Bill Gates' Web Site - Speech Transcript, Newspaper Association of America Annual Convention

Bill Gates' Web Site - Speech Transcript, Newspaper Association of America Annual Convention "You'll find me very optimistic at this point, because at this stage people are underestimating the technology advances that are taking place. That's a bit different than in '99 and 2000, where people were expecting some people -- were expecting things to happen overnight. Now, they've almost lost sight of the fact that the key drivers, the chip miracle, the software advances, and reaching very important milestones. Things like speech recognition, or handwriting recognition are coming along in a pretty fantastic way.
The '90s were about the PC. The PC is still at this stage the key device that everybody comes together on, and it's very influenced by this history of being an open device that anyone can manufacture. There are over a hundred different PC manufacturers, very competitive business. The average price of the PC for a consumer is down in the US$600 - $700 range, and even though that is so much more powerful than anything that came in the past. The graphical interface has connected up to the Internet.
Well, this decade we call the digital decade. Why do we use that term? Well, despite the popularity of the PC in the '90s, most of the activities that people engaged in were not changed. The main activities that were changed were creating documents, where the word processor was preeminent, and the starting of electronic mail as a way of communicating. By the end of this decade, 2009, the number of activities that will have been changed by digital approaches will be extremely broad. It will be common sense, certainly for your younger readers, if not all of them, to pay bills electronically. The music that they buy will be digital. A lot of the material that they read will be read off the screen. The way that kids stay in touch with each other will be instant messaging brought to a whole new level, with voice and video as part of that interaction. The way that people buy and sell, that you bid out to buy something, will be fundamentally changed by electronic commerce. Electronic commerce was over-hyped, because the foundation had not been put in place. But, now over the last few years companies like ourselves and IBM, under the industry term Web services, are actually building that foundation to make that common sense."

WSJ.com - The Mossberg Solution: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Free Sites

WSJ.com - The Mossberg Solution: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Free Sites "Why would you use Apple's store instead of bootleg services like Kazaa, where the songs are free? Well, on Kazaa, the songs can be hard to find, especially in the version you want. There's a lot of trial and error. Also, the quality can be poor, with pops and hissing and the endings cut off. There's no album art included. And lots of people using Kazaa have received viruses and spyware along with their music.
But, most of all, downloading songs from Kazaa is at the very least unethical, and probably illegal, because the people who upload the songs to those services don't own the copyrights, and don't pay anything to the artists or songwriters. With the Apple store, you do have to pay, but your conscience can be clear."

On a related note, in today's Boston Globe:
"The record industry opened a new front in its war against online piracy yesterday by surprising hundreds of thousands of Internet song swappers with an instant message warning that they could be ''easily'' identified and face ''legal penalties.''"

Expanded coverage of same story in today's NYT.

ZDNet |UK| - News - Story - Microsoft steps up the pace on Longhorn

ZDNet |UK| - News - Story - Microsoft steps up the pace on Longhorn "A new test version of Windows XP's successor, which has leaked onto the Web, shows that Microsoft appears to be ahead of schedule on development."

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Times a-changin' for Apple, online music

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Times a-changin' for Apple, online music Meanwhile, according to today's Boston Globe (which quotes IDC), Apple's desktop share (worldwide PC share, 2002) was 2.3%.

Barron's Online - Think Twice About IBM's Earnings

Barron's Online - Think Twice About IBM's Earnings "The world's largest computer company announced that income from operations rose by 8% and that revenue topped Wall Street's estimates. It also reiterated its outlook for this year's earnings.
And though first-quarter earnings per share came in a penny below Wall Street's estimates, the stock hovers near a 52-week high.
But IBM, which under former chairman and chief executive officer Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., was dogged by accusations it used gimmicks and accounting tricks to dress up its earnings, still appears vulnerable to that criticism.
Examined more closely, IBM's revenues actually declined during the quarter from the same period a year ago -- and earnings again were pumped up by one-time gains."

Q&A: Microsoft's Veghte on Windows Server 2003 competition, future - Computerworld

Q&A: Microsoft's Veghte on Windows Server 2003 competition, future - Computerworld "Where Linux is getting traction is, 'I've got a Unix app and I'm not doing any feature development on it. I want the cost efficiencies of x86. And I don't want to have to recompile the app in any significant way, etc. Linux looks interesting.' [If] I've got a simple Web server that's just serving up static HTML, Linux looks interesting. Those would be examples of app workloads predominantly in the enterprise."

Slate Sets a Web Magazine First: Making Money

Slate Sets a Web Magazine First: Making Money "Much like The New Yorker at Condé Nast Publications, Slate is tangible evidence that its corporate parent believes in playing a role in the significant discussions of the day. The New Yorker confirmed earlier this year that it too had stopped costing its owner lavish amounts of money. In both cases, the publications have value to their owners, but would not thrive without their support."

WSJ.com - Real Time: Dial-Up Access Starts to Die

WSJ.com - Real Time: Dial-Up Access Starts to Die "The big three providers of "premium" dial-up Internet access -- that is, access that costs somewhere around $20 a month -- all reported significant declines in dial-up customers in the latest quarter, a steady drop that is expected to continue. As far as we can tell, this is the first time all three reported losses in the same quarter. It will take years, but terms like "handshaking" and "fifty-three-six-k" are headed for the data dustbin.
In its first-period earnings report, released last week, AOL Time Warner's America Online said it lost 290,000 subscribers in the U.S., which accelerated from the fourth quarter, when AOL lost 176,000 subscribers, its first decline ever. AOL blamed a "maturing narrowband universe," and interestingly, the war in Iraq, for slower signups to replace defecting users in the first quarter. Many of these defectors are moving to broadband services."

IT-Director.com | SQL Server scales up

IT-Director.com | SQL Server scales up "Microsoft yesterday (April 24th) released SQL Server 2000 (64-bit). Now, this is definitely minority sport territory. The number of users that require more than the current 32-bit limit of a 4 GB memory space (which you can exceed anyway by means of Address Windowing) is limited."

