News - Microsoft

Updated 1:25 p.m. PDT with more details and a photo of an aerial view of the site.

The Iowa city of West Des Moines now has two things to celebrate.

The same week that hometown hero Shawn Johnson captured gold on the balance beam, the city has learned that a bunch of new jobs are headed its way.

Microsoft announced on Thursday that it has picked the city as the site for its latest massive data center.

I reported earlier this week that the company was close to announcing where it would build its next facility. Apparently, they were very close.

"We are very proud to welcome Microsoft to Iowa," said Gov. Chet Culver said in a statement Thursday. "In making its decision, Microsoft recognized what we in Iowa have known all along: our workforce and quality of life is top-notch."

The company expects to add about 50 jobs initially. Microsoft didn't go into a lot of detail about why Iowa was chosen over other sites, saying in a statement simply that it met its criteria for such facilities--factors that include cheap power and access to high-bandwidth networking. Nor is the company saying much about its plans for the site.

Microsoft declined to say whether the site will be equipped with traditional server racks or use the container approach I wrote about earlier this week.

The site will be the company's fourth large-scale data center. A facility in Quincy, Wash., opened in April, while centers in San Antonio and Chicago are due to open later this year.

Here is an aerial view of the site in West Des Moines, Iowa, where Microsoft plans to put its latest massive data center.

(Credit: Microsoft )

A synth of images of the Lincoln Memorial. Click on the image for a larger view.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)

WASHINGTON, D.C.--On Monday, I got a demo of how Microsoft was opening up Photosynth to consumers. On Wednesday, I put it to the test.

With my Canon Digital Rebel XT in tow, I headed to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to try it out. I quickly realized, though, that this would be a pretty tall order for the software, given that row upon row of names would be hard to separate. I decided to also take photos of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, which I thought the software would have an easier time with.

What Photosynth does is to look at a collection of digital photos of the same location, taken from different angles, and use those to create a 3D representation of the place. Assuming there are enough shots for the software to stitch together, one can pan and zoom through the different shots.

For those who have a Windows PC and are willing to install the Active X control needed to view it, here's a look at my synth of the Washington and Lincoln structures. For those who don't want to do the installation, you can see my work at the top of this post.

There were highs and lows of my personal experience. On the plus side, all I had to do was take the photos--I took about 150 of the Vietnam Memorial and another 150 of the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial combined. The software does all the figuring out of how the photos fit together.

That can also be a downside. The software couldn't quite piece together that the exterior of the Lincoln Memorial and the interior were of the same place, probably because the Lincoln sculpture itself shows up so dark in the exterior shots as I approached it.

It also took a long time to upload the shots and my laptop kept going to sleep. That said, the software seemed to always pick up where it left off.

I tried to upload just the Lincoln Memorial images to ease the transition, in hopes the software would stitch together the exterior and interior shots, but my "synth" hung just at the end. I then tried to upload my Vietnam Memorial shots this morning, but got a message saying that the service was handling too many synths at the moment.

I'll keep trying and post an update once I have more synths up.

Meanwhile, you can check out this video, in which I chat with Microsoft's Gary William Flake to about what you can do with this new technology:

Jerry Seinfeld will appear as a celebrity pitchman as part of a new $300 million ad campaign being developed for Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The comedian will reportedly get $10 million for the campaign, in which he will appear with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in some of the ads. Comedians Will Ferrell and Chris Rock were also considered for the new advertising campaign, the paper said.

(Credit: Seinfeld)

The paper said the ads, being developed by a new agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, will use a form of the phrase "Windows, Not Walls," and will stress connecting people and ideas. It will also focus on changing negative perceptions about Windows Vista.

The campaign, which is expected to debut September 4, just around the time Apple is expected to roll out new products and ads.

On Wednesday night, Photosynth, a technology demo from Microsoft Live Labs, is graduating from its "ooh, that's pretty" status to being a viable Web service for consumers.

The technology, which takes a grouping of photographs and stitches them into a faux 3D environment, can now be implemented with photos you've taken on your digital camera or mobile phone, and converted right on your computer. Previously, the process of stitching these photos together took weeks of processing on specially configured server arrays. With its latest version, Microsoft has managed to shrink that into around the time it takes to upload your photos.

Microsoft is giving users 20GB of online storage for their Photosynth collections. Photosynth product manager Joshua Edwards tells me this can easily fit 60 or more "synths" made up of around 150 to 200 photographs apiece--the higher end of what's recommended for what Edwards calls an optimum or "synthy" experience. Users who are making really neat collections will be granted additional space.

I spent the past few days building my own Photosynths and finally managed to get the knack for how to shoot correctly by the third one. While Microsoft has largely pushed it as a way to build jaw-dropping 3D-like environments, I'd argue to say it's a far simpler way to take super detailed shots of a wall or single room without breaking the bank on a high megapixel SLR. That said, Photosynth will take any resolution of photos you throw at it.

