Partners Most Important Reason Apple on Intel not a Threat
In an
interview
published Monday with the Seattle Times, Microsoft co-president
Jim Allchin cited partners as the most important reason he thinks
Microsoft has little to fear from Apple's move to Intel processors.
"And most important, we're super proud of the fact that we're
a partnership-level company where we're working with ISVs [independent
software vendors] and IHVs [independent hardware vendors] and we're
not trying to do it all ourselves. There's a fundamental difference
of perspective there," Allchin told the Seattle Times.
Allchin said Microsoft has no plans to provide a version of Windows
Vista for the Apple Macintosh. Other points Allchin offered to support
his argument that Microsoft will maintain its market share:
- Microsoft's installed base on the corporate desktop (read: inertia)
- Business savings, presumably from the imaging and deployment
improvements in Vista
- Information worker improvements
- TV integration and gaming improvements for the home
On other topics, Allchin said the Community Technology Preview
coming this quarter will be feature complete, and he confirmed that
Windows Vista is still on track for holiday 2006. Allchin plans
to retire once Vista ships.
Raikes Picks Up Exchange
In the ongoing shuffle of departments and businesses that started
with the big Microsoft reorganization of September, Jeff Raikes
acquired another huge business.
The Exchange Group and the Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) Group
are now merged to form the Unified Communications Group, Microsoft
announced today. Exchange moves from the Platform Products and Services
Division run by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin to the Microsoft Business
Division led by Jeff Raikes. Raikes, Johnson, Allchin and Robbie
Bach are all presidents at Microsoft. Anoop Gupta will lead the
combined group, called the Unified Communications Group, under Raikes'
supervision.
From a product standpoint, Exchange has been a toss-up for the
last few years. It fell under the Server & Tools Division, but
could have fit just as easily within the Microsoft Office System,
formerly run by Raikes before his job was expanded to encompass
both Information Worker and Microsoft Business Solutions. Now that
unified communications -- bringing e-mail, voice mail and faxes
into one inbox -- is a major focus of Exchange 12, the consolidation
of Exchange with RTC makes more sense.
Exchange is one of the five Microsoft products worth a billion
dollars a year. The others are the Windows desktop, Office, Windows
Server and SQL Server.
Click here for a Microsoft
PressPass interview with Gupta.
Computer Skills Plus No Brain Equals 2-Year
Jail Term
What do you get when you take some computer skills and combine it
with no brain? Two years in jail in the case of William Genovese
Jr.
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The 29-year-old Connecticut hacker, known as "illwill,"
was sentenced by a federal judge Friday to two years in prison for
selling source code for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. He pleaded
guilty last year.
An Ars
Technica article does a nice job of drilling down to the core
pathos of the case. No, Genovese isn't the one who cracked, stole
or even found the incomplete Windows source code. He just looked
at it once it was circulating. Instead of letting it rest there
like many other people who aren't currently in jail, Genovese posted
the code on his own little e-commerce site and charged $20 for it.
Microsoft bought a copy just to check, then pointed the FBI in
Genovese's direction. So, $40 in sales gets you two years in jail.
Posted by Scott Bekker on January 30, 2006