Microsoft keen on providing ‘instant on’ feature to Windows users

Microsoft has undertaken limited survey of select users whether they would prefer an ‘instant on’ feature for Windows where usable desktop could be rushed to screens in few seconds.

As per the Engadget posted excerpts form the survey, ‘instant on’ would enable a completely turned off or powered down computer to perform specific functions in a very short time

The survey states that ‘instant on’ is quite different from ‘Full Windows’ in the sense that it puts limits on activities that could be carried out and restricts access to some applications only.

Microsoft is allocating top priority to quicker boot times and is planning to include it in Windows 7, the next operating system form the software giant.

According to Michael Fortin, engineer in Microsoft, a top goal for Windows 7 is to enhance a number of systems with very fast boot times. He added that less than 15 seconds is the boot time expected for a very good system in the lab.

Microsoft put in a lot of effort with the PC makers both on Windows Vista and Windows 7 to improve boot time apart from many other things. Some PCs with this improvement are expected emerge in the near future.

Microsoft wants to help businesses save money in tough times

Microsoft put forward a message that it is interested in helping businesses, which are under pressure to cut back IT spending on account of tough economic conditions, to save money. Business Division President Stephen Elop in an interview stated that many companies were re-evaluating their budgets on tech projects but Microsoft was doing far better than most.

Elop claimed that Microsoft’s endeavour of making affordable technology and software proved to be very beneficial in such difficult economic conditions and Microsoft had some very good messages for the business to make use of.

Microsoft has been busy readying these messages quickly. Its chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, had written to the sales-force, emphasising on various things which Microsoft could do in order to help customers to save money in IT expenses.

The suggestions are relatively simple – such as virtualisation to minimise server costs, unified communications to curb travel costs and many Microsoft licensing and financing options. Elop emphasised that Microsoft was very much focussed on dialogue with customers around value.

This Microsoft strategy of offering lower cost options than competitors is being adopted by others, including Google which is using it against Microsoft’s core products Windows and Office. Narrating his own experience of managing through tough times, Elop recalled that he had told his team at Macromedia that it could become stronger by leading through the tough times. He asserted that at Microsoft his team could do even more so.

Microsoft gets ready for a new operating system “Windows Cloud”

Microsoft is all set to shake up the software-as-a-service market. Microsoft has just announced an operating system for cloud computing. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) market is likely set to get a push after Microsoft’s announcement of an operating system for Cloud.

When talking about software plus services, it really means in remaking a number of things. Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer said that it is a time wherein we really need a new operating system. Microsoft is trying to create an operating system that can run on the internet. There are operating systems for currently available for PCs, mobile phones, servers etc. In the same way this new operating system will be running on the internet.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also said that they will call it Windows something. As it gets announced it may also have a trademark but as of now it will be called Windows Cloud. With Windows Cloud you would be able to run arbitrary applications on the internet which runs .Net.

It is too hard writing cloud applications in today’s date and so it has become necessary to bring a new operating system. Microsoft is keener on the software than the service. Software still remains as one of the magic ingredients. As a part of this push, Microsoft will be trying to do more with .Net, Silverlight, Active Directory and SQL Server amongst others.

Microsoft to set up Search Technology Centre in Europe

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, on his way to a five-city European tour, announced that the company will set up a Search Technology Centre to help its Live Search get an edge over search leaders Yahoo and Google.

Microsoft acquired Norwegian search firm Fast Search & Transfer for £680m this year, making Norway one of its principal centres for Search R&D.

The new Search Centre, according to Ballmer, will have its branches in London, Paris and Munich with an estimated investment of $600 per year on R&D in Europe. It will be headed by general manager Jordi Ribas who previously served as general manager for Microsoft’s Connected TV business group.

The centre would add to a list of Microsoft’s forty other R&D centres which include labs in Dublin, Cambridge, Oslo and Copenhagen. Nearly 2,000 engineers and researchers have been working for Microsoft in Europe. A $500m European data centre will soon be completed in Dublin.

Apart from Fast, Microsoft acquired German-based Ciao and UK-based Multimap recently. The company drew one third of its total revenues from Europe, employing 16,000 staff in different regions.

According to Ballmer, Europe has provided the necessary talent to Microsoft and was second only to the US in terms of number of researchers and engineers who were engaged in creation of innovative products and services for Microsoft.

Live Search handles 2bn queries per month and is distant third in comparison with Google and Yahoo. It has only 2% of market as against 79% of Google’s, as reported by ComScore, a web research firm.

Microsoft to provide Hyper-V server at no extra charge

After announcing relaxations in the virtualisation rules, Microsoft is introducing new virtualisation tools and offering core hypervisor product free of cost. The new Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 would be available to the users via web without any extra charge. The download, supposed to go live in a month’s time would support Linux and Windows running virtual machines. The software is a standalone virtualisation solution version. Microsoft had previously decided to charge $28 for the Hyper-V product.

Microsoft will also release new SVCMM 2008 (System Centre Virtual Machine Manager) in a month’s time which would enable companies to manage their infrastructure centrally, irrespective of the fact that their networks ran on VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3, Virtual Server 2005 R2 or Server 2008 Hyper-V.
Microsoft also demonstrated running of Live Migration in virtualised environment, which did not require shutting down of the system during migration from one system to another. Live Migration would also be available in a month’s time.

Microsoft was under tremendous pressure to lend more flexibility to its virtualisation strategy. It was previously imposing penalties on companies which had their own virtualisation strategies and wanted to use different operating systems. Microsoft relaxed restrictions last month by allowing migration to other operating systems.

