On Thursday, Microsoft will post its quarterly numbers after the bell. Analysts are expecting earnings of 32 cents a share on revenues of $9.83 billion, up 7.1% from the year-ago quarter, and there's no reason to expect a miss from technology's steadiest name. The question will be whether the software giant's numbers are enough to propel its stock higher. Microsoft's stock has slid 10% since December, but on the plus side, it bottomed last month before the rest of the market, an encouraging sign of strength.
Microsoft on Monday named Chris Liddell, a former International Paper executive, as its new chief financial officer. Liddell fills a role vacated by John Connors, who announced in January that he would step down as Microsoft's CFO to join Ignition Partners, a Seattle-based venture capital firm. Connors left Microsoft last month.
The new executive will join Microsoft on May 9. Liddell most recently served as finance chief at International Paper. Prior to that, he was chief executive of Carter Holt Harvey, the company's New Zealand-based affiliate.
Microsoft on Monday announced the start of a design competition to rethink the desktop computer. The company thinks it is time to move beyond the big beige box, offering a top prize of $125,000 to the group or person with the best PC design. Microsoft hopes that the contest will challenge participants to think outside the box while using Longhorn as a guide.
Details of the contest appeared on the StartSomethingPC.com, a site that appeared about a week ago with a vague description and teaser video on the front page.
Microsoft executives are set on challenging Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM and others for supremacy in the enterprise management market, but their company faces a long, hard road to get there, according to users.
At the Microsoft Management Summit conference here last week, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, said the company is committed to managing heterogeneous computing environments. And he backed up that statement by demonstrating limited management functions performed on a Sun Microsystems Inc. Solaris machine using a mixture of prototypes, third-party products and MOM monitoring software.
Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates on Monday launched the x64 editions of Windows and gave a public preview of the much-anticipated Windows "Longhorn" user interface at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference.
The x64 editions are Microsoft's versions of Windows designed to support AMD Opteron and Athlon 64 processors and Intel processors with EM64T. The technologies differ from the Intel Itanium 64-bit technologies, which have been supported by dedicated versions of Windows for several years. Microsoft on Monday formally launched Windows XP x64 Professional Edition, Windows Server 2003 x64 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2003 x64 Enterprise Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Datacenter Edition.
Microsoft officials, from product managers to the top brass, look to be busy starting Monday with the arrival of attendees to the WinHEC in Seattle.
At the annual gathering, system and device vendors as well as a number of ISVs will look for the latest skinny on the various Windows platforms, including 64-bit support and, according to sources, a new mini Tablet/eBook hybrid form factor.
While Microsoft will play up the show as a coming-out party for its 64-bit Windows releases, there also should be lots of new Longhorn client and server product information, as well.
In a blockbuster development that could literally have huge implications for Blockbuster, the DVD rental company, Sony and Toshiba are unexpectedly discussing the possibility of dropping their currently incompatible next-generation DVD formats and pursuing a singe joint high definition DVD standard. My goodness. Are we really learning the lessons of the past for a change? Currently, Sony is backing a next-generation format called Blu-Ray, while Toshiba backs a competing format called HD-DVD. Both formats have their pros and cons, but the biggest problem, of course, is the incompatibility. In the early days of PC-based DVD burning, for example, differences between the so-called "plus" (DVD+R, DVR+RW) and "minus" (DVD-R, DVD-RW) formats slowed adoption and bedeviled consumers. But the high definition DVD stuff is far more important because the market is so much bigger. Will they work it out? Stay tuned. But my guess is that we're going to still face another DVD format war, regardless.
At the Microsoft Management Summit 2005 in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft unveiled a public beta for Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1), which enables Virtual Server 2005 to run natively on both 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x64 server hardware and to support hosted Linux environments. Microsoft also discussed its plans for virtualization in Longhorn, raising questions about whether the Virtual Server product would be integrated into Longhorn Server. Fear not; I have the scoop.
Ken DiPietro, the human resources chief who helped lead Microsoft through major changes in its employee compensation program, is leaving the company.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer informed company managers of the change in an e-mail yesterday without disclosing the reasons for DiPietro's departure. Lisa Brummel, previously a corporate vice president in Microsoft's Home and Retail Division, will replace DiPietro as vice president for human resources, Ballmer wrote.
"I appreciate the work Ken has done in creating a stellar HR team, and we have worked together well," Ballmer said in the e-mail, obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "However, we've decided that it's best for Microsoft and Ken to part company at this time."
Forgent Networks, the company that owns the patent on JPEG, has broadened the scope of its licensing push, and it has the world's biggest software vendor in its sights.
On Friday, Forgent said it sued Microsoft for patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The company said it filed the suit after Microsoft went to court on April 15 to ask for a declaratory judgment that it didn't infringe the Forgent patent -- and that the patent was invalid and unenforceable anyway. Microsoft declined a request for comment.