This synth I created uses close to 300 photos, although you can make ones with many less. Part of the creation process involves learning how to take photos for it to recognize how objects relate to one another.

(Credit: CNET Networks/Josh Lowensohn)

One of the most impressive parts of Photosynth is how damn fast it is. Over a decent broadband connection you'll immediately see large thumbnails that quickly begin to sharpen as data fills in the missing pixels. You can continue to zoom into these areas and they'll sharpen up even more on some of the super high-resolution shots.

The streaming and rendering technology behind Photosynth is Seadragon, another project from the Microsoft Live Labs universe. Users have always had to download a special Seadragon-based plug-in to view other people's synths. The new twist with the latest plug-in now comes with a desktop uploader that can be used to add your own collection to the Photosynth universe. This runs with complete autonomy from your browser, so you don't have to worry about it stopping if you close out your browser. It also works in both IE 7 and Firefox 3, making it cross-platform--at least for Microsoft. If you're a Mac user looking to get your hands on some Photosynth action you'll have to keep waiting. The focus on Photosynth will remain on the PC for the time being.

One thing that's missing from this version of Photosynth is a way to synth pre-existing photo collections, or sets of photos taken from community sites. This is the most useful for things like common landmarks, and is clearly something that can be done with the right photo database--something we saw in that really nifty video from Siggraph last week. In the case of Photosynth, once you've uploaded a batch of photos you can't simply upload more to it later. Gary Flake, who heads up Microsoft's Live Labs, says this is something that's coming later on down the road. For now, you'll just have to plan ahead.

Note: We've got a video coming up soon with Flake chatting about the technology behind Photosynth. In the meantime, if you want to explore my synth of the outside of the CBS Interactive offices in downtown San Francisco, go here.

Update: Here's the video.

Update 2: Photosynth has been up and down since early Thursday morning. You can check for the status of it on the Live Labs blog.

For many, privacy on the Web is a concern. And for Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, privacy is a feature.

In a meeting with reporters this week, Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search, portal and advertising platform group, said the company's browser will come with a private browsing mode. And Long Zheng of the istartedsomething blog surfaced two telling Microsoft trademarks that appear related: Cleartracks and Inprivate.

Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search, portal and advertising platform group

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

Both trademarks are involved with Web browsers, according to the applications with a July 30 filing date. The Cleartracks trademark involves "computer programs for deleting search history after accessing Web sites," according to the Microsoft filing. And the Inprivate trademark involves "computer programs for disabling the history and file caching features of a Web browser; and computer software for notifying a user of a Web browser when others are tracking Web use and for controlling the information others can access about such use."

One obvious use case for privacy browsing modes is surfing the Net for pornographic materials without leaving traces, but other, less unseemly use cases also exist. "Users may wish to begin a private browsing session to research a medical condition, or plan a surprise vacation or birthday party for a loved one," according to Mozilla's discussion of a private browsing feature.

Microsoft didn't comment on the applications beyond a brief statement, "We are investing in privacy in IE8."

And in a June blog posting, Microsoft said privacy is one of the major components of the "trustworthy browsing" element of Internet Explorer 8. "The larger challenge here is notifying users clearly about what sites they're disclosing information to and enabling them to control that disclosure if they choose," the company said. Microsoft said privacy means "the user is in control of what information the browser makes available to Web sites."

Internet Explorer is the dominant Web browser, and version 8 is in beta testing now and due in final form later this year.

Programmers have envisioned a private browsing mode for Mozilla's Firefox browser but so far haven't put the privacy feature into the open-source browser. Apple's Safari has a private browsing mode.

Correction, 9:31 a.m. PDT: This story cited the wrong state for Microsoft's Quincy data center. That facility is located in Quincy, Wash.

Once upon a time, Microsoft used to fill its data centers one server at a time. Then it bought them by the rack. Now it's preparing to load up servers by the shipping container.

Starting with a Chicago-area facility due to open later this year, Microsoft will use an approach in which servers arrive at the data center in a sealed container, already networked together and ready to go. The container itself is then hooked up to power, networking, and air conditioning.

"The trucks back 'em in, rack 'em, and stack 'em," Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie told CNET News. And the containers remain sealed, Ozzie said. Once a certain number of servers in the container have failed, it will be pulled out and sent back to the manufacturer and a new container loaded in.

It's just one way that Microsoft is trying to cope in a world where it adds roughly 10,000 servers a month.

"You contain your infrastructure but you also contain the heat that's generated from the servers," Arne Josefsberg, Microsoft's general manager of infrastructure, said in an interview this week. "We are working incredibly hard to improve the energy efficiency of our data centers."