Many people need to check their assumptions in this context -- if you can get multi-processor 64-bit servers with gigabytes of memory at amazingly low prices, how many application areas could benefit from multi-gig RAM servers? The variables and dynamics have changed (radically), but many people still seem to be using old equations.

One Big Happy Windows Family? "Microsoft may be able to claim a record number of certified are applications available for its Windows Server 2003 product as of launch day today. But a number of Microsoft's own applications won't be able to support the new server release right away — if ever."

Why is this supposed to be a big deal? Things evolve. Customers can always run the Virtual Server if they want to run old stuff forever, just as they can run AutoCoder emulators on their mainframes...

Business 2.0 - Web Article - Enriching the Browser

Business 2.0 - Web Article - Enriching the Browser "The World Wide Web is a usability disaster. Why, for example, must your browser load a new page every time you enter a few items in an online form? And why does a website lose track of what you're doing if you accidentally hit the "Back" button? It's because browsers send and retrieve data in batches, like a 1975 mainframe terminal, not like a modern, interactive software application. Think of the difference between using Outlook on your computer and using a Web-based e-mail reader like Yahoo Mail (YHOO) -- Outlook is more fluid, and the design allows you to do more and do it more quickly than you can with Yahoo's page-oriented interface."

(Laszlo picks up an influential fan.)

I, Cringely | No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: If You Think Microsoft Can’t Undermine Open Source, You Are Wrong

I, Cringely | No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: If You Think Microsoft Can’t Undermine Open Source, You Are Wrong "So Open Source is not especially altruistic, just ego-driven. It can be hijacked and it can be subverted. And a concerted effort at subversion taking advantage of developer fatigue could be devastating. This hardly seems a movement, then, that can be relied on, yet millions do.
Next week, I’ll argue in the other direction, but right now, it simply doesn’t look to me like Open Source has long-term viability."

Intel Corporation - Intel®-Based Servers Optimize Performance

Intel Corporation - Intel®-Based Servers Optimize Performance Looks like "Wintel" is as solid as ever, judging from the PR and the Windows Server 2003 launch webcast today. I didn't catch a single reference to AMD in the launch event, and the AMD Opteron overview page doesn't have a reference to Windows or Microsoft.

News: Microsoft hits delay on Office 2003

News: Microsoft hits delay on Office 2003 "Microsoft on Thursday confirmed that it is preparing the unexpected Office beta release for debut in June. A company representative said the release is intended to give customers a chance to try out changes made to the software as a result of testing. The release will not be a completely new test version. Instead, Microsoft said it will issue a "refresh" to the existing second beta test release."

HP Press Release: HP and Microsoft Deliver World’s Fastest Transaction Processing Performance

HP Press Release: HP and Microsoft Deliver World’s Fastest Transaction Processing Performance HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) today announced the world's fastest single-system TPC-C (OLTP) benchmark result of 658,277 transactions per second.(1) The TPC-C benchmark, independently verified by an authorized TPC auditor, is recognized as being among the most complex online transaction processing benchmarks in the industry.
HP, Microsoft, and Intel have collaborated to demonstrate superior performance and scalability for enterprises running the Microsoft® Windows® operating system. The HP Superdome server based on the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor (code-named Madison), running the 64-bit version of Windows Server™ 2003 Datacenter Edition and SQL Server™ 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit), is expected to deliver unprecedented customer value and return on investment, as demonstrated by its industry-leading high-end price to performance ratio of $9.80/tpmC."

Anyone still think Windows is not enterprise-ready?

Download details: Microsoft Project Server 2002 Database Schema

Download details: Microsoft Project Server 2002 Database Schema Very cool -- found this via a glimpse at the MSDN Download Center RSS feed via NewzCrawler. Note that you don't need Visio to view the diagram (although you may need a magnifying glass if you try to print it).

I wish more companies and product teams would publish their schemas...

About Google's Eric Schmidt :: AO

About Google's Eric Schmidt :: AO "AlwaysOn: Was that the thinking behind your recent acquisition of Pyra Labs?
Schmidt: In this particular case, one of Google’s founders, Sergey, did a lot of research on who the leaders in this space were, with a special emphasis on tools and end-user experience, which is what Google is really very focused around. It became very obvious that Pyra Labs was the leader, and so we have a deal team, which simply went up and said “Would you like to do this?” It seemed pretty obvious. They met the technical team. It was a relatively routine decision. It was very consistent with how the world and Google all benefit with more information on the Web more broadly accessible, and this is a way to advance that.
AlwaysOn: But you bought blogging software and a blogging search engine with a million registered users, as far as I understand.
Schmidt: What we really bought was a team. With these little companies, the asset that you get is the knowledge in the people’s heads, and that’s what we care about. They will be enormously creative in the next few years."

Windows Server 2003 by the Numbers: One of the Biggest Product Launches in Microsoft History

Windows Server 2003 by the Numbers: One of the Biggest Product Launches in Microsoft History How many people were involved in the development of Windows Server 2003?
More than 5,000 developers worked over three years to produce the Windows Server 2003 code base. Over 2,500 testers ran assessments and testing. In total, nearly 10,000 people were involved in the project from start to finish
How many lines of code does Windows Server 2003 include?
Around 50 million lines of code.
How many technology advances are built into Windows Server 2003?
The new server platform represents 650 technology advances and enhancements
How many developer resources were put towards security?
As part of the Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft spent more than $200 million training more than 13,000 Windows Division employees on security-focused development techniques and new engineering process, resulting in a line-by-line security review of Windows Server 2003.

