Microsoft will release an update to Windows Server 2003 to bundle in some of the add-on components the company has put out since shipping Windows Server 2003 last April, a company official said Friday.
"We've shipped a number of technical enhancements such as Windows SharePoint Services that enhance the functionality of the base platform," said Jeff Price, senior director in the Windows Server Group. "In talking with customers, they tell us . they're happy we're doing that. At the same time they'd like us to do some work to make it easier to consume those things."
Standard & Poore's lowered its credit rating of Sun Microsystems from BBB to BB+, the rating and risk evaluation company said Friday. "The downgrade reflects weak and inconsistent profitability and our expectation that Sun will be challenged to profitably expand its market presence," credit analyst Martha Toll-Reed said in a statement. Sun makes powerful networked computers called servers but is diversifying with new lower-end models and with software and services.
Early next month, Microsoft is set to share its vision for its next-generation Office, Windows, database and other products with hundreds of its Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs).
MVPs are the independent technology buffs who are recognized experts in one or more Microsoft technologies. They complement Microsoft executives, product managers and developers in tasks ranging from answering online forum questions, to assisting Microsoft at trade shows and other events. The MVP program is eleven years old.
According to various sources familiar with the case, European Union (EU) antitrust regulators will demand that Microsoft let PC makers choose which media players to include with their Windows-based PCs, rather than force the software giant to ship a stripped-down Windows version in the European market. The EU is said to be walking away from the stripped-down Windows version concept out of fear that few people would want such a product and because Microsoft might argue that developing a custom product for just one region of the world would be unnecessarily difficult.
Testers are reporting that Microsoft is blazing down the path toward a release candidate for Windows Update 5.0. The new Windows Update will coincide with the launch of Windows XP Service Pack 2, and is a piece of a larger company-wide effort to improve the patching process.
Late last year, Microsoft indicated that version 5.0 of the service would enable upgrades for a broader range of products in the company's portfolio; current plans call for support to extend to Office, SQL Server, and Exchange.
The SCO Group Inc. said Thursday that Microsoft Corp. was not involved in raising venture capital funding for the company, dismissing claims that a leaked e-mail demonstrated that Microsoft had helped raise tens of millions of dollars for SCO.
An e-mail from an outside consultant to SCO apparently involved in brokering deals for the company was posted to the Open Source Initiative Web site Wednesday. The consultant in the e-mail suggests that Microsoft "brought in $86 million" for SCO and that between $16 million and $20 million is underway.
Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Inc. signed Unix licensing deals with SCO in 2003, earning the company $13.5 million.
Microsoft plans to deliver the first service pack for Office 2003 in late June. The company released the date recently in an announcement about feature changes coming in SP1 for the InfoPath 2003 component, a forms client intended primarily for use within XML-based business processes. According to Microsoft, the late June delivery date for Office 2003 SP1 applies both to United States and international customers.
SCO has finally done it. Not content with gate-crashing the Linux love-in with a loaded gun and blaring incoherently about stealing property, the legal firm--sorry, software company--has escalated the situation by finally pulling a couple of unfortunates out of the crowd and putting the gun to their heads.
If you're wondering what makes the two firms concerned--DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone--so regrettably special (maybe SCO chief executive Darl McBride had a dodgy Kompressor that he couldn't get parts for?) then you need to take a look at the fine print of the suits that SCO has filed. Although SCO is suing the two companies, without the benefit of a law degree it's difficult to nail down exactly for what.
Just a week after Microsoft Corp.'s Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates unveiled his company's plan for securing e-mail communications, leading e-mail authorities, legal experts and at least one Internet service provider (ISP) are expressing concerns about the e-mail sender authentication plan, known as Caller ID.
Some experts agreed that the technology is promising. However, Microsoft's claim that it owns patents around Caller ID and its decision to license the technology to third parties, rather than submit it to an Internet standards body, have riled e-mail experts and domain owners, some of whom said they worry about a power grab by the Redmond, Washington, company and are wary of signing on to the new system.
When Microsoft releases Service Pack 2 for Windows XP later this year, some software developers may find their applications no longer work on updated Windows machines.
Microsoft has made something of a trade-off with the update, focusing on security improvements at the expense of backward compatibility. The Redmond, Washington-based vendor is calling on all software developers to test their code against the beta version of Service Pack 2, or face the possibility that the update will break their handiwork.
Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) is more than the usual roll-up of bug fixes and updates. It is also being used to make significant changes to the software that are designed to improve security. These changes can render applications inoperable, Microsoft warns.