Microsoft

For those who want to talk about Windows 7, ask questions, or just share their thoughts on Vista's successor, that will be the topic of this week's Editors' Office Hours on CNET TV.

The show will broadcast live at 11:30 a.m. PST on Tuesday on this site. If I can't answer all of the questions on air, I will try and get answers and post them in a follow-up Beyond Binary blog here.

In the mean time, keep sending along your experiences with the beta. For those who have not yet tried out the Windows … Read more

If you've played around with the previous beta versions of Internet Explorer 8, there's not much new in today's IE 8 Release Candidate 1. The feature improvements from IE 7 haven't changed: Web slices, InPrivate browsing, and Microsoft's new add-on system known as Accelerators remain the big-ticket items. Security enhancements include the SmartScreen Filter, which warns you in advance if other users have reported an URL as suspicious.

What has been improved in the RC is stability. Users who experienced persistent and irritating browser crashes should expect to see a much more stable browsing environment. … Read more

Microsoft on Monday released a near-final "release candidate" version of Internet Explorer 8, the next version of its Web browser.

The software maker plans to say more on its Web site around noon, but, as noted by enthusiast site Neowin, the code is already available from Microsoft's download center.

With IE 8, Microsoft is hoping to regain some lost ground by adding features such as private browsing, improved security, and a new type of add-ons, called accelerators.

On the security front, Microsoft is adding a cross-site scripting filter, as well as protections against a type of attack … Read more

Microsoft has made some stumbles in the mobile world, but a strategy shift made more than a year ago will soon pay dividends, the company's top Windows Mobile executive said in an interview with CNET News.

Andy Lees, the executive brought over from the server unit a year ago, said that Microsoft's efforts to make sure that its mobile software could run on a wide range of phones resulted in an operating system that failed to take advantage of advances in hardware.

"We aimed to go for a lower common denominator," Lees said. Microsoft was also … Read more

Microsoft announced Friday night that computer enthusiasts will have a while longer to get their hands on the beta version of Windows 7.

In a blog posting, Microsoft said that the test version of the operating system will be available for download through February 10. Previously, Microsoft had said that the OS would only be open through late this month.

"We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs, so we are beginning to plan the end of general availability for Windows 7 Beta," Microsoft'… Read more

The European Union is considering forcing Microsoft to distribute rival browsers as part of Windows, the software maker disclosed in a regulatory filing this week.

As part of its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission filed on Thursday, the software maker offered more details on the EU's statement last week that it believes Microsoft's inclusion of a browser in Windows violates antitrust law.

Microsoft said that the EU is considering forcing computer makers, known as original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, to offer multiple browsers with new Windows PCs.

"While computer users and OEMs are already … Read more

There were plenty of weak spots that led to Microsoft's disastrous December quarter, but one that didn't get much attention Thursday was how badly the Zune did.

Tucked away in Microsoft's quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, however, was a startling figure.

"Zune platform revenue decreased $100 million, or 54 percent, reflecting a decrease in device sales," Microsoft said. That's quite a drop.

Apple, by contrast, saw its iPod unit sales up 3 percent, while revenue dropped by 16 percent. It still racked up $3.3 billion in revenue, as compared with … Read more

The fallout from Thursday's cost-cutting moves by Microsoft continues. On Friday, Microsoft announced that it is delaying its plans for a massive data center to be built in West Des Moines, Iowa.

It is an abrupt reversal for Microsoft, which announced its plans for Iowa just five months ago as part of its massive push into the data center business. By October, though, the software maker was already detailing plans to cut its data center spending by $300 million. Now Microsoft is looking to cut things even further.

"We are still continuing construction of our facilities in Chicago … Read more

Microsoft confirmed on Friday that it is pushing together its Office Live and Windows Live efforts.

The company isn't changing the development cycle or the leadership of the teams working on the products, but it is promising that consumers will be able to get to both sets of services from a common Web location.

Microsoft didn't say exactly what that spot will be, but the Windows Live branding is expected to be the one that survives the combination, I'm hearing. (But what about Officeliveworkspacecommunity.com? Does Microsoft really want to give up that prime, easy-to-remember address?)

Although … Read more