OK, so this isn't the most important story for Microsoft partners, but it's just darn interesting. Get this: The German government is going to fund an effort to help Windows users rid their machines of malware.
No, seriously! According to a blog entry by a guy who can read German better than we can, the German government is going to team with ISPs to find infected machines and help users clean malware off of their computers. The leader of the project is Germany's Federal Office for Information Security, which is part of the country's federal government. It's not clear at this point whether Microsoft will have any involvement in this, but we're getting the feeling that it won't -- which makes the whole thing all the more strange.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 12/10/20092 comments
A Microsoft sales and marketing executive said something this week about stealing Google's lunch, which made us immediately forget what we were going to say about this story and head to the kitchen for a snack.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/10/20090 comments
Kathleen Richards, your editor's Framingham office mate and editor extraordinaire for the developer branch of the Redmond Media Group family, posted a little blog item on Tuesday afternoon that caught RCPU's eye.
It seems innocuous enough -- and it might be. On the surface, it's just another Microsoft reorg in which the company is combining its Azure business with its Windows Server and Solutions Group. No big deal, right? Maybe not, but dig this from Kate's blog entry:
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Posted by Lee Pender on 12/09/20093 comments
American folk hero and freedom-fighting journalist Stephen Colbert uncovered one of the great stories of 2009 on his show this week: the Windows 7 hamburger currently being served up by Burger King in Japan. (Go about 3:10 into this clip to see what we're talking about.) Yes, the Windows 7 hamburger (which really does have a Microsoft promotional tie-in) has seven -- seven! -- meat patties in between its buns.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 12/09/20090 comments
Windows 2000 fans, beware. Microsoft won't be supporting your favorite OS much longer.
More to the point, though, Redmond reminded users this week that extended support for XP Service Pack 2 (and Windows 2000) will end in July. So, it's Windows 7 within the next seven months or so, or you're on your own.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/09/20093 comments
We at RCPU still haven't found all the buttons on the Office 2007 ribbon, but for those of you who are just itching to get to 2010, knock yourselves out.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/09/20090 comments
Oh, fantastic. Now there'll be no escaping Twitter (where you can follow RCPU here). Google has gone real-time in search, which means Tweets will start popping up on standard Google search pages.
Hooray! No longer do we have to actually go to Twitter to see some shut-in's political rant or know how hot some 14-year-old girl thinks Tom Brady is. Those tweets might very well pop up if we search for, say, "senate primary" or "New England Patriots." (Right now, nobody knows quite where the Patriots are...but we digress.)
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Posted by Lee Pender on 12/07/20091 comments
Just in time for the holidays. It's a six pack from Microsoft, but not the fun kind. In fact, Redmond is sending six patches, three critical and three important, for December.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/07/20090 comments
Worried that Google or some retailer has too much of your personal information? So is your hard(ly) working federal government, which is looking into consumer data privacy. Â Â Â
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/07/20090 comments
Microsoft's long, international nightmare could soon be more or less over, as the company is reportedly finishing up plans for its "browser ballot screen" that will appear in versions of Windows sold in Europe. Apparently, Opera wanted some fairly subtle changes to the plan...and got them.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/04/20090 comments
Microsoft has been trying to spiff up its David to Google's Goliath, and the latest wrinkle (among others) is an ever-popular application: maps.
Posted by Lee Pender on 12/04/20090 comments
We at RCPU have been extremely remiss about running reader e-mail, which we've let back up to the point at which a bunch of really good e-mails are now too old to run. We're sorry about that, but we're going to get back to putting your thoughts in this space soon. So, if you have anything you'd like to send our way, shoot it to the usual address: [email protected].
To be perfectly honest, we're getting into a slow time of year for news, and your editor is still busy with tasks outside of RCPU. So, for today, we're going to go with a pure channel play (which we really should do more often) and tell you that mega-distributor Tech Data is buying back $100 million worth of stock.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 12/04/20091 comments