(See URL for many more numbers)

Microsoft Tries to Conquer the Corporate Data Center

Microsoft Tries to Conquer the Corporate Data Center "In announcing the third generation of its software for controlling corporate data centers, Microsoft is eager to convince the world that it is now confidently outpacing the competition.
"This is about scaling up," Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and co-founder, said in a recent telephone interview. "We can now compete with the most expensive machines in the world.""

Smart Solutions -- Microsoft Technology for Business Productivity

Smart Solutions -- Microsoft Technology for Business Productivity Good news: much-improved site. Bad news: broke some links for previous articles; sorry about that... FYI earlier articles:
1. Feb/March 2003 print column: Microsoft's Road Ahead
2. Feb 2003 newsletter: Smart Stuff
3. March 2003 newsletter: Pondering PlaceWare
4. April/May 2003 print column: Got .NET Yet?
5. April 2003 newsletter: Back to the .NET Future

The hype has faded, but Microsoft still hot on .NET

Boston Globe Online / Business / The hype has faded, but Microsoft still hot on .NET "By now, millions of computers were supposed to be sharing data automatically over the Internet with the help of a new Microsoft Corp. technology called .NET, which was meant to transform the way people use computers.
It hasn't happened. Indeed, after the initial hype, .NET has faded from public view. But .NET is still on Microsoft's radar scope, big and bright as ever."

Edgar Codd, database theorist, dies at 79

Edgar Codd, database theorist, dies at 79 "The mathematician laid the theoretical foundation for the standard method by which information is organized in and retrieved from computers.
The New York Times"

[via CNET News.com]

Steve Gillmor's new CRN weblog

Here's Steve Gillmor's new CRN weblog. "Now, Steve's a guy who gets it. He knows more people in the Enterprise space than any human should be allowed to know. He's bright and nice and gracious on top of it."

[via The Scobleizer Weblog]

Borland and Rational Bridging J2EE and .NET

Borland and Rational Bridging J2EE and .NET "Borland and Rational are both trying to position themselves as the Switzerland of enterprise software. Borland is announcing life cycle tools that work with both Microsoft's .NET and J2EE. Code written to the J2EE or CORBA model can be taken in, and integrated into a .NET application. Rational is also speaking out about its future after being bought by IBM."

[via TheServerSide.Com: Your J2EE Community Forum]

About the WM Player Blogging Power Toy

About the WM Player Blogging Power Toy "Available Tomorrow! Speaking of good things, one of them is the new Windows Media Player 9 Series Blogging Plug-In Power Toy. Yes, that's a mouthful. This new Power Toy was developed by Zach on our team for his blogging service for personal use. Basically he wanted to be able to append the name of the track and artist of the song he's listening to in WM Player 9 Series while posting. I asked him, "Why don't we open this up and make it compatible with more services?" And so the Player Blogging Power Toy was born. It's a Background plug-in so it won't have a UI other than to display the artist and album info in the title bar. Good news is that Marcelo Cabral, creator of w.bloggar has added some sweet support for the plug-in which means right out of the gate, it will be compatible with a wide range of blogging services. We've also written up some sample code that will be available in JScript, VB, and C/C++ for other clients to implement this feature in their own clients. Others are planning support, but I can't name names yet. ;)
So why are we doing this? Many of us recognize the passion inherent in the blogging community and want to foster that. No ulterior motives- we just think it's cool. There's even discussion of releasing the plug-in as a managed code sample for MSDN that others can build out. More news to come on that front."

Via http://www.microsoft-watch.com/ -- didn't take long to answer my question in the post below...

Microsoft Preps New Fun Packs for Windows XP

Microsoft Preps New Fun Packs for Windows XP "Starting Tuesday, April 22, XP users who download the free Fun Packs will receive the following extras:
- a Web blog plug-in, 3-D Alchemy visualizations, and spring-themed 3-D Picture Viz add-ons for WMP 9.
- six new video titles, three music tracks, five music transitions, and 50 sound effects for Windows Movie Maker 2.
- fifteen new greeting card templates for special springtime occasions, such as Mother's Day, Father's Day, weddings, and graduations.
- five new title slides for Plus! Photo Story, part of Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition.
- more than 70 Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) Favorites that connect users to a wide range of spring-themed Web sites. Microsoft tells me these sites can help you to find the perfect gift for Mother's Day, buy a digital camera, plan a hike, start a garden, get a start on baseball season, and much more.
- two new Windows XP PowerToys. The Video Screen Saver PowerToy lets you play any Windows Media Video (WMV) file as your XP screensaver, and the Automatic Desktop Wallpaper Changer PowerToy provides revolving desktop-wallpaper functionality."

Hmm -- I wonder what the "web blog" stuff is about

News: Surrounded by new opportunities

News: Surrounded by new opportunities Ray Ozzie's view

RSS assimilmation observations

I've been playing with NewzCrawler for a few days, and previously explored Syndirella. I'm gradually migrating from my earlier news/etc. scan modus operandi (hitting a couple dozen Web sites and blogs every day) to a model centered around an RSS reader. A few semi-random observations:
1. The "standards" either aren't quite done yet and/or aren't widely/consistently followed. Many of the RSS feeds I try to add to NewzCrawler return errors.
2. There's a lot of great user experience/interface innovation in this context -- both NewzCrawler and Syndirella are refreshing examples.
3. This wave is happening in a very timely manner -- I was starting to get very frustrated with the signal-to-noise ratio, with my earlier modus operandi; e.g., the simple unread indicators in RSS readers save a lot of time (compared with brute-force browsing/foraging for new articles/posts).
4. There are still lots of rough edges, e.g., NewzCrawler has a very cool ability to post via Blogger's BlogThis! UI, but I can't find an option for including titles -- so Blogger posts I make with NewzCrawler won't show up in my RSS feed unless I manually add the titles before publishing...

Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better - Announcing the Beta Download of PDF Converter for Microsoft

Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better - Announcing the Beta Download of PDF Converter for Microsoft " Hot off the press..."Join the Beta to "File>>Open>> *.PDF" - from within Microsoft Office 2003!
ScanSoft and Microsoft have teamed to bring you a new plug-in for Microsoft Office 2003, one that allows you to instantly convert PDF into editable documents directly from within Microsoft Word 2003 - complete with the layout of the original. The ScanSoft PDF Converter for Microsoft Word unlocks the information trapped in PDF files, separating text from graphics, tables and columns. Now you can re-use information in PDF documents that you download from the Web or receive as email attachments. (No other software is required.) The ScanSoft PDF Converter for Microsoft is tightly integrated with Microsoft Office 2003 in two ways. First, Microsoft Word 2003 is extended with the ability to "File>>Open" PDF files. Second, ScanSoft has developed a Smart Tag that automatically converts PDF into Microsoft Word whenever a PDF is encountered in the Research area within Microsoft Word 2003."

via http://www.microsoft-watch.com/

Brighthand — Ten Events That Shaped Pocket PC

Brighthand — Ten Events That Shaped Pocket PC via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

WSJ.com - White House Cybersecurity Adviser Schmidt Resigns

WSJ.com - White House Cybersecurity Adviser Schmidt Resigns "White House cybersecurity adviser Howard Schmidt announced his resignation Monday, the second person to leave the post in three months.
Schmidt was the former chief of security at Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) before taking the post in February. He succeeded Richard Clarke, who had spent 11 years in the White House across three administrations, and was the president's counterterror coordinator at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."

Cybersecurity job insecurity...

WSJ.com - Microsoft's New Server Software Taps Into Old Company Strategy

WSJ.com - Microsoft's New Server Software Taps Into Old Company Strategy A predictable development. Article includes bar chart with worldwide shipments of server OS market share data from IDC as of 4Q 2002:
Windows: 60.22%
UNIX: 14.72%
Linux: 13.95%
NetWare: 9.32%
Other: 1.79%

This may help to explain why MS competitors are grumbling about the potential synergy among Windows Server 2003, SharePoint, SQL Server, etc...

Sony lays out its 'Cell' investment strategy

EE Times: Sony lays out its 'Cell' investment strategy. "Sony has its eye on top server vendor Intel Corp., which looms as a key competitor in the network sector. Kutaragi predicted bottlenecks in broadband networks would not be solved using existing PC technology. Hence, he said the Cell processor is designed to break that network bottleneck."

[via Tomalak's Realm]

Online, Some Bloggers Never Die

Online, Some Bloggers Never Die "The messengers are gone, but their messages live on. The final posts from webloggers now deceased have become a popular topic of discussion on some weblogs. By Christopher Null."

[via Wired News]

Chandler 0.1 available immediately

Chandler 0.1 available immediately "The first release of Chandler, release 0.1 is now available! While we're still very early in the design and implementation... "

[via Mitch Kapor's Weblog]

Microsoft Announces Free Trial CD of Publisher 2002 To Help Real Estate Pros Better Market Their Listings and Themselves

"Microsoft Announces Free Trial CD of Publisher 2002 To Help Real Estate Pros Better Market Their Listings and Themselves Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft® Publisher 2002, a comprehensive yet extremely easy-to-use software program that enables real estate professionals to create professional-quality marketing materials in minutes, is available on a free* 30-day trial basis. Real estate professionals can order a free trial CD at http://www.microsoft.com/publisher/realty/ and can begin using Publisher to create high-quality color brochures, postcards, property fliers, business cards and other marketing materials just as the busy spring home-buying season swings into full gear."

Intriguing vertical approach

InfoWorld: Same great weekly, brand new package

InfoWorld: Same great weekly, brand new package: April 18, 2003: By Kevin McKean "One sad note: To make room for this expanded coverage, InfoWorld won’t be able to carry all 13 columnists featured in the publication today. Tom Yager, Ephraim Schwartz, and Robert X. Cringely will continue to appear in the magazine. They’ll be joined by Test Center Lead Analyst Jon Udell, who already writes a popular online column and Weblog at www.infoworld.com. Others, including Wayne Rash’s security column, Mario Apicella’s storage column, and Ed Foster’s Gripe Line (now reborn as a Weblog), will appear regularly online. Still other writers plan to self-publish their columns going forward. We urge you to sign up to receive them; details are in the individual columns this week."

InfoWorld follows eWeek and others in downsizing -- both in terms of form factor and in terms of staffing. Blogs are intended to fill the gaps, but I wonder how many people will still find the print option compelling when their favorite writers are accessible via blogs and RSS.

Microsoft Bloggers

Microsoft Bloggers Handy list

Marriott Launches April 26

Marriott Launches April 26 "A little birdie leaked to me that Marriott is geared up for an April 26 hot spot launch: This is part of STSN's Intel Capital-funded rush to push out access now instead of gradually. The cost is $10 per day with discounts of up to 50 percent negotiated for large groups. Marriott will have most properties unwired by April 26 in these areas: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles/Orange County, Miami, New York City/New Jersey, Orlando, Phoenix, and San Francisco Bay Area. The rest of their properties will follow by May 24.... "

[via Wi-Fi Networking News]

Why TiVo Owners Can't Shut Up

Why TiVo Owners Can't Shut Up "So why do TiVo owners feel the need to tell everyone about it? Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor at New York University's interactive telecommunications program, said it might have to do with the nature of the medium. "People watch a lot of TV, so anything that has an even slightly positive effect on it is disproportionately important to peoples' lives," he said."

NewzCrawler - web news reader & browser

NewzCrawler - web news reader & browser I've been exploring this reader/client lately, on Jeremy Allaire's recommendation. It has a very useful and straightforward UI for posting to Blogger (or other blog tools) from within the reader, something that's very timely for me as I get increasingly RSS-based source-focused...

