Microsoft has agreed to help the German government protect critical IT operations in its vast public sector. Under the agreement reached Monday, Microsoft and the Federal Office for Information Security will collaborate through an intensive exchange of information in the areas of IT security, interoperability and openness, the U.S. software company and the Federal Ministry of the Interior said in separate statements.
In his discussion with Ballmer, Schily emphasized the need for Microsoft products, which play a huge role in Germany's e-government programs, to be interoperable with the offerings of other vendors and with open source software, the federal ministry said.
Microsoft on Friday released a plug-in for Lotus Notes to allow Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2003 users to schedule meetings using the IBM e-mail client. The plug-in works with Notes versions 5.x and 6.x installed on a PC running Windows 2000 or Windows XP with Service Pack 1, according to Microsoft. After installing the software, Notes users will be able to perform Live Meeting tasks, such as scheduling Web conferences, without having to log in to the Live Meeting service, the vendor said.
Microsoft is on tap to distribute an alpha Longhorn build and reveal an updated Windows client roadmap at next week's show. Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) traditionally is all about the low-level Windows innards that help make computers tick. WinHEC 2004, which kicks off next Tuesday, will focus heavily on the guts of Longhorn.
Microsoft is expected to recommend that the "average" Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.
While many Windows watchers have been keeping a close eye on the forthcoming Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, Microsoft is working simultaneously on another service pack: the first for Windows Server 2003.
Microsoft has said to expect the final Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) release to ship in the latter half of 2004. It has not said when SP1 will enter broadscale public beta testing.
But earlier this week, according to the ieXbeta Windows enthusiast site, Microsoft released to a group of private testers a third interim test build of SP1.
When you're the industry's 800-pound gorilla, what's a few billion dollars to pay for problems to disappear?
So it is that erstwhile rivals like Sun Microsystems, America Online or InterTrust Technologies have walked away with small fortunes, courtesy of Microsoft over the last year. How much longer before Steve Ballmer invites Rob Glaser to drop RealNetworks' $1 billion lawsuit in return for a sizable check with fewer zeroes?
As CEO, Ballmer no doubt has far better ideas about how to invest the company's funds. But shareholders need not wonder whether their favorite equity holding is turning into a pliant pinata. With nearly $60 billion in cash, Microsoft can afford to settle all its various legal troubles and not miss a beat.
The first quarter of 2004 saw Microsoft heading for an all-out assault on PalmSource in the global market for handheld operating systems. PalmSource, the market leader, closed the quarter with a whopping 20.7 percent drop in market share, according to initial data released Friday by research firm Gartner.
Gartner's report found that the market share held by Palm's operating system slipped to 40.7 percent, while the Windows CE market share grew by 5 percent to 40.2 percent. Microsoft licensees have been steadily chipping away at the Palm OS lead since 2000, when Microsoft accounted for 11 percent of the market for handhelds.
Microsoft next week plans to detail the next steps it is taking to extend Web services to devices such as printers, digital cameras and consumer electronics. At its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), an annual event for hardware makers, Microsoft is scheduled to discuss a "Web Services for Devices API" (application program interface), or WSDAPI, described in the conference agenda as an implementation of a new devices profile for Web services.
Linux distribution maker Turbolinux was "thinking different" this week when it licensed the code for Microsoft's proprietary Windows Media 9 technologies. The company will ship a media player in its Linux version that can stream Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Video (WMV) content, responding to consumer need; the company reports that a lot of content online is in Windows Media formats, and its customers request compatibility. Turbolinux 10F, which is aimed at the Japanese market, will go on sale in late May and include the Windows Media playback functionality.
Small businesses in the U.K. are being offered a one-stop shop for software and broadband through a new joint offering from BT Group PLC and Microsoft, the companies said Thursday.
If the service takes off in the U.K., Microsoft has said it will look into offering it internationally with other partners, Rakesh Mahajan, general manager for strategy and business development with of BT Retail said Thursday.
BT Connected and Complete has been put together to give small companies broadband access, e-mail, Office software and support and maintenance on a per-user basis, the companies said.
Microsoft's prescription for reducing medication errors moved a step closer to implementation today when the software giant and its health-care partner, WellPoint Health Networks, chose two vendors to provide electronic-prescribing software to physicians.
WellPoint, with Microsoft's Healthcare and Life Sciences Group acting as technology consultant, selected Allscripts Healthcare Solutions and ZixCorp to provide e-prescribing software to the 19,000 physicians in WellPoint's network. This includes doctors in Blue Cross organizations in California, Georgia, Missouri and Wisconsin. The physicians will receive the technology, which uses Windows MobileTM software running on a Dell PDA, at no charge.
Microsoft and other major technology companies are flocking to health care because they see opportunity in the $1.7 trillion industry.