Microsoft made strides among customers this year in improving the image of Windows servers against Linux servers on security, quality, performance and reliability, according to a new independent study.
The Yankee Group report, "Linux-Windows 2005 TCO Comparison Survey," is based on a March poll of 509 organizations spanning North American vertical markets and government agencies.
According to the poll, 88 percent of respondents reported that the quality, performance and reliability of Windows was equal to or better than Linux. That figure is up 12 percentage points from last year's finding of 76 percent.
Microsoft climbed five spots to reach 46th in the annual Fortune 500 ranking of the largest companies in the United States by revenues. Microsoft's $36.8 billion in revenues for 2004 place it well ahead of all other software companies. The only other software company in the Fortune 500 list, which appears in Fortune magazine's April 11 issue, is Oracle, which is ranked 220th with $10.1 billion in revenues.
Other IT companies rank well ahead of Microsoft in size, however. IBM slipped a spot to 10th on its $96 billion in revenues, but still kept ahead of Hewlett-Packard, ranked 11th with $79.9 billion in revenues. Dell ranks 28th with $49.2 billion in revenues.
Microsoft big wigs did their best Tuesday to convince ISVs to work their application magic atop yet another part of the Microsoft stack.
This time, Microsoft pitched its Microsoft Small Business Accounting, due this fall, as an app-dev foundation. SBA will be available with or without Microsoft's Office productivity suite juggernaut.
Microsoft Business Solutions COO Orlando Ayala told ISVs gathered at Microsoft that the company needs them to create specialized vertical applications atop its core offering.
Monday, Microsoft sent a letter to European Union regulators accepting most of the Commission's demands to satisfy antitrust concerns, but asked for further dialog some matters regarding the licensing of its source code. Microsoft has accepted 20 out of the EU's 26 demands and says that it will work as quickly as possible to settle the remaining six.
The remaining stumbling block to full compliance is source code licensing.
Namely, Microsoft has sought to charge for source code access and give developers limited access with customized licenses. Last month, the EU balked at the proposed fees, claiming that they were too expensive, and once again raised the specter of fines.
The State of Florida filed a five count civil lawsuit against two Tampa, Florida, residents for sending more than 65,000 illegal e-mail messages and running 75 fraudulent Web sites in the last year, according to a statement from the office of State Attorney General Charlie Crist.
Scott Filary, 25, and Donald E. Townsend, 34, are charged with sending thousands of e-mail messages advertising online pharmacies, cigarette sales and illegal movie downloads. The case is the first to test a new state antispam law. If found guilty, the two men could be forced to pay $24 million in fines.
Most U.S. businesses say there is very little difference between the cost of maintaining a Windows versus a Linux-based corporate computing environment, according to a new Yankee Group study released on Monday. In the independent study, 88 percent of respondents said that the quality, performance and reliability of Windows was equal to or better than Linux.
In most cases, both Linux and Windows are growing at the expense of Sun Microsystems Unix-based servers, which were instrumental in the growth of the Internet during the 1990s.
Microsoft has shipped an add-on pack for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 that's designed to make Tablet PCs more enjoyable for consumers. Dubbed the Experience Pack for Tablet PC, the add-on features six new utilities that enhance the Tablet PC in fun and exciting ways.
The Experience Pack's release coincides with a recent marketing push by Microsoft and its hardware partners to expand the devices into more markets. "This is not a new direction for the Tablet PC," a Microsoft representative told me recently. "Instead, it's an expansion." First-generation Tablet PCs focused only on the enterprise and on select niche markets, such as medical and manufacturing, where pen-based computing makes sense. Today, there are Tablet PCs available for a variety of markets, including the volume consumer market, and at a variety of price points.
Microsoft has sent a revised proposal to the European Commission for the terms under which it will license Windows protocols to competitors to comply with last year's antitrust ruling against the company, a Microsoft spokesman said Monday.
Microsoft believes it has addressed most of the concerns raised by European regulators, but the two sides continue to wrangle over half a dozen remaining issues, said Microsoft spokesman Tom Brookes. They relate partly to how Microsoft's protocols can be distributed with open source products, he said.
Former Microsoft employee Richard Gregg was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday for mail fraud after unlawfully selling more than $13 million worth of his former employer's software.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour also ordered Gregg, 45, to pay more than $5 million in restitution to Microsoft for software he diverted, keeping the profits after selling it.
In a plea agreement, Gregg admitted that, while working at Microsoft as a project coordinator from May to December 2002, he took advantage of a software-ordering program set up for internal use by Microsoft employees.
An ex-Groove Networks executive suffered a legal setback on Friday in his bid to block Microsoft's takeover of his former company.
A Delaware Chancery Court judge refused to grant Michael Matthews' request for a temporary restraining order blocking the deal, according to a statement released by Groove. Matthews is a principal investor in Groove and a former executive vice president who left the company in April 2002.
"Mr. Matthews' attempt to block the acquisition of Groove
Networks by Microsoft by way of a temporary restraining order was denied this afternoon in Delaware Chancery Court by Chancellor William B. Chandler III," Groove said. "Groove Networks and Microsoft are proceeding toward closing of the transaction according to the terms of the merger agreement."