Microsoft

Microsoft said on Tuesday that it is releasing the second service pack update for Office 2007. The collection of minor updates is available for download.

The service pack includes a collection of stability and performance updates as well as support for more file formats including Open Document Format (ODF) and Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Microsoft had said last May that it would add support for the additional file formats.

The company had said to expect the service pack to arrive sometime between February and April.

In addition to the performance and stability tweaks, Microsoft added a few minor feature … Read more

Updated 10:30 a.m. PDT with comment relating to Yahoo's new management.

Throughout 2008's on-again, off-again talks between Yahoo and Microsoft, many financial analysts declared the belief that some sort of deal--either Microsoft acquiring Yahoo outright or later just its search business--was a matter of when, not if. One report released Tuesday, though, shows at least one change of view.

Jim Friedland of Cowen & Co. said the relative financial results of Yahoo and of Microsoft's online-services business (OSB) gives Microsoft a bad bargaining position. Specifically, he said operating revenue from advertising dropped 16 percent annually … Read more

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie are among computing industry leaders who President Barack Obama named to a technology advisory panel Monday.

The executives are among the members of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The council's three co-chairmen are John Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Eric Lander, a Human Genome Project leader and director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, chief executive of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and former head of the National Institutes of Health.

Schmidt already had close ties with the Obama camp. He was an adviser to the Obama campaign, campaigned for Obama, and is a member of the Transition Economic Advisory Board.

In related news, Obama announced in a speech at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday that he wants to devote 3 percent of the country's gross domestic product to research and development.

Here's the White House's full list of board membership:

• Rosina Bierbaum, a widely-recognized expert in climate-change science and ecology, is Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. Her PhD is in evolutionary biology and ecology. She served as Associate Director for Environment in OSTP in the Clinton Administration, as well as Acting Director of OSTP in 2000-2001. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• Christine Cassel is President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and previously served as Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice President for Medical Affairs at Oregon Health & Science University. A member of the US Institute of Medicine, she is a leading expert in geriatric medicine and quality of care.

• Christopher Chyba is Professor of Astrophysical Sciences and International Affairs at Princeton University and a member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. His scientific work focuses on solar system exploration and his security-related research emphasizes nuclear and biological weapons policy, proliferation, and terrorism. He served on the White House staff from 1993 to 1995 at the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy and was awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship (2001) for his work in both planetary science and international security. … Read more

Microsoft has reportedly put up a clock in one of its buildings with a 40-day countdown to the launch of its next-generation search engine, code-named Kumo.

Enthusiast site LiveSide noted on Sunday that a reader on Neowin, another enthusiast site, said that Microsoft had a TV in one of its search buildings with the countdown clock.

The software maker has been testing its search engine internally since last month, but has not said exactly when the service would launch. The countdown appears to roughly coincide with a speech from newly minted online boss Qi Lu, who is slated to speak … Read more

Microsoft on Monday said that Hewlett-Packard's EDS unit and other partners have agreed to help sell its collection of hosted online services.

EDS, Accenture, and others will help sell what Microsoft calls its Business Productivity Online Suite--a collection of products that Microsoft hosts in its data centers. The products include Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications Server, and Live Meeting.

Microsoft launched the collection of services last November, but has been saying it also wants partners to help sell the services.

Dutch system integrator Wortell said it likes Microsoft's services because they offer both the opportunity for higher sales plus … Read more

Microsoft is trying to make it easier to sway users of Windows XP onto the latest version of its operating system.

For some time now, the company has been quietly building a "Windows XP mode" that uses virtualization to allow Windows 7 to easily run applications designed for Windows XP. According to sources familiar with the product, the application compatibility mode is built on the Virtual PC technology that Microsoft acquired in 2003, when it scooped up the assets of Connectix.

By adding the compatibility mode, Microsoft is aiming to address one of the key shortcomings of Windows … Read more

Microsoft said on Friday that it will distribute the near-final "release candidate" version of Windows 7 beginning next week.

Subscribers to Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet developer programs will get the code on April 30, with plans to make it broadly available starting May 5. The May 5 date matches one that was in a note briefly posted on Microsoft's Web site.

Build 7100 of Windows 7, the version presumed to be the release candidate, has been making the rounds on file-sharing services for the past day or so. The software maker has reportedly given the build to some early testers, … Read more

Microsoft has made the decision to ax Live Search Product Upload, a tool retailers could use to get their products into Microsoft's search database.

"Thank you for your interest in the product upload beta. Regrettably, we are discontinuing this program," Microsoft said in a message posted on the product's Web site. "Merchants located in the United States should consider participating in Live Search Cashback--an advertising program which combines the power of Live Search with a comparison shopping engine to bring consumers some of the best deals on the web."

Microsoft confirmed it is … Read more

Updated test versions of Windows 7 were making the rounds on a number of torrent sites on Friday, with many expecting the leak version to be the one that Microsoft distributes shortly as the official "release candidate" version.

Microsoft has also reportedly given "build 7100" to key partners, although Microsoft has not commented on that. The software maker also briefly posted a blog indicating that the release candidate was coming in May, although that blog was later pulled from Microsoft's TechNet Web site.

Blogger Long Zheng has an early look at the leaked code, though … Read more