Microsoft Misspells New Code Name

So Microsoft will, after all, launch a beta program for its new Web analytics tool, code-named "Gatineau."

Now, we're sure that there must be a mistake in here somewhere. Surely Microsoft wouldn't use some town in Quebec as a code name. Oh, no. We suspect that Redmond meant to call its forthcoming heavy hitter "Gastineau," after More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 26, 20070 comments


Time for Google To Lawyer Up?

There's nothing we love here at RCPU more than speculation, and the latest round involves talk that Google is about to hit the same antitrust wall that Microsoft ran into in the '90s. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Yahoo More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 25, 20070 comments


Redmond To Show Off Hosting Wares

This week marks the HostingCon 2007 conference in Chicago , which, aside from serving as a forum for Microsoft to show off its application-hosting technologies, also sounds like something you might do if you invited a convicted felon over for dinner. (Get it? "Con," like convict? Never mind.)

Posted by Lee Pender on July 25, 20070 comments


Microsoft and Feds Bust Chinese Pirates

Just when Bill Gates starts talking up piracy in China as a Microsoft sales tool, Microsoft goes and helps the FBI bust a bunch of software pirates in China. Go figure.

Posted by Lee Pender on July 25, 20070 comments


Microsoft Rolls Out the Benefits Wheel

We've said many times here at RCPU that Microsoft, in general, is very good to its partners, and we still believe that it is true. The only problem, as most partners probably know by now, is that sometimes the Microsoft Partner Program can offer -- as the old saying goes -- too much of a good thing. And sometimes that good thing -- maybe the one good thing a partner really needs -- is a bit hard to find. More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 25, 20070 comments


Microsoft Earnings: Redmond Pays the Cost of Cool

Commenting on earnings only a few hours after they come out (we're writing this on Thursday afternoon, FYI) is a bit like reading the CliffsNotes for a great novel and then doing a book report. Earnings reports from big companies like Microsoft are absolute monsters (seriously, check this thing out More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 20, 20070 comments


Gates: Chinese Pirates Are Great for Microsoft

Interesting little story here in The Times of London, old chap, about how Microsoft actually figured out how to profit from piracy in China. Leave it to Bill Gates and friends to turn a sow's ear into yet another expensive silk purse.

Posted by Lee Pender on July 20, 20070 comments


Dell Goes the MSP Route

Michael Dell has come swooping in to try to clean up his mess of a company, and part of his plan includes the purchase of a managed services provider called SilverBack.

Posted by Lee Pender on July 20, 20071 comments


Vista SP1: Your Guess Is as Good as Theirs

Mary Jo Foley tries to slice and dice through the confusion of exactly when the first Vista service pack is going to appear, but even she is having trouble with her Microsoft Ginsu knife More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 20, 20071 comments


Partners Win Redmond's Praise

Squarely in the "in-case-you-missed-it" category, here's a story on last week's Partner of the Year awards doled out at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver.

Out of curiosity, what do these awards mean to you? If you're a partner, do you actively try to win them or partner with companies that have won them? And if you're in IT (and we know you're out there reading), are you more likely to partner with a company that has won an award? Let me know at More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 19, 20070 comments


More Eurotroubles on the Way for Microsoft

Well, here we go again. The European Union, not content to have already hammered Microsoft with all sorts of fines and other hassles (which Redmond has appealed , of course), wants more. This time, "people" (we just love More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 19, 20070 comments


Some Paradigms Never Shift

Those of you who remember the gilded age of the late 1990s (and before) will simply love an article that's been circulating on the 21 biggest tech flops .

Our favorite tech flop (which did make the article) is speech recognition software, if only because your editor got a bit of a scoop at Comdex some years back by reporting that Microsoft wouldn't be including speech recognition in whatever the next version of Windows was at the time. Hey, it might seem ridiculous now, but it was pretty darn exciting at the time.

More

Posted by Lee Pender on July 19, 20070 comments