Tag: microsoft

Microsoft Live – all about services

Post ImageTo truly understand what the new Windows Live and Office Live services are all about, you need not look any further than Microsoft itself. Thanks to the magic that is Robert Scoble, we get a very honest description:

Yesterday will be remembered not because of what we announced. But because of the direction we’re now headed in.

Microsoft is no longer an applications company. It is a services company.

Don’t get caught up in the badly-pulled-off demos yesterday. There is something a lot deeper happening inside Microsoft than that.

That’s important to understand. People do not remember the famous Bill Gates Internet Memo as the day Microsoft decided to integrate Internet Explorer into Windows (though that was certainly a result). Instead, that infamous memo is remembered as the day Gates and Co “got” the Internet. I expect yesterday’s announcement will be remembered in much the same way.

That said, they still launched a product yesterday, and at first glance, it sucked. How could they release a web-based service that doesn’t work in anything other than IE? Scoble has an answer for that too:

So, when you see Microsoft not supporting Firefox out of the gate, you are seeing that we don’t get the role of influentials in gathering audiences.

Just imagine if Microsoft both understood “the role of influentials” and had Robert Scoble on the payroll!

Microsoft Live

Post ImageMicrosoft made a fairly big announcement today in San Francisco. Some will say this is Microsoft playing catchup or follow the leader, others will say this is Microsoft innovating, and still others will say this is simply Microsoft making make a smart business move. I think I fall into the latter camp. Here are the details:

Kicking off what he called the “live era” of software, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said on Tuesday that the company plans to launch new Internet-based complements to its core products.

Gates said Microsoft is working on two products, “Windows Live” and “Office Live,” that create opportunities for the company to sell online subscriptions and advertising. Both are targeted at smaller businesses and consumers.

Services like Windows Live and Office Live have been expected for a very long time, so I can’t say the announcement is earth shattering. It will have very far reaching effects though. Joe Wilcox has a couple of good posts where he explains what “Live” is, and what “Live” is not. Here’s my favorite “not”:

While Google might be a catalyst in Microsoft’s services strategy, the reasons for launching Live are much broader than the search rival. Microsoft is looking to accomplish a couple things: For MSN, the new services are a way to drive additional revenue–whether from advertising or paid services–off clearly identified market segments, small businesses for Office Live and active online consumers for Windows Live. For Windows and Office, Microsoft hopes to generate greater customer value and make new-version Office and Windows upgrades more appealing. MSN has done a tremendous job cranking out new products and services, well ahead of the long Office and Windows development cycles. The point: If Google didn’t exist, Microsoft probably still would have embarked on a services strategy.

I expect that “copying Google” or “defensive move against Google” will be the most commonly assumed reasons for the new Live services, but I agree with Joe. There’s a lot more to Live than Google, and let’s face it, Windows and Office services over the Internet were pretty much inevitable.

A few people have asked me what “Live” means. While I see Microsoft’s reasoning for tying into Office and Windows brands, I’m skeptical of Live’s appeal. Live certainly doesn’t grab me, and, yes, there is uncertainty about what it means. Is it supposed to mean the living Web? Maybe community or safety? I’ll let Microsoft answer that question.

Did “Windows” grab anyone when it was released? How about “Office”? (Though I suppose both of them described intuitively their respective functions.) I’ll admit that Microsoft has some absolutely terrible product names, but I think the simplicity of Windows Live and Office Live will work well for the company.

Not much word on the developer side of things yet, if there is such a side. As a platforms company, you would expect Microsoft to offer access to the new “Live” platform. Certainly Gadgets and some of the other Vista-era technologies will be important, but details are yet to emerge.

I’ll probably have more to say on “Microsoft Live” later – it’s a lot to digest, even if it was expected.

VS2005 and SQL2005 RTM!

