Microsoft

A report in the Financial Times claims that Google has begun moving users off of Windows systems and made it very difficult to get new ones. The move is cast as a security measure. Users are being shifted primarily on to Mac systems, but also to Linux.

Even prior to their brush with hackers from China late last year Google had a policy of moving users on to Google products where possible. The incidents accelerated the process. The story quotes Google employees to the effect that Windows systems are distrusted by definition at the company.

Half of the enterprise computers running the aged Windows XP operating system are still relying on the soon-to-be-retired Service Pack 2 (SP2), a researcher said today.

According to security risk and compliance management provider Qualys, 50% of the several hundred thousand PCs it monitors for its clients are still running Windows XP SP2.

Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's senior director of Internet Explorer, is remarkably chirpy for a man whose product's market share has plunged from 90% to roughly 60%, but it seems things are not all bad. "The future for IE is as bright as it's been any time over the past five years," he says. "IE8 is the fastest-growing browser in history: it's the number one browser on Windows, and the number one across all OSs. The simple truth comes down to: every single day, more users are choosing Internet Explorer 8 than any other modern browser out there."

Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., may appear at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in early June to promote Microsoft’s technologies for Apple’s hardware and software platforms, an analyst said on Thursday. The software giant was quick to deny the information. But maybe there is no smoke without fire?

Having lost ground to rival browsers in recent years, Microsoft is pulling out the stops for the development of the next version of its browser, Internet Explorer 9.

The news of the departures of J Allard and Robbie Bach from Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division has been met with a remarkable breadth of opinion. Bach and Allard were both instrumental in the development and marketing of the Xbox console.

Information about Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, and on two smartphones using it, continues to emerge, some of it gleaned from hacking, demonstrations and from the growing experience of developers exploring the radically revamped mobile OS.

Coders at XDA-Developers.com hacked the ROM for an un-announced HTC smartphone, called Mondrian, with a Windows Phone 7 software build, though it's still referred to as "Windows Mobile 7". Microsoft released a Windows 7 phone emulator for developers in April, based on the latest released build of the underlying operating system.

Microsoft says hackers could exploit a flaw in a graphics driver for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 to affect the security of computer systems, but says such an attack would be "very difficult" to execute.

The vulnerability is found in the Canonical Display Driver for the systems, but only exists if the systems have the Windows Aero user interface installed.

For a few years running, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made an appearance at the start of every calendar year to provide Wall Street analysts with a “Strategic Update” on Microsoft. He didn’t do so this year, but he covered some of the same territory during his keynote address during Microsoft’s annual CEO Summit on May 19.

A colorful mural runs along the outside the Blaze Koneski public school in Macedonia, but it's been vandalized by graffiti artists who spray their tags all over the school.

There are metal bars on the windows and the building itself is run down and dilapidated. We are here to interview a "child prodigy" for CNN's i-List Macedonia.