Ray Ozzie got the Microsoft open source ball rolling when he released Live Clipboard.
Now, things are sorta starting to move as Redmond releases more and more technologies
into the public domain via the Open Specification Promise (OSP), which is Microsoft-shorthand
for "You can use our technology and we won't sue."
Last week, Microsoft applied that promise to
Sender
ID
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Posted by Doug Barney on November 01, 20060 comments
Microsoft has been making more and more noise about video conferencing. This
must not sit well with Cisco, which owns the network the same way Redmond owns
the desktop. On Oct. 20, Microsoft announced a research project for a
cheap,
mobile video conferencing device
that will be out in a year or less.
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Posted by Doug Barney on November 01, 20060 comments
There's nothing like a bad Ayn Rand pun to start your day, and the news that
Microsoft
is shipping a new beta of Atlas
, the Ajax tool, gave me that opportunity.
Version 1 of ASP.NET Ajax (that just rolls of the tongue) is
The Fountainhead
of a whole new style of programming for Visual Studio and ASP.NET programmers.
Now it just needs an
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Posted by Doug Barney on November 01, 20060 comments
Commodity servers, the rise of Windows Server and Linux, and the inability
of the network computer to make it off the launch pad have all conspired to
pound Sun Microsystems' earnings deep into negative territory. But
these
losses are easing
as Solaris, now open source, picks up steam and cost-cutting
measures take hold.
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Posted by Doug Barney on November 01, 20060 comments
Last week,
two
IE7 problems were reported
. Microsoft disputes one and agrees with the other.
One hole could ease phishing attacks (anti-phishing is one of the big new features
in the new Firefox). The other hole has nothing to do with IE7, but rather is
an Outlook vulnerability, Microsoft points out.
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Posted by Doug Barney on October 31, 20060 comments
Despite Google gains, Apple advances and open source success, the Redmond money
train just keeps a-rollin'. Last week, Microsoft announced it
brought
in more than $10 billion
in the more recent quarter. While big, these numbers
still pale in comparison to HP's and IBM's. But Microsoft is all about profits
and, in this case, had pre-tax profits of nearly $4.5 billion -- margins any
self-respecting capitalist would be proud of. The big revenue guns were games,
Visual Studio and SQL Server 2005.
Posted by Doug Barney on October 31, 20060 comments
Millions have tried the beta, and now they can download the real thing as
Windows
Defender is done
. Redmond's free anti-spyware program is now in version
1. Even better, the price hasn't changed: This little puppy is still free.
I am a friend of third parties, and if Defender was designed to undercut third-party
prices but still add a billion or two to the well-stuffed Microsoft coffers,
I'd be irritated. But a free tool to protect an OS we all depend on? Why, that's
Nobel Peace Prize-territory in my book.
Posted by Doug Barney on October 31, 20060 comments
I tried to become an expert in Software Assurance. I thoroughly read a report
from Scott Braden, who
writes
a column for Redmondmag.com
, about negotiating with Microsoft. I also read
a 100-plus-page report from Directions on Microsoft and then devoured everything
Microsoft put out. Despite having written
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Posted by Doug Barney on October 26, 20060 comments
I doubt Cisco liked it when Microsoft announced its Unified Communications Strategy;
communications is Cisco's playground. Cisco spit back this week, debuting a
new
virtual meeting product
aimed squarely at kicking Live Meeting's butt back
up to Washington state. The Cisco tool promises to replace that pitiful, jerky
excuse for video with smooth, realistic, corporate meeting action. Boy, the
Internet backbone is going to love all these high-res files!
Posted by Doug Barney on October 26, 20060 comments
No need for a Firefox 2 coupon. First, the browser is free. Second,
it's
shipping!
My two sons are anxious to give this puppy a whirl on their Macs
(Safari is passé), and I'm looking forward to loading both IE7 and the
new Firefox on my Latitude 520 to see which will reign as my default browser.
Posted by Doug Barney on October 26, 20060 comments
When Google announced plans to spend the equivalent of half Donald Trump's net
worth on YouTube, I knew the video site would have to clean up its act -- the
rules are too loose, and too much junk and material covered by copyright end
up on the site. The cleansing process has begun as the site just
yanked
some 30,000 Japanese videos
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Posted by Doug Barney on October 25, 20061 comments