Microsoft announces more changes in its virtualisation policy

Microsoft announced further changes in its virtualisation policy as it geared up for big virtualisation event slated next week. The changes which Microsoft would be rolling out include ability to allow running of corporate PC image in a virtual machine on employees and contractors’ PCs.

To facilitate this, Microsoft would cover the option under the existing licensing programme which costs $110 (£62) per PC per annum. The employees with desktop PCs, who needed remote access to work PC image, could avail this under the new licence, which would cost $23 extra annually per PC with a condition that computer had to be part of Microsoft’s Software Assurance programme..

According to Scott Woodgate , Microsoft is initiating changes in the licensing policies to prevent stifling of businesses’ creativity.   In yet another policy shift, Microsoft would enable streaming of third-party software by the hosts using Microsoft technology. The business would however be required to ensure proper licensing of the third-party software.

Woodgate also announced new version of SoftGrid technology, also known as Application Virtualisation and claimed that it would be big on the desktop. He added that Application Virtualisation on desktop was as important as hardware virtualisation on the server. VMware noted that running of software inside a VMware virtual machine would now be supported by Microsoft under the new policy.

VMware to take part in Microsoft’s SVVP

VMware will be taking part in Microsoft’s Server Virtualisation Validation Programme (SVVP), as Microsoft announced the relaxing of its rules on software licensing for virtualised systems.

Microsoft aims to encourage growth in the market. As per the new rules, organisations have been allowed to move their virtualised system without licensing restrictions. This would eliminate costly delays encountered by the organisations in obtaining licences.

Apart from relaxation of rules, Microsoft has updated its technical support which will facilitate customers to access the service while installing applications on third-party virtualisation platforms and Microsoft Hyper-V. Third-party platforms include Novell, Citrix, Sun, Cisco and Virtual Iron.

VMware had to enter in to the deal since its ESX hypervisor for virtualisation required certification from Microsoft for availing technical support.

VMware’s vice president for worldwide field operations, Carl Eschenbach, declared that VMware was proud of becoming part of Microsoft’s Server Virtualisation Validation Programme. He described Microsoft’s announcement of relaxation of licensing rules as good news for VMware customers.

Carl Eschenbach further informed that VMware would be working closely with Microsoft in the certification process of VMware ESX, which would enable its customers to avail benefits of working in a virtualised environment with enhanced flexibility.

Microsoft acquires Powerset

Powerset, the natural-language search firm, is now officially acquired by software giant Microsoft.
According to a blog posting from Powerset’s Mark Johnson, a symposium is being organised to share details about the technologies of the two companies. He informed that everything in Live Search stack is now available to Powerset, and it has started planning all the activities for smoother integration with Live Search.
There has been so far no disclosure from both sides about terms of the deal, but it is reliably learnt that Powerset is expecting £50m and above from Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Ramez Namm, during an interview last month, had stated that Microsoft would derive immense benefit from Powerset’s technology in creation of ideal type of search. He also mentioned that certain improvements could be incorporated in Microsoft’s Live search, in due course of time.
Powerset had demonstrated effectiveness of its natural-language search technology making use of Wikepedia as the source for search.

While answering queries on how much money and time would be spent in applying Powerset’s approach to entire web; Powerset’s Chief Technology Officer Barney Pell admitted that by becoming part of Microsoft, Powerset would overcome its lack of core-web search technology and inadequacies of hardware resources. Ramez Namm was not able to guess about the cost and time at this stage.

Microsoft issues warning to Snapshot Viewers on Active X attacks

Microsoft issued a security advisory on Monday warning to Snapshot viewers that Active X control in the Microsoft Access database-management system is likely to be attacked. An attacker would attract a victim to a specially crafted web page and enable remote code execution by exploiting security hole in the Active X control. By doing so, the attacker will gain access to the computer, same as a logged-in user. The attack will affect only the Snapshot Viewers for Microsoft Office Access 2000, 2002 and 2003.

A user can view an Access report snapshot with the help of Active X control without the standard Microsoft Office Access. The active control ships with standalone Snapshot Viewer and all supported versions of Microsoft Office Access except 2007. Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows Server 2003 and 2008 runs on Enhanced Security Configuration which sets internet zone security level to high. This according to Bill Sisk, manager for security response communications at Microsoft, is a mitigating factor for websites which a user does not add to Internet Explorer Trusted sites zone.

Besides this, a security feature in IE can prevent loading of Active X controls by the IE HTML-rendering engine, according to the advisory issued by Microsoft. Sisk informs that the attack is not widespread and Microsoft is working with MSRA [Microsoft Security Response Alliance] partners to protect customers.

Microsoft exit badly hits Yahoo shares

Yahoo’s German-listed shares fell 17 per cent after software giant Microsoft finally dropped its bid to buy the Internet firm. The deal collapsed largely because the two firms could not agree on a mutually acceptable sale price. Microsoft formally withdrew the bid in a letter this weekend to Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s head.

In another development, Yahoo managed to exceed Wall Street expectation with the public announcement last week that their Quarter 1 earnings of 2008 increased over the previous quarter. Jerry Yang, co-founder and chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc. stated, “We believe we can significantly accelerate our revenue growth, (manage to) return to our historically high margins, and also double our operating cash flow by 2010. This quarter’s solid performance underscores the fact that we are fully executing on that plan.

“Yahoo! is starting to realise the benefits of the very substantial and deliberate long-term investments made for capitalising on the opportunities ahead in display and to recapture momentum in search. Not only does Yahoo! have a unique franchise, it increasingly has industry-leading technology, tools, and, most importantly, people. It is the dedication, professionalism and hard work of our people that is our greatest asset and this quarter’s performance demonstrates how well they can all perform under unusually challenging circumstances.”

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