The Office Open XML format may or may not be ratified by the ISO, but in either event, it will still be a driving force in millions of the world’s offices. So one way or the other, its senior product manager tells us, the interoperability debate will be resolved. From the outside, the debate over whether the International Organization for Standardization should formally ratify...
In an interview with Reuters, Microsoft shot down claims by Sony that the companies were in discussion to bring a Blu-ray drive to the Xbox 360. Meanwhile, Toshiba is expected to take a nearly $1 billion loss for abandoning HD DVD. Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for the Xbox 360, said the company was focusing on digital distribution of entertainment through Xbox Live...
Is Vista SP1 really the shot in the arm your Vista system needs? We’ve spent many hours strapped to our benchmarking system in a caffeine and pizza fuelled haze to uncover these very interesting results. We tested Vista: As it comes out of the box (RTM — or “release to manufacturing”) As it comes out of the box, with all Windows Update patches applied...
Internet Explorer 8 takes the Web experience beyond the page and introduces a new way to seamlessly experience the power of the Web whether you are a Web developer writing to standards, or an end user discovering a new online service. This beta release is available to everyone, but is primarily for Web developers and designers to test the new tools, layout engine, and...
When Windows Vista was originally released just over a year ago Microsoft commissioned Principled Technologies to compare the overall responsiveness of Windows Vista to Windows XP SP 2 for some common business and home tasks. With the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Principled has updated their results. Principled Technologies concluded the following when comparing business scenarios: Overall, Windows Vista SP1 and...
A widespread, international outage on February 26 affecting users of a number of Microsoft’s Windows Live services affected those not already logged into Microsoft’s Web services via Live ID, according to Microsoft. But exactly why so many of its services were inaccessible for most of Tuesday is still not something Microsoft is discussing. According to a statement attributed to Samantha McManus, Windows Live product...
No move by Microsoft to share information with its competitors will ever be taken at face value, and certainly yesterday’s new Interoperability Principle will come under very close scrutiny. Is this the opening of the floodgates the EC has been demanding? In incremental, measured, if slow steps, Microsoft has made some efforts to comply with directives from the European Commission to make its software...
Back in December, I mentioned some changes were coming with WGA in Windows Vista. I want to say first that I’m excited about the step forward we’re taking with SP1 and proud of the work that has gone into it. I’m excited both about the changes we’ve made to the user experience that we talked about and also about what we’ve done in Windows...
Analysts say that the more secure, stable and reliable Windows XP is, the less reason businesses have to upgrade to Vista in a hurry. The upcoming release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 will further slow the rate of business adoption of Windows Vista by extending the life of the older operating system, some analysts say. Microsoft quietly released Windows XP Service Pack 3...
Microsoft on Tuesday continued its plodding march toward the long awaited release of Windows XP service pack 3 by opening the latest test build to the public. XP SP3 Release Candidate 2 is now available from the Microsoft Download Center to users running PCs with XP SP2 installed, a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email to ChannelWeb. Microsoft earlier this month released XP SP...
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