Microsoft Office 2003 moved off "mainstream support" on April 14, which means that those seeking technical support for the product will have to pay for it.
The five-year-old Office 2003 product now enters its second five-year phase, called "extended support," where users will still get free security updates through the Microsoft Update service but have to pay for per-incident product support. Users requesting non-security hotfixes have to purchase a Microsoft Extended Hotfix Support Agreement to get them.
Microsoft said Thursday that quarterly revenue fell 5.6 percent over last year because of falling PC and server sales in the global markets.
The Redmond-based software company also reported that net income fell 32 percent.
The quarterly revenue fall, year-over-year, marked a first for Microsoft's history as a public company. (Microsoft first went public in 1986.)
Sales were expected to be down because PC shipments are down, and the Windows operating system and business software account for Microsoft's largest source of revenue.
Microsoft could reduce losses from software piracy by expanding pay-as-you-go plans like those it has tested in developing countries, a company executive said Wednesday.Charging users as they access services, rather than in one up-front purchase fee, could "take some of the pressure off of the purely licensed model of software," Craig Mundie, Microsoft's research head, said in an interview.
Microsoft launched trials of pay-as-you-go services in countries including India and China in 2006. Its FlexGo technology monitors user time on equipped PCs and asks for payment when a prepaid balance runs out.
Scott Charney admits it. His friends laughed because he used the words "Microsoft" and "security" in the same sentence back when he joined the software giant in 2002.
But with Microsoft's big push into what it calls end-to-end trust, it's time for the laughter to stop, says its chief security strategist, more formally known as corporate vice president for trustworthy computing.
During a keynote presentation here at the RSA Conference, Charney touted Microsoft's progress with ways of ensuring that applications and other executables are legitimate, like identity systems, code signing, and Trusted Platform Modules -- microcontrollers, often based on a PC's motherboard, that store digital certificates, keys and passwords.
Microsoft has long enjoyed a healthy, predictable revenue stream from its volume licensing programs, but that has slowed as more companies look for ways to cut costs. As a result, Microsoft is now willing to negotiate volume licensing deals with customers, according to a new report.
"There has never been a better time to negotiate volume licensing deals with Microsoft," said Rob Horwitz, research chair at Directions On Microsoft, the research firm that published the report. "And like the tax code, the more you know about how Microsoft's volume licensing programs work, the better chance you have to take advantage of the system."
Microsoft gained a familiar ally in its latest antitrust battle with the European Commission on Monday when the Association for Competitive Technology was accepted as an interested third party in the case.
The software giant has a little more time to muster further supporters: Last week, the Commission granted Microsoft more time to respond to the formal statement of objections it issued in January, after already giving it a two-week extension. The new deadline is April 28. ACT stood by Microsoft in an earlier case antitrust case that resulted in Microsoft being found guilty of monopoly abuse in 2004.
Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft's upcoming release of its mobile operating system, had a coming-out party of sorts at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in February.
Now, Microsoft is ready to show the ins and outs of the mobile platform with an official launch. According to a blog post on Microsoft's Windows Mobile blog, Tech Ed 2009 will feature a "kickoff presentation" for Windows Mobile on Monday, May 11.
Aimed at both IT professionals and developers, the session is expected to offer a demo and outline the future of the operating system.
Microsoft has begun making its Windows 7 Release Candidate available to major hardware partners for testing, taking a step closer to final release for the closely watched successor to Windows Vista.
According to a note on Microsoft's Partner Program Web site, the official Release Candidate for Windows 7 is available for download through the company's TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network services.
However, the only people who can get it are Technical Adoption Program Gold members, which limits the release to major OEM partners.
Microsoft on Wednesday branded some of its best-selling products to come with the "2010" stamp, beginning with the debut of Exchange Server 2010 beta.
Many of the forthcoming 2010 editions -- including Microsoft Office, Exchange and SharePoint 2010 -- are being positioned as unified communications solutions. In addition, Microsoft announced that other 2010 software products will be coming.
These new products are expected to be available in "the first half of 2010," Microsoft announced, although Exchange Server 2010 will arrive a little sooner, during "the second half of 2009."
Microsoft is updating and rebranding its cloud-based e-mail security service, formerly known as Exchange Hosted Filtering, and spending US$75 million to beef up industry support for its new suite of security software.
The product is being rolled into Microsoft's Forefront security product group and will now be called Forefront Online Security for Exchange. A new version of the service, due in May, will feature improved management capabilities and will be priced at US$20 per seat per year, according to Doug Leland, general manager of Microsoft's Identity and Security Business Group.