Only a couple of years ago, Microsoft was adding capacity one server at a time, adding individual servers to racks and taking a couple of hours to wire in each new server.

"That's way too expensive, way too slow," said Josefsberg.

An aerial view of the San Antonio, Texas, data center under construction.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft also used to lease much of its space, until it realized that data centers were going to be a very big part of its future as more and more software moved into the cloud. A couple of years back, though, it found itself running tight on capacity and bought two San Francisco Bay Area data centers in which it had been leasing space.

Over the past 18 months, though, Microsoft has been on a buying--and building--spree. The company has opened a data center in Quincy, Wash., and will open the Chicago facility, as well as another in San Antonio, Texas, later this year. A facility is due to open in Dublin, Ireland next year.

Microsoft is close to announcing yet another data center, Josefsberg said. The software maker also has signed a memorandum of understanding to build a data center in Russia.

No more off-the-shelf hardware
Gone are the days in which Microsoft settled for off-the-shelf hardware to fill its server farms. These days, Microsoft is looking for servers designed to its exact needs. It's not just that Microsoft doesn't want servers that have keyboard or USB ports--it wants motherboards that don't even have the added wiring necessary to support those things that it will never use. Such moves eliminate cost, space, and power consumption.

"We are not physically building our servers, but there is very deep engagement (with the computer makers)," Josefsberg said.

Even a 1 percent or 2 percent reduction in power consumption makes a big difference, Josefsberg said. As it is, Microsoft is trying to cram a whole lot of gear into a small space. While server racks at a Web hosting facility might have power densities of 70 watts to 100 watts per square foot, things are packed far more tightly in the containers, which might be consuming in the thousands of watts of power per square foot.

The container approach is easiest to implement on the ground floor of a facility. In Chicago, for example, it will use containers on the first floor and more traditional racks on the second level. But Josefsberg said that, though it poses some logistical challenges, the company is also considering using multiple levels of containers at other sites, including at a Dublin, Ireland data center due to open next year.

What the servers are serving up
So just what are all these data centers doing? Outsiders got a glimpse into this thanks to a slide included as part of a video that Microsoft put on its Web site touting its environmental efforts. The chart shows search accounting for the vast number of the servers--nearly 80,000 or so--with Hotmail and Messenger distant runners-up in terms of server usage.

Josefsberg said the figures were accurate, but out of date, reflecting where things were at a year or 18 months ago.

"Search was a very large portion of our demand in fiscal year 2008," he said. "Going into this year it is still a very large proportion. It is now not as dominant as it was last year."

A conceptual rendering of the planned data center due open next year in Dublin.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft is seeing new demands, he said, such things like consumer video and photo services as well as its collection of hosted enterprise services under the Microsoft Online moniker.

Josefsberg said his goal is to keep capacity a certain number of months ahead of where Microsoft's utilization is running. To do that, he said, takes some serious planning. Business unit heads who used to have to just create a forecast for revenue and headcount, now need to be able to predict how much server capacity they will need, or at least give Josefsberg the data he needs to make such calculations.

He points to things like Microsoft's work with the Olympics as indicative of the kinds of demands his data centers will see in years to come.

"One of the big drivers for us that I see is the move to IP-based delivery of rich video," Josefsberg said.

And not all of his problems will be solved just because Microsoft can now get its servers by the containerful. Microsoft has sophisticated "heat maps" that plot the best locations for new data centers based on everything from government policy to water supply to power prices. But in other areas, such as networking technology, Microsoft is counting on the industry to make some quantum leaps.

"When you think about large-scale data centers there are a number of limitations in the technology," he said. "Some of the network protocols were designed years ago...Some are 30 years old."

Microsoft on Wednesday extended its existing partnership with Novell with a pledge to pump up to an additional $100 million into the deal.

The companies, which announced an interoperability deal two years ago, said that Microsoft will purchase up to $100 million in certificates that its customers can redeem for Novell's Suse Linux service and support.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

(Credit: CNET)

The new Microsoft investment will begin in November, the companies said.

The deal is centered on interoperability between Windows Server and Suse Linux Enterprise Server. The original deal, a five-year interoperability partnership inked in November 2006, called for Microsoft to buy $240 million worth of such certificates. Novell said that it has already invoiced more than $157 million in certificate revenue in 18 months.

The companies said that between now and November, they "will solicit customer input and identify aspects of the support programs that will be most useful to organizations running mixed-source environments."

The initial deal between the companies was roundly criticized by open-source advocates as conflicting with licensing provisions. Corporate customers, faced with the realities of making mixed-operating system environments work, have welcomed the deal. Microsoft and Novell said that customers taking advantage of the partnership include BMW, HSBC Holdings, Southwest Airlines, and Wal-Mart.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced a change in its licensing policy to make it easier for businesses that want the ability to shift server software that is running in a virtual machine from one physical machine to another.

