Building on an existing two-year strategic product relationship, Microsoft and Siemens AG today announced a global development and sales agreement for real-time collaboration solutions.
The companies said the alliance promises to deliver a thorough product lineup of "enterprise-grade, presence-enhanced calling, video and Web conferencing, and collaboration solutions."
The agreement will align the sales and market development initiatives of the two firms on a number of Microsoft products, including Office Live Meeting and and Office Live Communications Server 2005.
Microsoft said Tuesday that Chief Financial Officer John Connors is leaving the company to take a job with a venture capital firm.
The company said that the 16-year Microsoft veteran would become a partner at Ignition Partners, a Seattle-area venture firm. Connors had served as CFO for the last five years and most recently helped spearhead a plan to return $75 billion to shareholders over four years, including a one-time $32 billion payout that took place last year. Connors also presided over another major shift, in 2003, when the company switched from awarding workers stock options to instead giving actual shares of restricted stock.
Microsoft on Tuesday offered patches for several serious Windows security holes and released a new tool that lets users remove malicious software from their PCs.
Additionally, Microsoft said it now has a formal closed beta test program for testing security updates. Through the new "Security Update Validation Program," select customers and partners representing many backgrounds will get access to security updates to test for application compatibility, Microsoft said in a statement.
Microsoft has always tested its security updates before releasing them publicly. However, the Redmond, Washington-based company established this beta program over the past year to provide broader testing in more real-world scenarios, a spokeswoman said.
Microsoft's research unit is turning to social scientists in a new effort to understand the long-term possibilities for computer technology in developing countries."In fact, I would think we have to start somewhere else -- like maybe a PC in every village," Microsoft's Toyama said.
The new lab, Microsoft Research's sixth facility, will be inaugurated tomorrow during an event at a Bangalore hotel. Microsoft is working on a lease for the lab in the city. It's expected to open in May.
The event is expected to be attended by dignitaries including India's state minister for science and technology, Kapil Sibal, who is expected to sign a "memorandum of understanding" between the government and Microsoft Research India.
Microsoft spent this week displaying technology to improve how people watch TV, access movies, listen to music, play video games, view photos, navigate their cars, use their watches and wake up in the morning.
But that dizzying array of consumer initiatives is also meant to improve something else -- Microsoft's own long-term growth prospects.
Thirty years after its founding, the software company best known for an operating system and a productivity suite is turning more and more to the flashy world of consumer electronics. The effort reflects pressure to continue posting strong revenue growth even as the company moves into corporate middle age.
Microsoft's apparent quest to put its technology into every type of device known to man has come down to this: alarm clocks.
A year after launching a group of smart watches, which receive information via FM radio signals, the Redmond company last week unveiled plans to extend the concept to bedside clocks that will display current weather conditions, a three-day forecast, and other information.
The clocks, to be released later this year by device makers MZ Berger and Oregon Scientific, were announced by Microsoft last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. They're the second step in the evolution of Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology, or SPOT, as the company calls it.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will resign from the board of drug developer ICOS to focus his attention on his board seat at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
Gates said he would resign from ICOS effective Feb. 9. The Bothell company co-developed erectile dysfunction treatment Cialis. Gates has served on Icos' board since 1990. The Microsoft co-founder joined Berkshire's board Dec. 14, filling the seat left open by the death of Buffett's wife, Susan Buffet.
Microsoft's PlaysForSure initiative, which seeks to educate consumers about the benefits of online services and device compatibility with the company's Windows Media formats, has won industry support. At CES 2005, companies such as Garmin, iRiver, Motorola, Samsung, and TiVo were showing off PlaysForSure-compatible products, turning the show into a Microsoft love fest of sorts. Sure, Apple Computer's iPod might get all the press these days, but the times, they are a-changin'. As we've said so often, people like choice. And if the products and services those people will be able to choose from are any indication, those choices will soon be Microsoft-compatible. Notably absent from the show, incidentally, was anything iPod-related, except for a few add-ons.
Microsoft said on Monday it would expand its Redmond, Washington, headquarters to accommodate the hiring of more than 10,000 new employees over next 10 to 20 years.
The world's largest software maker, which has been based in the Seattle suburb for the last two decades, said it had agreed with the city of Redmond to spend up to $30 million to pay for local transportation and infrastructure.
The expansion plans, which will add several new buildings to Microsoft's sprawling campus, reflect Microsoft's commitment to remain in the Puget Sound region, said Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel and senior vice president.
Microsoft is expanding its hosted Exchange product for service providers to include instant messaging and Web sites that serve as collaborative online workspaces, the company plans to announce this week.
Previously, the offering consisted only of Exchange Server 2003 and was called the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Exchange 2003. It has been renamed the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration and also includes Live Communications Server 2005 and Windows SharePoint Services, says Morgan Cole, product manager of hosted messaging and collaboration at Microsoft.