Pre-announcing the Announcement
Microsoft this week told the world that later this week it will announce that
in November it will launch new products that will probably ship sometimes afterward
on dates that have yet to be announced but will be announced once they ship
after the launch. This is the new way to launch products: Announce every detail
so by the time a product actually ships there’ve been umpteen celebrations.
Heck, it worked for Windows 3.0, 95 and every version since!
Now Microsoft has announced
that it’s leaking more details about Yukon, soon to be SQL Server 2005,
and Whidbey, soon to be Visual Studio 2005, and BizTalk Server 2006, apparently
not worthy of a cool code name, saying that they’ll be launched Nov. 7
of this year. On tap are some 90 separate launch events.
Pre-announce, Take Two
Microsoft also announced that it will pre-announce the next version of Microsoft
CRM. CRM 3.0 will be previewed this week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner
Conference. The customer relationship tool will mimic the look and feel of Office
and Outlook, making it especially enticing to customers without proprietary
CRM tools, and will also come loaded with standard Microsoft productivity software.
Bill Gates Really Is Cool
Bill Gates is a star. The richest man in the universe, creator of one of the
biggest brands in the world, and the one who made it cool to be smart, really
smart.
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Now Bill Gates is a rock star, too. At the recent Bob Geldof Live 8 charity
concert, manned by the same exact senior citizens who played at Geldof’s
last show, Bill Gates made some quick remarks and was wildly applauded by all
the fogies in attendance.
Don’t get me wrong. The concert, semi-lame as it was, did a great thing
by raising money for famine relief. But Gates has raised far more, single-handedly.
And he has handpicked issues like AIDS in India and population control. He earned
all the applause.
XP is Kinda Cool
Trying to keep XP on the leading edge, Microsoft announced Digital
Image Studio 2006, a tool to organize photos, videos and more. There are
also some low-end photo manipulation features—all for about a hundred
bucks.
Sasser Case Cracked
A German teen who is stupid, evil or both recently confessed to writing the
Sasser worm. Sven Jaschan was a minor at the time so he’ll slip by the
five-year penalty for an adult. Microsoft, God bless it, was behind the arrest.
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.