Microsoft Presents: It's Not Cheating This is an absolutely astounding offer. Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for AUD $75 perpetual, or $25 for a 1 year licence! Available only to Australian Uni or Tafe students. The cheapest I found Office Ultimate retail locally was $999, or $845 for the upgrade version. If you know any Aussie students out there, let them know about this one. To qualify all you need is a valid email address from an academic institution in Australia. There's also some international deals available under... lire la suite
After years of public disagreement over ensuring interoperability between their respective software, Microsoft and Samba have come to terms. And not surprisingly, each vendor is offering quite a different spin on the licensing agreement they unveiled on December 20. It took an intermediary, the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF) — a non-profit organization created by the Software Freedom Law Center — to hand off the Microsoft protocol documentation that Samba said it needed to make its Unix/Linux file/print sharing products work properly with Windows. According to a press release issued December 20, Samba is paying Microsoft a one-time sum of 10,000 Euros, after which the PFIF will make available to the Samba Team, under non-disclosure, “the documentation needed for implementation of all of the workgroup server protocols covered by the European Union decision.” (The EU decision to which this refers is the Microsoft’s loss of its appeal to overturn the European Commission’s 2004 antitrust decision against the company.) Not surprisingly, Samba and Microsoft had quite different spins on today’s news. Samba and the PFIF characterized the agreement as a victory for free software projects. They also reminded observers that Microsoft was required by the European Commission to provide this protocol information as part of the terms of the EU antitrust case. Samba also emphasized that the agreement with Microsoft does not mean Samba is acknowledging that it was or is in violation of any Microsoft patents. “We will be able to use the information obtained to continue to develop Samba and create more Free Software. We are hoping to get back to the productive relationship we had with Microsoft during the early 1990’s when we shared information about these protocols. The agreement also clarifies the exact patent numbers concerned so there is no possibility of misunderstandings around this issue.” Microsoft, meanwhile, portrayed the protocol agreement with Samba in a more congenial way. In a post to the Microsoft Port 25 blog, entitled “If you’re surprised, you’re not paying attention,” Microsoft Director of Platform and Technology Strategy Sam Ramji, emphasized recent cooperation between Samba and Microsoft. Ramji noted that Microsoft recently donated Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Premium subscriptions to the core Samba team; built a test bed with them; started sharing testing tools; and worked to preserve the Unix Extensions in CIFS to ensure continued compatibility with Microsoft’s software. “The terms were good, but the Samba team wanted Microsoft to make some changes to fully conform with the existing practices of the Samba developer community .... Attorneys and technologists (always an odd combination) on both sides worked hard to refine the language and do so in a clear and cooperative way. ... However you spin the deal, Microsoft is now doing what the European Commision stipulated three years ago: Sharing protocol information in a way that does not discriminate against the open-source/free-software community.
Earlier this week, I weighed in with my 10 Microsoft predictions for 2008. A few other Microsoft watchers have done the same. Among some of the other interesting prognostications out there: WindowsConnected: Betas of Windows Server 2008 SP1 and Windows Vista SP2, predicts WindowsConnected’s Josh Phillips. (Me? I’ll be surprised if there are even private betas of either of these next year, especially given the pace at which Microsoft is developing/testing/rolling out Vista SP1 and XP SP3.) CRN: “Microsoft will extend the February 2009 system builder deadline for Windows XP Professional,” predicts Kevin McLaughlin. “In a sign of the still-strong demand for Windows XP, Microsoft in September extended the deadline for sales of new direct OEM PCs with XP installed from Jan. 31, 2008 to June 30, 2008. Many system builders expect (and hope) that the vendor will soon decide to extend their current Jan. 31, 2009 deadline by at least six months.”
Although Microsoft and other Google rivals tried, they were unsuccessful in their lobbying to derail the $3.1 billion Google-Doubleclick merger. Microsoft has gone on record with its goal of rising to become the No. 2 online advertising player within three to five years. Wonder if the Redmondians factored a merged Google-Doubleclick into its calculations or were banking on the deal being nixed?
