14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is growing bigger and bigger by the hour and Monday's announcement that it opened the new international headquarters for Microsoft Research, Building 99, confirms it. It is said to be the first of seven new buildings on the West Campus, four of which are to be occupied by the company's Entertainment and Devices Division. The West Campus will offer employees convenient amenities such as a post office, a mini-spa, a bookstore and 12 food venues.
"Continuing to build a world-class campus in Redmond is critical to a company like Microsoft that has innovative people as its greatest asset," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft and the executive overseeing the expansion. "The physical campus growth the company announced today underlines our investment in Redmond and the greater Puget Sound area and shows our commitment to our future."
Microsoft began a three year expansion project back in February 2006 and the rate at which it is growing it had to admit that that was not enough. It announced that it will probably be building outside the project some additional constructions on the former Safeco Corp. headquarters that it acquired in 2006 and that it started site planning for the addition of new buildings on the land it acquired from Nintendo of America Inc. not so long ago this year.
"Microsoft continues to grow at a healthy pace, and this growth means strengthening our physical infrastructures," said Brad Smith, senior vice president at Microsoft, on Monday. "We are committed to doing our part to help improve transportation on SR 520 with the goal of facilitating an easier commute for all Puget Sound residents."
On Tuesday Microsoft Corp. and Kyocera Mita Corp. announced the signing of a patent cross-licensing agreement to allow each other access to its respective patent portfolio. This is just the latest in a long line of such agreements that Microsoft has closed since the beginning of its IP licensing program, back in December 2003. More than 200 such deals were struck and the Redmond based company still strives to develop programs that will allow its customers, partners and competitors to access its IP portfolio.
Among Microsoft's partners in this endeavor we might find many important names from all over the world, for example Cadence Design Systems Inc., Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd., Kenwood Corp., LG Electronics, NEC Corp., Olympus Corp., Novell Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Seiko Epson Corp. and Turbolinux.
"It was an honor to fairly value and assess each other's patents, as this agreement allows both companies to benefit from enhanced patent portfolios," said Shinji Osaki, the general manager of the Legal and Intellectual Property Division and executive officer of Kyocera Mita. "I believe this agreement will improve the productivity of both our businesses and result in offering reassurances and increased satisfaction for all our customers."
Wednesday brought about the release of the Office Accounting Express 2008, the alternative to the old shoebox-and-paper method of accounting that most of the 20 million small businesses in the US still use to this very day. Believe it or not (and you will believe it because it's true), the new suite has big shoes to fill as its earlier 2007 version has won the "2007 Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Award".
Rajat Taneja, the general manager of Microsoft's Small Businesses Applications and Services organization has every belief that it will be able to rise to the occasion and perhaps repeat its older brother's performance: "Office Accounting is one of the most modern applications available to help small businesses not only do their bookkeeping but also gain deep insight about their operations, such as profitability and cash flow. Office Accounting Express 2008 was built to help small businesses move from paper and pencil and shoebox receipts to a more comprehensive business management solution.
The software also includes migration tools to enable users of Quickbooks, Sage and Money move their data to Office Accounting. The design of the software incorporates several critical Internet services to enable customers to take advantage of the power of the Web, like electronic billing and payments, online payroll and more. And finally, the core Office Accounting Express software is available at no charge, while the optional services are billed either as subscriptions or as transactions."
You got that right, the basic options have come as a free download while the Professional version is available at just under 200$ but it is given a free 60 day trial period that everybody can enjoy.
Thursday brought a new spin on the MSN Money - Morningstar investment data and editorial content collaboration as Microsoft decided to partner itself with the leading provider of independent investment research. The addition of Morningstar's video content enables users to access up-to-date information, analysis and tools as well as helpful video segments from MSN editors.
"The collaboration with Morningstar enhances the array of financial tools available on MSN Money that enable users to make smarter financial decisions. Morningstar has some of the most respected and insightful analysts around. We are delighted to add their top-notch video content to our expanding collection of streaming video on MSN Money because it is consistent with our goal of providing users with the best personal finance and investing content available today," said Jeff Dossett, executive producer and general manager of MSN at Microsoft.
Friday was somewhat funny in terms of the Apple - Microsoft rivalry as the two released major updates of their respective operating systems at the same time. Something like "Ha! Beat you! What? You've upgraded/improved too? Ah, let's leave it at that than."
Microsoft released a trio of updates for Windows Vista this week that address core issues like performance, reliability and stability of the Operating System: one patch aims to improve battery life on mobile devices and improve the response time occurring after a period of inactivity while another deals with the operating system's interactions with USM ports.
Once these bugs are out of the way, the Redmond giant hopes that the users will start noticing the many advantages the new Vista has over the old XP and stick to it. Mike Nash, the Corporate Vice President says that the situation is much better now than it was about a year ago, when Windows Vista was released after previously admitting that the initial experience for users was frustrating.