The licensing shift, which had been expected, lifts a cap that had limited the ability to switch software from one physical machine to another within a server farm. Under the prior rules, such shifts could me made only once every 90 days. That's a problem because software from VMware and others aims to allow such transfers to be made dynamically in response to changing demand.

"Businesses are taking steps to make their IT operations more dynamic and are delving into virtualization as a cornerstone strategy," Microsoft Senior Director Zane Adam said in a statement. "Microsoft recognizes this and is innovating its licensing policies, product support, and a wide range of IT solutions to help customers get virtual now."

The change applies to 41 server titles, Microsoft said, including the enterprise version of SQL Server 2008, the standard and enterprise versions of Exchange Server 2007, as well as the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft System Center products.

Microsoft also plans to offer better support for businesses that are running its software inside other companies' virtualization engines. Under the changes, Microsoft will support its software running inside virtual machines from VMware, Cisco Systems, Citrix, Novell, Sun Microsystems, and Virtual Iron as if it were being run in nonvirtual environments.

In the past, many customers with problems running Microsoft software in VMware, for example, had to reproduce the problem outside of VMware in order to get technical support from Microsoft.

For some time now, Microsoft has been trying to shift its pricing policies to reflect a new world in which server software often runs inside virtual machines.

Microsoft is going to have more to say on the virtualization front at a September 8 event in the Seattle area.

In a somewhat surprising move, Microsoft said Monday that the next minor update for Windows Server will be the server version of Windows 7, which will be known merely as Windows Server 2008 R2.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft said on Monday that the server version of Windows 7 will not be a major release and will bear the name Windows Server 2008 R2.

The move is surprising, given that in the past, Microsoft has used R2 monikers to signify a product with a few new features, as opposed to major changes to a product.

Microsoft declined to discuss what will be in Windows Server 2008 R2, but a spokesman confirmed that it is the server version of Windows 7. The release is due sometime in 2010, Microsoft said.

The server move calls into question just how different Windows 7 is going to be from Windows Vista on the desktop side. Steven Sinofsky, the head of development for the desktop version of Windows, has said that Windows 7 on the PC side would not make major changes to things like the kernel and driver model, but has maintained that it would be a major release of Windows.

Microsoft has said that the desktop version of Windows 7 would include a new multitouch interface, but has not talked about other features.

The software maker confirmed its naming plans, following a report by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley. Initially Foley reported that Microsoft was skipping its minor R2 release and moving straight to its next major release. However, Microsoft clarified that it indeed sees Windows 7 on the server side as a minor release.

On its server roadmap page, Microsoft describes its minor, or update releases this way:

Update releases integrate the previous major release with the latest service pack, selected feature packs, and new functionality. Because an update release is based on the previous major release, customers can incorporate it into their environment without any additional testing beyond what would be required for a typical service pack. Any additional functionality provided by an update would be optional and thus not affect application compatibility or require customers to recertify or retest applications.

The question is, if Windows 7 Server needs no more testing than a service pack, is it really possible for the desktop team to add enough features on top of it to make Windows 7 a big improvement upon the oft-criticized Windows Vista.

If you are having trouble reconciling Microsoft's server and client positions, you are not alone. I pressed Microsoft's server side for more details on how this could be understood, but didn't get much help. I'll also check in with some folks on the desktop Windows team and see what I hear back.

Microsoft has said it will share technical details on Windows 7 at its Professional Developers Conference in late October in Los Angeles.

Microsoft's Live Mesh hasn't officially expanded to include Macs just yet, but the software maker has said that folks in more countries can now take part without having to wait for an invitation.

In a blog posting, Microsoft announced that folks in Canada, India, and Ireland can now join. Microsoft had already opened things up in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Live Mesh is intended to be a service, over time, that allows cloud-based applications to have desktop components and takes desktop applications into the cloud as well as allowing synchronization among many different devices. For now, though, Live Mesh is primarily a means of synchronizing data across multiple computers.

Several times a link has popped up on Microsoft's site for an early Mac version of the Live Mesh client, although Microsoft has promptly taken down the public links.

Although folks in Canada, India, and Ireland don't need an invite, Microsoft said that there is still a cap for each geography, so those interested might not want to dally too long. The company is expected to broaden testing of Live Mesh ahead of its October Professional Developers Conference, with the service expected to expand to include new features at that point.

The Live Mesh team also posted an interesting blog last week on some of the limits in the current service. For example, individual files can be no larger than 2GB, while the size of all contents in a Live Folder can be up to 10GB. (There's still a 5GB limit for how much data can be stored in the cloud-based Live Desktop.)