Microsoft is expected to reveal plans Tuesday for the first major update of its corporate instant-messaging server. The software giant will begin accepting applications for a limited beta test of Live Communications Server 2005, with the beta version to arrive in June or July and a final release in the fourth quarter of this year.
Microsoft introduced Live Communications Server last year as part of a broad strategy to turn instant messaging into a corporate IT function. Today, most workplace IM activity happens over public services run by Yahoo, America Online and Microsoft's MSN, giving corporate IT managers little control over privacy or security.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates plans on Tuesday to show his idea of the home PC of the future--a vision he will be trying to convince computer makers to get behind. Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have come up with a concept PC that builds on the company's current Media Center entertainment idea and goes a few steps further. The Media Center PC of the future has a remote control with a built-in LCD screen for programming recordings. The PC, known as the Windows Home Concept, also supports Internet telephony, dual high-definition TV tuners, biometric security, and a built-in cable modem.
Microsoft on Tuesday will bring Web services one step closer to home. At its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle, Microsoft will announce a specification, software development kit and partner support for new technology that links consumer electronics devices to Windows.
The announcements build on WS-Discovery, a separate specification introduced in February by Microsoft, Intel, Canon and BEA Systems at the Intel Developer Forum. This specification uses Web services to make it easier for devices and services to find one other on a network. For instance, the software will enable a personal digital assistant to locate available services such as printing or file sharing on a wireless network.
Continuing efforts to move existing customers from Windows NT 4.0 to its current Windows Server 2003 operating system, Microsoft on Monday said it has written a file server migration tool kit.
The software eases the migration path of file servers from the legacy Windows NT 4.0 platform, which will be discontinued in December, to the latest Windows server.
The tool is important because roughly 30 percent to 40 percent of the Windows server install base is still running NT Windows 4.0, which means they are "running on very old technology" (4.0 appeared in 1996), said Radhesh Balakrishnan, technical product manager for the Next Generation File and Print division at Microsoft.
Microsoft could extend the reach of .NET if a cable TV standards body adopts the developer specifications it submitted. The Redmond, Wash., giant announced the move at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association's show in New Orleans today.
Officials working on the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP), managed by cable TV industry research and development consortium CableLabs, will gather industry experts in coming weeks to look through Microsoft's .NET common language infrastructure (CLI) draft to see whether the code can work with existing OCAP specifications, versions 1.0 and 2.0.
Microsoft said on Monday that retail and new PC sales of Windows XP, its flagship operating system, have grown to more than 210 million copies since the product was launched two and a half years ago.
As Microsoft prepares to add more features to Windows before its next major upgrade, the numbers showed that adoption of the latest Windows version was accelerating, with sales averaging about 10 million per month in the last nine months.
Last July, Microsoft said it had sold 130 million copies of Windows XP in stores, and has averaged sales of about 6 million per month via new personal computers. The product was launched in October 2001.
Microsoft has released details of a long-delayed update to its content protection technology, offering new features aimed at bringing piracy-proof digital content to mobile devices and home networks.
Originally expected as long as a year ago, the technology--internally code-named Janus--has been seen as a potential way to let subscription music services such as Napster and RealNetworks' Rhapsody move to portable MP3 players. Those services, which allow subscribers to listen to unlimited amounts of music in return for a single monthly fee, are typically tied to PCs today.
A new series of worms released onto the Internet exploits a critical security vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows XP and Windows 2000 OSes and does not need users to open e-mail attachments in order to propagate, experts said Saturday.
The worm's impact is expected to peak Monday as millions of workers bring their laptops back to their offices, after using them over the weekend to access the Internet from relatively unsecured home locations.
Microsoft has rated the vulnerability exploited by the W32/Sasser A and Sasser B worms as critical and security experts urged all users of vulnerable system to apply patches immediately.
Microsoft plans to officially launch its Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 at the TechEd user conference in the last week of May, a company spokesman said Friday. The vendor will detail pricing and licensing terms for the software at the San Diego event, and the product will become generally available "shortly after" the launch announcement, Dave Berkowitz, a product manager at Microsoft said.
Pricing for ISA Server 2004 will be comparable to pricing for ISA Server 2000, Berkowitz said. On Microsoft's Web site, the company lists ISA Server 2000 Standard Edition at $1,499 per processor, and the Enterprise Edition at $5,999 per processor.
With an eye to capturing a larger share of the budding market for online music and movie distribution software, Microsoft announced Monday a new version of its copyright protection software that will allow users to play rented content on portable devices, such as mobile phones, and networked devices within the home.
The new version of Microsoft's Windows Media software contains DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology, which is designed to protect, deliver and play subscription-based digital music and video content on a wide range portable devices, including those in homes connected via wireless networks, the U.S. software company said in a statement.