October 21, 2005 10:25 AM PDT
Week in review: Redmond's product posturing
Speaking at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Fla., Microsoft's CEO responded to well-publicized testimony by a former employee that Ballmer had hurled furniture and vowed to "kill Google" when informed of the employee's plans to leave Microsoft for rival Google.
But Ballmer used the occasion to address far more than his alleged furniture-tossing habits. He said his company is "at the beginning of 12 months of the greatest innovation pipeline we have ever had. Vista, Office, Windows Mobile, (Internet Explorer) IE 7...I can point to a lot of things. We are in the middle of the best pipeline we have ever had as a company."
Microsoft on Monday launched an update to a community-based preview release of Windows Vista, which includes a number of new features, such as efforts to improve the Web browser and make the operating system more resilient.
Vista is the first major update to the client version of Windows since 2001. The final version of Vista, which has also been known by its Longhorn code name, is due out in the second half of next year, Microsoft has said. A server version of the operating system is expected in 2007.
Amid the rosy product forecast, Microsoft also had some troubles this week. The company on Wednesday published its second advisory in as many weeks for users to deal with trouble arising from October's patch release.
One recently released patch can lock Windows users out of their PCs, prevent the Windows Firewall from starting, block certain applications from running or installing, and empty the network connections folder, among other things.
The other patching issue deals with the fixes in security bulletin MS05-050. The problem occurs when Windows 2000 users who have DirectX 8.0 or 9.0 installed mistakenly apply the patch for DirectX 7.0. The computer will still be vulnerable to the flaw, while the user won't be notified that the system is not updated, Microsoft said.
The problems may result in more apprehension among users when it comes to applying Windows patches, noted Vijay Adusumilli, a senior product manager at security software vendor St. Bernard Software. "Microsoft's patch quality reputation just started to improve, but I think this is going to dent that a bit," Adusumilli said. Meanwhile, Microsoft has pulled back from a plan to exclude rival media players from portable music devices using its software.Details of the plan--and the reversal--were contained in a quarterly status report that Microsoft and the Department of Justice filed on Thursday with the federal judge who oversees the company's landmark antitrust settlement.
Microsoft has been trying to find ways to make portable music players that run its software compete better in a market dominated by Apple Computer's iPod and its companion iTunes software. Under the program Microsoft had proposed, device makers that included a CD with Windows Media Player and other software would have had to agree not to include any other software, including rival media players.
Apple's product push forges on
Speaking of Redmond's rivals, Apple on Wednesday added to its steady stream of recently announced products with the unveiling of a new high-end photo processing software and upgrades to its Power Mac desktop and PowerBook laptops.
The new Power Mac G5 Quad has two 2.5GHz dual-core PowerPC G5 processors. At press events in New York and later at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., the company said all Power Macs will now feature dual-core chips and improved graphics cards. PowerBook notebooks are getting higher-resolution displays and improved batteries on the 15-inch and 17-inch models. All PowerBooks also will include a DVD-burning SuperDrive.
Meanwhile, Apple pitched the photo software, called Aperture, as a way for professional photographers to regain tools lost
