Everything that has a beginning has an end -- and sometimes an unexpected parody.
In one unlikely riff on "The Matrix," Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates stars as the enigmatic rebel Morpheus fighting to liberate humankind from evil computer consultants from IBM.
In a promotional video clip Microsoft rolled out on the opening night of the Comdex information technology trade show in Las Vegas on Sunday, Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer appear in a spoof of the blockbuster science-fiction franchise.
Gates & Co. are planning so show off previously unpublicized features of the next release of the tablet operating system, code-named Lonestar. Lonestar, tales of which surfaced earlier this month, is due in the middle of 2004.
Gates is also expected to reaffirm, or re-re-affirm, Microsoft's commitment to security, more than two years into the company's trustworthy computing initiative. Microsoft, which has seen its products targeted by hackers and crackers with seemingly increasing frequency, is seeking to make patch management and application more rational and easier to administer, and its underlying products more impervious to threats. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer again sounded a call to arms around security at Microsoft's worldwide partner conference early last month and then again at the recent Gartner ITXpo.
Bill Gates touted the promise of a connected world and offered new ways to deal with its darker realities during his annual Comdex keynote speech last night. The Microsoft chairman outlined his vision for "seamless computing," the idea of creating new connections among pieces of information spread across different computers, programs and devices. Examples include a Microsoft research project that lets people easily retrieve any file they've ever viewed on a computer, no matter the program.
The year was 1983, and a 28-year-old software mogul named William Gates was invited to make his first keynote address at Comdex, the computer industry trade show. His father ran the slide projector as Gates spoke about such innovations as the computer mouse, which he predicted would become a standard tool for computer users.
"The only thing I worried about was the condensation on the slides, whether they would dry out properly or not," Gates recalled in a speech at the convention years later.
Microsoft and Waseda University, one of Japan's top universities, signed a provisional agreement Monday under which the two will cooperate in training of computer software engineers. The memorandum of understanding was announced by Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft, to a hall of around 600 students prior to an address in which Ballmer outlined his vision of computing in 10 years.
Specific details of the training program are yet to be worked out, but it will include a course in Windows security, to be offered from April 2004, that will include a series of lectures given by Microsoft Japan engineers. Ballmer also said there will be the possibility of internships at Microsoft for the university's students. The security lectures will deal with Microsoft's Windows platform and other lectures will deal with the structure of the Windows operating system, .Net programming and basic project management skills, according to a joint statement.
Microsoft is asking customers to do their part to improve its software. The company is seeking to reward volunteers who tested out the Web-based Microsoft Reliability Service (MRS). Through this service, network administrators can monitor the uptime and availability of their servers, as well as better identify the causes of unplanned downtime.
According to a statement sent out to Redmond's stable of beta testers, "MRS works by collecting and analyzing data from the event logs of customers' servers, and then generating reports that can be studied and used to optimize server availability and reliability."
Linus Torvalds' current employer, Beaverton, Oregon-based Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) issued a statement Friday saying that both received subpoenas on Wednesday from attorneys for SCO requesting that OSDL and Torvalds produce documents for use in that dispute.
OSDL Marketing Director Nelson Pratt told internetnews.com that the company has agreed to fund legal representation for Torvalds and any other employees of the Lab who may become involved in the litigation.
A jury has ordered Microsoft to pay $62.3 million in damages for infringing on a technology patent held by a division of manufacturing and technology company SPX, the companies said Friday. SPX said its Imagexpo subsidiary sued Microsoft in October last year for infringing on its patent with a feature of Microsoft's NetMeeting conferencing product. The patent related to real-time conferencing, SPX said in a statement.
"We are disappointed in the jury's verdict and we continue to stand firm in our belief that there is no infringement of any kind on the patent" and that the Imagexpo and Microsoft technologies in question are "quite different," Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said. She added that certain aspects of Microsoft's defense in the case have yet to be ruled upon. Microsoft can appeal the outcome of the case, SPX said.
Microsoft next week is slated to make a major announcement with an unspecified European government to ease interoperability issues between its Office software suite and third-party programs, as well as alleviate its overseas antitrust headaches.
The announcement between Microsoft and European officials is deemed as one of the software giant's first major concessions as it attempts to speed the settlement of its antitrust woes in Europe. Plans call for the deal to be announced Monday, sources familiar with the situation said.
Microsoft is bound to play a growing role in enterprise telephony systems over the next few years, helping them to evolve beyond the simple features such as speed dial, conference call and voice mail most companies know today. What is less clear is what that role will be. The Redmond, Washington, software giant is likely to muscle in on the territory of traditional vendors of PBXes (private branch exchanges) and even threaten the desktop handset, through PC-based "soft phones," according to some industry analysts. However, Microsoft and some major vendors in that market say they do not see themselves on a collision course. Microsoft may increasingly provide the platform software for telephony, but more specialized vendors will write the applications on top, they said.