Microsoft Sends “Put Up or Shut Up” Message To Yahoo
Microsoft is sick of Yahoo dragging its feet on MS’s proposed acquisition of the internet company, and has published a stern letter from CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo’s board. The letter basically says that Yahoo has had plenty of time to make a decision, and Microsoft wants them to either make a deal or face a hostile takeover. Considering the dragging its feet caused Yahoo to be in this weak position, it should surprise no one that they can’t even lose gracefully.
Data Corruption Bug Fixed in Next Home Server Update The Home Server blog has announced that they have come up with a fix for the data corruption bug that has plagued Home Server users in certain circumstances. Since they are working on Power Pack 1 for Home Server, due for public beta testing next month, they are including the fix with the Power Pack in order to ensure everyone gets it.
Open XML Becomes International Standard
The members of the ISO voted 75% to 14% to approve Microsoft Office 2007’s Open XML file formats as an international standard, removing the barrier erected when the IBM-backed ODF format did the same thing two years ago. The two file formats are now on a level playing field, ensuring that government agencies will choose the better (and more cost-effective) office suite, not the one with ISO certification. ISO controls Open XML now, not Microsoft, and can change any part of the spec, with Microsoft forced to change Office to comply.
Another 11-Cent Dividend Coming To Microsoft Shareholders Microsoft has announced yet another dividend for shareholders, another 11 cents for those invested in the company. Shareholders as of May 15, 2008 will get their dividend on June 12. This will make $4.72 returned to shareholders over the last five years, just over 16% of the stock price.
Silverlight-powered MLB Site Has Disastrous First Week
Baseball season started last week, and the launch of Major League Baseball’s new Silverlight-powered MLB.tv site, where you can pay to watch live games on your computer, had a terrible opening day. With fans paying $20 a month or $120 a year to watch games only on their computer (almost as much as you’d pay to watch a higher quality version on cable or satellite), they were understandably peeved at not getting what they paid for. Now word on whether the problems were on Microsoft’s side or MLB’s, but having such a high-profile launch go bad isn’t a good thing for Microsoft’s important Silverlight technology.
Ribbon Joining Windows 7 User Interface
The Office Ribbon, one of Microsoft biggest software design innovations of recent years, is getting promoted to Windows. The Office UI element will be built into the Windows 7 platform, available for all software developers to access and use in their applications. Quite the vote of confidence, but when you’ve got something good, you should spread it around. Read more about it at Long’s blog.
Xbox Does April Fools Joke Microsoft’s Xbox division sent out an email to all users, informing them of new products from Xbox. They included a wireless helmet, Xbox: The Board Game, a wood-paneled Xbox, and a weather-proof portable Xbox. Also for April Fools Day, Long Zheng “revealed” the lost Windows Vista sounds, uploaded as a collection of Windows 98 sound packs.
Windows Mobile 6.1 Official Launched
At CTIA, Microsoft officially showed off the long talked about Windows Mobile 6.1 update. It includes a new version of the mobile Internet Explorer browser, complete with support for Adobe Flash, Silverlight, H.264. There’s also a new Getting Started Center, the ability to handle more things from the home screen, better touch screen and small screen UI features and other updates.
Microsoft Videos Launching Microsoft has launched a beta preview of Microsoft Videos, a new Silverlight-powered video site that collects the many videos Microsoft creates. Whether you’re an IT pro or developers looking for technical videos, or a gamer looking for video game videos, or a consumer looking for videos about the latest software and Media Center stuff, it’s all there are running in glorious Silverlight.
40% Of Vista Crashes By Major Graphics Chips Proof is out that it is the graphics processor industry that is ruining computing. Data from Microsoft shows that 40% of crashes in Windows Vista were caused by graphics drivers from ATI and NVidia, with 75% of those NVidia’s fault. Since Vista was released, those two companies have been the most negligient in serving their customers with decent drivers, and everyone is suffering as a result. I wish Intel got serious about graphics, because ATI and NVidia have lost any goodwill they had with me an many other users.
Free Portal Song “Still Alive” for Rock Band
Tomorrow, Harmonix will begin giving away “Still Alive”, the end credits song from Valve’s hit game Portal. While tomorrow is April Fools’ day, the song isn’t worth buying for most gamers, and we already know it’s been formatted for the game, so the announcement should likely be legit. Xboxers, download your free song tomorrow (PS3 gamers have to wait a few weeks due to system upgrades) and thank the Rock Gaming Gods.
