• home
• bookstore
• tips
• software
• archives

Archives: Microsoft

For those rare occasions when I write about Microsoft the company, as opposed to Microsoft the software developer. This category includes posts about legal and financial issues, including antitrust developments in the United States and Europe.

Yesterworld

I really have no idea what this is about, but it is brilliantly done....

History lessons

At Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters, Adam has a fascinating deconstruction of the widely reported canard, "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run," which I mentioned the other day in another context. If you're old enough to remember MS-DOS, it's worth reading....

Microsoft won't buy Claria

ClickZ News: Microsoft has ended its acquisition talks with behavioral targeting firm Claria, ClickZ News has learned from a source close to the discussions. Another Microsoft source later confirmed that report. A Microsoft staffer, who asked not to be identified, characterized the end of the talks as driven by concerns...

MSN search toolbar fixes tabbed browsing bugs

Less than a month ago, MSN released a new version of its desktop search toolbar that added tabbed browsing to IE6. The general consensus: it sucked. Yesterday, they pushed out a new version (02.05.0000.1082) that fixes most of the bugs in the original version, at least based on my very...

Usability testing in the real world

Now, this is a user interface glitch....

More on Microsoft and Claria

This is a follow-up to my earlier post about the rumor that Microsoft is negotiating to buy Claria. Claria actually has five product lines: The GAIN advertising network, which serves pop-up ads. BehaviorLink, another advertising network which says it delivers ads that are "targeted based on consumer behavior." These are not pop-ups but can...

Microsoft to buy Claria?

From the New York Times comes a report that Microsoft is negotiating to buy Claria: For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy a private Silicon Valley company, a move that underscores just how eager Microsoft is to catch up with Google, the search and advertising...

More details about RSS in Longhorn

Microsoft has a new home page for RSS in Longhorn. Here's a reasonably simplified explanation of RSS Support in Longhorn. The specification itself is here. This license information appears at the bottom of the specification page: Microsoft’s copyrights in this specification are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 2.5)....

More on Microsoft and RSS

Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor has a series of three posts on Microsoft’s RSS Platform. (Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here.) They're well worth reading, with some interesting insights and a nice historical overview. It's too bad the first post in the series starts with a big mistake: Microsoft...

Wow! Microsoft releases new RSS standards under a Creative Commons license

I'm listening to the live stream of Dean Hachamovitch's keynote at Gnomedex, where Larry Lessig just gave a public thank you to Microsoft for its decision to make its new list extension to the RSS standard available under a Creative Commons license. For those who don't remember, Lessig was the...

MSN replies on tabbed browsing

Denise Ho, a Microsoft product manager working on the MSN Search Toolbar, has this update on tabs: Our goal in delivering this feature was to give IE users a tabbed browsing solution to enhance overall online search and browse experiences prior to the official release of IE7 without them having...

Why you should send those error reports to Microsoft

When a Windows program crashes, Windows XP gives you the opportunity to send an error report to Microsoft. The process is called Online Crash Analysis. My advice: Do it. Here's a perfect example of why it's good for you and for your fellow PC users. For years, I've encountered a sporadic...

Spammer, heal thyself!

I just got an e-mail from an organization that calls itself SPAMIS (Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam). The message consisted of an article that was apparently written by Graham Lea of The Register, complaining that Microsoft is abusing some of its mailing lists and sending out unwelcome, unsolicited e-mail. Ironically, the mailing...

Microsoft is getting RSS religion

Wow. Thanks to Scoble I just discovered that the Microsoft Knowledge Base now has RSS feeds, organized by category. This is huge news for people like me, who follow Microsoft products for a living and need fast access to new information. There's a good RSS tutorial, too, with a list of Windows-based...

Doing the right thing

This is excellent news. Congratulations to Microsoft for making the right decision, even if it took a while. And congrats to all the Microsoft employees who spoke up against discrimination and prejudice....

Microsoft kicks off new security service

Ryan Naraine at eWeek has word of a new Microsoft security service: Microsoft plans to unveil a new security advisories service next Tuesday as part of an aggressive long-term effort to revamp the way it reacts to publicly reported software vulnerabilities. The pilot project, which is independent of the scheduled...

"Social issues" at Microsoft

In the comments to my post yesterday on the Apple versus Wiley dustup, several commenters asked why I haven’t said anything about the controversy over Microsoft dropping support for the anti-discrimination bill in Washington State. The full version of this post contains my thoughts on this issue. If you’re here...

Microsoft's "Metro" format aims to replace PDF

One of the most intriguing demos at WinHEC yesterday was a sneak peek at a new document format code-named “Metro.” According to Microsoft’s white paper [in Microsoft Word format] on the new technology, it’s “a complete specification for a fixed-layout document format based on XML that offers ‘electronic paper’ for...

Dear Microsoft

Not that I’m paranoid or anything, but have you noticed anyone missing from this list of people covering WinHEC? (Thanks to Scoble for the pointer.) Update: Ah, good to see that Microsoft is paying attention and I’m now on the list. If you want the latest news from WinHEC, follow the blogroll....

WinHEC: What's the opposite of liveblogging?

I was really looking forward to liveblogging Bill Gates’ keynote address at WinHEC today. I’m sure a few other folks were as well. But a funny thing happened when I made it into the exhibit hall. Someone had decided to (1) Disable Wi-Fi in the exhibit hall (but not announce...

Reporting from WinHEC 2005

I’m here in Seattle at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, where Microsoft is laying out its vision of what sort of technology will be running your office and living room in the coming years. There’s lots of good stuff, including some nicely detailed looks at Longhorn. I’d be sharing all...

Microsoft and security: Giving credit where it's due

Dana Epp has a fascinating post about Microsoft's security development lifecycle: In the past decade it has been easy to slag Microsoft for their stance on security. It has appeared that the drive for profits have always trumped the safety and security of the code. When Microsoft decided to STOP...

What's coming in IE 7.0?

Microsoft Watch has some juicy rumors....

Microsoft buys Groove

I was surprised to see this press release: Microsoft will make its growing business and technology bonds with Groove Networks permanent today as it announces plans to acquire the Beverly, Mass.-based provider of collaboration software for ad-hoc workgroups. The acquisition will add Groove's products to the lineup of Microsoft Office...

Microsoft needs a Music Czar

Thomas Hawk points to this “personal note to Microsoft” from analyst Michael Gartenberg: There's no doubt that you must be frustrated. Really frustrated. After all, you were in digital music long before Apple. There were WMA players on the market long before iPod. In fact, Microsoft might have been dominant...

Will new Microsoft add-ons trigger new antitrust charges? No.

In a comment on another post, Thomas Brock asks: So... Will these additions to AV services, the anti-spyware services, the media playsforsure services and the internet and desktop search services add to the monopoly charges? Short answer: No. Everything Microsoft does with Windows has to be cleared by the Department...

How big is Microsoft?

Big. Really big. Really, really big. As this AP story makes clear: Personal income, boosted by a large dividend payment from computer software giant Microsoft Corp., shot up by a record 3.7 percent in December. That helped to boost consumer spending during the all-important holiday season by 0.8 percent. The Commerce...