Now that Microsoft has passed the Acid2 Browser test, is Opera Software satisfied? If dropping its antitrust complaint filed last week with the European Commission is the measure, the answer is no. I asked Opera whether Microsoft’s announcement on December 19 that an internal Internet Explorer 8 build has passed the Acid2 test meant a change in its complaint. Opera asked the European courts to require Microsoft to change its practice of bundling IE with Windows, as well as to compel Microsoft to make IE comply with accepted Web standards. “We congratulate Microsoft on the screenshots showing IE8 passing the ACID2 test. We appreciate the effort of Microsoft’s developers in this achievement. Microsoft, for its part, is saying that its decision to go public this week with plans to make IE 8 Acid2-compliant had nothing to do with the timing of Opera’s filing. (I don’t buy that for a second, but that’s what IE Development chief Dean Hachamovitch told me.) “To help Microsoft and other browser makers support standards correctly, the Acid2 test was developed and published by the Web Standards Group. When published, it exposed bugs in all browsers. The programmers of Safari, Firefox and Opera got to work quickly and the latest versions of these browsers now pass the difficult test. Microsoft took a very different attitude and has not, seemingly, made any efforts to pass the test. This tells me we must do more than just ask them nicely.”
A week after Opera Software filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft that focused, in part, on Microsoft’s falure to make Internet Explorer (IE) standards-compliant, Microsoft has gone on record stating IE 8 will include support for key Web standards. Microsoft verified last week that an internal test build of IE 8 passed the Acid2 Browser Test, according to Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of IE Development. Hachamovitch noted the milestone in a blog post to the IE Team blog on December 19. Microsoft also posted a video to its Channel 9 Web site explaining the finer points for developers interested in the Acid2 details. In a phone interview on December 19, Hachamovitch also said that Microsoft will release a public beta build of IE 8 some time in the first half of 2008. Hachamovitch denied that Microsoft’s decision to disclose this week IE 8’s planned standards compliance was related to Opera’s antitrust suit launched last week. Hachamovitch said Microsoft has been working on making IE 8 Acid2-compliant since IE 8 planning began. The beta timing and Acid2 compliance were the only two news nuggets that Hachamovitch was willing to discuss with me around IE 8. I asked him when Microsoft is planning to ship the final IE 8 release; what other features IE 8 will include; whether IE 8 will work with XP or be Vista only; whether Microsoft plans to make non-public test builds of IE 8 available to select testers outside of Microsoft in early 2008; and whether Silverlight, Microsoft’s Flash-like player that is currently a browser add-on will be bundled with the final IE 8 release. Hachamovitch declined to comment on any of these things. Mix ‘08 is slated for early March 2008. At Mix 07, Microsoft provided some general guidance on its future IE plans but has offered no new details since then. In the IE blog posting, Hachamovitch reiterated the Windows client chief Steven Sinofsky’s line that Microsoft is dialing back on transparency for the good of the customer:
Even though Microsoft began pushing out a public test build of Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 3 the week of December 10, it wasn’t until December 18 that the company would acknowledge officially the existence of that build. On the 18th, Microsoft made the XP SP 3 Release Candidate (RC) build available for download from the Microsoft Download site. Microsoft allowed the same, near-final build to be released last week on several public file sharing sites. When I asked Microsoft December 11 whether the public RC of XP SP3 was available, the company declined to comment. Yesterday, Microsoft sent me the following statement: “Today, Windows XP SP3 RC was made available to the public via the Microsoft Download Center. While Windows Vista provides the most advanced security and management capabilities of any Windows Operating System, Windows XP SP3 will ensure PCs running Windows XP will have thelatest set of updates, as well as compatibility with the Network Access Protection functionality of Windows Server 2008. That said, Windows XP SP3 does not bring significant portions of Windows Vista functionality to Windows XP. Did Microsoft also release a different/updated test build of XP SP3 to testers on its private Connect site on the 18th? A couple of Microsoft-watching sites posted that a new build of XP SP3 was made available yesterday. Posters on those sites say that a new XP SP3 build was not released on Connect at all. (I can’t check directly myself, as I am not an XP SP3 tester with access to Connect, but the build numbers cited for the private and public builds are both 3264, leading me to believe there was not a private build refresh.) When I asked a Microsoft spokeswoman whether there was a refresh of the private XP SP3 test build available, she said she wasn’t sure. Update: On December 19, the spokeswoman confirmed that the new build on any references to “refresh” or “update” on the Connect site and the public XP SP3 test build on Microsoft Downloads are referring to the same XP SP3 RC bits. I understand that Microsoft is especially reticent to talk about updates for XP, given that XP is getting better press than Vista these days and Microsoft doesn’t want to encourage users not hold off on Vista by talking up how the company is improving XP. But a little translucency on service packs would go a long way to helping users plan, in my opinion. What do you think?
