group, in Redmond, Wash.
At a Monday press conference on the eve of the E3 trade show, Microsoft revealed more information about games that will ship this year for its Xbox 360 video game console and home entertainment system, which the company expects to ship simultaneously in North America, Europe, and Japan in November.
Currently, the company is only promising that Xbox 360 will be compatible "top-selling" Xbox games, and not the entire catalog of first generation games. The problem, apparently, is that Xbox 360 runs on a completely different hardware platform than the original Xbox, and Microsoft will have to custom-create software fixes, or shims, that will let Xbox titles run normally on the new system.