Post ImageIf you’re a developer like me, you’ve likely been waiting for the release of Visual Studio 2005. The official launch is still November 7th, but it was announced yesterday that VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 have been released to manufacturing, and are available now to MSDN subscribers:

In addition, Microsoft on Thursday detailed a limited-time “migration pricing” program meant to attract customers of competitive databases.

For customers of Oracle, Sybase, and IBM’s DB2 and Informix database, Microsoft will give a 50 percent discount on a SQL Server Enterprise Edition license with the purchase of a regularly priced Software Assurance License. The promotion begins Dec. 1.

Definitely good news for us developer-types, as this means there will not be any more delays! I can’t wait to play with SQL Server 2005. If you haven’t registered for The Launch, taking place in Edmonton on November 15th, go do it right now!

Read: CNET News.com

Dare on Google

Post ImageLots of stuff out there on Google again lately, as is usual now I guess. John introduced us this morning to Google Base, and the Google Print debate has been roaring for weeks now. My favorite comments on the subject come from Dare Obasanjo though:

By any measure, Google is multi-billion dollar, multinational corporation. However whenever its executives speak, they do an excellent job of portraying the company as if it is the altruistic side project of a bunch of geeky college kids. I don’t just mean their corporate slogan of “Do No Evil” although it is one manifestation of this strategy.

More and more the opinion pieces compare Google to the Microsoft of old – the company that everyone in Silicon Valley (and elsewhere) loves to hate.

Read: Dare Obasanjo

.NET Wizards October Meeting

Post ImageEarlier tonight was the October meeting of the Edmonton .NET Wizards User Group. We usually have one of our members present a topic, and tonight Dickson did an excellent presentation on Visual Studio Tools for Office. He’ll be posting the code and materials he used on the wiki soon.

I also got around to fixing up the .NET Wizards redirects today. That means that all of our old domains now point to the Edmonton site at http://edmonton.dotnetwizards.org, and my former .NET blog is no more – it simply forwards here. I figured that I really didn’t need a separate blog after all, as I don’t post about .NET often enough to warrant it, and most people simply read this blog already anyway.

If you’re in Edmonton and you’re into .NET, you should come to one of our meetings! And be sure to register for the Launch Tour 2005 event taking place on November 15th – it’s going to be huge! If you want to get on the mailing list, drop me an email at mack@dotnetwizards.org.

Read: Edmonton .NET Wizards

Xbox 360 Revealed

Post ImageThe November 22nd launch of the Xbox 360 is now in plain view, so naturally more and more details are emerging. Microsoft is opening up too, as evidenced by it’s recent press event that CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman attended:

For all the talk about whether there will be enough games available when the Xbox is released on Nov. 22, few doubt that the games that will be ready will be a cut above anything available for current-generation consoles. And after seeing a handful of Xbox 360 games Monday, I can say with confidence that it’s true.

Over plates of olives, endives, red peppers and other snacks at Dogpatch Studios in this city’s somewhat rundown Dogpatch neighborhood Monday, Microsoft finally pulled back the curtains on the new Xbox for a small crowd of journalists and invited us to try our hands at 12 titles expected to be ready in time for the console launch next month.

Seems as though Daniel left the event feeling confident in the Xbox 360: “I’d tried about five or six games, and have no trouble reporting that the Xbox 360 was the best console experience I’ve ever had.” He also left wondering about the one question those in the gaming industry, and fans of games for that matter, rarely ask:

Yet in the end, I came back once again to wondering if it’s all really necessary. When it comes to enjoying a video game basketball experience, just how real does the sweat have to be?

There’s no question the new Xbox will produce the most realistic games ever. The question then becomes, do more realistic games make for better games? I’m inclined to say yes, but I suppose time will tell. I’m also willing to bet the answer will vary with each person, and each type of game.

