Microsoft has begun beta testing in Europe an automated news service called 'MSN Newsbot.' But Newsbot has no connection to MSNBot. On Monday, Microsoft's MSN division began beta testing an automated news service, called "MSN Newsbot" that looks and works like archrival Google's Google News service (which also is in beta). MSN made the beta available to consumers in the U.K., France, Italy and Spain.
The Newsbot technology was developed by the MSN Search team, according to Karen Redetzki, MSN product manager. Like Google News, which scours 4,500 online news sources for the latest stories and compiles them automatically, MSN Newsbot scans "over 4,000 news sources," according to the "About" page on the MSN service. MSN is working with online news aggregator Moreover Technologies and Microsoft's Research division on the new service.
In one of the first of its monthly security update Webcasts, Redmond officials laid out its security progress and commitments. Microsoft has a lot to do in the next year to deliver on its security promises. But the company's come a long way since it launched its Trustworthy Computing initiative.
That was the message from Mike Nash, the corporate VP in charge of Microsoft's Security Business Unit. Nash reiterated Microsoft's security priorities as part of a 70-minute "Executive Circle" Webcast on Monday.
Microsoft next year plans to launch a music download service, going up against Apple Computer's iTunes and many other services peddling music online. Microsoft has been considering a music download service and said in July that plans were in the very early stages, if they could be called plans at all. Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates at the time said he did not see a music service as a money-making service. The Redmond, Washington, software vendor has now decided to go ahead with the service.
Watches equipped with Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) will not be available until early next year, missing the holiday shopping season target. Microsoft and watchmakers Fossil of the U.S. and Suunto Oy of Finland only recently started a large test, too late to make the December gift-giving season. For the watches to be widely available around the holidays, they would have to be shipping to retailers in September, said Roger Gulrajani, director of SPOT at Microsoft.
In keeping with the enterprise IT focus that Comdex organizers are striving to achieve, Gates spent much less time than usual on end-user computing products and experiences. Instead, he positioned Microsoft's enterprise platform strategy against IBM's combination of Linux platforms and service-intensive offerings.
He showed a video parody of "The Matrix" in which Steve Ballmer-"the hacker Steve-O"-was offered a choice between a massive Big Blue Pill bearing a Linux penguin logo, or a more comfortably-sized red pill bearing a Windows logo. "You take the blue pill," said Gates in the character of Morpheus, "and you wake up to find an army of IT consultants running your company."
Microsoft is readying a new version of the Tablet PC platform that improves upon the handwriting features in the operating system. The device and software was demonstrated by Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates in his Sunday evening keynote address.
Code-name Lonestar, the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2004 software will offer a larger "ink-to-text" panel than the current version, meaning users can scrawl longer e-mail messages that the computer translates into typed text.
Following the triumphant Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2003, at which Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates introduced the next major Windows version (code-named Longhorn) to an eager crowd of 7000 developers, last night Gates did what so many people have done after such an obvious success: He stumbled badly, delivering a sleepy and plodding keynote address to a stunned crowd at the COMDEX 2003 trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. The speech was Gates's 20th COMDEX keynote address and a time for reflection. But for people who were hoping to hear a bit of Microsoft vision, the keynote was a disappointment, concentrating primarily on the progress Microsoft has made fixing the software problems the company is largely responsible for.
COMDEX, once the largest US computer-industry trade show, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, although few people are celebrating. After topping the 200,000-attendee mark a few years ago, COMDEX attendance has fallen to just 50,000 this year (down from more than 120,000 last year). The company that owns the show is just coming out of bankruptcy and faces competition from a similar show that's held in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the same time as COMDEX. But COMDEX isn't down and out quite yet, thank you very much. This year, the show is returning to its business-computing roots, with an attendee list that's neatly culled of all the people who don't belong (only those actually involved with IT received attendee badges; others can pay $100 at the door to get in), and a show floor that no longer features a bevy of nonbusiness-computing companies. These changes mean no more teenagers posing as press and no more massage chair and car companies clogging the show floor. It also means the return of some companies that haven't been at COMDEX for a long time, including Siebel Systems and PC super-giant Dell. Can COMDEX return from the edge of destruction? From what I can tell, the possibility looks good. This year will be my ninth straight year at COMDEX, and although I had previously figured it would be my last, I guess you never know.
Solution providers who have complained about Microsoft Commerce Server's "Business Desk" will get some relief without having to wait till the next major product release. Microsoft is working on "an interim" update to Business Desk, the toolset that enables a site developer or manager to develop, deploy and manage Web commerce applications, a Microsoft spokesman told CRN.
He would not comment on timing or packaging, but said solution providers will not have to wait for the expected next full version of Commerce Server, the so-called "Discovery" suite that is not expected now until 2005.
In a move designed to please the European Commission and governments globally, Microsoft announced on Monday that it would make its Office 2003 XML reference schemas available on a royalty-free basis beginning in early December.
The decision, which follows Microsoft's discussions with the Danish government and three days of antitrust hearings last week, will give Linux, Unix and Windows developers access to the word processing, spreadsheet and form template XML schemas for several Office 2003 applications including Word 2003, Excel 2003 and InfoPath 2003.
The Danish government is the first customer taking advantage of the royalty-free license and will use the XML schemas to enhance interoperability of documents exchanged across public agencies. CRN first wrote about the deal on Friday.