Here’s a video of the guy who wrote “Still Alive” playing the song in the game last month:
Clippy On The Simpsons
Clippy, the Microsoft Office paperclip, isn’t dead! He was on this recent episode of the Simpsons:
Microsoft May Counter Justin Long With Johnny Knoxville Rumors are that Microsoft is preparing an advertising campaign designed to combat Apple’s smarmy Get A Mac ads starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. In the ads, Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame would dos something incredibly stupid with his computer, like dropping and destroying his PC while performing a stunt, but is saved by Windows and automatic backups. If done smartly, the ads could work, especially by not being as condescending as Apple’s ads.
(via)
Live Contacts Sharing With Facebook, Bebo, Others
One scary part about signing up for a new social networking site is when it asks for your Hotmail/Gmail/AIM password in order to import your contacts. You can never be sure if you can trust that site with such valuable info, which is why it’s great that Microsoft is working to take the scary out.
They’ve signed partnerships with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn, letting you securely invite Live contacts to be your friends, and invite your friends on those services to chat with you on Live Messenger. The only place you enter your Live ID password is a Live.com website, keeping your valuable info out of everyone else’s grubby hands.
Make Your Own PhotoZoom Collections with Silverlight Microsoft has launched a website that lets you take advantage of their hosting and technology, creating big photo collections that users can zoom in and out of as easily as a Google Map. Called PhotoZoom, it utilizes technology based on SeaDragon/Deep Zoom and PhotoSynth, runs in Silverlight and is hosted on Microsoft’s servers. You can try out a sample album here, or enjoy it embedded below:
Microsoft Produces Limited Edition GTA IV Xbox 360 Microsoft has released a very limited stock of Grand Theft Auto IV Xbox 360 Elite consoles, 500 to be exact, complete with a GTA IV design on the side panel and a briefcase full of peripherals. The consoles are individually numbered, so you know how limited of an edition it is, and the briefcase has wireless controller, ChatPad, headset, camera, remote, and charge kit.
Vista Service Pack 1 Released Microsoft has finalized the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, putting the major update to Vista in the hands of users. Some users are getting it pushed to them via Windows Update, and if you don’t have it yet, just go here to download the standalone 434 megabyte installer for 32-bit versions of Vista. This link will get you the 64-bit version.
If you aren’t getting Vista SP1 through Automatic Updates, and are not even getting it offered as an option, it is likely because your computer is failing a number of prerequisites. One of them is driver compatibility, and since Sigmatel audio drivers aren’t worth crap on Vista, practically anyone with one of those chips in their systems won’t get SP1 without installing it manually. Read more here.
Microsoft Launches AdCenter Community Microsoft has launched AdCenterCommunity.com, a website for its growing AdCenter advertiser base to to learn about ways to run better ad campaigns, with niche-specific blogs, user forums, and other community features. The community offers advice on the AdCenter API, Analytics, and represents an effort by Microsoft to distinguish itself from Google AdWords, which has notoriously poor communication with with its advertisers.
Mac Office 2008 Gets Updated Microsoft released a patch for Office 2008, fixing problems that could cause Office programs to crash or otherwise stop responding. It also improves security, keeps restricted users from having unauthorized access to Office program files, fixes a blank page printing problem, fixes font substitution issues, adds support for secondary displays, and many other fixes and improvements.
Microsoft’s List of Potential Yahoo Board Members
If Microsoft winds up completing its effort to buy Yahoo through a hostile takeover, they’ll need to nominate a full new board of directors. A part of that list has leaked out, naming four of the ten executives Microsoft may place on the board. They are:
Edward H. Meyer - former CEO, Grey Advertising
John Chapple - CEO, Nextel Partners
Tom Freston - former President, Viacom
Jaynie Studenmund - Former CEO of eHarmony
Yahoo is reportedly finally holding talks with Microsoft, having a meeting to let Microsoft explain its offer and put some of its vision forward. Even if Yahoo doesn’t want to give in and except Microsoft’s offer, the offer may be impossible to ignore, especially if Microsoft raises the amount it is willing to pay. With other potential buyers dropping out, it’s certainly something they should consider.
Virtual Earth Implemented in Flash
Like Windows Live Maps? Like the compatibility and ease of Flash applications? Then you’ll like that AFC Components has added the Virtual Earth API to its UMAP control. You can see Virtual Earth embedded right here:
Sony PS3 for $100 Off
If you are looking to go with a Sony PlayStation 3, you might be glad to know that the SonyStyle store is offering $100 off the purchase of a 40gb PS3 with a new Sony card, making it just $300. That’s a good enough deal even if you find Sony as evil as many do, just to get a good Blu-Ray player and a small number of decent exclusive games.
