Got Four Hours to Spare? Download Vista

Supposedly, if we believe the folk tales and lore of our parents and grandparents, the American work day used to last eight hours. “9 to 5” (cue Dolly Parton ) was the way we made a livin’. With a break for lunch, of course, and maybe some talk around the water cooler -- which has since been replaced by the Internet message board, but our editor doesn’t need know that. (And, speaking of anachronisms, your author used to have the theme song from More

Posted by Lee Pender on 01/18/20071 comments


IE Loses Ground, Longhorn Gains a Name

While Microsoft celebrates the 100 millionth download of IE7, few observers have stopped to notice that most of IE7’s success came at the expense of IE6. Meanwhile, Firefox’s distant headlights are starting to appear in Microsoft’s rearview mirror.

Also out of Redmond, a real name for Longhorn. But we’re going to make you More

Posted by Lee Pender on 01/18/20070 comments


Microsoft, Nortel Put “Unified” in Unified Communications

The buzzwords “unified communications” took another step toward really meaning something this week, as Microsoft and Nortel unveiled a strategy and product roadmap aimed at knocking another Microsoft partner, Cisco, off its perch More

Posted by Lee Pender on 01/18/20070 comments


This Is Almost Painful

Man, talk about clunky ... the new Microsoft comic strip -- yes, you just read those last three words -- promoting Office 2007 makes Redmond’s laptop giveaway look iPodian in its marketing brilliance.

Microsoft does many, many things right ... but Enchanted Office is ... well ... judge for yourself .

Posted by Lee Pender on 01/04/20070 comments


Linux Lovers Gear Up For Another Year of Chasing Microsoft

Mike wrote in back in December to offer his predictions for 2007: “Let’s see:  Flying cars, teleportation devices (Jaunt Stations for Stephen King fans), and a 25 percent migration to Vista. Why not aim high?” 

Well, Mike, you’ll probably achieve a level of accuracy with those predictions that most analysts could only dream of, even if Vista has been (surprise!) a little slow to penetrate the enterprise so far.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 01/04/20070 comments


Microsoft’s Goofy Laptop Giveaway

Horrors! Microsoft gave a bunch of free laptops loaded with Vista to bloggers, possibly in an attempt to influence them! (Wait, if you don’t like that story, here’s another More

Posted by Lee Pender on 01/04/20070 comments


Storm's A-Brewin' for IBM (and Others): Microsoft and HP Blow into Town

Don't even bother combing your hair if you're in Seattle this week. The swirling, gusty winds that have been howling here all week will just make a mess of it, anyway. And if the wind doesn't muss your 'do, the hard, seemingly incessant rain will. (Yeah, it's Seattle -- but even the locals say that this is bad.) The hanging gray skies and electricity-killing Microsoft just had a brownout -- storms here make the atmosphere in this otherwise beautiful area almost miserable enough to make a Bostonian stop complaining about a New England winter. Almost. More

Posted by Lee Pender on 12/14/20060 comments


Australia to Jail iPod Users?

Well, maybe not, but this is a pretty interesting story, anyway.

Posted by Lee Pender on 11/21/20060 comments


Company That Squashed Blackberry Ready To Slap Palm

I'm going to spend the rest of the week thinking of something I can patent so that I can do nothing and eventually sue the company that independently comes up with and actually manages to produce my idea.

Seriously, are these guys at NTP geniuses, or what?

Posted by Lee Pender on 11/07/20061 comments


IE7 and Firefox: Not Your Older Brother’s Browser War

So they’re both out now, IE7 and (the much cooler, apparently ) Firefox 2.0 from Mozilla.

Let Browser War II begin! Or at least continue. Right? Well, sort of. It’s great that Firefox is around to kick Microsoft in the shins a little bit and get Redmond to improve its offering. That’s the benefit of competition coming to the fore.

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Posted by Lee Pender on 10/24/20061 comments


Security Vendor on Vista: So What’s The Problem?

Microsoft finally has some allies in its ongoing battle with third-party security vendors.

With Symantec and McAfee still moaning about how hard Microsoft is making it for third parties to develop for Vista and how Redmond still hasn’t fully opened the Vista kernel for security vendors, one security player is wondering what all the complaining is about.

Sophos, a UK security vendor, has smartly stepped into the spotlight and offered its support for Microsoft, saying that developing for Vista is plenty easy -- if you know how to do it -- and that Symantec and McAfee just didn’t prepare well for the new OS. (And, actually, a Russian vendor names Kaspersky -- didn’t he write an angsty novel or something? -- made a similar statement three weeks ago.)

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Posted by Lee Pender on 10/24/20062 comments


Ballmer: We’ll Spend Even More On R&D Than We Said Before

And he specified that half a billion of it will be spent in Europe ... ahem.

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/17/20060 comments


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