Open Source Reality Check

Open Source Reality Check "You may be of the opinion that open-source software does not need to compete directly with Microsoft or any other commercial software vendor. You may even think the open-source movement can survive on its own without any corporate influence. But the truth is, at this point in time there are very few major open-source projects that could continue to evolve at their current rate without some help from the for-profit sector -- if only indirectly. Many of the more talented Linux developers make their contributions to the operating system while collecting paychecks from RedHat, VA, TurboLinux, and others. MySQL and PostgreSQL developers work for Nusphere and Greatbridge, respectively. And developers of Apache, Perl and PHP are counting on getting their bread buttered by places like Covalent, ActiveState and Zend Technologies.
If any of these companies are to succeed, they will need to compete directly with a formidable and popular set of products from Microsoft: Windows 2000, Active Server Pages, SQL Server 7 and Internet Information Server, to name just a few."

Check the full article -- I also like the author's (OR) links

InfoWorld: Taking collaboration to the masses: April 11, 2003: By Mark Jones: Networking

InfoWorld: Taking collaboration to the masses: April 11, 2003: By Mark Jones: Networking "Collaboration technology suddenly finds itself split into two camps: those who get it and those who don’t. Groove gets it, IBM Lotus gets it, Sun Microsystems is trying to prove that it gets it, but Microsoft is off with the pixies."

Microsoft Tangles With How Best To Cast .Net (TechNews.com)

Microsoft Tangles With How Best To Cast .Net (TechNews.com) "We have moved away from using .Net as a versioning moniker to indicate that a particular product is a .Net product, for the clear reason that we are making .Net a part of everything we do across the Windows platform," Neil Charney, director of Microsoft's .Net strategy group, said yesterday.

via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

Q&A: Microsoft Brings Server Products Together Under New Brand, Windows Server System

Q&A: Microsoft Brings Server Products Together Under New Brand, Windows Server System ... "Flessner: All of Microsoft's business server categories will become part of the Windows Server System, including e-business (BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, Content Management Server, Host Integration Server), data management and analysis (SQL Server), messaging and collaboration (Exchange Server, SharePoint Portal Server, Project Server, Real-Time Communications Server), security (Internet Security and Acceleration Server) and management (Systems Management Server, Operations Manager, Application Center).
And, of course, the Windows Server family, including Windows Server 2003, is the server platform and the foundation for Windows Server System."

IT-Director.com | Death knell for Enterprise Portal pure plays

IT-Director.com | Death knell for Enterprise Portal pure plays More evolution than death knell, in my opinion, a trend that will soon be accelerated by SharePoint(s) 2003

Back to the .NET Future

Back to the .NET Future Microsoft Smart Solutions Web newsletter companion article following my recent "Got .NET Yet?" column.

EE Times - Cryptographers sound warnings on Microsoft security plan

EE Times - Cryptographers sound warnings on Microsoft security plan "Just three weeks before Microsoft Corp. publicly details plans to create a secure operating mode for Windows PCs, two top cryptographers have raised concerns about Microsoft's approach.
Whitfield Diffie, a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, said an integrated security scheme for computers is inevitable, but the Microsoft approach is flawed because it fails to give users control over their security keys. Ronald Rivest, an MIT professor and founder of RSA Security, called for a broad public debate about the Microsoft move."

Via Tomalak

SPOnG.com: The Internet Computer and Video Games Database: News:

SPOnG.com: The Internet Computer and Video Games Database: News: "After three years of Microsoft denials, Xbox keyboard is confirmed [14th Apr]" "After three years of denying that it would ever implement keyboard support for the Xbox, Microsoft has altered its stance.
Coming inside every copy of Phantasy Star Online for the machine is a flyer which gives details of how an adapter, enabling the Xbox to make use of any USB keyboard, will be given away free of charge.
...
Understandably, the “Xbox-is-a-Microsoft-Trojan-online-PC-in-your-lounge” camp is outraged, pointing to this, combined with the admission that multimedia support in the form of Media2Go is scheduled, as proof of its case.
One of the last things left that Microsoft will never do, is enable full web browsing through Xbox. It will be interesting to see if this stance is shifted in the course of the coming year. "

Via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

Microsoft Takes Lead in OLAP Industry

Microsoft Takes Lead in OLAP Industry "Microsoft Corp. announced results of independent research demonstrating that it continued to take charge of the business intelligence (BI) industry in 2002, claiming the leadership position in online analytical processing (OLAP). The findings are presented in The OLAP Report, a leading source of independent research and analysis of the OLAP industry (http://www.olapreport.com/Market.htm). Microsoft, which doubled its installed base in 2001, followed with further growth in 2002 to overtake Hyperion Solutions Corp. as leader in the $3.5 billion industry, with 24.4 percent of total sales worldwide. Microsoft first integrated OLAP into the SQL Server (TM) relational database in 1998.
"Microsoft's SQL Server Analysis Services grew faster than the market and therefore increased its market share again," said Nigel Pendse, lead author of the OLAP Report and the OLAP Survey, in this year's market share report. "As in previous years, usage of Analysis Services grew faster than SQL Server itself, as Oracle and DB2 sites continue to select Analysis Services to build BI solutions on top of their existing relational databases."
Microsoft's growth continued in an overall low-growth year for the business intelligence industry, with several vendors declining; Oracle Corp., for example, dropped out of the top six this year, continuing several years of decline to just 4.7 percent of the OLAP segment."

Profits Up at I.B.M.

Profits Up at I.B.M. "I.B.M. reported solid gains in both sales and profit for the first quarter, showing again that the company has made itself into a bulwark of comparative stability amid the deep slump in the technology business.
I.B.M. executives declared the company "on track" to meet Wall Street's consensus estimates for profit of about $4.30 a share for the full year.
Still, growth in the quarter was not spectacular. Revenue at $20.1 billion, was up 11 percent from the quarter a year earlier. Profit increased 8 percent, to 79 cents a share. The revenue totals were buoyed by a big acquisition and a weak dollar, while the profit comparison was enhanced by cuts in I.B.M.'s work force and unprofitable operations.
But the steady performance, analysts said, indicates that the company's strategy of shifting away from computer hardware to rely increasingly on technology services and software has enabled it to weather the severe technology downturn fairly well."

