In response to a heightened security alert, Microsoft has updated its customer advisories for protecting its server software against DNS cache poisoning attacks.
The software giant revised its recommended settings for some Windows Server products late Wednesday, clarifying which default configurations could leave computers open to the DNS poisoning threat. The security update was triggered by a report from the Internet Storm Center that it had received notices of a number of DNS cache poisoning attacks.
Microsoft released an update to its MSN Messenger application on Thursday, offering improved video and voice calls in an effort to catch the eyes and ears of more Internet users. At the same time it launched a finished version of an online scrapbook service it has been testing, MSN Spaces, and rolled out new advertising opportunities.
The MSN updates are aimed at making the company's services more interactive, as it takes on challengers such as Internet telephony startup Skype Technologies. Skype has seen steady growth for its free PC-to-PC voice service, leading it to roll out PC-to-mobile phone calls and messaging capabilities.
Microsoft in September plans to release Office Small Business Accounting, a new product designed to help small businesses operate better, taking on Intuit, Best Software (Profile, Products, Articles), and others. Microsoft will sell Office Small Business Accounting as a stand-alone product and as part of a new Office bundle called Office Small Business Management Edition. The new Office bundle will include the familiar Office 2003 applications along with an updated version of Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager, Microsoft has said. Pricing has not yet been disclosed.
Microsoft is expanding its "Get the Facts" campaign against Linux by talking about the reliability of Windows versus Linux systems, a company executive said this week at the Open Source Business Conference here.
Get the Facts is a marketing effort by Microsoft that compares Windows favorably with Linux and other open source software products. Microsoft launched the campaign in mid-2003 and has gradually expanded its scope to now include: total cost of ownership, security, indemnification, and, the latest addition, reliability.
Microsoft has moved its focus away from sponsoring studies that compare the total cost of ownership for Windows and Linux, and is now turning its attention to reliability, an area where the perception favors Linux.
The Redmond, Wash., software company on Wednesday will release a reliability survey it commissioned and paid for, which finds that Windows Server 2003 is more reliable and robust and allows IT administrators to execute various tasks more quickly than those using Red Hat Inc.'s Red Advanced Server 3.0 running on the same hardware.
The first service pack for Windows Server 2003 isn't just a security booster. It adds several features to Windows Terminal Services, Microsoft explained in a white paper out this week.
New SP1 features for Terminal Services include fallback printer capability, server authentication for connections, Group Policy settings for licensing and a Group Policy setting to automatically launch a program on connection to a Terminal Server.
Terminal Services is Microsoft's technology for hosting and running applications on a server that can be delivered to Windows and non-Windows clients without much client-side processing. The approach helps organizations deploy applications rapidly, manage applications that require frequent updates and wring life out of older clients or thin clients that can't handle large local applications.
Microsoft will delay delivery of Windows Server 2003, Computer Cluster Edition, a new edition of Windows aimed at grid-computing scenarios.
"Microsoft is now planning to deliver the first beta to customers in the second half of 2005 and the final release is scheduled for first half 2006," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an e-mail to reporters Tuesday night.
Since originally unveiling plans to create the cluster-focused edition in June 2004, Microsoft has offered a delivery target of the second half of 2005. A beta was supposed to be available in the first half of this year.
A European group with backing from some large tech firms in the U.S. is looking to stymie Microsoft's efforts to appeal an anti-trust ruling through the European Union courts. Members of the European Committee for Interoperable Standards have been in contact with EU officials over the past several months while it files an application for recognition as an entitled party with the European
Court of First Instance, said Jonathan Todd, an EU spokesman.
The ECIS includes IBM, Oracle and Real Networks. While a Wall Street Journal report puts Nokia and Red Hat within the ranks of the organization, officials from the companies were not available to confirm at press time.
Software engineers who attend Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference later this month could get their first taste of a new Windows user permissions model that could change the way thousands of programs are developed and run. But as the company prepares for the final Longhorn development push, questions remain about its plans for a new user privileges model called Least-Privilege User Account, or LUA.
Microsoft claims that LUA will make life tougher for hackers and virus writers by limiting access to administrator permissions on Windows systems. But the company has been mum in recent months about its plans for implementing LUA in Longhorn, and it is considering incentives to encourage adoption of LUA (pronounced "Loo-ah") by skeptical ISVs, including a new logo program for LUA compliance, according to interviews with ISVs and industry experts.
Determined to have its presence seen and its voice heard by its core customer constituencies amid the growing open-source chorus, Microsoft is coughing up cash and sponsoring targeted open-source conferences.
The Redmond, Wash., software maker is a platinum sponsor of the OSBC (Open-Source Business Conference), being held in San Francisco on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Jason Matusow, director of the Shared Source program at Microsoft, also will give a talk Wednesday afternoon examining the effects of commercialization on open-source software and discussing strategies for adopting source-code licensing in a commercial software organization.