This blog has a screenshot and commentary collection, looking at Microsoft Word over the last twenty years. It’s more amazing how many things were in place already in 1989, including the familiar toolbar layout, and how long it took some things to change. You can see Microsoft made the right move with Office 2007, given how the only major changes in the previous several versions all focused on that stupid Clippy character.
Zaheda Bhorat, Google’s manager of open source programs, is urging international delegates to vote to reject Microsoft Office 2007’s Open XML as an international standard when the ISO votes this week. Google is firmly behind ODF, the document format backed by Microsoft’s enemies at Sun and IBM, who hope to use it as a wedge against Microsoft Office’s market domination.
Google’s open-source programs manager, Zaheda Bhorat, posted a blog on Monday urging those delegates to vote against Open XML because Google believes that it is an “insufficient and unnecessary standard, designed purely around the needs of Microsoft Office.”
Bhorat said Open XML should be subsumed into the existing standard–OpenDocument Format, or ODF–which is backed by Microsoft rivals, including Google.
…
In a document more thoroughly laying out its position on Open XML, Google says the core problem with the specification is that it’s redundant with ODF. The company also says it’s too specific to Microsoft Office and that it’s of insufficient quality.
“Submitting such a proposal makes a mockery of the standards process,” according to the Google assessment.
Office Online tackled the Super Bowl this week, running this comic on Friday:
Obviously, all expectations where a little off, so this comic ran Monday:
What an amazing game. Even if you were rooting for New England, you have to admit we saw some great football and great drama. That was one for the ages, and every time someone attempts a perfect season, we’ll be talking about Super Bowl 42, every bit as much as we talk about the ‘72 Dolphins.
Anyway, here in New York, we’ve got a parade starting in 40 minutes. Gotta go!
UPDATE: David posted another followup Super Bowl comic, explaining why the Giants were able to pull off the upset victory.
While Office 2008 for Mac is a wonderful upgrade from the previous version, it leaves much to be desired when compared to its Windows counterpart. Particularly the lack of the ribbon interface makes it feel like it’s a step behind. But don’t get me wrong; there are a lot of bright points.
The first big plus is the Mircrosoft Project Gallery. While aspects of this program were part of the previous Office for Mac, the new version offers a more complete user experience. The first thing you will notice is that you can launch any blank or recently used document from the Project Gallery. Additionally, you can create projects by linking documents. For example is you had could combine a PowerPoint presentation with an Excel spreadsheet. Without a doubt, many users have come up with their own solutions to these tasks, but I like this program as an alternative.
The bottom line is that since most Mac users don’t have the option, Office 2008 is going to be an obligatory but enjoyable upgrade. Those users who, through Bootcamp or other virtualization software are able to run XP or Vista, will probably be better served by Office 2007.
The Excel Viewer, Microsoft’s free application for viewing the contents of Excel files when you don’t have Excel installed, has been updated. Besides the XLS file format, used by older versions of Excel including Excel 2003, which it already supported, the new version will also allow users to view, print and copy data from .XLSX files, used by Excel 2007. Owners of Office 2000, 2003 or XP also have the option of downloading the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack.
(via Amit)
Microsoft’s David Salaguinto has, over just the last few months, been producing one of my favorite webcomics on the Office Online blog. What makes his comic unique is that none of it is drawn by hand; instead, it is assembled entirely from the shapes and tools in Office Visio 2007. Microsoft.com has an article by David where he explains how he does it and what he thinks when he does.
Here’s a favorite strip:
If you’d like to create a comic in this style (and David publishes reader comics, too, so send it to him), you can download his template and get started.
While the launch was delayed, Intel Mac owners will soon be able to get their hands on the newest iteration of Microsoft Office for Mac. This release was the first version of Office written expressly for Intel Macs which will provide quite the speed bump for anyone that has invested in a new Mac over the past few years. A feature that has gotten some early buzz is a feature called My Day. My Day works with Entourage (Outlook to us Windows users) and allows the user to add tasks and appointments without having to open Entourage.
Mac users will have three options, starting with a $150 Home and Student edition that includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Entourage. The $400 (Upgrade is just $235) standard edition throws in Automator and Microsoft Server Exchange support. The top-of-the-line $500 (Upgrade $299) Special Edition includes Microsoft Expression Media, for managing a diverse array of media types.
The Office Live Small Business blog announces a ton of new features for users running their website, free or paid, under Office Live. All accounts, even the free ones, get the ability to integrate a Windows Live Spaces blog into their website, as well as the ability to more deeply customize and personalize their website with custom headers and the ability to use your own custom HTML, import or edit XSLT code, and customize headers and footers on every page.
