WinInsider

Attendees at next month's Consumer Electronics Show could get the first public look at Windows 7, the next version of Microsoft's client OS.

Microsoft expects to release Windows 7 in early 2010, although some industry observers expect it may be out by the end of 2009 because of lackluster customer response to Windows Vista. Many business customers in particular have opted to skip Vista and run XP until Windows 7 is available.

PC makers shipped more portable PCs than desktop computers in the third quarter of 2008, the first time that's ever happened. A surge in low-cost netbook computers is credited with the changeover, which had previously been building slowly.

Portable PC shipments rose almost 40 percent in the quarter to 38.6 million units, according to market research firm iSuppli. Meanwhile, sales of desktop PCs fell by 1.3 percent to 38.5 million units.

Overall, PC sales were up 15.4 percent globally, iSuppli says, with 79 million PCs shipped. HP remains the number one PC maker, with 14.9 million units and market share of 18.8 percent. Dell is number two, with about 11 million units sold and 13.9 percent of the market.

While Microsoft publicly claims that it is still hiring during the current economic slowdown--when, in fact, it is doing nothing of the kind--some bigger problems may be in store for current employees of the software giant: According to rumors, Microsoft will cut massive amounts of staff for the first time in mid-January, part of an effort to reduce redundancies and cull the chaff. And let's face it, given the size of the company, I'm sure there's plenty of chaff.

In the second month of a campaign against fake security software, Microsoft has booted the rogue application "Antivirus 2009" from almost 400,000 PCs, the company recently claimed.

Microsoft also aimed the December version of MSRT at an affiliated piece of malware, called "W32/Yektel," that works alongside W32FakeXPA and is often bundled with the phony security software.

Classified by Microsoft as a Trojan horse, Yektel takes advantage of users' worries about browser security by inserting false warnings into Internet Explorer . Those warnings, explained Microsoft researcher Hamish O'Dea in a post to the company's malware protection center blog two weeks ago, appear at random and mimic IE's own legitimate drop-down alerts.

Some PC makers now have an extra four months to sell Windows XP.

The BBC reported Monday that Microsoft has extended the deadline for smaller PC builders and resellers to obtain licenses for the discontinued operating system from the previous deadline of January 31, 2009 to May 30, 2009.

"Microsoft is making accommodation through a flexible inventory program that will allow distributors to place their final orders by January 31, 2009; and take delivery against those orders through May 30, 2009," a Microsoft representative said in an e-mailed statement. "This is not an extension of sales.

In separate developments, Microsoft Windows platform developers and Ruby application builders both should gain functionality improvements with efforts afoot at Microsoft and the OMG.

Also, Visual Studio 2010 makes it easier to do "consume-first development," Somasegar said.

"Many features in Visual Studio, such as IntelliSense and Quick Info, work best when an API that a user is consuming is already defined," Somasegar said. "We recognize, though, there are times you need to code against an API that has yet to be defined completely. For example, in test-driven development, we see the test-first pattern.

Microsoft on Tuesday released the latest beta versions of its Code Analysis Tool and Anti-Cross Site Scripting Library for developers, a critical part of which is a tool to identify vulnerabilities to SQL injection attacks and other incursions.

Both releases come just days after a zero-day flaw impacting SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Internet Information Services servers emerged.

The flaw, as described by Austria-based SEC Consult advisory, makes it possible for hackers to target the vulnerability remotely on Web sites that link search boxes, customer databases or other Web apps to SQL Server.

Microsoft ratcheted up its product support for SQL Server 2005 by releasing Service Pack 3 on Monday, along with SP3 Cumulative Update 1. On the same day, the company also released Cumulative Update 11 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2.

If that weren't enough, the company offered incentives for Microsoft's partners and Microsoft Dynamics customers to jump to SQL Server 2008, which was released as a product last summer.

Microsoft is updating its price list on January 1, 2009 and will replace the runtime for SQL Server 2005 with that of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, according to a Microsoft Dynamics blog.

Dell is apparently throwing caution and common sense into the wind and will soon launch a Macbook Air competitor called the Adamo. (And, really, what a fine name that is. Hmrph.) There's not much information available yet, but expect a device that is even thinner than Apple's pointlessly-thin Air, and possibly even a line of Adamo-branded desktop and notebook PCs down the road. "We need to get some iconic products out there, so people associate Dell's brand with other things," Dell VP Michael Tatelman told "The New York Times." By "other things" I assume he means "other than the whole failure to change with the PC market over the past decade" thing.

Microsoft is moving forward on two fronts with its MVC software development platform for the Web, providing design assistance and readying a release candidate of the technology.

"We think this will provide a useful way for developers to more easily create attractive, standards-compliant sites," he said.

The company also is preparing to ship improvements to its MVC platform via an ASP.Net MVC Release Candidate build due in January.

ASP.Net MVC was released as a beta technology in October. Improvements in the release candidate build include a change in which MVC view files by default do not have code-behind files.