LOS ANGELES--In a technical session on Thursday afternoon, Microsoft provided the clearest public indication that it is planning on getting Windows 7 completed in time to run on PCs that ship for next year's holiday buying season.

In a presentation on its somewhat secretive Velocity program to improve PC quality, Microsoft director Doug Howe showed a slide saying that the Vista Velocity program would continue through next spring as Microsoft worked to improve Vista machines that ship in next year's back-to-school time frame. He went on to say that Microsoft would continue the Velocity effort with Windows 7.

Read more at http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10084486-75.html

It looks as if Microsoft's OOXML office document file format will be published as an open standard after all. The International Standards Organization (ISO) today rejected four appeals from subsidiary national standards bodies that claimed ballot irregularities during the standardization process. Had these appeals been upheld, an OOXML standard could have been delayed indefinitely, despite Microsoft's best efforts to fast-track the process.

Barring any further hold-ups, ISO is expected to publish the full text of the standard within the next few weeks. But as the dust clears, many IT managers and office software users will likely be left scratching their heads: What does an open standard office file format from Microsoft actually get us?

A competing set of file formats, called ODF (Open Document Format), was accepted as an ISO standard more than two years ago. ODF is already in use in a number of competing office software products, including OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, and IBM's Lotus Symphony. Its success in the face of Microsoft's protracted effort to produce its own standard even recently prompted Microsoft employee Stuart McKee to remark, "ODF has clearly won [the standards battle]."

Indeed, Microsoft's failure to participate in the ODF standardization process has caused some to interpret the software giant's efforts to pursue its own, competing standard as little more than an attempt to undermine ODF. For its part, Microsoft has recently stated that it will include ODF support in a future update of Office 2007 -- but, interestingly, it will not actually include support for the ISO standardized versions of its own file formats until some future release of the suite.

According to Andy Updegrove of technology law firm Gesmer Updegrove, the rejection of the appeals against OOXML standardization is business as usual for the ISO process. "Today's announcement is not unexpected. It will be significant to learn, however, what the actual votes may have been," he says.

If there were many votes cast in support of the appeals, it may be evidence that ISO's processes may be skewed in favor of the interests of large corporations, such as Microsoft, rather than those of its member countries. "The greater the support, the more urgent it will be for ISO and IEC to reform their processes in order to remain credible and relevant to the IT marketplace," Updegrove says.

Just how much impact an ISO-approved OOXML will actually have on the IT marketplace -- or on users of office software -- remains to be seen. On the plus side, an approved standard should make it easier for competitors, including open source software projects, to interoperate with Microsoft Office, which has been difficult in the past. On the minus side, the proliferation of overlapping standards could serve to further muddy the marketplace, making bewildered customers much more likely to stick to the status quo.

Do you see Microsoft's move toward standardized file formats as positive or negative for your business? Sound off in the PC World Community Forums.

SOURCE [pcworld.com]

Wow finally you can download evaluation versions of Windows Embedded products like Storage Server, normally only approved OEMs could get it.

Now after a simple registration form you can download:

• Windows Server 2008 for Embedded Systems
• Windows Server 2003 R2 for Embedded Systems
• Windows Storage Server 2003 R2
• Microsoft Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (32-bit)
• Microsoft Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (64-bit)
• Windows Home Server
• Microsoft Server Appliance Software Version 3.1 Evaluation Download
• Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager
• Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006
• SQL Server 2005 for Embedded Systems

So now you can evaluate Windows Storage Server as iSCSI Target on your own NAS or on a VM.

Register and then download at microsoft.download-ss.com

Source

Source:http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1799

According to a poll I ran here on Monday, fully 48% (or over 2,000 respondents) see themselves running Windows XP in 2014. Another 10% expect to be running XP in a limited sense. How viable will it be to run an OS that is over a decade old?

