Thanks to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, we now know that Microsoft has dumped its 7.26 percent stake in US cable giant Comcast. However, we don't know when this happened, what the software giant recouped from its investment, and why it has chosen to do so.Microsoft could have sold its 150 million Comcast shares any time in the past year, so they could be worth anywhere from $2 billion to $3.4 billion, depending on the timing.
The investment dates back to 1997, when Microsoft described the deal as part of its efforts to jumpstart broadband adoption around the US. Microsoft's initial investment was about $1 billion.
Anyone who reads The Digital Home knows that I have issues with Windows Vista. I think it's a sub-par operating system with too many quirks and far too many flaws to make it worth using. I only use Vista when I have to.
So I entered into the world of Windows 7 with some trepidation. Would it be the bloated mess that Vista is? Or would it bring me back to the golden days of Windows and whisk me away from the clutches of Apple? I didn't know.
But after using the beta (a term I use lightly, since this so-called beta is better than anything Microsoft ever shipped as Vista "Gold"), I can say with the utmost certainty that Windows 7 isn't only the best operating system I've used in the past decade, it might be my favorite of all time. And as a person with four Macs staring me in the face as I write this, that's something I never thought I'd say.
Microsoft this week released new versions of its Windows Azure software development kit (SDK) and Azure Tools for Visual Studio, tools aimed at helping developers get a handle on the company's coming cloud computing platform. The updates are the first since Microsoft shipped the initial versions of these tools as part of the Azure Community Technology Preview back in October at the PDC (Professional Developers Conference).
Honestly, Azure is still so vague that most people don't quite understand how it works and how all the pieces fit together. Even Microsoft seems a bit confused by Azure: Part of the official Azure roadmap includes a Q2 2009 announcement about what the Azure roadmap is. Seriously, think about that one for a second.
Microsoft has announced that the Presidential Inaugural Committee has selected the company's Silverlight technology to enable live and on-demand video streaming of the official inauguration swearing-in ceremony on the PIC Web site at http://www.pic2009.org.
Microsoft announced that the Presidential Inaugural Committee has selected the company's Silverlight technology to enable live and on-demand video streaming of the official inauguration swearing-in ceremony on the PIC Web site at http://www.pic2009.org.
Bob Muglia, a Microsoft veteran of 21 years, has been named president of Microsoft's Server and Tools (S&T) Division, a position newly created by the software giant. He previously served as senior vice president of the same division.
Muglia, a 49-year-old R&D specialist, has been with Microsoft since January of 1988. He is credited with "managing the development" of several key business units that produced the Microsoft Office suite, Windows Server solutions, the MSN network and various devices.
Microsoft has released the first public beta of a tool that solves one of the chief complaints businesses have with Windows
Vista: that older Windows applications aren't compatible with the new OS.
The final release of the software is expected later this year, according to the post. Microsoft acquired the MED-V technology
when it closed its purchase of Kidaro last May. In fact, it is included in a larger software package called the Microsoft
Desktop Optimization Pack, which rolls up several Microsoft virtualization acquisitions. In addition to Kidaro, the pack is
comprised of software from Microsoft's purchases of Softricity, AssetMetrix, Winternals Software, and DesktopStandard.
Microsoft showed off developments on Windows Media Center last week at CES. Despite the Ballmer bluster, despite the inexorable march of Microsoft to seize control of all your screens, something important needs to be said.Specifically: Not bad, Microsoft.
We've come a long way from the schadenfreud-a-riffic 2005 CES keynote, when WMC crashed during Bill Gates's keynote demo.
Our brief visit with Windows Media Center was an encouraging look at a product that's gotten smarter, more flexible, and more fun to know with age.Some of the charm may simply mean that Media Center's edging out from under Vista's long black shadow.
Microsoft on Saturday extended the general availability of its free Windows 7 Beta trial offer through Jan. 24 and removed the cap on the number of downloads within that time. Previously, the company had said the offer was limited to the first 2.5 million downloads on Jan. 9.
A Windows blog on Jan. 9 had described high demand, causing Microsoft to add "some additional infrastructure support" to meet it. Microsoft had refused to say when the download offer would start on Jan. 9, causing many expressions of frustration on the Windows blog.
Microsoft unveiled on Wednesday refreshed versions of its Windows Azure software development kit and Azure tools for Visual
Studio, which support the planned Windows Azure cloud services platform.
Windows Azure is being released in stages, Microsoft said on the Windows Azure blog. For example, support for native code
is due this year. More information on a roadmap for Azure Services Platform and Windows Azure is due early this year. Azure
provides the foundation of the Azure Services Platform, which assists developers in building applications that can span from
the cloud to the datacenter, PCs, the Web, and phones.
You wouldn't know it, but there are already more than 3.5 million people using the next version of Microsoft's e-mail software, Exchange 14.
At this point in the development of Exchange 2007, Microsoft had only 5,000 customers testing the product.
How can that be? Exchange 14 is the first version of Microsoft's e-mail application being jointly developed as both server software and as a service delivered to customers over the Internet. More than 1,500 colleges and universities are testing Exchange 14 for free as part of Microsoft's Live@edu initiative. Private testing of Exchange 14's server version is taking place among a smaller number of businesses and organizations.