Microsoft's Xbox video game system will team up with software maker Electronic Arts Inc. to stage an online Interactive World Cup tournament later this year, the companies announced yesterday.The project is part of Xbox's sponsorship of soccer's 2006 World Cup in Germany.
To compete in the tournament, players will need an Xbox system and EA's FIFA 2005 game software, which will begin selling in stores in October and include an online component for Xbox for the first time. EA's FIFA game for Xbox competitor PlayStation 2, made by Sony, already contains a multiplayer capability.
The misguided advisory from Heise Security sets unrealistic expectations for a new Windows security feature and then criticizes Microsoft for not meeting them.
When I first saw the advisory "Flaws in SP2 security features," written by Jürgen Schmidt of Heise Security, I just laughed and blew it off as a big nothing. Now, I agree that it illustrates limitations in one of the new security features of Windows XP Service Pack 2. But a flaw? That's a hard claim to make.
In the last year, Microsoft has played an increasingly visible role in the enterprise storage market. While Redmond's offerings don't yet pose a major threat to the storage industry's established leaders, customers and vendors alike are now wondering if that's about to change.
So far, Microsoft has made the biggest splash with the success of Windows Storage Server 2003. It has also captured a significant share of the network attached storage (NAS) and iSCSI markets, both of which represent relatively low-end, low-cost storage solutions.
In a deal that appears to buck the growing trend among governments to adopt open-source alternatives, the U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is negotiating a renewal of a three-year agreement with Microsoft.
Both the software maker and the OGC confirmed this week that they have discussed extending an existing memorandum of understanding (MOU), which is set to expire next year, although terms of the new deal have yet to be revealed.
OGC spokesman Martin Day said that while the existing MOU primarily covers software licensing fees, the new three-year contract will focus on services and support.
As it makes moves towards a single Windows platform for 64-bit computing, Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday offered to customers in its preview program new 64-bit desktop software builds as well as a fresher Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition.
In addition, the Redmond, Wash. company said it had changed the name of its Windows XP 64-bit for Extended 64-bit Systems to Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. This prerelease software, which support both Intel- and AMD x64-compatible platforms, is available for evaluation through the Customer Preview Program for the XP Professional x64 Edition and for the Server 2003 Edition.
Users generally like what they see in Windows XP Service Pack 2 and are planning aggressive rollouts of the major security overhaul of Microsoft's flagship client operating system.
At the same time, Microsoft's new tool to prevent client systems from automatically installing SP2 and the latest delay on Automatic Update deployments dovetail nicely with users' plans to continue thorough testing of SP2 before deploying it.
This week, MSN has been tweaking its services line-up by rolling out a couple of new services and temporarily withdrawing the test version of its new MSN search engine. On Tuesday, MSN removed the alpha release of its forthcoming algorithmic search engine from the MSN Sandbox site, as first reported by the BoostMarketing.com Web site. (The MSN Sandbox is a collection of technologies under development by MSN and other Microsoft divisions.)
Just one week after Intuit introduced Quicken 2005, Microsoft is striking back with a new version of its competing personal finance program, Money 2005. Like Quicken 2005, Money 2005 isn't an essential upgrade for most users. But it does hold special appeal to people who would like to manage their finances on the Web when they're not at their desktop.
Money is scheduled to ship in September in four versions: Standard ($30), Deluxe ($60), Premium ($80), and Small Business ($90), which correspond roughly to Quicken's Basic, Deluxe, Premier, and Premier Home & Business editions.
Jim Hugunin, the moving force behind IronPython and co-designer of AspectJ, is now a member of Redmond's Common Language Runtime team. Microsoft is continuing to grab top developer talent. The latest catch: Open source stalwart Jim Hugunin.
Hugunin created Jpython/Jython; codesigned the AspectJ aspect-oriented-programming language while working at the Xerox PARC research center; and is the moving force behind IronPython, the implementation of the Python language targeted at .Net and Mono.
In a continued effort to compete with IBM and its WebSphere offerings, Microsoft on Tuesday announced imminent availability of Host Integration Server 2004. The newest edition of Host Integration Server, which replaces the 2000 version, is designed to make it easier for users to link Windows systems with IBM mainframes and midrange AS/400 servers, known as iSeries servers.
"Host Integration Server 2004 is one of the only products that's aimed at bridging a Microsoft world and a non-Microsoft world," said Steven Martin, lead product manager for the Business Process and Integration division at Microsoft.