Aiming to protect corporate intellectual property, Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services 1.0 delivers a promising security infrastructure for safeguarding your company's documents in both Microsoft Office 2003 and in custom systems built with the freely downloadable RMS SDK. RMS marks a new and important step for better control over corporate data to guard against unauthorized use.
We installed RMS on Windows Server 2003 (the only supported server OS) with SQL Server 2000 as the database. Running the setup wizard for RMS is practically effortless; the real work was needed during the provisioning step, which is not as easy as with other administrative chores in Windows. Getting this right will require an IT manager to brush up on certificate management and overall security issues.
Linux seller Lindows has lost the first of several trademark challenges by Microsoft. The company, which sells a version of the Linux operating system intended to mimic Microsoft's Windows, acknowledged Friday that a Dutch judge had ruled against the company in a Microsoft case claiming the Lindows name infringes on Microsoft's Windows trademark. A judge in Amsterdam District Court issued a preliminary injunction barring the company from selling or advertising any products under the Lindows name in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Courts in Finland and Sweden have issued similar injunctions.
In February, Microsoft will quietly roll out the first beta release of its next-generation Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) software (code-named Symphony), which will be a minor release, even more so than the current release, XP MCE 2004 (code-named Harmony). I met with a representative of Microsoft's eHome Division last week, and although the company isn't going to deviate from its low-key approach to promoting MCE updates, we can safely bet that Microsoft will address some key customer requests in the new version. These requests--which might or might not make it into the next version--include High-Definition Television (HDTV) support (complicated by divergent standards in different international markets), multiple-tuner support (for recording two shows at once), support for different video formats, and radio recording.
Microsoft's chief software architect Bill Gates took centre stage at last week's software developer day in London in a bid to convince UK software developers to stick with Microsoft's roadmap, even though Longhorn, its next generation operating system, is two to three years away.
There are three pillars to Microsoft's operating system strategy: XML, web services and managed code. According to Gates, XML will raise the capability of the Longhorn platform by providing a means whereby data can be exchanged between different systems without the need for middleware.
The next version of Microsoft's Windows Server operating system will include business process orchestration features to allow users to link together Web services, among other tasks, without the need for additional middleware.
The technology will be lifted from BizTalk Server, according to Valerie Olague, director of Windows Server System marketing at Microsoft. BizTalk Server is Microsoft's product designed to help companies integrate disparate business applications and connect to business partners.
Microsoft said on Thursday that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may come to its rescue and cancel a patent that could force the world's biggest software company to rejig its most popular product.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said in November it would reexamine the Eolas patent after Internet advocacy groups including the World Wide Web Consortium raised claims that preexisting inventions may invalidate Eolas's patent claims.
Microsoft has asserted that the patent was invalid due to preexisting inventions, but the court refused to let the jury consider the "prior art," or comparable previous technology.
Next week, on February 6, Microsoft is officially ending the testing phase of its "PC Satisfaction Trial." But the company is still refusing to say how, when and if it will go live with the various security services it has been testing. Some PC Satisfaction testers have speculated the services will be rolled into Longhorn; others think they could debut in a future release of MSN.
Microsoft's PC Satisfaction Trial was designed to test Microsoft and third-party anti-virus, firewall, backup and PC-health-monitoring services. Sources said that Microsoft was testing whether these kinds of security services-when provided as hosted, managed services-would appeal to typically less-security-savvy small-business and consumer customers.
Following in the footsteps of the SCO Group Inc., Microsoft on Thursday put up a $250,000 bounty for the perpetrators of MyDoom.B. The MyDoom.B version is written to launch a DDoS attack against Microsoft instead of SCO next month. The virus also attempts to block computer users from accessing Microsoft's Web site along with dozens of other Web sites in order to prevent them from removing the program from infected machines.
"This worm is a criminal attack," Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. "Microsoft wants to help the authorities catch this criminal."
Microsoft plans to launch a multifaceted advertising campaign this year touting the advantages of its software over rivals including Linux. Earlier this year, the company kicked off a series of ads based on its "Get the Facts" campaign, which uses third-party studies to tout the cost savings and other benefits of Microsoft products over its competitors. In the next part of the campaign, set to kick off early next month, Microsoft will tout its various server software products as part of a "Windows Server System."
Microsoft will release a software update to Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer designed to protect Web surfers from being lured to Web sites that might contain malicious code, the software giant said Wednesday.
The announcement follows several IE-related security warnings issued by Danish security company Secunia. In December, Secunia alerted the security community to an IE bug that would let hackers display false Web addresses. And on Wednesday, the company posted details of an alleged flaw that could let Web surfers be tricked into downloading malicious files from counterfeit sites reached via such fake addresses.