Microsoft is about to stir the speech recognition market with the launch of its Speech Server products next week. The vendor promises speech recognition for the masses, but analysts warn that speech-enabling applications is not easy.
Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates is scheduled to formally launch Speech Server 2004 Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition at the SpeechTEK conference in San Francisco next week. The launch marks the Redmond, Washington-based company's entry into the server-based speech recognition market where it will compete with vendors including Nuance Communications Inc., ScanSoft Inc. and IBM Corp.
Antitrust regulators from the 15 European Union (EU) countries have unanimously backed the European Commission's negative ruling against Microsoft, a Commission spokeswoman said Monday.
In less than two weeks, barring a last-minute settlement, the Commission will declare Microsoft an abusive monopolist, impose a fine anywhere between $100 million and $1 billion and order the company to make fundamental changes to the way it sells software in Europe.
An appeal of a negative ruling to the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg would take at least three years to conclude. In the meantime, the Court may turn down Microsoft's certain request to suspend the remedies until after the appeal, forcing the company to change the way it does business in Europe almost immediately.
Microsoft doesn't break out its sales figures for each region it operates in, but analysts believe the EU accounts for just under 30 percent of the roughly $10 billion in revenues it generates from Windows worldwide.
Microsoft executive Jim Allchin answered definitively when reporters recently pressed him to say when the company would release the next major version of the Windows operating system.
"Sometime in the future," the Windows group vice president said.
Allchin's response, more than showing his sense of humor, underscored the uncertainty surrounding the timing of the next Windows release, code-named Longhorn. It's an issue with deep implications for Microsoft's business and for corporate users of the operating system. Microsoft has been vague on the subject. Another top Windows executive, Will Poole, said at a conference last year that Longhorn would ship sometime in 2005. But more recently, company executives have declined to be so specific.
Microsoft sees its near-term future as a series of "waves" of software that are key to its growth over the next couple of years. But with those waves slow to reach shore, the company--and its customers--may feel like they're caught in a riptide.
For months, Microsoft has talked about a "Yukon" wave of products that would hit this year and a "Longhorn" wave that would follow a year or two later. The first wave is tied to the next version of SQL Server, known as Yukon, as well as to updated developer tools, known as Whidbey.
Microsoft will shed light on its forthcoming MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager) 2004 product and will preview a beta of SUS (Software Update Services) 2.0 at its Microsoft Management Summit this week.
Attendees will also get details on Microsoft's management-product road map and an update on the DSI (Dynamic Systems Initiative), Microsoft's plan for reducing IT complexity by improving software manageability, said David Hamilton, director of the enterprise management division at Microsoft.
As director of product management in the Security Business and Technology Unit at Microsoft, Amy Carroll is responsible for making sure that new enhancements to Windows and new versions of Windows are very secure. Carroll spoke to InfoWorld Senior Analyst Wayne Rash about the company's approach to security and commitment to improving the overall security of its operating system.
InfoWorld: How does the current atmosphere of dueling worm creators affect the problems that you are dealing with?
Carroll: There are two big challenges. One is the environmental challenge, where there is a great deal of emphasis on dueling virus creators. Currently those viruses are not necessarily exploiting a vulnerability in Windows or other software code, but are requiring users to double-click on malicious attachments.
Jason Matusow, who heads Microsoft's Shared Source Program, discussed with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli the recent source code leak, what it means for security and whether Microsoft plans any changes to the program.
How do licensees actually get access to Microsoft's source code under your Shared Source and Government Security programs?
We provide source through a mechanism called Code Center Premium, which is a smart-card-driven, secured Web site, which has gone through numerous third-party security audits. What we do is host the builds on our servers, and, from a security perspective, we believe the source is thus more safe. But it also offers a high degree of value to the developer. They are given access to more than 100 million lines of Windows source code for Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, across all versions, all service packs and all betas.
The leak of some of Microsoft's Windows source code on the Internet last month has elevated the discussion about why the software company believes it needs to protect its code so fiercely when other vendors are more liberal with access to their proprietary source code. The leak has also raised doubts about Microsoft's commitment to, and ability to effectively deal with, the security of its products.
Microsoft users, developers and partners are tired of product delays but said they are willing to wait for the company's newest database and development tools platforms-if it means better software as a result.
Officials for the Redmond, Wash., vendor said the next upgrades of SQL Server, code-named Yukon, and of Visual Studio, code-named Whidbey, are being pushed back from a late-2003 target release to the first half of next year. The issue is simply an "update to the schedule," said Ari Bixhorn, Visual Studio lead product manager, in an interview with eWEEK. Bixhorn said the update is due to feedback from users and developers who got early-access bits of code since the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference last fall. "We've had an extremely successful feedback loop; that's what's driving the schedule," he said. "We're updating the schedule for SQL Server Yukon and Visual Studio Whidbey to ensure the best product for our customers."
As software security holds its place as a top priority among enterprise networks, engineers at Microsoft are building proactive PC monitoring capabilities into its next generation Longhorn operating system, a move that's being widely embraced.
According to those in the know, Longhorn engineers are packing new technologies into the OS to check against a central patching Web service for security holes on computers. If a user does not have a patch installed, Longhorn's active protection technology will kick in to adjust the firewall or PC settings to block specific attack vectors without having the patch installed.