Microsoft

Where will Microsoft cut?

It's not just Steve Ballmer who is searching Microsoft to look for potential areas to cut.

Now, reporters are getting in on the act.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an interesting piece up adding up the cost of a number of employee perks. The paper reports that Microsoft isn't necessarily planning to cut the morale-boosters, but says it has seen a PowerPoint presentation that calculates their cost.

All those free sodas, juices, and cartons of milk, for example, cost Microsoft $20 million a year. The shuttle that takes Microsoft workers from building to building around its campus costs $14 … Read more

Ballmer and Bostock break bread

Well, it's official, Microsoft and Yahoo have come to an agreement.

On lunch.

As first noted by Valleywag, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock had lunch together this week in New York. The New York Times has a lengthy piece up now as well, confirming the meeting, but offering no clue as to what happened beyond, presumably, caloric consumption.

In any case, it's the second high-level contact this week, given that incoming Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz told employees that she, too, had talked with Ballmer.

Microsoft has made it clear in every way imaginable that … Read more

Opera executive praises EU move

In a case of convenient timing, Opera Software's top developer happened to be in CNET's office just after Microsoft disclosed that the European Union has objected to Microsoft's bundling of a Web browser into Windows.

"We think it is right of the EU, for the sake of the consumers, to be concerned about someone potentially misusing their competitive power," Chief Development Officer Christen Krogh told CNET News. The EU action stems from a 2007 complaint by Opera.

Krogh said the Internet is too important for consumer choice to be limited. Developers of software and services, … Read more

EU notice to Microsoft re browser

Note: Below is the text of a press release from the European Commission regarding Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system.

Brussels, 16th January 2009

Antitrust: Commission confirms sending a Statement of Objections to Microsoft on the tying of Internet Explorer to Windows

The European Commission can confirm that it has sent a Statement of Objections (SO) to Microsoft on 15th January 2009. The SO outlines the Commission's preliminary view that Microsoft's tying of its web browser Internet Explorer to its dominant client PC operating system Windows infringes the EC Treaty rules on abuse … Read more

EU regulating Microsoft like it's 1999

Updated 3:20 p.m. with comment from antitrust attorney.

The European Union's new complaint against Microsoft really takes one back. Like, a decade or so.

Its objection--that bundling a browser into the operating system violates antitrust law--is the same one that U.S. regulators raised in 1996.

The newest allegations stem from a 2007 complaint by Norway's Opera that Microsoft was hurting competition by including Internet Explorer in Windows and by not better adhering to Web standards.

What is most odd about the EU taking up the issue is its timing. The EU spent years going after … Read more

EU objects to browser in Windows

Updated at 8:33 a.m. PST January 17, with comments from Opera and antitrust attorneys in Brussels.

European regulators notified Microsoft it believes the software giant is in violation of the region's antitrust laws by bundling its Internet Explorer browser in Windows, the company said Friday.

The European Commission, which received a complaint in 2007 from rival browser developer Opera that Microsoft was using its market dominance in bundling IE into the Windows operating system, opened its investigation into the tying issue last January.

According to a statement issued by the European Commission:

The evidence gathered during the … Read more

Securing the Windows 7 beta

Despite the fact that security programs are often some of the toughest code to make work with a new operating system, Windows 7 already has several companies ready with products aimed at keeping it safe from attackers.

By comparison, only one antivirus firm--McAfee--had its security software commercially ready by the time Microsoft launched Vista for businesses in November 2006.

That said, it stands to reason, given that Microsoft was making far more dramatic changes to the operating system's underlying architecture in Vista than it is in Windows 7.

This time around, it is AVG, Kaspersky, and Symantec that … Read more

How Microsoft blew the keyword business

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Microsoft had its Google killer in 2000, but killed the project before it got rolling. Why? Worries about cannibalization.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting tale of Microsoft's miscues on the search front. The gist:

(Microsoft CEO Steve) Ballmer is expected in the coming months to renew his yearlong pursuit of a multibillion-dollar deal for Yahoo's Web-search unit. But behind his push to capture a bigger piece of Google's lucrative business lies an untold story: Nearly a decade ago, early in Mr. Ballmer's tenure as … Read more

Office 14 screenshots find way to Web?

Various Microsoft enthusiast sites were buzzing on Thursday about purported screenshots of Office 14, which is in early testing.

A Russian site, wzor.net, put up a bunch of screenshots of the individual products that make up the suite, as well as an about page and start menu that seem to show a whole lot of Office 14 products are on the way.

According to one screenshot (seen above), we can expect Access, Excel, Groove, InfoPath, InterConnect, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Designer, Vizio, and Word. There's also a reference on one shot to the product being Office … Read more