It’s the end of the year, which means it’s pundit prognostication time again. Here are my 10 predictions about what I think we’ll see in Microsoft land in 2008. (I could have done a lot more than 10, given I’m finishing up a book on Microsoft’s future, Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era. If you want more, you’ll have to wait until this spring.) Remember: These are all predictions only, based on source and reader tips. Microsoft hasn’t confirmed these predictions and won’t. What are your predictions regarding what Microsoft will — and won’t — do in 2008?
Microsoft isn’t offering up any dates or final product names, but it is breaking with Windows Mobile tradition and is talking about future features. Here’s what Microsoft has shown/told a select handful of bloggers, journalists and other sundry “influentials.” (I’ve been hearing talk that Microsoft is working on a suite of Live services that will work across Windows Mobile, Xbox 360, Zune and possibly Microsoft TV. Perhaps this will debut in the WIndows 7 timeframe, whatever that is.) Microsoft mission with the next few releases of Windows Mobile is to take a product that the company built to satisfy business/enterprise users and make it more palatable to consumers. Meanwhile, Apple is looking to do the inverse with the iPhone: Take a consumer platform and make it appealing to the business community by integrating more tightly the iPhone with Exchange Server, etc.
Financial-analyst-turned-Web-pundit Henry Blodget posted an explainer this weekend on what “disruption” really means and why Google and other Web-based office suites are on ther verge of disrupting Microsoft in a major way. Blodget and Creese correctly charge Microsoft with a lot of non-customer-centric behaviors in the desktop-productivity space. Price tags of $500 per copy for the versions of Office available to business users are way out of whack, Creese said. And Blodget repeated the oft-heard charge that Office is too bloated with features that a very small percentage of users want or know how to use. But here’s where I part ways with Blodget, who claims Microsoft is “in denial” about the potential threat from Google and the rest of the Web-based Office gang. To me, the way that Microsoft is addressing the so-far small number of users who want Web-based productivity software is disruptive. Microsoft isn’t listening to the venture capitalists and A-list bloggers who are ridiculing the Redmondians for not discontinuing immediately any more client-based Office development and turning Office into a Web-based product. Instead, Microsoft is doing what the majority of productivity-suite users currently want, by adding a Web-collaboration element to Office with Office Live Workspace. At the same time, Microsoft also is sowing the seeds for a Web-based consumer office suite with the Notes and Lists components of Office Live Workspace. If and when there’s enough customer demand for such a product, Microsoft won’t be starting from scratch to build a Web-based suite.
What kinds of products will Microsoft be pushing when it launches its new $200 million to $300 million consumer-product ad campaign in early 2008? AdAge has reported that Microsoft has narrowed its search for an agency to handle creative for the forthcoming “consumer-products blitz” to two: MDC Partners’ Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Publicis Groupe’s Fallon. Other likely candidates for Microsoft’s consumer ad campaign? I’d bet the Surface tabletop technology — which Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will show off during his Consumer Electronics Show keynote in early January — will be part of the campaign, as well. And next-generation Media Center extenders from several Microsoft partners are another likely component. Given that Microsoft is focusing on making Windows Mobile 6.1, due to be announced in early 2008, more appealing to smartphone consumers, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Redmond up the volume for Windows Mobile phones as part of its new ad launch. Microsoft has nowhere to go but up with any kind of consumer advertising campaign. However, to keep the company’s newfound love for all things consumer in perspective, Microsoft execs said they planned to spend $500 million on the anti-IBM business-focused “People-Ready” campaign it launched in 2006.