WinInsider

Microsoft on Wednesday posted a free security tool in the Microsoft Download Center to help administrators root out unauthorized network sniffers running on Windows computers.

The tool is called Promqry 1.0 and comes in a command line version (promqrycmd.exe) and a version with a graphical UI (promqryUI.exe). The command line version is a 113 KB download, and the graphical version is a 255-KB file.

Microsoft is bringing on a former PeopleSoft executive to oversee its CRM product, saying Thursday that Brad Wilson will take over next week as general manager of its Business Solutions CRM. Wilson was PeopleSoft's worldwide vice president of CRM marketing before he left the company in early 2004. Before that, he held various executive positions at Epiphany.

Microsoft CRM, first released at the start of 2003, is the flagship software of Microsoft's Business Solutions back-office applications group. Microsoft's current CRM head, David Thacher, will remain the general manager of CRM development, while Wilson oversees strategy, according to a Microsoft spokeswoman.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates repeated the company's pledge to use XML as the key ingredient to make software more interoperable.

In an executive letter, Gates emphasized Microsoft's pledge to write applications that require less customization, testing and certification, a task some experts see as sort of a holy grail in programming. This leads to complexity that challenges large companies like Microsoft and thwarts vendors with fewer resources.

Microsoft has notified customers that 13 security bulletins are in the works for its next patch release, including a fix for Windows vulnerabilities tagged as critical, and one for its IM service Windows Messenger.

The fixes are slated to be released on Tuesday, Feb. 9 as part of Microsoft's monthly patch cycle.

Microsoft said that nine of the security bulletins affect Windows, with the maximum severity rating listed as critical.

A fix is also in the works for its Office and Studio products, and an update for Microsoft's .NET Framework is for a vulnerability that is rated important.

Microsoft routinely holds conferences to persuade independent software developers to make programs that run on, plug into or enhance its software.

But an event this week comes with a new twist -- focusing not on the Windows operating system as a development platform, but rather on Microsoft Office programs.

The first Microsoft Office System Developer Conference began yesterday on the company's Redmond campus. The three-day event is part of an ongoing effort by Microsoft to transform the Office productivity suite and related programs into more than standard word-processing, spreadsheet, database, communication and presentation programs.

Microsoft's most recent quarterly financial report showed a stumble in the lucrative Office suite's otherwise steady march toward ever-larger revenues. Revenues for the Information Worker unit fell 3 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. On the other hand, profits from the unit shot up 11 percent.

The health of Microsoft's Information Worker unit, which contains the Office suite, is vital to the company. Three business segments -- Information Worker, Client, and Server & Tools -- regularly account for more than three-quarters of the company's revenues and nearly all of the company's profits.

The slow but inexorable march to 64-bit computing--the successor to familiar 32-bit x86-based technology, which has dominated the desktop world since the advent of Windows 95 almost a full decade ago--seems poised to speed up. Not only has Microsoft announced its plans to release its first 64-bit operating system for mainstream desktops, Windows XP Professional X64 Edition, by the middle of this year, but also the company has delivered its initial Release Candidate of the operating system.

Microsoft and Sun Microsystems are closing the gap between them in an effort to speed the adoption of service-oriented architectures, a Sun official said at the Web Services on Wall Street 2005 conference here.

Sun Distinguished Engineer Hal Jespersen said the long-time rivals have been steadily working on setting up federated identity management to increase interoperability, a large barrier to wide-scale adoption of Web services (define) and SOAs.

Microsoft and Macrovision will make their media-protection systems work together to keep restrictions on video content consistent even when it's transferred from one category of device to another.

The deal, announced yesterday, will connect Microsoft's technology for digital-media protection to Macrovision's technology for protecting analog video content.

For example, a movie downloaded onto a computer would retain the same preset limitations on its use even if the video output were recorded from the computer over an analog connection. In another example, an on-demand movie protected by Macrovision's technology would keep those protections even when transferred to a computer that uses Microsoft's technologies.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced a major program to invest in research centers in Europe, touching on traditional scientific research as well as aspects of computer science.

The EuroScience Initiative, officially launched with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' keynote to more than 500 government leaders and public officials in Prague, Czech Republic, builds on Microsoft's existing European investments via its Microsoft Research unit. While existing centers such as Microsoft Research Cambridge and the European Microsoft Innovation Center are squarely focused on software research, the EuroScience program aims to bring computing together with hard-science areas in which Microsoft doesn't necessarily have any expertise.