WinInsider

Microsoft on Wednesday added former JPMorgan Chase financial chief Dina Dublon to its board of directors, increasing the size of its board to 10 members. Dublon will also join the board's audit committee, Microsoft said.

"Dina's extensive financial and accounting expertise will add to the board's strengths in those areas," Chairman Bill Gates said in a statement. Prior to joining JPMorgan, Dublon worked for the Harvard Business School and Israel's Bank Hapoalim.

Bill Gates is betting some of his considerable fortune on a new plan: energy-efficient aviation. Speaking at Flight School, an offshoot of the PC Forum here run by News.com publisher CNET Networks, Eclipse CEO Vern Raburn acknowledged that the world's richest man--and his former boss at Microsoft--is one of the many equity investors in the company. Gates holds the second-largest stake, behind another Fortune 500 individual, he said. To date, Eclipse has not formally disclosed its investors.

Microsoft Research has had 7,000 downloads of its Comega programming technology, which is intended to bridge the gap between relational, object, and XML data models.

Comega, or C?, is described by Microsoft as a strongly typed, data-oriented programming language to bridge semi-structured hierarchical data (XML), relational data (SQL) and the .Net CTS (Common Type System). Additionally, Comega extends C# with asynchronous concurrency abstractions.

Companies face greater risks if they run their Web sites on Linux rather than Windows, a Microsoft-funded study has concluded.

Last year, Web servers based on Windows Server 2003 had fewer flaws to fix than those based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 3 in a standard open-source configuration, researchers said in a paper released on Tuesday.

Moreover, the study indicated that the Microsoft-based Web server had far fewer "days of risk"--a measure of the number of days that each vulnerability is known, but unpatched--than the open-source rival.

Microsoft is delighted that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is swapping Linux for Windows - but the open source community insist it doesn't prove that Windows is superior to Linux.

On Monday Microsoft announced that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) had replaced its Linux Web server with a Windows alternative to save costs and improve its Web offering. "RICS's decision to migrate to Windows will see reduced costs, improved content management and integrated back-office systems with its Web portal," claimed Microsoft.

Microsoft is reviewing the European Commission's latest concerns about the company's antitrust compliance and is willing to consider adjustments to try to address them, a company representative said yesterday.

"We'll review thoroughly what the commission has to say and make changes that are appropriate and in accordance with our obligations," said Jim Desler, a spokesman for Microsoft in Redmond. The company is appealing the European Commission's March 2004 antitrust ruling but has agreed to comply with it in the meantime.

Microsoft has filed an appeal in the patent infringement case brought by Eolas Technologies, even though a $520.6 million judgment against Microsoft was thrown out earlier this month.

Microsoft, in court documents filed March 16, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to overturn a portion of the Eolas Web-browsing claim dealing with patent claims on foreign sales of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, which was not reversed when the court ordered a new trial on March 2. Microsoft asked the court to strike down Eolas' argument that it should be awarded money based both on Microsoft's U.S. and foreign sales, saying the Eolas U.S. patent only covers U.S.

Microsoft renamed and put out a release candidate for Windows Update Services on Tuesday.

Windows Update Services is the 2.0 version of Software Update Services, a free add-on for managing security updates in multi-user environments. For the last few years, Microsoft has referred to the next version of SUS as Windows Update Services. Now the official long name is Windows Server Update Services, and the official short name is Update Services.

The release candidate marks a key product development milestone and should mean that Microsoft will make good on a promise to deliver the technology in the first half of this year. The public download of Update Services is available at Microsoft website.

Microsoft created new packaging for its MapPoint application and location Web service tailored to organizations managing fleets of vehicles.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced MapPoint Fleet Edition 2004, the latest version of MapPoint, which doubles as an Office application and one of the only revenue generating products to come out of the Web services initiative once known as "Hailstorm."'

Fleet Edition is a new licensing option for customers who locate, track and manage their fleets with MapPoint 2004. Current customers managing vehicle fleets with MapPoint, GPS and third-party integration solutions include Corporate Express Canada, Cardinal Couriers Ltd. and Orkin Inc.

British mobile phone software maker Symbian has agreed to license synchronization software from longtime rival Microsoft in an attempt to increase its number of enterprise customers.

The London-based company said the agreement will allow users of smartphones that run on its operating system, an estimated 20 million devices, to wirelessly receive e-mail through network computers that run on Microsoft's Exchange Server software. ActiveSync will also let users access calendars, contacts and other personal-information tools.