Microsoft introduced consistency and predictability into its formerly haphazard product lifecycle support on Tuesday by laying out a policy and creating a single Web site where customers can check on the support status of all Microsoft's software.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 16, 2002
Messaging and groupware toolkit vendor DYS Analytics ported its Email Control! tool for monitoring and managing e-mail in large environments to the Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000 platforms.
- By Stephen Swoyer
- October 16, 2002
Microsoft laid out the end dates for regular support of most of its products on Tuesday as it detailed its first Software Lifecycle policy. Windows NT 4.0's support deadlines stayed consistent with what the software giant announced last December. End dates for regular support of Microsoft's other major enterprise products: December 2003 for Exchange 5.5, March 2004 for SQL Server 7.0 and March 2005 for Windows 2000.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 16, 2002
Ever wonder what the alpha user of Microsoft software, Microsoft's internal IT Group, is doing about security? Microsoft corporate vice president and chief information officer Rick Devenuti offered a glimpse last week during MEC 2002 in Anaheim, Calif.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 15, 2002
While the combination of Microsoft Corp.’s BizTalk Server and XML Web services is showing promise as an enterprise application integration tool, it’s still too early to tell whether Redmond will stake a claim to turf along side traditional EAI heavyweights.
- By Matt Migliore
- October 15, 2002
Every time Microsoft rolls out a major new enterprise product, the software giant claims itself as a long-running early adopter in production systems.
At MEC 2002 in Anaheim, Calif., Microsoft corporate vice president and CIO Rick Devenuti explained how his IT department reconciles its top priority of being "Microsoft's best and first customer" with its more standard role of making sure employees in this global Fortune 500 company always have access to the applications they need to do the jobs that keep the revenue flowing.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 10, 2002
Microsoft corporate vice president and CIO Rick Devenuti is seeing several benefits from an internal early deployment of Windows .NET Server 2003 and expecting others with the Exchange Titanium release.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 10, 2002
It's been a rough year for large IT providers, but some major industry leaders say they are bullish on their near-term prospects, and will continue to aggressively pursue new technologies. At Gartner's ITXpo/Symposium in Orlando, the CEOs of HP, Intel, and Sun Microsystems all say their organizations are weathering the economic storm, and seeing growth in some areas.
- By Joe McKendrick
- October 09, 2002
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had a lot of explaining to do about Microsoft's new licensing and Software Assurance policies Wednesday morning at Gartner's ITXpo/Symposium, being held in Orlando, Florida. Owning up to customer disenchantment with Licensing 6.0, Ballmer admitted that the process and ensuing customer pushback resulted in a "lot of learning for us." The CEO also provided further clarification to Microsoft's .NET approach, stating that the intention of the architecture is introducing XML into Microsoft's products.
- By Joe McKendrick
- October 09, 2002
Unisys will collaborate with Cornell University’s Cornell Theory Center (CTC) to test high-performance computing solutions based on its ES7000 servers.
- By Stephen Swoyer
- October 09, 2002
Microsoft will consolidate Commerce Server, BizTalk Server and Content Management Server into one set of technologies code-named "Jupiter" that will be released in two stages in 2003 and 2004, the company disclosed during the opening keynote of the MEC 2002 conference in Anaheim, Calif.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 08, 2002
Microsoft used its Microsoft Exchange Conference in Anaheim, Calif., to offer more details about the next version of its Exchange messaging and groupware platform, code-named Titanium.
- By Stephen Swoyer
- October 08, 2002
Microsoft announced plans this week at its MEC 2002 conference in Anaheim, Calif., to ship Content Management Server 2002 by the end of the year.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 08, 2002
IBM Corp. is moving to build the market for high-end Windows-based server systems by opening a demonstration and testing lab near Microsoft's Redmond, Wash. campus.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 03, 2002
Microsoft has two free "feature packs" in the release candidate stage for Systems Management Server 2.0. The packs are called the SMS 2.0 Software Update Services Feature Pack and the SMS 2.0 Administration Feature Pack. Both should be available later this month.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 03, 2002
Microsoft released a cumulative patch for SQL Server and the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) to fix three newly discovered critical vulnerabilities. While Microsoft has rolled together fixes for multiple vulnerabilities in a product into one patch regularly this year, rarely has one patch fixed more than one critical hole. The patch posted on the day that the SANS Institue and the FBI listed SQL Server generally as one of the top security vulnerabilities on Windows systems.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 03, 2002
Microsoft is prioritizing its bug fixing efforts based on the pop-up error report windows that appear during setup and application crashes in newer versions of Windows and Office, according to a letter Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent to customers.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 03, 2002
Critics frequently allege that new security fixes come out of Microsoft on a daily basis. Most days that's an exaggeration. Wednesday night, however, Microsoft made the hyperbole seem tame by posting four new security bulletins to its Web site. They involved critical vulnerabilities in SQL Server and the Windows Help Active X control and moderate vulnerabilities in three client versions of Windows and the Services for Unix 3.0 Interix SDK.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 03, 2002
IBM Corp.’s Lotus Software Group on Tuesday officially took the wraps off of the long-awaited Release 6 (R6) of its Notes and Domino messaging and collaboration products. The major enhancements to Notes/Domino since Lotus last refreshed the products almost three years ago involve efforts directed at reducing total cost of ownership (TCO).
- By Stephen Swoyer
- October 02, 2002
Microsoft this week released the beta code for Systems Management Server 2003, a follow-up product to the aging Systems Management Server 2.0. Little has changed in terms of features since this spring when Microsoft formally unveiled the SMS 2003 name for the product formerly known by the code-name "Topaz".
- By Scott Bekker
- October 02, 2002