WinInsider

Four of Microsoft's seven divisions are still losing money, but one of them is losing significantly less money than it has in the past. MSN, the Redmond software company's Internet service, posted a $299 million operating loss in Microsoft's fiscal 2003, ended June 30, according to the company's annual report, filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That may seem like a lot, but it's less than half the $641 million loss reported by the division the previous year.

Just got this from our beta insider, Ditto.  Windows Update 5 probably is one of Microsoft's efforts to make applying patches across number of Microsoft products even easer, not that installing a patch today takes that much of an effort, especially with the media blitz campaign every time Microsoft releases new update.

We are currently planning for the Windows Update V5 Preview Program. As a current Windows Update V4 beta user, we hope you will consider participating in this new program.

The vision for Windows Update V5 is to provide an efficient and effective means to keep all Microsoft products secure and up to date with the latest patches, starting with Windows, Office, SQL, and Exchange.

The key to an effective pre-release program is having customers participate who are willing and able to install, exercise, and provide feedback on the product in a timely manner. Please carefully consider your willingness and ability to follow through on these commitments.

If you are selected as a Windows Update V5 beta user, you will be required to:

• Use releases through BetaPlace, an authenticated Web site
• Submit bug reports online
• Participate in private beta newsgroups
• Complete periodic surveys hosted on BetaPlace to obtain your input on various issues

Your eligibility for the program is based on the information we obtain from your nomination survey and space availability in the program.

If you are interested in participating, please use your .NET Passport account and the special Guest Account below to access a nomination survey on <http://www.BetaPlace.com>. Please respond by Friday, September 12, 2003.

Guest Account ID: WUV5Prev

Instruction:

The following requires a .NET Passport account. If you don't have one, you can obtain one at www.passport.com.

1. Go to <http://www.betaplace.com>.
2. Click the "Sign In" button in the middle of the page.
3. Sign in with your passport account.
4. Chose the Guest ID option near the top of the page, the "clicking here" link.
5. In the Guest ID field enter: WUV5Prev, it's case sensitive, and click "OK".
6. Click the "Windows Update V5 Preview" link at the bottom of the page.
7. This will take you to the home page for the Windows Update V5 Preview Program. You'll be provided with more detailed information on Windows Update and its preview program.
8. Click the "Survey" link in the left frame
9. Click the "Windows Update V5 Preview Program Nomination" link just below "Survey".

Important

For all currently enrolled in Windows Update V4 Beta testers, please use/click the "WU V5 Preview Program Participation for currently in WU V4" link below the "Windows Update V5 Preview Program Nomination" survey link. 10. Complete the survey and then click "Submit", at the bottom of the page.

For questions or comments on the Windows Update V5 Preview Program not answered here please e-mail *****@microsoft.com.

Thank you,

Windows Update V5 Preview Program

Stepping up its campaign against the Linux operating system, Microsoft on Thursday released file and Web serving benchmark results that, it claims, show that Linux on the mainframe lags behind Windows 2003 on Intel systems in terms of performance for the money.

One industry observer welcomed Microsoft's benchmark numbers. "God help me for saying this, but I think Microsoft has made a genuine contribution here," said Rudy de Haas, an IT consultant based in Kitchener, Ontario, who has written about Linux's performance on the mainframe under the pseudonym Paul Murphy.

De Haas has criticized IBM in the past for not providing information on Linux's mainframe performance. The numbers released Thursday, though they did not come from an ideal source, were significant, he said. "There are several things you could use to raise questions about what (Microsoft) did, but the real bottom line is that no one else has done it."

Extending its reach in public education, Microsoft Corp. said yesterday that it will help design a $46 million public high school in Philadelphia that will embed computer technology everywhere from classrooms and administrative offices to the desk of the football coach.

The school is still in the earliest stages of planning and won't open until 2006. But administrators said they envision a paperless building where students study in online textbooks, teachers quiz their classes on laptops and automated systems order cafeteria supplies as they are depleted.

"It will be a school of the future," said the 200,000-student district's chief executive, Paul Vallas.

Technology giants including Microsoft, eBay and Amazon.com have formed a coalition to try to thwart identity theft and boost Americans' confidence in e-commerce. The Coalition on Online Identity Theft, led by the Arlington, Va.-based Information Technology Association of America, will urge consumers to keep more detailed records of their e-commerce transactions. The coalition will teach businesses to improve Web site and financial database security, and lobby the government to enforce penalties against identity thieves, said ITAA's president, Harris Miller.

In a move that may help establish Microsoft's long-sought-after credibility in the mobile phone market, mobile operator Orange SA, handset maker Motorola Inc., and Microsoft Corp. intend to announce that Orange will sell a Microsoft-based Motorola phone, sources familiar with the plans said Friday.

The announcement is slated for Sept. 15, the sources said. Photos of what is said to be the Motorola phone running Microsoft's software have started to crop up on Internet rumor sites.

Microsoft's U.K. public relations agency for mobile devices dismissed talk about an announcement as "speculation," but confirmed a briefing next week for journalists involving Microsoft partners and related to an announcement coming on Sept. 15.

Hoping to build a $12 million line of business during its current fiscal quarter, The SCO Group Inc. claimed Wednesday to have signed up at least one new customer for its Linux licensing scheme and is retooling its sales force to make its case more effectively to a skeptical market.

Despite the community outrage, SCO received over 900 telephone calls in the week after it went public with the licensing plan, and some of those calls have now begun turning into licensing deals, according to company spokesman Blake Stowell. The company has signed up at least one additional customer since it sold its first IP License for Linux on Aug. 11, he said.

Last week, a previously underpublicized legal case involving Microsoft and a small UK company named Burst.com reached a head when a US judge reportedly ordered the software giant to turn over thousands of missing email messages related to the case. Or at least that's what we were told: According to Burst.com accounts of the closed hearing, Microsoft had mysteriously lost emails related to Burst.com during a crucial period of work between the two companies. But the wider case revolves around an issue of theft: Did Microsoft steal Burst.com's streaming digital media technology for use in its Windows Media 9 Series products? This week, Microsoft publicly denied Burst.com's claims and said it had developed the streaming technology it used in Windows Media 9 Series inhouse.

Microsoft is expected Wednesday to announce with vendor partners the pending rollout of a number of NAS appliances based on its Windows Storage Server 2003 operating system. Microsoft initially unveiled details of Windows Storage Server 2003 and released it to NAS OEMs last June. The operating system allows the creation of point-in-time copies of a single volume or multiple volumes using Volume Shadow Copy Services.

It is also expected to incorporate file replication, server clustering and multipath support and integrate with commonly used network environments and management software as well as the Active Directory directory service.

Microsoft on Wednesday reported five new security flaws in its software, including one of "critical" severity that affects nearly all programs in its Office suite of software. The critical vulnerability could allow an attacker to read files on a victim's computer, run programs or otherwise seize control.

Unlike the flaw that was exploited by the recent Blaster or LovSan worm -- which could attack computers even if the user did nothing -- a successful attack would require the user to open a tainted e-mail attachment.