Responding to a request from the European Union to improve data interoperability, Microsoft has committed in perpetuity to offering a royalty-free license of Office-related XML document formats.
However, the software giant decided not to follow the EU's suggestion that Microsoft submit its XML document formats, or schemas, to an outside standards body, deciding instead to maintain in-house the ongoing development of the specifications.
Microsoft also pledged to provide appropriate documentation and encourage the creation of "filters" by others that allow other applications to read Microsoft's word processor XML format. Sun Microsystems in September said it would create document filters for its OpenOffice open source desktop suite.
Has Microsoft been trying to retroactively claim IP (intellectual property) rights over many of the Internet's basic protocols? Larry J. Blunk, senior engineer for networking research and development at Merit Network Inc., believes that might be the case.
Blunk expressed these concerns about Microsoft's Royalty Free Protocol License Agreement in a recent note to the IETF's Intellectual Property Rights Working Group. Specifically, Blunk suggested that Microsoft seemed to be claiming IP rights to many vital Internet protocols. And by so doing, "Microsoft is injecting a significant amount of unwarranted uncertainty and doubt regarding non-Microsoft implementations of these protocols," Blunk said.
Microsoft released a beta version of Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting, aimed squarely at customers of Intuit's QuickBooks. The product aims to bridge the gap between Office and the mid-market ERP and accounting applications offered by Microsoft Business Solutions.
The product will be available as a standalone called Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting. It will also be licensed as a bundle with Microsoft Office 2003, integrating with an updated version of Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager.
Microprocessor giant Intel this week unleashed a faster new Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (EE) processor, but the performance of the new chip is primarily aided by a faster new front-side bus, rather than a faster clock speed. The new P4EE runs at 3.46 GHz, and ships with a whopping 2 MB of L3 cache. But the big advance this time is a blazing new 1066 MHz (1.066 GHz) front-side bus which Intel says provides the chip with 33 percent faster performance than its predecessor, which features an 800 MHz front-side bus. Predictably, the P4EE is still incredibly expensive--it costs almost $1000 per chip--and is still targeted at the gaming/enthusiast market. I just have question here. Who the heck is buying PCs based on this expensive solution?
Service Pack 1 for Windows Rights Management Services 1.0 just went to beta. But still no definitive word on what's on tap for 2.0. Microsoft has said little about its Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) directions since it launched RMS 1.0 a year ago.
But on Thursday, Microsoft ended its RMS silence by taking the wraps off the first private beta of service pack 1 (SP1) for RMS 1.0. (Customers interested in applying to test the product can request the SP1 beta bits by e-mailing rmssp1qa@microsoft.com.)
A Times Square countdown of a different sort is planned for next week. It will not involve a sparkling ball descending a pole or herald a new year. But this countdown, expected to draw thousands into the streets surrounding the Toys R Us flagship store, may mark a new height in video game promotion.
At 12:01 a.m. ET on Tuesday, "Halo 2," a sequel to the best-selling game ever developed for Microsoft's Xbox, will go on sale amid a blast of rock music, celebrity sightings and packaged pandemonium in Manhattan. At the same time, some 6,800 stores in the United States, and others abroad, will open in the first minutes after midnight, putting the game into the hands of those who have reserved it--Microsoft reports 1.5 million advance orders--and others willing to part with $50.
Hewlett-Packard unveiled a 17-inch digital entertainment notebook this week that is available with Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system and a stand-alone digital video recorder.
The HP Media Center zd8000 series notebooks will be available December 15 in a variety of configurations on HP's Web site and in retail stores, says Kevin Wentzel, technical marketing manager at HP. The $1399 desktop replacement notebook was designed as a mobile digital media hub for students, families, or other home users, he says.
Virus writers have a price on their heads--but it's done little to discourage them. In the year since Microsoft kicked off its Anti-Virus Reward Program, it has tallied only a single success. The program has offered $1 million to informants who help close official investigations into four major viruses and worms, and has another $4 million earmarked for future rewards, but the deluge of online threats has continued to swell.
In the past, arrests in Internet crime cases have almost always resulted from the culprit making a mistake, such as leaving a digital trail or attempting to collect a payment. It's only in very few instances that accomplices turned on their online friends--making Microsoft's reward program a long shot.
Microsoft said Thursday that it is enjoying success with its campaign to increase IT security for customers of its products worldwide. Speaking at the RSA Conference Europe 2004 in Barcelona, Spain, Rich Kaplan, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Security Business & Technology Unit, said the company remains focused on "evolving security challenges" and committed to working with other IT vendors to further its Trustworthy Computing initiative.
"Customers worldwide, both at home and at work, have told us that they need help minimizing the risk of malicious threats, and we believe this calls for the global IT community to band together to address these needs," Kaplan said at the conference, according to a statement issued by the company.
Microsoft launched its MSN music download service in eight new European countries on Thursday in an attempt to fend off a recent expansion push by archrival Apple Computer's iTunes. With the new territories, Microsoft has extended its music download business to 19 market versions in 17 countries, including 13 Western European countries.
"If you take all the new countries, we expect to overtake iTunes very soon because we will have a larger user base to tap," said Arndt Salzburg, who oversees Microsoft MSN's entertainment efforts in Europe, Middle East and South America.