Editor's Note

Your editor will be out next week on vacation, eschewing cell phone, computer, online news aggregators and quite possibly even television. Filling in will be RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker who, like David Letterman on the old "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson, always does such a wonderful and entertaining job of spelling the regular host. Fortunately, unlike the great Johnny Carson, your editor is not currently dead and will return with a new edition on Oct. 23. In the meantime, please welcome Scott into your inboxes.

Posted by Lee Pender on October 12, 20070 comments


Microsoft Chases Security Flaws

Just as Redmond finally gets around to thinking about fixing one , here comes another -- one Microsoft apparently thought it had already fixed.

Posted by Lee Pender on October 12, 20070 comments


Reader Feedback Friday: Microsoft and Business Intelligence

Let's rip right into reader e-mails in this Friday edition. The big news this week was SAP's planned buyout of Business Objects (say it as a subject and verb, and suddenly it's a pretty funny name), which had us pondering whether Microsoft might make a big business intelligence purchase of its own.

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Posted by Lee Pender on October 12, 20070 comments


More Overlooked Windows Server Features

Keith Ward brings you Part 2 of his already popular list of the most overlooked features of Windows Server 2008.

Posted by Lee Pender on October 11, 20070 comments


VMware Trots Out Upgrade

New server virtualization technology is on the way from one of the industry's hottest companies.

Posted by Lee Pender on October 10, 20070 comments


Ballmer Making Patent Noise Again

At this point, even we're tempted to say put up or shut up. Steve Ballmer is back in patent shakedown mode , this time throwing Red Hat up against the wall and threatening to shove it in the trunk of the car and drive it into the woods for a good working over. Well, in a manner of speaking, anyway. More

Posted by Lee Pender on October 10, 20070 comments


Will Microsoft Join in the Big-Money BI Buyouts?

You don't have to believe this story if you don't want to, but it really is true. Almost six years ago, your editor got a (short-lived) job as a documentation writer with Business Objects, the big French maker of business intelligence software. On a dreary January day in 2002, his second day with the company, your editor went to a huge, companywide confab on the edge of Paris. While listening to a standard state-of-the-company presentation, he turned to the (completely disinterested) person sitting next to him and said, "This company sounds like a perfect acquisition target for SAP!" More

Posted by Lee Pender on October 09, 20070 comments


Reader Feedback Friday: Vista

It's all you this Friday, literally. We're clearing out a backlog of our finest reader e-mails and then heading off into an 85-degree afternoon. In October. In New England. Hooray for global warming!

Anyway, regarding our post about XP hanging on a little longer, we actually got a little Vista love in return...sort of. Diane says:

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Posted by Lee Pender on October 05, 20070 comments


Reader Feedback Friday: Microsoft and the EU

It's old-ish news by now, but an EU court's ruling against Microsoft in the company's antitrust case generated some comments we haven't yet run.

William is all for placating the EU...and then letting the free market take hold:

"Why doesn't Microsoft just give in to the EU and provide them with their requested stripped-down product? In the meantime, let our free enterprise system do its job. If Microsoft gives the EU a choice between the full-blown Microsoft product or a stripped-down version -- which, by the way, should cost more in order to customize the software to meet [the EU's] needs -- we all would see just how far the EU would really take this issue. Isn't that what free enterprise is all about?"

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Posted by Lee Pender on October 05, 20070 comments


Monsieur Ballmer in Paris

Steve Ballmer has been gallivanting around Paris , trying to drum up customers for Microsoft among French SMBs.

Posted by Lee Pender on October 04, 20070 comments


Mini-Microsoft Bounced From Facebook

Here's something to keep the wheel turning on the rumor mill: The Mini-Microsoft blog, that anonymously written periodical that calls for a leaner, meaner Microsoft, has disappeared from Facebook. Mary Jo Foley has the details .

Posted by Lee Pender on October 04, 20070 comments


Microsoft-Google Slugfest Continues

Another week, another set of stories on Microsoft and Google. This week, Microsoft threw another jab at its dominant search rival with the purchase of Jellyfish , an online shopping company of some sort. Really, we just like this story because it contains the following direct quote:

"We purchased Jellyfish.com," Microsoft search and advertising platform group vice president Alex Gounares said in a written reply to an AFP inquiry.

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Posted by Lee Pender on October 04, 20070 comments