Yahoo Pressing Ahead As If Microsoft Didn't Exist

Welcome to an abbreviated version of RCPU: We're in the midst of a lot of other stuff, including an article for that pesky print publication , so, for once, we're employing an economy of words. And we're in a linguistic recession right now.

So while we know that partners don't seem overly interested in a potential Microsoft-Yahoo deal (and, really, we're not, either), we did find it interesting that Yahoo has launched a More

Posted by Lee Pender on April 01, 20080 comments


Another Brand Survey: This One Crowns Apple

These things are a dime a dozen now , it seems, but the latest "brand-strength" survey gives high marks to Apple and low marks to Microsoft...as well as to (ouch) the United States!

Posted by Lee Pender on April 01, 20080 comments


Microsoft Moving Toward Office Online?

Reports indicate that Microsoft might kind of, sort of, be thinking about developing something that would be a little bit like a hosted version of Office . Maybe. Kind of. Eventually.

Posted by Lee Pender on March 31, 20080 comments


Vista Not Alone in Enterprise Struggle

It's not just the new OS that's having a hard time breaking into the corporate world. It's also (editorial comment coming) the genuinely awful IE 7 .

Posted by Lee Pender on March 31, 20080 comments


New Potential Villain in 'Vista Capable' Case

The revelations from the ongoing and high-profile Vista Capable class action lawsuit against Microsoft continue. (Check out the entire litany of subpoenaed e-mails in a huge PDF file here .) Apparently, a surprisingly (to us, anyway) large percentage of Vista crashes in the operating system's early months were caused by More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 31, 20082 comments


Dynamics CRM Not Dead But Not 'Live' Either

We've heard so much from Microsoft in the last year or so about its hosted customer relationship management offering that it's hard to say why the news of a name change for the product didn't arrive until late last week.

Dynamics CRM Live isn't anymore -- well, it isn't "Live," anyway. The hosted application suite lives, but it's now Dynamics CRM Online, an altogether better name that helps alleviate some confusion in Microsoft's branding. Until now, it seemed as though everything Microsoft did that had even the most remote connection to the Internet was branded as "Live." Online might not be groundbreaking, but it's simple and descriptive.

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Posted by Lee Pender on March 31, 20080 comments


Idera Launches Dynamics Channel Program

The provider of tools for SQL Server management has a new deal for Dynamics partners. Check it out here .

Posted by Lee Pender on March 27, 20080 comments


Reader Feedback: Vista SP1 Sad Tales of Woe

Given this week's news that Symantec drivers and Vista Service Pack 1 are getting along about as well as Microsoft and the European Union, we thought we'd bring you readers' yarns of frustration and anger about SP1. (Yes, somebody out there is running Vista and trying to install this service pack. Hey, it came as a More

Posted by Lee Pender on March 27, 20083 comments


Reader Feedback: Vista SP1 Success Stories

OK, so not everybody has a disaster story or a cautionary tale to tell about Vista. In the interest of balance, here are a few happy tales of service packing.

Bob seems pretty pleased so far:

"I've been running Vista since beta 1, and my only complaint is user access control. Everything else, including better drivers once they became available (for mainstream hardware), and lots of other pluses made me a convert on both x86 and x64 long ago. SP1 installed onto an x86 workstation, my main x64 monster box and my Dell e1505 laptop without a hitch the day it was available (via MSDN)."

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Posted by Lee Pender on March 27, 20082 comments


Microsoft (and Partners) Zoom into NASCAR

Ken Schrader's No. 49 car will sport a big ol' Microsoft logo -- and a small-business partner logo, as well. What we're wondering is if Mr. Schrader should suffer an unfortunate crash during a race (hey, it happens in NASCAR), will anybody say that he "blue screened?" Because we would.

Posted by Lee Pender on March 27, 20080 comments


As the Service Packs Turn

Oh, it's a slow news week. What better time to drum up a little drama? On top of much ado about not much regarding the first Vista service pack , this week we have news about ol' reliable XP and its forthcoming major update.

Apparently, XP SP3 could RTM -- how's that for alphabet soup? -- as early as April. Now, given that we've all been running XP for the better part of a decade now -- and given that most people seem to have almost a Brett Favre level of totally irrational love for it -- it wouldn't seem to be that big a deal if XP SP3 comes out in, say, June, instead of in April...right? After all, it's been a while, almost an Olympiad, since the last XP SP.

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Posted by Lee Pender on March 26, 20084 comments