WinInsider

Essentially calling desktop telephones useless antiques, Microsoft's Gurdeep Singh Pall on Wednesday called on VoiceCon attendees to ditch the desk phone in favor of a software-based VoIP system.

During his keynote address, Pall detailed Microsoft's vision for VoIP and unified communications, built on Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 and the February debut of OCS Release 2, while also taking a few jabs at the competition.

Microsoft requested on Tuesday some $20 billion in bailout funds from the federal government, claiming that as the company controlling an overwhelming share of the OS market, it is too big to fail. The company said low adoption rates for Windows Vista, the ensuing ad campaign trying to convince people that they really do like Vista, and the increased need for development resources to rush Windows 7 to market to make people forget about Vista have necessitated the bailout.

Pepper also said that his sources within Microsoft were indicating that the money might be used for a surprising purpose: suing Apple, Google, open source companies, and other entities Microsoft has labeled "revenue stealers" in internal communications.

Microsoft on Monday announced a new services capability that's part of its Windows Embedded Server product line. In addition, the company plans to roll out additional support for developers working on embedded systems.

For original equipment manufacturers and partners, Windows Embedded Server now has a Software plus Services capability that currently works with Microsoft's management products, enabling device diagnostics and maintenance support.

The recession is bad. And it could get worse before it gets better. But the downturn will end. And when it does, the consumer electronics and IT industries will look very different from those that entered the recession in late 2007.

There will be winners and losers many companies that have been with us for years or decades will be swallowed up, never to be heard from again. Others will shrink to insignificance.

I think one of the biggest winners coming out the recession will be none other than Microsoft.

More than a year after its first community technology preview was released, ASP.NET Model View Controller has finally shipped.

Microsoft Corporate Senior Vice President Scott Guthrie announced the release of ASP.NET MVC 1.0 in his opening day keynote address at the MIX09 event in Las Vegas last week. The MVC tooling is available for download from the Microsoft Web site here.

Running atop the ASP.NET 3.5 runtime, ASP.NET MVC allows Visual Studio 2008 developers to take advantage of design patterns that enable a clear separation of concerns among underlying data, user interface and application logic roles. The resulting approach isolates application behaviors, enabling adoption of test-driven development and yielding more maintainable and reusable code.

It has been a week of important firsts for Windows Home Server, with Microsoft launching an apparent full court press to get developers thinking creatively about the possibilities of the software.

In addition to making Windows Home Server available to MSDN subscribers, Microsoft earlier this week also released Power Pack 2, which consists mainly of minor performance tweaks, but also connects Home Server to Windows Media Center PCs for the first time.

Microsoft led the tech sector higher on Tuesday, capping the best month for stocks since 2002.

Microsoft shares gained 5% after Davenport & Co. upgraded the stock, citing improving PC demand in the U.S., China and Japan, the potential for inventory restocking in Europe, and the upcoming release of Windows 7.

The Nasdaq ended the day 1.8% higher but off its best levels after a bout of late selling and up nearly 11% for the month.

Microsoft announced an online service for IT pros that enables them to test incoming e-mail traffic to Microsoft Exchange Server.

The tool, called Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer, was announced last week as a beta version. However, it's apparently been available as a test version since late last year.

The Microsoft Exchange team on Wednesday pointed to the availability of the beta version. The team's blog includes a video that demonstrates how the tool works, which can be accessed here.

Microsoft said on its MSN Web site Monday that it would shut down its Encarta encyclopedia by the end of October, citing the widespread availability of reference materials through Wikipedia and other places on the Web.

According to Microsoft, MSN Encarta Web sites worldwide will be gone by Oct. 31, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will expire on Dec. 31. Redmond will also stop selling Encarta-branded products at the end of June.

Microsoft has signed up multiple software partners for its upcoming mobile phone software marketplace, including Web music service Pandora, game publisher Electronic Arts and social site Facebook.

The software company said on Tuesday it plans to discuss those partnerships and conduct demonstrations of the software store -- set to launch later this year -- at the CTIA wireless showcase in Las Vegas this week.

Apple started the trend for mobile phone application stores last summer and its offerings from third- party developers of software, ranging from the practical to the whimsical, have helped boost iPhone sales.