microsoft

Give Yahoo management this much: they're making Microsoft work for this one.

Earlier today Yahoo pumped out a supremely confident three-year growth forecast in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is the company's latest maneuver in its bid to remain independent--or, failing that, fetch a much higher buyout price from Microsoft. But after paging through the document, I'm still convinced Steve Ballmer's cohorts hold the better cards.

News Corp. has already shot down false rumors that it might ride to Yahoo's rescue and that doesn't leave Jerry Yang with much wiggle … Read more

There's nothing like a big challenge to bring a couple closer together.

Such is the case with Intel and Microsoft, which announced on Tuesday they are jointly backing university research to help address the challenges posed by a shift to processors with many brains.

The companies are committing a combined $20 million to fund parallel computing research centers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

For years, the PC processor just got faster and faster, performance gains that software could easily take advantage of. In recent years, though, chip speed gains have … Read more

Well, Amazon was at least half right. As the retailer predicted, Microsoft did make Windows Vista Service Pack 1 available for download on Tuesday via Windows Update and on its Web site.

Still unclear is when it will start being available on retail shelves. Amazon said it will start shipping boxed copies with SP1 included on Wednesday, while Microsoft said it will be at retailers "as soon as April." I've asked for further clarification on the disparity, but have yet to hear back.

Meanwhile, in a posting on the Windows Vista blog, Microsoft also went into a … Read more

Even though Sony's PlayStation 3 was slow out of the gates, it has found its stride lately and performed extremely well over the past few months. And as the latest NPD numbers show, more good times are in store. But in the end, it's what's coming that matters and if you ask me, Sony has everything in place to have the best year of any console maker.

Now I know what you're thinking -- aren't I the same guy who said the chances of the PS3 winning the console war are slim? Yep. And I still believe that. But what I also said is the PS3 will probably end up in second place when this whole generation is said and done and the main reason why that's true is because of what might happen this year

Unlike the Wii and the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 is poised to grow at a rapid rate and finally become a major player in this generation. And although some would say that it's because of Blu-ray (and that may be part of it), the real reason is that Sony has finally woken up and realized that it needs to change its strategy, refocus its efforts and make an impact now before it's too late.

It has.… Read more

As part of its push into business telephony, Microsoft said Tuesday it is investing in Aspect Software, whose technology is used to run large call centers. Aspect, in turn, will make sure its software works with Microsoft's unified communications products.

"A key pillar of Microsoft's unified communications vision is improving access to the people and information you need to do your job better and more quickly, and with Aspect, we are making this vision a reality for contact centers," said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president at Microsoft, in a statement.

Later this year, Aspect plans … Read more

There is a tragic (but rich) irony in the news that Microsoft failed in its appeal to throw out Novell's decade-old antitrust lawsuit against it. On one hand, you have Novell arguing (rightly) in court that Microsoft unfairly bullies competitors:

"Microsoft specifically targeted WordPerfect and Novell's other office productivity applications because they threatened Microsoft's Windows monopoly," according to the Novell court filing quoted by the Bloomberg news service.

In its case, Novell also said that Microsoft withheld technical information to make WordPerfect work with Windows 95.

On the other hand, we see Novell supping at the feet of Microsoft to revive its Linux business, conveniently forgetting that what Microsoft giveth, Microsoft taketh away the minute a competitor becomes inconvenient. But the irony gets better as we dig into Novell's complaint with Groklaw:… Read more

Yahoo filed a three-year plan--a set of slides originally presented in December 2007--with the Securities and Exchange Commission outlining the ways in which the company is worth more than Microsoft is willing to pay at this point. Yahoo expects growth in revenue and operating cash flow of $1.9 billion over the next three years from display and video advertising and $1.4 billion in added search revenue. Caroline McCarthy has more on this topic in her blog post.

I doubt that this regulatory filing will do much to change Microsoft's strategy, which has been to hold firm … Read more

It's probably not a wholly accurate description, but to call Mix '08 the conference for "the new Microsoft" doesn't seem that far off. Perhaps even more apt would be to think of it as the show for Microsoft as it aspires to be. Other possibilities? Well, if one were cynical, maybe "the conference for Microsoft as it wishes others to see it." Or if one were sympathetic to the travails of companies with large, and fundamentally conservative, installed bases how about this for a tag line: "If only change were easy as giving … Read more

Which company did you think of when you read that title? My guess is that you didn't think of Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, or...Red Hat, though Red Hat claims this mission as its own. Why? Red Hat has taken as its mission the mantle of leadership into software's future, but it is not the company we most associate with the future. Who gets that honor?

Apple and/or Google.

I spent some time this morning discussing this with a friend who who runs IT for part of Google's European operations out of its London office. He has a hugely interesting background, having spent a few years at Red Hat before joining Google in 2007. He left Red Hat on great terms and continues to be an admirer of his former employer.

Yet it is his former employer. Why? And why have Greg Stein, Guido Von Rossum, and other prominent open-source developers and advocates joined up with Google?

It's not about the money. Most have made plenty of money elsewhere.

Instead, I believe it has everything to do with the customer which, not coincidentally, is almost certainly the reason that Google (and Apple) get credit for defining the 21st-century software experience, rather than Red Hat (or any other enterprise software company).

Let me explain.… Read more