Here's your chance to play around with WMP11 a few days early
For those of you who don't have access to the latest builds of Windows Vista and want to get a taste of Windows Media Player 11, here's your chance. Windows Media Player 11.0.5358.4826 has leaked and weighs in at 22.9MB. The leaked download is in RAR format. Once extracted, you'll install the WMP11 runtime first, then you'll install the actual application.
The European Union plans to file a second formal charge against Microsoft accusing the US operating system developer of violating a 2004 antitrust ruling, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) wire service reported Thursday.
Sources have told the AFP that the EU's Competition Commission will soon file a "statement of objections" claiming that Microsoft is charging too much for protocol licenses that the EU has ruled competitors need in order to develop interoperable software.
Microsoft would like us to believe that its launch of Windows Live will be a watershed event in the IT industry on a scale not seen since since the launch of Windows 95. Windows Live is a fusion of software and services. What this means is that the user, rather than the application, is put at the centre of the world and the data follows him around. More importantly, it marks a change in Microsoft's revenue philosophy from selling software licences to revenue from advertisements, subscriptions and revenue share of sales.
THERE ARE MANY unhappy people in the industry right now. Unhappy engineers that work in R&D departments of various network solution companies. Why? Well, "rushing out the door" why. That sort of "why".
While software vendors are worried that Windows Vista will blow everybody away with its security features, paid version of AntiSpyware and AntiVirus software and the like, the truth is that all of those features will be slow as a dog, since Microsoft decided to do network and network security paying little attention to the hardware that features those security technologies.
Bill Gates has declared that the Xbox 360 will have a 10 million unit head start over the PlayStation 3 by the time in launches in November.
In his surprise appearance at the Xbox 360 press conference at the E3 games convention in Los Angeles.
Gates was also keen to tell the gaming world that its next generation console would have a total of 160 games by the end of the year.
Microsoft has launched a public beta of Windows Live Messenger, an instant-messaging program that features international PC-to-telephone calls with video capability.
As part of the beta, Uniden and Royal Philips Electronics will sell cordless phones that work with the service, allowing people to make both Messenger-based and landline phone calls from the handset.
Windows Vista's new security features will so annoy users that Microsoft won't meet its goal of 400 million copies in two years, a research analyst said Monday.
Although Microsoft touts Vista as its most secure operating system ever and is relying on security as a prime marketing message to corporations, the Yankee Group's Andrew Jaquith sees it as somewhat of an albatross.
Microsoft shareholder's expectations of Vista giving the company a much needed boost to its bottom line may well have to wait a couple of years, according to a newly released report. The much awaited security improvements are expected to give users usability issues.
Microsoft on Thursday warned Windows users to expect three security bulletins May 9, the company's regularly-scheduled second-Tuesday patch day. At least two of the three will include fixes for flaws Microsoft dubs "critical."
Two of the trio affect Windows, while the third will resolve one or more issues in the Microsoft Exchange mail server software. At least one of the Windows' bug fixes will be tagged "critical" by Microsoft, as will the Exchange patch.
It will not have escaped your attention that Microsoft is labouring to finish the next version of its Windows operating system, Vista. A version aimed at the corporate market is supposed to be ready for Christmas, with the consumer edition following some time later (missing the Christmas market, which has irritated computer manufacturers and retailers more than somewhat). Last week, Gartner, a leading IT consultancy, predicted that Microsoft would miss those shipping dates.
