Despite the hype surrounding Google Inc.'s Android operating system, Nvidia Inc. sees more immediate promise in Microsoft's Windows CE for ARM-based netbooks. Mike Rayfield, general manager for Nvidia's mobile business unit, said Nvidia preferred Microsoft's Windows CE over Android because of CE's maturity. He said Android currently has a rough user interface.
Rayfield also plugged Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang's prediction yesterday that Tegra, Nvidia's System-on-Chip for ARM hardware, could account for half of Nvidia's revenue within a few years, while also reaping higher profit margins than Nvidia's current products.
For years, Google has had Microsoft running scared as it has released product after product that competes for the software giant's bread-and-butter customers. But over the past two weeks, Microsoft has unexpectedly turned the tables on Google with the release of its third-generation search engine, Bing. And for the first time ever, it's Google, not Microsoft, that's worried about the competition.
According to widely published reports from a variety of sources, Google is taking the Bing threat seriously and is racing to add features to its own search engine that emulate Microsoft's efforts. The New York Post claims that Google cofounder Sergey Brin is "so rattled" by Bing that he's personally overseeing the work and has assembled a team of the company's top engineers to develop a response.
Dell is now offering Microsoft Office products for download, making it the first vendor other than Microsoft to do so. The Microsoft products are only available to U.S. customers.
Software applications include versions of the Office suite and its lower-end counterpart, Works, plus Word, Excel, Outlook and Groove, according to a search on Dell's Download Store.
Prices are discounted from the suggested retail price. For example, Microsoft's suggested retail price for its Office Home and Student 2007 suite is $149.99, but Dell will sell it for $129.99. Microsoft sells that suite for $149.95 on its own Web site.
Microsoft Silverlight 3 is catching up to the capabilities of Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR in all the areas where Silverlight was behind. Silverlight 3 applications can run in or out of the browser, online or offline, with much improved audio, video, and 3-D graphics.
Recently I've been hearing from Adobe on a regular basis about adoptions of the Adobe Flash Platform by large media organizations, such as Clear Channel Radio and MLB.com, for streaming media content to the Web both live and on demand. I've been hearing rather less from Microsoft about Silverlight adoptions.
A longtime Microsoft developer evangelist and 19-year company veteran who has of late been in charge of Microsoft's startup program will retire later this year, the company confirmed on Monday.
Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Startup Business Accelerator, will leave Microsoft in September, the company said via e-mail. Startup Business Accelerator is an incubation business aimed at forming startups from within Microsoft.
"Sanjay made the decision to retire late last year for personal reasons and has been actively involved in transitional plans," according to Microsoft.
Predictably, EU regulators aren't too happy that Microsoft was able to do an end-run around their Draconian requirements. I mean, where's the fun in all this if Microsoft is able to avoid a huge fine and the punishing weight of years of oversight? "We never suggested that [Microsoft should] sell Windows without Internet Explorer," an EU spokesperson said. "We suggested that they might have to give the possibility to customers to choose between different browsers." Yeah. And I'm suggesting that you just back off. This whole bundling thing is an antiquated relic of the past. Windows 7 is so stripped of functionality that customers will spend hours downloading all the free utilities that used to be--and should be--included otherwise. And for this predicament, we can thank the EU. It's so nice to have watchdogs looking out for competition but ignoring the needs of actual users.
Bing's big debut continues as Microsoft's revamped search engine gains share in both the number of searches its handled and the number of and paid clicks its raked in during its first week, according to search engine marketing firm Efficient Frontier.
Microsoft realized a 18.9 percent lift in shares of impressions for the week Bing officially launched, compared to the prior week, while paid click share increased 8.1 percent, according to Efficient Frontier data.
"In our view, if this share lift holds, we can expect advertisers to allocate additional budget to Microsoft over the coming months," Justin Merickel, vice president of marketing and product development for Efficient Frontier, told InternetNews.com.
Some PC vendors and sellers will begin a coupon program on June 26 to entitle people who buy premium versions of Microsoft Windows Vista to upgrade to the new Windows 7 operating system when it arrives later this year, but the upgrade offers may not be free. Offers will vary by vendor and retailer.
Three Taiwanese PC makers plan to provide a coupon for a free Windows 7 upgrade to anyone who buys a new desktop or laptop PC loaded with Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate or Vista Business between June 26 and the time Windows 7 launches globally on Oct. 22, according to executives from the companies.
Microsoft has settled an antitrust case with Mississippi worth as much as US$100 million, the state said on Thursday. Mississippi, which filed the suit in 2004, is the 21st state to reach a settlement with Microsoft. As part of the deal, Microsoft has agreed to pay $40 million to the state. The company also will offer $60 million worth of hardware and software vouchers to consumers, businesses, government entities and schools. If all the vouchers aren't claimed, Microsoft will pay $8 million to the state.
Anyone in Mississippi who bought Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME between Jan. 1, 1996, and Thursday is eligible for a $12 voucher that can be used for any software or hardware product.
In November of 2006, Microsoft rocked the Linux world by signing a landmark patent and interoperability agreement with Novell. According to the two partners, it's an agreement that today, two and half years later is still paying off, even during the current recession.
Microsoft and Novell say they've added 100 new joint customers in the last six months. They also say that some of those customers have come as a result of a new Linux support program that offers migration assistance to users other Linux operating systems, particularly Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The real thrust of the Microsoft/Novell agreement originally revolved around interoperability and it's an area that is still the key focus, according to executives from the two companies.