Microsoft

MICROSOFT is suing eight people suspected of hawking counterfeit software on eBay.

All but one of the accused bootleggers was targeted through Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program, which validates users' software as a condition of providing online updates.

Complaints about some of the purportedly bogus software sellers were also reportedly logged on an anti-piracy telephone hotline operated by the company.

The civil suits were filed in US federal district courts in the eight US states where the defendants live.

The launch of Windows Vista appears to have slipped towards the back end of this year, according to Microsoft Watch, a Web site that tracks the software giant closely.

Microsoft Watch reported on Tuesday that an official blog for Microsoft's business developers had revealed that the launch of Vista would take place in November 2006.

Previous reports had suggested that Vista might hit the shops in October, although there have also been unconfirmed claims that the launch date will be 15 November.

Microsoft Wednesday released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the upcoming Service Pack 1 for its SQL Server 2005 database.

New features in SP1 include full database mirroring to offer real-time data backups and SQL Server Management Studio Express, which is designed to help database administrators run the free version of SQL Server 2005, according to Ilya Bukshteyn, Microsoft's director of product management for SQL Server. SP1 is on schedule for final release next month.

Microsoft during its monthly patch release has issue one update for Windows and one for Microsoft Office.

The Office update patches five separate vulnerabilities in Excel. Depending on the version of the software, the flaws are rated critical to important. The vulnerability spans Office for both Windows and Apple's OS X. It could allow an attacker to take over control of a system through the use of a specially crafted Excel spreadsheet. The users would have to manually open the file to get infected.

Microsoft on Tuesday issued a pair of security bulletins that patched seven vulnerabilities, the bulk of them critical bugs in the Office productivity suite's Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint applications.

According to analysts, one of the Office flaws may be exploitable by behind-the-scenes "drive-by downloads" if vulnerable users simply surf to sites with Internet Explorer (IE).

As the Internet transforms the way people use computers, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates has a message for the world's biggest software maker: adapt or die.

"We must act quickly and decisively," Gates wrote in an Oct. 30 memo to Microsoft executives. "The next sea change is upon us."

Microsoft's impending delivery of its Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server is the culmination of seven years of planning the company's entrance into the ALM (application lifecycle management) space.

Microsoft plans two fixes as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday updates to be released next week, the company said Thursday. An update marked for Office has been rated as "critical," and another for the Windows operating system is marked "important."

Microsoft employees are getting another security reality check this week. The software maker is hosting its third "Blue Hat" event, where hackers demonstrate flaws in Microsoft's product security.

A year ago, Microsoft invited several hackers to its Redmond, Wash., headquarters for the first time. That get-together was such a success that Microsoft decided to host such events twice a year. The second Blue Hat was last fall.

Microsoft Corp. unveiled its 'Origami' project Thursday, a paperback-book sized portable computer, which is a hybrid between a laptop PC and a host of mobile devices that the world's biggest software maker hopes will create an entirely new market.