The European Commission widened its probe into Microsoft for anticompetitive practices on Thursday, asking computer hardware makers for details of their licensing deals with the software giant. Lueder stressed that launching the probe did not imply Microsoft was guilty of any offences and that the investigation was at a fact-finding stage. Lueder said the licensing investigation was separate.
"Software licensing is totally different... (the investigations) have nothing to do with each other," he said.
A total of 20 firms had been contacted by the Commission, including IBM, Hitachi and Toshiba, the newspaper said.
The next generation of Windows will use a computer's graphical processing power to present everyday computer images in a manner typically reserved for high-intensity video games.
Better use of the graphics processing unit, or GPU, inside a computer will enable much higher-quality visuals for programs on desktop PCs, said Rick Rashid, senior vice president in charge of Microsoft Research, during a presentation yesterday at the company's Professional Developers Conference here.
Michael Hanscom began keeping an online journal, commonly known as a weblog, several years ago. He started his job as a contract worker in Microsoft's print shop last year. Last week, he mixed the two.
This week, he's looking for a new job, after becoming an unwilling case study in the fine line walked by corporate employees who write about work in their personal weblogs.
It all started when Hanscom noticed something interesting on the loading dock on his way into work a week ago -- three pallets of shiny new Apple Power Mac G5 computers, clearly destined for somewhere on the company's Redmond campus.
In addition to showing off its next-generation Longhorn operating system this week, Microsoft Corp. for the first time handed out code that underlies its closely watched Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) security technology.
The company also further narrowed its focus for NGSCB, previously known by its Palladium code name, saying it is focused on putting the first version of the hardware-based security technology to work for specific business applications only, not consumer software.
Attendees at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles received a developer preview of NGSCB. Developers can use this preview to get a feel of what it is like to develop an application that uses NGSCB security.
Microsoft themed this week's Professional Developers Conference along the lines of the company's advancements in presentation, storage and communications, and Wednesday Microsoft showed how its research arm is enhancing these areas and more.
In the area of communications, Rashid called upon Lili Chang, a senior researcher at Microsoft, to demonstrate how the software giant is working on social computing, social interaction and how communication can work in the future.
Chang demonstrated a research project called Wallop that includes Web logging capabilities, document and image sharing, and other interactive features. Chang said parts of Wallop will find its way into the Longhorn operating system. The software will automatically associate people, groups and data in Longhorn.
Microsoft is altering the structure of its MSN Internet services and content division by focusing it on two areas: communications offerings and information offerings. Microsoft expects the move will improve the development of its MSN business by streamlining operations and making the decision-making process at the division faster and more effective, a spokeswoman for Microsoft said Wednesday. Formed in 1995, the MSN division achieved operating profitability for the first time in Microsoft's recently completed first quarter, ended Sept. 30.
Say what you will about Microsoft, they know how to pamper their developers.
It's the little things. While most conferences offer sodas, Microsoft knows enough to put the sodas out first thing in the morning. It's one of the secrets to the company's success. Its Redmond, Wash., campus keeps huge refrigerators stocked with every soda known to mankind, including the rare Diet Cherry Coke.
And, knowing that programmers like computer games, the company thoughtfully set up a room filled with Xbox machines so conference-goers could chill out a bit between--or during--sessions.
Microsoft announced a program to link its management software to similar administration tools from other management providers. The software giant on Wednesday officially unveiled a "connector framework" for its Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2000 product. The hooks for linking in third-party software are designed to give systems administrators a way to share systems that monitor information, such as alerts between MOM and management products from companies such as Computer Associates International, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
Bill Gates is making sure his massive R&D investment is paying off.
At Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, executives said the company's think tank is contributing a good chunk of the realtime graphics, GUI advancements, advanced storage, ink input and collaboration technology planned for the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn.
Senior Vice President Rick Rashid said the company's multibillion-dollar investment in research and development has paid off with 3-D and other graphics advancements that have found their way into Longhorn's Avalon presentation services, the advanced GUI features planned for the Aero user interface shell in Longhorn and WinFS file system improvements.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has taken up Microsoft's cause in a patent infringement lawsuit by urging the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to invalidate the related patent "in order to prevent substantial economic and technical damage to the operation of (the) World Wide Web."
In a long letter sent Tuesday by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee to James Rogan, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, Berners-Lee claims that "prior art" -- a legal term referring to technology in existence at the time a patent is applied for -- proves U.S. Patent number 5,838,906 (the '906 patent) is invalid and that the USPTO should therefore re-examine the case for issuing the patent in the first place.