Details are emerging about Microsoft's plans for Longhorn, its forthcoming Windows operating system upgrade. A list of the key subsystems upon which Microsoft is said to be basing Longhorn has been posted on a Microsoft Longhorn forum. The list is based on a document - a 1,000 page "Book of Longhorn" - that is circulating internally at Microsoft.
According to the posting, the book is divided into the following seven sections:
- Aero, the 3D-rendering user interface
- Trustworthy Computing and Security, which, in Longhorn's case, will consist largely of the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, or "Palladium" code
- Avalon, the core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling graphics and presentations
- Indigo, the next release of Microsoft's Web-services infrastructure that will underlie the OS; .NET Remoting + MSMQ + ASMX + .NET Enterprise Services (COM+)
- WinFS, the Windows File System data-store that Longhorn will borrow from Microsoft's SQL Server "Yukon" database. It will be able to store XML and metadata in a single place
- Real-time communications and speech. The instant-messaging, P2P technology and the core speech API that will be built into the platform
- Fundamentals: Integrated workflow capabilities; rights management; perhaps even the good old .NET Framework.
Sierra Wireless Inc. marked its entrance into the Smartphone market with the launch of the Voq phone, which runs Microsoft Corp.'s Smartphone 2003 operating system, Sierra announced Wednesday. The Voq phone resembles nothing in the current market for Smartphones, with a flip-cover that opens to the left to reveal a traditional keyboard layout. When closed, the phone looks like an ordinary cell phone, with a dialing keypad and several other menu buttons visible.
The phone weighs in at 4.73 ounces (135 grams), and when closed measures 133mm long by 57 mm wide by 22 mm thick. The 2.2-inch color screen is 176 pixels by 220 pixels.
As Microsoft prepares for its first ever Worldwide Partner Meeting here in New Orleans on Thursday-where it will announce the general availability of its Small Business Server 2003 product to the more than 5,500 partners expected to attend-Orlando Ayala, Microsoft's senior vice president of small and mid-market solutions & partner group, sat down to discuss the new product and some of the issues with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli.
Eolas Technologies, the company which has successfully sued Microsoft for using its patented technology in the Internet Explorer browser, is now asking the U.S. District Court in Chicago to permanently enjoin Microsoft from distribution of the browser.
If granted, the injunction would stop Microsoft from shipping any version of Internet Explorer or the Windows operating system which includes the patented technology, explained Richard Martinez of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, the firm representing Eolas. Martinez said the injunction would not prevent Microsoft from shipping versions of those products which had been stripped of the patented technology.
For an ambitious trial lawyer, the best road to fame and riches is the class-action suit. A lawyer can go to court on behalf of a particular client and seek class-action status. If granted, the lawyer gets to represent not only that client, but all others with the same complaint within the court's jurisdiction. This tool was developed to deal with complex cases where the alleged wrongdoing effected many, many people. For example, there was a class-action suit that represented the interests of all women that received defective silicone breast implants. Usually everyone in the "class" gets the option of signing on to the settlement or going to court on their own if they think they can do better. The class-action appeals to lawyers, who can get rich. It appeals to courts, who deal with one case rather than thousands. And it appeals to aggrieved citizens, who can avoid being defeated piecemeal by wealthy corporations.
Microsoft's next-generation security initiative, dubbed "Securing The Perimeter," includes a major update of the Windows Server Software Update Service (SUS) during the first half of 2004 and partnerships with firewall vendors to deflect future attacks, the company's software management chief said.
In a wide-ranging interview with CRN on Tuesday, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's Enterprise Management Division, said the company is taking significant steps beyond patch management to better secure the Windows infrastructure.
He likened Microsoft's Securing the Perimeter plan to installing a fence around a compound, or a gated community for homeowners. Stepped-up security measures can't eliminate break-ins, but they can reduce or thwart attempts by robbers--or, in the case of software, hackers--he explained.
As part of its Dynamic Systems Initiative and patch management plans, Microsoft plans to officially launch its Systems Management Server 2003 Nov. 11. As Microsoft strives to improve the overall management of the Windows infrastructure, SMS 2003 will play a more effective role in distributing full software upgrades, such as the forthcoming Office 2003 applications and security patches, Muglia said.
Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., also said it released its forthcoming Microsoft Operations Manager 2004 into private beta-testing last week and plans to ship the upgrade in mid-2004. MOM 2004 will offer management packs for security and Web services support, executives added.
Microsoft Wednesday launched the first of its new line of Office Solution Accelerators, geared to providing packages that will help customers take existing Microsoft applications and systems and use them to streamline organizational tasks.
The software titan used the HR Technology Conference & Exposition in Philadelphia as a platform to unveil the product: the Office Solution Accelerator for Recruiting. Microsoft introduced its new line of products in September.
'Smart clients' will be the next big buzzword out of Redmond. Just ask Siebel Systems. Redmond's "smart client" onslaught officially has begun. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that Siebel has developed - with Microsoft's aid - a new technology called "Siebel Smart Client," which is designed to build on top of the Microsoft .Net Framework and integrate with the Office System 2003 family.
"Siebel 7.7 will allow users to link Microsoft Office Outlook(r) 2003 records to data in the Siebel database, and the Siebel Exchange Connector will allow users to synchronize calendar information, contacts and to-do lists between Siebel 7.7 and Microsoft Exchange. Additional calendar options will be available via the Outlook View Control embedded in Siebel 7.7," according to Microsoft's press release.
Despite increasing pressure from Linux, Microsoft Corp. dominated the worldwide market in 2002 for OSes (operating systems) used on servers and, less surprisingly, the OS market on the client side. It will continue to defend its market position for at least the next four years, according to a research report released Wednesday by IDC.
Microsoft's Windows accounted for 55.1 percent of new shipments of server operating systems in 2002, up from 50.5 percent in 2001, while paid versions of Linux accounted for 23.1 percent of new shipments in 2002, up from 22.4 percent in 2002, the Framingham, Massachusetts, market research company said in its report "Worldwide Client and Server Operating Environment Market Forecast and Analysis, 2002-2007."