Now, I’m going to come right out and say that I’m already skeptical that so many of you will be running Windows XP in 2014. In timescale terms, this is equivalent to running Windows 95 now - and I don’t know many people who are still doing that. XP’s already feeling long in the tooth to me and the idea that I’ll still running it in five or six years time just doesn’t appeal to me.

But there are going to be technical challenges facing those wanting to hold on to the security blanket that XP offers. These are the 4GB RAM limit that 32-bit offers and the gradual shift from 32-bit to 64-bit. When I shifted over from XP to Vista in November 2006 I didn’t really see many benefits. In fact, thanks to the fact that most drivers were still at the fetus stage of maturity (and shovelfuls of baked-in Microsoft bugs), performance and reliability took a dip. Over the months that followed the situation got a lot better as I was drip fed new drivers and Microsoft released patches and updates. However, the biggest performance boost that I’ve seen from Vista was when I moved from Vista 32-bit to Vista 64-bit. Finally, all the hassles of migrating to Vista felt worthwhile. I believe that the desire to break free of the 4GB addressable memory limit on 32-bit will become a powerful motivator for many over the coming years. After all, most motherboards now support in excess of 4GB of RAM, and RAM is cheap.

For me, breaking the 4GB barrier was a refreshing experience, and after you’ve experienced a PC with 8GB or more of RAM in it you no longer feel the need to mess about disabling services, defragging all the time and trying to squeeze more performance out of the system by optimizing the registry and nonsense like that.

I’ve made a note on my calendar to post a poll in 2014 so I can see just how many of you are running XP.

Microsoft has decided to walk away from its $44.6 billion acquisition bid for Yahoo. Negotiations broke down and the Redmond, Washington software giant decided that a hostile takeover — and a subsequent nightmare integration of the two companies — would not be worth the potential value of integrating Yahoo’s online assets with its own in order to mount a battle against Google for Internet supremacy.

Over the past month, it became clear that Yahoo’s leadership did not want to join with Microsoft, as they explored deals with Google, AOL, News Corp, and any one else who would listen, in an effort to repel Microsoft. Because of that, I think it’s ultimately a good thing that this two-month courtship is finally over. It’s better for both companies. This would have been a bad relationship. Both of them are better off trying to clean up their respective online businesses. Microsoft can focus on online apps and Yahoo can focus on online content.

According to CNET News, news.com

Microsoft is not ready to give more money to buy Yahoo!

Also, it seems Yahoo! is teaming up with AOL or Google.

More info - http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9929720-80.html

• Microsoft v. United States
  
• Microsoft v. AOL (Netscape)
• Microsoft v. Apple
• Microsoft v. Sun

At a speech on Monday for the Institute of Systems Biology he gave a speech followed by a Q&A session he reportedly answered one poor chap's questions on whether open source methodologies would be used in his research.

Gates responded with the following:

"There's free software and then there's open source," he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. With open source software, on the other hand, "there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with."

Open source, he said, creates a license "so that nobody can ever improve the software," he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business. (Yes, Linux fans, we're aware of how distorted this definition is.) He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: "I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them," he said, adding with a shrug: "That may seem radical."

Touché Bill. Of course competing with the monopoly that is Microsoft requires radical measures. Competition among desktop operating systems is pretty much non-existent. It even looks like Windows will someday become the OS of choice on the current Linux-based OLPC project.

Now children in the poorest nations in the world who might have been given a chance to learn about free and open source software will be given Windows. Hooking them early, like handing out crack cocaine in kindergarten and waiting until graduation to start selling to the addicts.

Without compromise there is no progress. In the software world Gates was the Godfather he didn't need to work with anyone until the Justice Department ruled against him. Even as the richest man in the world he's got to work together with researchers and others if he wants to be successful. Too bad he didn't learn anything about open source's collaborative values it might have served him well as he tries to help cure disease and improve world health standards.

I have to wonder if he will be able to make the transition from dictator to do-gooder or if he will just write checks?

SOURCE: http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2008/04/bill-gates-disd.html

Mark Hinkle's socialized software blog - http://socializedsoftware.com/