Other new features include full synchronization with Outlook, not just of email, but also contacts, calendars and tasks. Mailboxes are bumped up to 5 gigabytes of space, plus AdManager is no integrated, and the reporting and analytics system is significantly improved. There are some other improvements, some of which are only for Essentials and Premium users.
Customize the look of your site even more by replacing template header with your own custom header
Easily add a blog to your Web site with the new integration with Windows Live Spaces Blogs
Slideshow creation is now easier than ever and you can now add captions to your images
For our advanced users and professional Web designers, a new advanced mode adds more flexibility in design and layout, You’ll now have the ability to:
Customize header, footer, and navigation on a page-by-page basis
Import or edit custom XSLT code
Use custom HTML and third-party design tools
E-mail accounts
All customers can now take advantage of full synchronization with Outlook 2007 for e-mail, personal contacts, calendar, and tasks
Mail storage capacity expanded to 5GB per user e-mail account
Reporting
The reporting system is completely redesigned and enhanced
With new adManager integration, you can monitor search advertising efforts with live.com and ask.com, along with your Web site traffic
Analyze performance of all your sales and marketing campaigns in a single place
Track Web site conversion points, click-through, and page views for each marketing campaign
Note The reporting system will experience a service interruption when the application is upgraded
Office Live Essentials
You’ll get all the Office Live Basics improvements, plus these:
Contact Manager
Contact Manager is completely redesigned and easier to use
Quick search lets you find contacts fast
Preview individual contact information before you select the contact for more details
When a prospect or customer fills out a form on your Web site, they can be automatically added to Contact Manager with notification sent to any e-mail address you want
Team Workspaces
Workspaces are now easier to set up and manage
Granting and managing permissions to workspaces is easier than ever
Improved ability to take workspace contents offline with Outlook 2007 and data export features
Easily display information stored in workspaces on your public Web site
Office Live Premium
You’ll get all the Office Live Basics and Office Live Essentials improvements, plus these:
Business Applications
Business applications are redesigned and are simpler to use
Re-order tabs with a simple drag-and-drop
You can rename tabs and data with a single click
It’s amazing how powerful Microsoft has made Office Live, considering that you get most of these features with a free account, including a free domain name. You can create such a powerful website using Office Live’s free tools, good enough for most small businesses.
(via LiveSide)
The holidays have not been kind to me, or to this blog, and I apologize. Here are all the stories left lying around that aren’t going to get a full post:
Xbox 360: Over 17 Million Sold Microsoft announced that that through the end of November, it had sold 17.7 million Xbox 360s. With December being the biggest month of the year, that number is definitely over 18 million now, and possibly approaching 19 million. Pretty successful console.
Also announced: 8.1 million copies of Halo 3 sold. Almost 50% of all 360 owners have Halo 3, and the rest probably have Red Ring Of Death consoles.
Virtual Earth Adds KML Support
Virtual Earth, Microsoft’s technology that powers Windows Live Maps and Live Maps-based mashups, now supports KML files in the Virtual Earth Map Control. KML files are the files used by Google Earth/Google Maps for various map data and placemarks, so mashup creators can now use those KML files in their Live Maps mashups, freeing the data for use on both the Google and Microsoft platforms.
Office 2003 SP3 Disables Old File Formats
Service Pack 3 for Office 2003, released a few months ago, disables the opening of some files made by older versions of Office because they can create security risks. Specifically, it disables all files from Corel Draw, Lotus and Quattro, Excel 4.0, dBASE II files, Powerpoint files before PowerPoint 97, and Word files before Word 6.0 for Windows. You can still run them by putting them in a trusted folder, or re-enable them by running a registry file.
Nine New Games For Windows Titles Announced Microsoft announced at CES nine new games in its Games For Windows program, including the upcoming Lego Indiana Jones game (those Lego games are always fun), Train Simulator 2 (which we’ve discussed before) and a new Tomb Raider game. The full list:
Alone in the Dark (Atari)
Bionic Commando (Capcom)
Conflict: Denied Ops (Eidos Interactive)
Empire: Total War (SEGA)
LEGO Indiana Jones (LucasArts)
Microsoft Train Simulator 2 (Microsoft Game Studios)
Sins of a Solar Empire (Stardock)
Space Siege (SEGA)
Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos Interactive)
Windows Vista Only 39% Of OS Sales New data from Microsoft shows that Windows Vista shipped on on 39% of all PCs in 2007. Remove the one month Vista wasn’t available, January, plus the almost 10% of the market that goes to Macs, and you still have half of all PCs shipping with Windows XP, not Vista. Microsoft should have found a way to convince PC manufacturers to stop shipping Vista, but it didn’t, and couldn’t force them given the bad PR it’s had all year. Hopefully in 2008, with Service Pack 1 shipping, MS can stop providing XP to computer makers and only allow them to ship Vista.
