Microsoft

A collection of 200 posts

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EU poised to rule against Microsoft

After being successfully prosecuted by the DOJ, but escaping any serious punishment by a new incoming administration, it looks like the EU may actually follow through with some bite to its bark.  With the $2M Euro per day fine (about $2.5M USD) potentially being back dated to December 2005,

Linux

The Microsoft Exec Exodus

On a topic I've covered multiple times recently, more execs are stepping down from Microsoft.   Both Martin Taylor and Ted Hase are already gone, in fact.  From the respective articles: Microsoft did not give details on why Martin Taylor left the world's biggest software maker after

Linux

Mundie Speaks on OSS

Craig Mundie, who was recently made chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft, was interviewed by eWeek and commented on the GPL.  His response to the question about interoperability with Open Source (and specifically the GPL): I have been one of the principle people architecting the way we are going

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Should Ballmer Leave Microsoft?

It seems that Business 2.0 thinks so.  From the article: Since Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000 in favor of Ballmer, the company has floundered technically and strategically. As the company's chairman, chief software architect and supposed visionary, Gates deserves blame for missing the wave of

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Bill Gates to Step Down from Microsoft

And I thought Scoble leaving was big news.  That was until Microsoft announced plans for a July 2008 Transition for Bill Gates.  From the press release: The company announced that Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect and begin working side by side

Linux

Can Windows and Open Source Learn to Play Nice?

Bob Muglia, the senior vice president of Microsoft's server and tools business, talked about just that question with eWeek at the recent TechEd conference (where I am told there was at least one LQ shirt on the floor ;)  One quote that stuck out to me was: A commercial

Linux

Broken Windows Theory

An interesting post from a former members of the Windows team on why he thinks Vista slipped.  It's clear at this point that Vista is complicated... almost certainly more complicated than it needs to be.  An architectural diagram of Windows would suggest there are more than 50 dependency

Linux

Reliability Survey: Windows Servers Beat Linux Boxes

Well, we haven't seen one of these reports in a while.  From the article: Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime. 20 percent more annual uptime?!?!? What math was used to come to that conclusion?  Well,

Linux

Lenovo To Shun Linux

In an extremely odd move, computer maker Lenovo will not install or support Linux  on any of its PCs, including Thinkpads and a series of new notebooks.  Why is this odd?  Well, the Thinkpad had an extremely large Linux following - one that IBM worked fairly hard to build.  Go

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Steve Ballmer Attempts to Fix Spyware

It looks like Steve Ballmer recently offered to uninfest someones computer and wasn't able to fix it, nor were a team of top Microsoft engineers.  So says Jim Allchin in this article.  Seems more like a marketing ploy than a true story to me.  The odds the Ballmer

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The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

I found it interesting that 3 of the top 10 in the 25 Worst Tech Products were of Microsoft origin.  The one that really sticks out to me is Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001), coming in at number 8.  The fact that the most current browser from a company that

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Microsoft considers taking admin rights from employees

From the ZDnet article: As Microsoft moves its internal desktop systems to Windows Vista, the company is contemplating whether to change a long running tradition and take away admin rights from its employees in order to improve security. This explain quite a bit I think.  While some job functions absolutely

Linux

Can the ordinary computer user ditch Windows for Linux?

That's the questions Mark Golden recently asked in the Wall Street Journal.  His conclusion? For me, though, using the Linux systems didn't make sense. I often send documents and spreadsheets between my home PC and the one at work, which uses Microsoft Office. And the files

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The Microsoft Malaise

In his usual style Dvorak mixes rational thought with wild speculation to get readers attention.  But let's look into the topic, as it's an interesting one.  Microsoft is clearly finding it difficult to compete.  As mentioned, that will not stop them from making piles of cash

Linux

Microsoft Admits to Hiding Flaw Details

While it's been suspected for some time now, Microsoft has publicly admitted that they silently fix some vulnerabilities with absolutely no disclosure at all.  From the article: "We want to make sure we don't give attackers any [additional] information that could be used against our

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Vista won't show fancy side to pirates

So it appears that Windows Vista is going to do a piracy check and then disable Aero if you don't have a licensed copy.  That's right - it won't refuse to run or even cripple functionality, you just won't get translucent windows

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Paul Allen and Microsoft

I had always wondered why Paul Allen had exited Microsoft so early and so completely.  While he remained on the board for years after his departure, for a founder he never really seemed to have any close ties with the company he helped start.  I thought maybe the inequitable setup

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Microsoft Delays IE's ActiveX D-Day

In a somewhat ironic turn of events, Microsoft is being forced to change how ActiveX works in order to avoid a software patent held by Eolas.  So much for proprietary software indemnifying you from patent issues.  As a heavy user of the web and a proponent of open standards, I&

Linux

Hilf speaks about Linux through Microsoft eyes

When I saw the title of this article, I was quite interested to see what Bill Hilf had to say on the topic.  As Director of Platform Technology Strategy he's in charge of the Microsoft LinuxLab, which means he must have a pretty interesting perspective on things.  Unfortunately,

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More on Vista Delays

The recently announced Windows Vista delays are certainly causing quite a stir, which was expected.  The amount of stir being caused within the company itself though seems to be greater than I'd have anticipated.  Usually, most Microsoft employees are fairly good at backing company decisions, but many seem

Linux

Microsoft Updates Windows Vista Road Map

It looks like Microsoft has once again delayed the general release of Windows Vista.  The bad news for them on this one?  They are going to now miss another Christmas season, where it's reported that up to 30% of all PC's for the year are sold.

Linux

Dell and Linux on the Desktop

An interesting interview with Michael Dell about the Dell "Linux desktop strategy".  The fact that he mentions Distrowatch by name means he clearly is following what is going on in the Linux world, even if only at a high level.  He mentions the failed attempt Dell made back

Linux

Is IBM Germany Leaving Vista for Linux ?

That's the rumor, based on comments made by Andreas Pleschek.  From the article: Andreas Pleschek also told that IBM has canceled their contract with Microsoft as of October this year. That means that IBM will not use Windows Vista for their desktops. Beginning from July, IBM employees will

Linux

OSDL, Say It Ain't So

We all know how silly some of the "Get the facts" benchmarks/reports were.  When I saw this commentary on the Linux TCO study that was recently co-sponsored by OSDL, I figured it was just the anti-Linux Rob Enderle we've grown accustomed to.  Then I read

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Ask Microsoft's Security VP

An extremely interesting read, Slashdot has sent questions over to the Microsoft Security VP Mike Nash, who agreed to answer them with no PR scrubbing.  A ton of information is in the response, which is a fairly long read.  As you may have guessed, so of the information is good