I spent much of yesterday with a case of nausea after viewing the Internet Explorer 8 vomit ad, which was thankfully, pulled from distribution today. I went so far as to call for Microsoft to fire its advertising executives. My colleague Keith Shaw, writer of the Cool Tools Happy Blog has proven my point. He compiled a list of the nine worst Microsoft ads ever, complete with YouTube versions. Read more
With nearly no explanation, Microsoft sent out an alert notifying customers that it was removing download information for 10 security patches "because Microsoft Java Virtual Machine is no longer available for distribution from Microsoft." The revised bulletins are rated as critical and affect patches from the years 1999 through 2003.
The affected patches are: MS03-011, MS02-069, MS02-052, MS02-013, MS00-081, MS00-075, MS00-059, MS00-011, MS99-045, MS99-031. Read more
In the past week, Microsoft has unleashed five service packs for its enterprise class security software. These service packs include the beta 2 of its identity management framework "Geneva," the SP3 of Forefront Security for SharePoint, the SP2 of Forefront Security for Exchange Server and trial versions of Antigen Spam Manager for Exchange and Antigen for SMTP Gateways. Read more
Microsoft offers free Nickelback track for IE8 and debuts commercial featuring a woman throwing up
Are Microsoft's latest tactics to get folks to download Internet Explorer 8 funny, disgusting, obnoxious or effective? On the one hand, you have the rather pleasant idea that if you download a copy of IE8 you get a never-before released track from rocker band Nickelback. On the other, you have an ad campagn that displays a woman throwing up (multiple times). Not pleasant. Read more
Microsoft Subnet is giving away training from New Horizons to one lucky reader (entry form can be found here), and 15 copies of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Unleashed, (entry form can be found here). Deadline for entries is July 31.
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While news reports are circulating today that Microsoft may be building a version of Windows 7 distributed on a thumb drive, the bigger news for enterprises is that Microsoft is releasing a tool that let's you roll your own and that it supports XP-to-Windows 7 migration. Read more
Observers are irritated by Microsoft's pricing approach to Windows 7.
Microsoft is making Windows 7 upgrades available for pre-order now, for the low, low (but not quite as low as Snow Leopard) price of $50. But after two weeks, it will cost you $120. Read more
After investing $1.23 billion to acquire Norwegian enterprise search vendor Fast Search & Transfer in January, 2008, Microsoft today has announced a significant customer for the technology. Market America, a $3 billion Internet marketing company, has implemented Microsoft’s FAST ESP to handle search for over 35 million SKUs on its Web site, marketamerica.com, the company said. Read more
Starting Friday, Microsoft will pre-sell Windows 7 upgrades for as little as $50.
Similar to the deal offered when Microsoft launched Windows Vista, the company will offer pre-orders of Windows 7 at deeply discounted rates. But you have to be eager, because the sale only lasts two weeks, reports Computerworld. Read more
Yesterday, we asked Microsoft when Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 would ship. (We asked via Microsoft's experimental Twitter hashtag, #qs4ms.) Due to the power of Twitter, the virtualization team answered: "SCVMM 2008 r2 beta is available, and final will be released within 60 after Windows Server 2008 R2 rtm." Read more
One-third of 1,200 organizations (33%) plan to convert their application environments away from a traditional, client-server model to one based on virtualization and cloud computing over the next two years, according to a study commissioned by Microsoft and released today. The study sought to broadly determine global IT spending priorities. Read more
When Microsoft releases the beta of its freebie basic security program at noon ET today, Windows Essential Security (formerly code-named "Morro"), it will cap the number of downloads to 75,000, Microsoft says. Read more
From the "you've come a long way baby" department, Microsoft today released information on an interoperability lab in which Microsoft wares were working with just about every product that the company had, in years gone by, wanted to destroy. Moreover, the lab was created by pressure by NATO, an organization that, about a year ago, standardized on Microsoft's arch rival, the Open Document Format. Read more
Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer Get the Facts website is just about as truthful as any other campaign that falls somewhere between PR and propaganda. And it's causing the kind of backlash that can't be helpful in increasing the browser's reputation. Hundreds of blog articles refuting the so-called facts have appeared since Microsoft launched the site this week. Read more
Microsoft confirmed that the beta version of its freebie anti-mailware software, code-named "Morro" will be available for download on June 23. The company has officially named the product Microsoft Security Essentials. The beta will be made publicly available in the U.S. (as well as Brazil and Israel) at about 9 a.m. PDT from www.microsoft.com/security_essentials. (The site is not yet live.)
Microsoft has not confirmed when the final version will ship, but has said it will be in 2009. Read more
Users who buy Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions and downgrade to XP will have up to 18 months to upgrade back to Windows 7 without incurring additional license fees. Earlier this week, analysts were reporting that customers would only have six months and that Microsoft was trying to squeeze them for extra money this way. Read more
Microsoft is known for some rather draconian licensing policies. The company will sell you just about any combination of its products you want, but creates extremely unfavorable pricing options when what you want isn't what it wants you to want. Even so, it seems unlikely that the dire warnings analysts have issued about a licensing trap from XP to Windows 7 will come to fruition. Read more
This is one of those stories where Microsoft gets to wear the white hat. On Monday, the company filed its first lawsuit against alleged click fraud hackers. The suit is filed against three people that Microsoft says perpetrated a "massive" click fraud scam involving hundreds of thousands of IP addresses. Read more
The European Commission is not satisfied with Microsoft's declaration that it will remove Internet Explorer from the editions of Windows 7 sold in Europe. In fact, the EC's statement, issued late Friday, sounds almost petulant. In the short, 688-word statement, the word "choice" or the phrase "choice of browsers" was used no less than nine times. Read more
Microsoft vice president Allison Watson is promising that long-awaited details on Windows Azure will be announced at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference next month, reports CNet. Read more
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