So much for claims of no new Windows client before Longhorn. Microsoft admits it is considering an update after it releases Service Pack 2. Some say the move is due to another Longhorn date slip.
After insisting last year that it would not release a version of Windows client before Longhorn, Microsoft is now considering such a plan. Company officials acknowledged on Thursday that the company is considering some kind of an interim Windows release that would follow Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said on Thursday that the world's largest software maker would craft a plan to deal with its growing cash balance, which now stands at nearly $53 billion. "There will come a point ... where we probably will change the balance sheet of the company, and make it more pure," Gates said.
Amid increasing investor and analyst scrutiny over Microsoft's growing cash position, Chief Financial Officer John Connors told a Goldman Sachs technology conference in Phoenix on Wednesday that Microsoft would provide more answers on a plan to deal with its cash by its annual analysts meeting in July.
Software is the engine that makes the IT industry run, and developers will need to adapt as the world of computer science changes over the next several years, said Bill Gates, chief software architect at Microsoft, in a speech to students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Thursday.
The U.S. needs to improve its investment in computer research if it is to maintain its leadership position in the global economy, Gates said. Advances in technology have created a world where "the ability to have great jobs is determined by education, not where (those jobs) are," Gates said.
European regulators considered forcing Microsoft to change the way it sells its Windows software around the world but decided to limit the draft order to Europe to avoid charges of overreaching, according to sources familiar with the case.
While some in Competition Commissioner Mario Monti's circle then argued for making it global, others with responsibility for trade and single market issues warned that doing so could make the EU look hypocritical on the issue of 'extraterritoriality' a sore subject with Washington especially.
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (FTC) raided Microsoft's Tokyo offices yesterday on suspicion of antitrust violations, according to Japanese law enforcement officials. The raid represents the second time the FTC has investigated Microsoft in recent years; in 1998, the commission warned Microsoft that the way the company bundled Microsoft Office with Windows in Japan raised antitrust concerns. The company responded by removing the bundle, and Japan dropped the warning. This time, the FTC is concerned about Windows licensing.
If a single technology could represent Microsoft's past preference for features over security, that technology would likely be ActiveX. Microsoft introduced the scripting language as a way to create interactive Web site components. But while many Web sites use ActiveX components or controls for that purpose, more malicious sites could use ActiveX to run code on a visitor's computer.
Despite Microsoft's repeated denials, the company will indeed release an interim version of Windows XP that will bridge the gap between the initial XP release and Windows Longhorn, which is currently due in late 2005 at the earliest. The interim XP version will ship as a new retail product that replaces existing retail boxed copies of XP and as a set of updates, called XP Reloaded, that existing XP users can install separately. According to sources I contacted this morning, XP Reloaded will include all the features from XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which is due by midyear, as well as a host of other unique features, including Windows Media Player (WMP) 10.
We're losing ground in another part of the innovation process: finding the smart, motivated people that can make these breakthroughs happen. Fewer young people are choosing to study computer science, despite all the challenging problems we have yet to solve and the incredible potential of the technology industry.
We need talented computer scientists more than ever. As computers become increasingly central to our lives, they must achieve a level of reliability far beyond anything we can achieve today. We need new ways to understand the large-scale computer systems of tomorrow and new ways to program them.
Redmond says it will double the number of available collections of blueprints and methodologies for its Office System technologies in its next fiscal year.
Microsoft officially launched the first of these collections of blueprints, templates and product guidance - "Office Solution Accelerators" in Microsoft parlance - last fall. At the time of its initial launch, Microsoft outlined nine Solution Accelerators that it planned to offer through its reseller partners and directly to its Software Assurance licensing customers.
Microsoft's profit growth will outpace any rise in sales next fiscal year as the company uses cost reductions to boost earnings, Chief Financial Officer John Connors said yesterday.
The company will post "good absolute profit growth" in fiscal 2005, which begins July 1, Connors said at a Goldman, Sachs & Co. software conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. Producing profit growth will be "easier" than revenue growth, he said.