November software sales data has been released by the NPD, and it shows that in its first year of availability, Office 2007 and promotions for Mac Office pushed Office sales up 50.7%. Total software sales were up 10.3%, with Office accounting for two-thirds of that growth. Black Friday sales were up 65%, and helped by a promotion that gave free Office 2008 to Mac Office 2004 buyers, Mac sales on that Friday were up a staggering 215%.
As NPD’s Chris Swenson says, Microsoft Office is driving the PC software industry at this point. Quoted by Joe Wilcox:
The “magnitude of Office sales relative to the rest of the PC software market” is phenomenal, Swenson said. “It’s the massively huge tail wagging the dog. If the senior execs at Best Buy, Office Depot, etc. don’t buy Jeff Raikes [president of Microsoft’s Business division] a beer the next time he’s in town, something is seriously wrong.”
It’s December, and that means its prediction season. Mary Jo Foley usually knows just that much more than the rest, so be sure to check her predictions out. They include Fiji, the long (long, long, long) awaited update to Vista Media Center, which we’ll hopefully see at CES next month and get in the second half of next year, iPhone ActiveSync support, Office 14, Zune phones, and more.
Of her 2007 predictions, 1, 3 and 5 were right, 2 and 4 were wrong (Visual Studio was named 2008, but shipped last month). Not bad, and plenty accurate enough.
Microsoft’s Office 2008 for Mac OS computers has gone gold, meaning the final version has shipped to production facilities and will be making its way onto store shelves January 15. That also means you are running out of time to buy a cheaper version of Office 2004 (like the $129.99 Student version) and upgrade for free next month to the $500 Office 2008 Special Media Edition.
Microsoft has sent out invites to the first people who requested access to Office Live Workspaces, including myself, and initial impressions are good. Workspaces presents a place you can upload Microsoft Office documents (specifically Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, plus calendars, task and todo lists), share them with others or your other computers, track versions and changes, leave notes, read documents on computers that don’t have Office, and create new projects.
The gist is you need Office 2007 to make this work, and for the best experience, install the Office Live add-in. Then, whenever you write a document, you can click the Office button and save it to Live Workspaces. Anytime you want, you can read the document online or download it from another computer to continue working on it there. You can share the document with others, and they can save it back to the Workspace, letting you track versions. If they don’t have Office installed, they can still read the document online and write notes in the margins.
You can create new workspaces, which can come pre-populated with useful documents. For example, the Class workspace has room for writing your notes in class (which you write directly in the browser, using a fairly nice text editor), create or add to the syllabus, get a starting essay outline, populate a pre-created class contact list, and add dates to a class calendar. The School Workspace has an Excel sheet for tracking your GPA, notetaking, a task list for graduation requirements plus a standard todo list, a calendar for your class schedule, plus a school sports calendar, and a contact list.
There’s also screen sharing, document collaboration, support for older Office files and the new Office Open XML files, 500 megabytes of free online storage, support for PDF documents, support for Office XP/2003/2007 and Outlook 2003/2007, virus protection, and it even works on a Mac (Firefox only). Now, if they only supported OneNote for the note-taking app, I’d be in heaven, but my first impressions say they did a great job putting this together.
Microsoft had this interesting offer where you could give it permission to spy on your computer (using a small program to monitor your computer usage) and you could get a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, Money, Streets and Trips or other Microsoft software. Well, that was yesterday, because the offer was so tempting and thus so popular that Microsoft had to pull it back.
So, the next time someone says people care a lot about privacy, remind them that most people would trade the privacy for software they could otherwise pirate for free, or that privacy is worth about $400.
. This release was the first version of Office written expressly for Intel Macs which will provide quite the speed bump for anyone that has invested in a new Mac over the past few years. A feature that has gotten some early buzz is a feature called My Day. My Day works with Entourage (Outlook to us Windows users) and allows the user to add tasks and appointments without having to open Entourage.
The gist is you need Office 2007 to make this work, and for the best experience, install the Office Live add-in. Then, whenever you write a document, you can click the Office button and save it to Live Workspaces. Anytime you want, you can read the document online or download it from another computer to continue working on it there. You can share the document with others, and they can save it back to the Workspace, letting you track versions. If they don’t have Office installed, they can still read the document online and write notes in the margins.
