14 DAY TRIAL // The EU/Microsoft case has finally ended and, even if the Redmond software giant refuses to admit that it doesn't like the decision, the company struggles to remain fairplay and appreciates the court's judgment. In a statement rolled out on Monday, Brad Smith, Microsoft Corp. Senior Vice President and General Counsel, said the decision is fair although the Redmond company did anything it was possible to comply with the EU requirements.
"Well, we've obviously only had a very short amount of time to read the decision that the court issued today, and it's the type of decision that deserves the kind of time required to understand it thoroughly," he started. "It is nonetheless clear that the court has agreed with the Commission on a number of the Commission's points, and I do want to simply start by expressing our gratitude to this court for the lengthy consideration that it gave to these issues. These are obviously complicated and important topics, and we appreciate all of the objective and thorough work that went into the decision that was issued today."
The Microsoft official tried to underline the company's efforts to comply with the EU requirements and sustained the Windows operating system was improved a lot in this matter. "Everyone agrees, for example, that the version of Windows that we offer in Europe today is in compliance with the Commission's 2004 decision, and I'm also gratified that we were able to have the kinds of constructive discussions with the European Commission last year that enabled us to bring to market Windows Vista in conformity with the Commission's 2004 decision," he said.
Nowadays, most of the Internet giants seem to struggle to expand their offering into the mobile market, an industry which might bring unexpected results to the winners of the competition. After Google and Yahoo, Microsoft adopts the same strategy and announced on Tuesday that Sprint will begin delivering 'GPS location-aware mobile search service in the U.S. with entire Internet search on Sprint phones'. Basically, this would represent the reply to the recent Yahoo moves, the Sunnyvale giant which sustained its oneSearch platform is the leader of the mobile searching market.
"The location-based and voice-and-visual technologies we're delivering today with Sprint are a first in the U.S. mobile industry, bringing customers a smart and easy search experience on the phone," said Brian Arbogast, vice president of the Mobile Services organization at Microsoft. "We are focused on working with industry leaders like Sprint to bring new and innovative services to market for customers, and creating new business and revenue opportunities for our partners."
However, the main attraction is still Google because the entire virtual world is talking about a potential Gphone, a special device powered by the Mountain View company which would revolutionize the market and destroy the recently released iPhone.
It's a well-known fact that Microsoft and Mozilla are two rival companies but it seems like besides the famous Internet Explorer - Firefox battle, the two competitors are now challenging each other with their mail technologies. In case you haven't heard about it, Mozilla plans to create a special organization which will be focused only on the Thunderbird development, the mail solution that is currently installed on millions of computers from all around the world. Microsoft's response to these plans? An avalanche of criticism over the open-source software!
"The open-source development model has yet to demonstrate the ability to support profitable software businesses that can drive the coordinated research and testing necessary to sustain innovation. Many in the open-source software community have shifted to hybrid business models. They are making the same business decisions as any commercial software company in terms of what products and services to give away, what intellectual property to protect, how to generate revenue, and how to participate in the community," Clint Patterson, public relations director for Microsoft's Unified Communications Group, said on Wednesday as a reply to a CNET article.
Microsoft Windows Live OneCare receives hit after hit and doesn't seem to be able to face the competition as all reports place the Microsoft antivirus product on disappointing positions. This time, it is about a new testing session conducted by the Anti-Malware Test Lab on Thursday in which OneCare failed to pass.
"Contemporary antivirus products should be able to resist such attempts, that is, they should include self-protection functionality. This helps them to resist even the most complicated attacks, such as when malicious programs use a variety of methods to disable protection, and remove the infection using standard tools after receiving the appropriate antivirus database updates," the folks from Anti-Malware Test Lab wrote.
Well, it seems like OneCare doesn't have what it needs to protect a computer. While Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 received the Gold Self-Protection Award, Avast! Professional Edition 4.7, Sophos Anti-Virus 6.0, Microsoft Windows Live OneCare 1.6 and Bitdefender Internet Security 10 provided extremely disappointing results.
Microsoft is releasing hot updates for many of its products and we all know that it is extremely important to install the Windows ones in order to remain protected in front of the attacks. On Friday, the folks from the Windows Home Server team talked about some new improvements which address the bugs reported in their product that would bring better functionality for the users of the application.
According to a statement published on the official blog, the group sustains the updates will be available in September as a part of the monthly update cycle. "These updates will enhance the usability and improve the out-of-the-box experience of home server solutions. Additional updates will occur over the lifespan of the product as we receive feedback from the user community, our hardware partners and software partners," they wrote.
Moreover, the fix pack will also bring better interoperability with the HP solutions because "HP has decided to include these first software updates in their MediaSmart Server. Both HP and Microsoft believe that these updates are in the best interest of potential customers and will insure the best out-of-the-box experience. All of our Windows Home Server partners and customers will automatically receive the update once posted to Windows Update."