WSJ.com - Microsoft Center Breeds New Software Technologies

WSJ.com - Microsoft Center Breeds New Software Technologies "Talking computers, video e-mail, and business presentations that download automatically to every laptop in a meeting room may sound like the future.
But they are on display now at Microsoft Corp.'s Center for Information Work, a seven-month-old demonstration lab on the company's sprawling campus here. The center is a breeding ground for technologies the software giant hopes will help remake products, such as Office.
It also is an increasingly popular stop for outside executives traveling to Microsoft's leafy headquarters."

RSS Feed Reader / News Aggregators Directory :: hebig.org/blog

RSS Feed Reader / News Aggregators Directory :: hebig.org/blog Handy list via Dave Winer. I've been exploring Syndirella recently; it works well.

O'Reilly Network: How Many PCs Were Sold in 1985? [April 14, 2003]

O'Reilly Network: How Many PCs Were Sold in 1985? [April 14, 2003] Check the link for some astounding market share numbers.

Netcraft: Windows Server 2003 overtakes Solaris 9

Netcraft: Windows Server 2003 overtakes Solaris 9 "The number of sites running Windows Server 2003 has overtaken Solaris 9, in spite of the fact that Windows Server 2003 does not launch until later on this month.
Solaris 9 launched in May 2002. However, Sun seems to take relaxed view about envangelising new operating system versions; even www.sun.com is still running Solaris 8. www.microsoft.com is at the opposite end of the product advocacy spectrum and started running Windows 2003 last July."

via http://www.watchingmicrosoftlikeahawk.com/

CRN -- IBM Plans Sneak Attack On Microsoft Office

CRN IBM Plans Sneak Attack On Microsoft Office I guess it's insufficiently sneaky

The Register: IBM vows Java Office

The Register: IBM vows Java Office Brief history of IBM's desktop forays.

Microsoft Connect To Your Data :: Welcome

Microsoft Connect To Your Data :: Welcome FYI you can sign up for a free subscription to Microsoft Smart Solutions at this site -- enter "Guest" for the first screen and then register.

Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server 2003 To Offer More Secure, Manageable Instant Messaging for Enterprise

Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server 2003 To Offer More Secure, Manageable Instant Messaging for Enterprise "Microsoft Corp. today announced that the technologies formerly referred to by the code name "Greenwich" will be delivered as the Microsoft® Real-Time Communications Server (RTC Server) 2003 Standard Edition for more secure, manageable enterprise instant messaging. The Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server is a manageable and extensible instant messaging (IM) server that enables business agility by empowering corporations to reach, collaborate and respond to new information more quickly, and to take advantage of industry-standard protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) when deploying and structuring real-time communications tools.
...
The Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server 2003, the presence add-on for Windows Server 2003 and the Real-Time Communications SDK for MSDN are expected to be available in the third quarter of 2003. Licensing and pricing for RTC Server has not yet been determined. The Windows Server 2003 add-on component will be available free to Windows Server 2003 customers, and the SDK will be available as part of a subscription to MSDN."

(Re-posted after noticing original post lost the link somehow.)

Presstime: Syndication Made Simple

Presstime: Syndication Made Simple Good RSS market snapshot, via Dave Winer (of course...)

Microsoft Windows CE .NET to Enable Next Generation Of IP-Based Set-Top Boxes for DSL Networks

Microsoft Windows CE .NET to Enable Next Generation Of IP-Based Set-Top Boxes for DSL Networks "Today at NAB2003, the National Association of Broadcasters convention, Microsoft Corp. announced that the forthcoming release of Microsoft® Windows® CE .NET version 4.2 will include the latest Windows Media® 9 Series, which offers the same video quality in one-third the bit rate of MPEG-2 and one-half the bit rate of MPEG-4 over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, Internet Explorer 6.0, with special support for a richer television Web browsing experience. The company also announced that top silicon vendors ATI Technologies Inc., National Semiconductor Corp., STMicroelectronics and VIA Technologies Inc., and leading set-top box software vendors iMagicTV and Stellar One Corp. will optimize their solutions for the Windows CE .NET operating system. In addition, set-top box original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) CosTron Co. Ltd., HUMAX Co. Ltd., NEC Corp. and Tcom&DTVro Co. Ltd are currently building set-top boxes powered by Windows CE NET."

Tech Digest: Nintendo cedes No. 2 spot to Microsoft

Tech Digest: Nintendo cedes No. 2 spot to Microsoft "Nintendo Co. says full-year profit fell by about 38 percent and sales of its GameCube console lagged forecasts by about half, handing Microsoft Corp. the title of the world's No. 2 maker of video-game machines.
Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo, until this year second only to Sony Corp. in console sales, said it sold about 5.6 million GameCubes in the fiscal year ended March 31, 44 percent short of its 10 million unit goal. Microsoft expects to sell 9 million of its Xbox game machines in the fiscal year ending June 30.
The weaker-than-expected GameCube sales at Nintendo, the North American headquarters of which is in Redmond, may increase pressure on the company to follow in the path of rival Sega Corp., which scrapped its Dreamcast game console when sales flopped. The poor sales may also force software designers to abandon the machine in favor of Sony's PlayStation 2 or Microsoft's Xbox."

Story: How I turned my laptop into a mobile phone - ZDNet

Story: How I turned my laptop into a mobile phone - ZDNet "Using TeleSym's SymPhone software, a standard headset, and their built-in microphones, I've been able to turn my IBM ThinkPad and the Wi-Fi-enabled Toshiba e750 into mobile phones."

