On April 24, 2002, Microsoft promised the world it would build a desktop version of Windows to run on 64-bit AMD processors. Nearly a year and a half later, Microsoft has delivered beta versions of both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition designed to exploit the speedy AMD processor.
AMD made its biggest mark cloning Intel PC chips, making them cheaper and, oftentimes, faster. That worked fine in the 32-bit world, but when it came to Itanium, AMD broke with the past. AMD is going it alone, developing a chip incompatible with Itanium, but unlike Itanium, fully backwards compatible with Intel's 32-bit legacy. The market will ultimately decide which of these approaches is most compelling.
The ramifications of the recent Web browser patent verdict against Microsoft Corp. could strike at the heart of the Web's common language-HTML. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is investigating whether the claims in the patent infringement lawsuit brought by Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California could require changes to both the current and future HyperText Markup Language specifications, W3C officials said on Tuesday.
"This is a serious issue," said Philipp Hoschka, W3C deputy director for Europe who also oversees HTML activities. "As you know, we have tried for our specifications to be royalty free."
The number of active Windows Server 2003 sites more than doubled since July, according to the U.K.-based Internet services and research firm Netcraft. One in 20 of those Windows Server 2003 sites migrated from Linux, Netcraft found.
In all there were 185,000 active sites running Windows Server 2003, a 109 percent jump from July. That's a relatively small fraction of all Windows-based Web servers. It accounts for less than 4 percent of the 4.8 million Windows servers found during Netcraft's September edition of its monthly survey. Overall, most active sites don't run Microsoft Web servers, they run the Apache Web server, which has 13.4 million active sites.
For many Microsoft sites, licensing seems to be endless trials and tribulations. Microsoft took a hail of bullets over Licensing 6.0, which many in the industry perceived as a heavy-handed approach to squeeze more revenues from budget-strapped end-users. The customer pushback to Licensing 6.0 was unprecedented in the industry, and Microsoft did actually give way on some points by adding more flexibility to some of its terms.
Unfortunately, most of the time, licensing is a stick. And there's nothing remarkable about Microsoft's heavy-handedness. Many vendors are pushy with their licensing terms. IBM has a long history of locking customers into upgrade paths. Oracle's licensing is just as heavy-handed, and even more expensive, than Microsoft's. Even in the carefree Linux world, coercion seems to be the rule. On another front, The SCO Group is apparently planning to simply send out bills to major Linux users for $700 per CPU (or $1,400 per CPU after a grace period) to buy the SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux.
Teamplate released a new version of its workflow software for creating human-based business processes that leverage Microsoft infrastructure components. Teamplate for .NET version 4.0 is the second major release of the product. The new release increases the integration of the product with Microsoft Exchange, Office and Outlook, BizTalk Server, SharePoint technologies, the Active Directory and Visual Studio .NET 2003.
If titles such as "NFL Fever 2003" and "Midtown Madness" don't excite you, how about "I Will Survive"? As Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox enters its third holiday season, the company is hoping to broaden the appeal of its video-game console and online game service to customers by offering extras that have nothing to do with video gaming at all.
In addition to scores of new video game titles, Microsoft this fall will be selling "Music Mixer" -- a package of software and a microphone that turns the Xbox console into a karaoke machine spouting the music of Gloria Gaynor and others.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that its Xbox video game console was gaining significant market share growth as its competitors falter entering the crucial holiday selling season. According to a report by NPD group, sales of the Xbox rose 6 percent year over year (measured from August 2002 to August 2003), while sales of the Sony PlayStation plunged 36 percent and sales of the Nintendo GameCube fell 22 percent. According to the group, the Xbox now accounts for 27 percent of video game console sales in the US.
Microsoft is pulling the plug on its free chat service in all but four countries, the company revealed on Tuesday. Citing a rise in spam and offensive material, the company plans to eliminates its chat services completely in 28 countries, while restricting access to the chat groups in the U.S. The changes will take place, effective Oct. 14, when MSN's chat services will be suspended in most countries, including Spain, France, and Mexico, a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed.
Could Microsoft's very smart but undisciplined software geniuses build a 777? What about the more disciplined engineers who work at The Boeing could they build a Windows operating system?
He mentioned Windows 95 and the 777. Both are highly complex products, he said. In answer to his own questions, Nolan said that yes, Boeing probably could develop Windows 95.
"But it would probably be somewhat inflexible and would take a heck of a long time," he said.
And Microsoft?
Its engineers probably could develop the 777, Nolan said, then brought the room down in laughter when he added: "But would you really want to fly on release one?" referring to the initial version of a software product.
Microsoft on Tuesday released the beta for its 64-bit version of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s (AMD's) forthcoming Opteron and Athlon64 processors. Beta availability of the 64-bit desktop operating system was designed to compliment AMD's launch of its long-awaited Athlon64 processor (AMD64) in San Francisco. Operating system support from Microsoft is seen within the industry as a key component for the success of AMD's 64-bit chip.
The Athlon64 can run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications on a PC with a 64-bit operating system, and with the Microsoft's Windows on Windows 64 (WOW64) emulation technology, customers can run current 32-bit applications on the 64-bit operating system all without a reduction in performance speeds, the company said in a statement.