Read: CNET News.com

Goodbye Acrobat, Hello Office 12

Post ImageLongtime readers of my blog will know that I have often complained about Adobe Acrobat and how terribly slow it is. The program uses too many resources, loads too much stuff, and runs far too slow. Unfortunately, there aren’t many other applications that support PDF so completely, so I’ve been stuck with it. That looks to change with Office 12 though, as Tablet PC MVP Rob Bushway notes:

This afternoon Steven Sinofsky announced to our MVPs that we will build in native support for the PDF format in Office “12”. I constantly get asked by customers if we can build in this support for publishing documents as PDF files, and now I can thankfully say “yes!” It’s something we’ve been hearing about for years, and earlier in this project we decided that while there were already existing third party tools for doing this, we should do the work to build the functionality natively into the product.

Chris Pratley on the OneNote team also confirmed the news:

One big smile was when Steven Sinofsky announced during his wrap-up Q&A this morning that Office 12 apps (OneNote included) will support “Save as PDF” natively. He then went through a demo of most of the apps showing each of them saving to PDF. Publisher (another app whose design team I manage) will even support CMYK output for professional pre-press work. Actually, the Publisher team did most of the work to support PDF over the last year. Then the other teams hooked up to the core PDF generator that they wrote from scratch.

This is big, big news that has been a long time coming. Finally I should be able to ditch Acrobat. I mean if you think about it, what applications do you create PDF files from? For myself, it’s Word and Publisher. Goodbye Acrobat!

MsgPlus Petition Worked

Post ImageIt seems as though the MsgPlus petition (that I wrote about here, but didn’t sign) has worked, though Microsoft has not made an offical response:

We have yet to receive an official answer from Microsoft regarding the problems caused by their AntiSpyware product, however, it seems that the petition already filled a lot of its purpose! An update was made to the spyware definition files on September 23rd and the msgplus.exe program is not detected as a threat at run time anymore!

While I am glad they are no longer identified, I hope they don’t get an official answer. Like I said before, Microsoft would open a whole can of worms if they bowed to the demands of one software developer. And again, I never had any problems with MsgPlus and AntiSpyware.

Read: MsgPlus News

Happy Birthday Microsoft

Post ImageToday Microsoft rented out Safeco Field in Seattle to hold a company meeting with over 16,000 employees attending. In addition to talking about the incredible list of upcoming products, the company celebrated it’s 30th anniversary:

“As I think about the last 30 years,” said Gates, commenting on the anniversary, “I’m most proud of our making ‘big bets’ on technologies like the graphical user interface or Web services and watching them grow into something people rely on every day. And the long-term research we’re doing today on some of computer science’s toughest challenges – such as helping computers listen, speak, learn and understand – will lead to what I think will be the next wave of growth and innovation for our industry.”

Said Ballmer, “We’re more excited than ever about the opportunities ahead. We have an amazing pipeline of new products we’ll be releasing over the next 18 months. With our 30-year heritage of delivering low-cost, high-volume innovations, we’re in a great position to provide people and organizations with the software and services they need to achieve their potential.”

All of this just days after Microsoft announced a major reorganization. Here’s to another 30 years!

Read: Microsoft PressPass

Google's Defense on AOL

Post ImageYou might recall that last week I mentioned there were rumors of Microsoft talking with Time Warner about AOL. At the time, I said it would likely be a play for access to the content that AOL controls, but it’s pretty clear now that Microsoft talking to AOL is more a business tactic – they want to eliminate the revenue Google gets from AOL. So news of a possible Google takeover of AOL should be no surprise:

Google could try to bid for America Online to preempt a Microsoft takeover and protect the $380 million in revenue Google gets from its biggest partner, according to an analyst.

“We believe it is entirely possible that Google could consider making a bid for AOL as well,” Lauren Rich Fine, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a Friday report on the implications of an AOL-Microsoft Network deal. “This would certainly protect Google’s revenues from AOL as well as enable Google to keep 100 percent of the search advertising revenues as well as gain a significant amount of content.”

This is so much more exciting than Microsoft versus Netscape or any of the battles of the past, because Google has tons of cash too. Not as much as Microsoft, but enough to make things interesting.

Read: CNET News.com