HP does low-price PC limbo | CNET News.com

HP does low-price PC limbo | CNET News.com "Lowering the bar on the price of an entry-level PC, Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday introduced a line of build-to-order models that start at just $319 after a $50 rebate.
For that price, customers get a Compaq Presario S3000V desktop computer that includes a 2GHz Intel Celeron chip, 128MB of memory, a 40GB hard drive and a CD-ROM drive. What they don't get is a monitor, which is sold separately. Shipping is also extra, with HP typically charging around $99 to ship a PC and monitor."

Maybe they plan to profit from the shipping...

I think Blogger RSS is busted again

I think Blogger RSS is busted again.

Sorry about that -- will try to find work-arounds...

Q&A: PlaceWare CEO George Garrick

Q&A: PlaceWare CEO George Garrick "We're always looking at ways of making our product better. In the next few months we're introducing a new client interface that will be based on native Windows rather than Java, which is what we use today. That was a decision that we made some months ago even before Microsoft even contacted us. It gives us a better functionality such as drop down menus and right clicking. We are also working to do more to embed audio multimedia so that you will be able to control the phone call right from the product."
...
Q: How do you differentiate yourself from the competition?
The military uses PlaceWare in the Middle East and they use it to connect soldiers in the field with controllers up in the airplanes with people back in the Pentagon.
Q: And they'll be connected by satellite?
We use existing Internet connections and phone lines. What happens behind the scenes is irrelevant. For example, you'll have a general up in a like an EC2 one of the big reconnaissance planes - sort of like a flying command center -- and you'll have officer and field staff on the ground all they'll all be using PlaceWare to coordinate battle plans and information on the enemy. We've seen an increase in our business in the last few months as part of the security issues overseas."

(some quotes from p. 2 of interview; found via Microsoft Watch)

WSJ.com - Oracle's Larry Ellison Expects Greater Innovation From Sector

WSJ.com - Oracle's Larry Ellison Expects Greater Innovation From Sector ... "Mr. Ellison believes that tech firms have sown the seeds of their own demise by developing ever-more-complex "solutions," before identifying problems. Then, he says, tech firms try to fob these tough-to-use products onto unwitting customers. "We became the largest industry in the world by selling things that people didn't want to buy," he says.
Critics, of course, say this is precisely what Oracle has been doing since the company was founded. (An Oracle spokeswoman responds that the company has always tried to simplify products and services, when possible, to make them easier to use.)
Venture capitalists compound the problem, Mr. Ellison says, with a herd mentality that results in funding too many companies chasing the same idea. "Every child is unique; every computer doesn't have to be," he says.
But Oracle isn't above chasing technological fashion. The company has been moving aggressively in recent years to support Linux, an operating system maintained by a global army of volunteers. Mr. Ellison sees Linux as a competitive weapon against Microsoft. "You just can't fight it," Mr. Ellison says of Linux. "You embrace it or you die."
Oracle itself may be vulnerable to the same kind of "open source" technology -- cheap or free software whose underlying code is available to all users to freely customize. An open-source relational database called MySQL is gaining a small following among companies that don't like paying big fees to vendors such as Oracle.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Web-search company Google Inc. (www.google.com), says Mr. Ellison has correctly diagnosed Silicon Valley's challenge. He says tech is plagued with chronic overcapacity, similar to the airline industry, because of rapid technological advances. But Mr. Schmidt thinks Mr. Ellison has the wrong prescription. "The only solution is to come up with grand new visions, which we're particularly good at," he says."

Got .NET Yet?

Got .NET Yet? "... it's timely to take another look at .NET, once more from the top, and to present a .NET report card to coincide with a major platform milestone: the release of Windows Server 2003."

My latest Microsoft Smart Solutions column

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Ellison Notes Linux Success, but Forgets Something

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Ellison Notes Linux Success, but Forgets Something Indeed...

O'Reilly Network: FlashForward SF 2003 - Day 2: Tim O'Reilly Watches the Alpha Geeks [April 04, 2003]

O'Reilly Network: FlashForward SF 2003 - Day 2: Tim O'Reilly Watches the Alpha Geeks [April 04, 2003] "How can Macromedia and Flash developers avoid being relegated to a side canyon of history? How can they compete with Microsoft, even as the .NET initiative pauses if not stumbles? Macromedia has to continue to promote the platform against which others will develop. They must maintain and extend their lead in Rich Internet Application (RIA) development. The community can help by creating a critical mass of open source components."

BlogWeaver: Integrates directly with Blogger.com to give you a Visual Editor

BlogWeaver: Integrates directly with Blogger.com to give you a Visual Editor Very cool to see this kind of innovation in the market again.

Microsoft Tackles Lucrative VoIP Market

Microsoft Tackles Lucrative VoIP Market "VoIP functionality in Windows CE .NET 4.2 will encompass three primary areas: a fully integrated, graphical telephony UI that third parties can extend, customize, or use as-is; a VoIP application interface layer that developers can leverage when creating applications and services that integrate with Microsoft Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Real-Time Communications (RTC) technologies; and a set of enterprise-ready integration services that support the Windows .NET Compact Framework and other related technologies such as IP Security (IPSec), 802.11a wireless, Active Directory (AD), and Kerberos, all of which corporations require to integrate new Windows CE .NET-based devices into their infrastructures. Microsoft will also integrate Windows CE 4.2's VoIP functionality with Greenwich, the RTC Server product that Microsoft will ship later this summer."

Microsoft Research Finds Women Take a Wider View

Microsoft Research Finds Women Take a Wider View "Microsoft Research has found that women are 20 percent faster in navigating 3-D environments on computers when optical flow cues, or continuous visual cues for navigation, are built into an application's user interface. This discovery is a key factor in overcoming known gender differences in the approach men and women use in navigating 3-D environments. The study concludes that software designers should build applications optimized for large displays and multimonitor configurations, because these form factors more naturally allow for the presence of optical flow cues in scenarios such as gaming, graphic design, architectural walkthroughs and various training programs."

