Microsoft plans to muscle into the sports gaming industry by launching its own brand of sports games, christened "XSN Sports." Taking a page out of the fantasy sports book, XSN game titles lasso together the Xbox console, Xbox Live service and personal computer to offer players broader competition and enriched management of leagues and stats. The label's Website, XSNsports.com, goes live today.
"XSN Sports will revolutionize sports video games as we know them," said Ed Fries, corporate vice president of Xbox games publishing. "The ability to create customized leagues and tournaments among your group of friends, where the competition truly matters, is the breakthrough sports gamers have been waiting for."
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, known for helping to make the computer a common tool, said yesterday that new breakthroughs in information technology are on the horizon despite the economic difficulties facing the industry.
"It's an exciting time to be involved in digital software," Gates said during a speech to the Detroit Economic Club at the Cobo Center. "The same kind of excitement I had when I started Microsoft at age 17 I still have today."
Gates envisions that by the end of the decade people no longer will need pagers, mobile phones, headphones and personal digital assistants as separate devices. He said they will be incorporated into one, easy-to-use product.
A Washington state teenager suspected of making the devastating Blaster Internet worm even more potent is under investigation and his arrest is pending, U.S. law enforcement sources said on Friday. The 18-year-old suspect already has been questioned and put under surveillance, according to a report in the Seattle Times newspaper, which said the teenager will likely be charged as an adult.
The FBI in Seattle has scheduled a press conference together with the U.S. Secret Service in Seattle at 1:30 p.m. PDT on Friday to discuss their progress in the investigation.
Microsoft is planning to alter its market-leading Internet Explorer Web browser as a result of a recent $521 million browser-patent verdict against it.
"Microsoft has indicated to W3C [Worldwide Web Consortium] that they will very soon be making changes to its Internet Explorer browser software in response to this ruling," wrote W3C Chief Operating Officer Steven R. Bratt in a notice posted on the Web standards body's Web site. The changes could affect "a large number of existing Web pages," he wrote.
Microsoft group vice president of platforms Jim Allchin says Microsoft will "do right by our customers" in the event that the Longhorn release slips into late 2005 or beyond.
With Software Assurance, customers are paying the equivalent of 29 percent of the cost of their desktop operating systems each year to guarantee that they'll have access to the next upgrade. Of course, if that upgrade doesn't arrive during the three-year life of a Software Assurance deal, customers have almost paid twice for one version of the software.
While Allchin refused to be pinned down on specifics of what doing right by customers would mean, Microsoft's recent record indicates that the company deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Microsoft is contacting providers of instant messaging (IM) software to try to cut licensing deals before it boots the clients from its MSN IM network. Cerulean Studios, maker of the Trillian IM client, is at the top of Microsoft's list. Trillian allows users to consolidate multiple IM accounts in one client and is available in a free version, as well as a $25 "Pro" version that offers additional features. Trillian has been downloaded over 10 million times, according to Cerulean Studios.
Dell launched the Inspiron 8600 in the U.S. Thursday, improving the multimedia capabilities of its major consumer notebook line. The new notebook comes with a 15.4-inch display, good for watching DVDs or Internet media content, and several choices of graphics processors from both ATI Technologies and Nvidia.
Intel Corp.'s Pentium M processor improves the battery life of the new Inspiron over the older Inspiron 8500, which used a Mobile Intel Pentium 4-M processor. The Pentium M, introduced in March, has demonstrated longer battery life and increased performance over the older Mobile Intel Pentium 4-M processors in several reviews.
A base configuration costs $1,699 with a 1.3GHz Pentium M, 512MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR (double data rate) SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM), a 40GB hard drive, the ATI graphics card, and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. A version of the notebook was launched in Europe on Aug. 18, a Dell spokesman said.
Another strong quarter of earnings helped push Microsoft's legendary cash stockpile to more than $49 billion, but the company resisted pressure to give more of that money back to its shareholders in the form of a larger dividend.
Microsoft yesterday reported net income of $1.92 billion, or 18 cents a share, for its fourth fiscal quarter ended June 30. That was an increase of more than 25 percent compared with its net income of $1.53 billion, or 14 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.
Had Robin Hood's booty of choice been copies of Microsoft Office, he might have been involved in the largest recovery ever achieved under California's antitrust laws-one that partially benefits lower-income students. A superior court judge has granted preliminary approval of a $1.1 billion settlement between Microsoft and California consumers and businesses, and claimants could begin collecting money as soon as September. Microsoft must pay claimants vouchers for cash after buyers purchase computing products from any manufacturer.
Oracle may be pressing on with a nearly three-month-old unfriendly quest to buy PeopleSoft, but to PeopleSoft CEO Craig Conway, Oracle's bid is all but dead.
As far as Conway is concerned, Oracle lost steam in July, after PeopleSoft sealed its $1.8 billion purchase of J.D Edwards. Oracle had initially wished to stop that deal, which PeopleSoft had announced just days before Oracle's own bid. Another critical blow to Oracle, Conway said, was the fact that PeopleSoft announced strong second-quarter financial results, boosting investor confidence in the company. "In my mind, it was over in July," he said.
"You fast-forward to the end of July and all of August and look at our brand name awareness and at the adjectives used to describe the No. 2 competitor, and (Oracle's bid) is not wholly a bad thing," Conway said, claiming Oracle's brand has been damaged by the allegedly "predatory" acquisition bid.