Theater chain goes digital with Microsoft

Theater chain goes digital with Microsoft "All 53 Landmark Theatres in the United States will be equipped with digital movie-playback systems that use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system and its Windows Media 9 Series multimedia software, the companies said yesterday.
They said the largest U.S. digital-cinema installation yet will equal or exceed standard 35 mm film in picture quality and sound, and will promote the growth of independent film-making because it's cheaper."

IBM lets WebSphere developers deploy to BEA WebLogic - Computerworld

IBM lets WebSphere developers deploy to BEA WebLogic - Computerworld IBM attempts to Eclipse BEA...

DaveNet : NY Times pulls back

DaveNet : NY Times pulls back "Until today the Times archive was perfect. If you pointed to a Times article from an essay or a weblog post, as I have for almost ten years, the link would continue to work, year after year.
Today that ended. All my links into the NY Times archive that are older than 30 days are broken. I suspected this day would come, eventually. Advertising doesn't pay for Web publications. It probably doesn't pay for print pubs either anymore."

Boo hiss...

InfoWorld: CTO Forum: Ray Ozzie charts dynamic collaboration: April 02, 2003: By Cathleen Moore: Applications

InfoWorld: CTO Forum: Ray Ozzie charts dynamic collaboration: April 02, 2003: By Cathleen Moore: Applications "Groove was built with this important concept in mind, Ozzie said, not as a replacement to e-mail but as a way to get group conversations into a more natural environment. "If five people on a [project] team say they are to be notified about a certain subject, then they all get the notification and find themselves together in a workspace," ready to collaborate on that specific topic, he said.
"This brings people together automatically, out of satisfaction of a selfish need for information," Ozzie said. "It is a smart model that brings people together based on selfish requirements. That's how real world collaboration works."

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Ballmer plans a long tenure at Microsoft

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Ballmer plans a long tenure at Microsoft "Ballmer said he'll work at least 14 more years, which would give him an extraordinary 17 years as chief executive. That's more than double the average tenure of chief executives, 7.3 years, according to a study last year by Booz Allen Hamilton, a McLean, Va.-based research company.
The timing also would leave Ballmer, 47, running the company for several years after Chairman Bill Gates is expected to retire. In a recent Seattle Times interview, Gates, 47, said he plans to retire in about 10 years."

How Digital Pioneers Put the 'Personal' in PC's

How Digital Pioneers Put the 'Personal' in PC's "The modern personal computer came to life three decades ago this month when a group of Xerox engineers projected an image of Cookie Monster from "Sesame Street" onto the screen of an unfinished machine known as the Alto.
...
"Most people still thought the purpose of a computer was to grind up numbers," said Mr. Thacker, who spent many years at the Digital Equipment Corporation and now works at Microsoft, where he recently worked on the company's Tablet PC design with Mr. Lampson. "We thought it was a communications device."

Reuters | Microsoft Says to Take Aim at Google

Reuters | Microsoft Says to Take Aim at Google "We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing," Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division, said."

WSJ.com - Prices of Flat-Panel TVs, Monitors Are Dropping

WSJ.com - Prices of Flat-Panel TVs, Monitors Are Dropping "The surge in capacity is good news for consumers because it is likely to drive sharp price decreases for flat-panel monitors and TV sets. DisplaySearch, an industry research company, expects manufacturing capacity to soar by an average of 41% a year between now and 2006. That could cause the price of a standard 28- to 32-inch LCD TV set to plunge about 70%, to $1,625, by the second quarter of next year, from $5,357 in mid-2002, it predicts. Falling prices could also give LCD TV sets a competitive advantage against the more-costly plasma TV sets, which employ a competing but less widely used technology. But LCD TV sets are still a good deal more expensive than regular old tube sets. A 20-inch LCD TV set sold by Sharp, for example, currently lists for $1,799.99 at Best Buy Co., the U.S. retailer. A 25-inch nonflat-screen TV from Sharp, by contrast, sells at Best Buy for just $199.99."

DualView and two or three 20" flat-panel monitors -- time to update my Amazon wish list...

O'Reilly Network: InfoPath and XForms go their separate ways [April 02, 2003]

O'Reilly Network: InfoPath and XForms go their separate ways [April 02, 2003] (Note the author bio)

Microsoft puts its spin on office chat | CNET News.com

Microsoft puts its spin on office chat | CNET News.com "Indeed, Smith's comments highlighted Microsoft's view of how its software would allow different devices to exchange text and voice under one network based on the Internet Protocol. Features commonly associated with phones, such as voice calls, voice mail, call forwarding and the like, will become features within an IP-based corporate network.
As a result, Microsoft's Windows server software will run various applications that serve data to devices running the Windows XP operating system.
"A phone over time...it will collect dust," Smith said. "Phones become less and less useful."

CW360° - Linksys and Ricochet unveil wireless Wan router

CW360° - Linksys and Ricochet unveil wireless Wan router "Linksys Group has teamed up with Ricochet Networks to build a router for US homes, small offices and public wireless Lan hot spots that uses Ricochet's wireless wide area data service."

Microsoft's shifting plan has users frustrated

Microsoft's shifting plan has users frustrated "The only thing clear about Microsoft's ongoing remake of its collaborative software strategy is that large corporations can expect it to require yet another round of expensive infrastructure upgrades.
Everything else about the plan looks like an unmade bed, customers and industry experts say."

Via Ed Brill's blog

InformationWeek > Article > Adobe Gets Ready To Rumble With Microsoft > March 28, 2003

InformationWeek > Article > Adobe Gets Ready To Rumble With Microsoft > March 28, 2003 "Chizen insists that Adobe is "focused on a much different place" than Microsoft. "Microsoft will continue to be successful for internal processes," he says. "The problem is when you reach outside the firewall, you can't ask your user to use a certain platform with Windows and the latest version of Office.""