http://news.softpedia.com Softpedia News - Microsoft Softpedia News en-us 2001 - 2009 Softpedia. All rights reserved. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:27:04 GMT Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:27:04 GMT News http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 10 http://www.softpedia.com/base_img/softpedia_logo.gif http://news.softpedia.com/ http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Availability-Planned-for-2012-127600.shtml According to information available from Microsoft, the next iteration of the Windows client and server operating system is at a maximum of three years away. The Redmond-based company revealed that it expects to deliver the next major release of Windows approximately in 2012. Of course, “approximately” is the key, as it offers the software giant a little elbow room. Microsoft has so far failed to commit to a specific timetable for the delivery of codename Windows 8, but customers looking forward to it should know that it will drop within two to three years.

In the graphics included with this article, courtesy of MSFTKitchen, the Redmond-based company seems to be clearly eyeing 2012 for the release of Windows 8. For the time being, still under a month since Windows 7 hit store shelves, it is, of course, much too early for Microsoft to start the discussion of its successor. But expect it to provide an actual delivery deadline extremely late in the development process of Windows 8, considering the Windows 7 experience.

After all, Steven Sinofsky continues to be at the lead of the Windows project, only now with much more power, from the role of President, Windows and Windows Live Division. Most likely, Microsoft will attempt to continue building and delivering Windows client and server releases at the same... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:51:02 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Availability-Planned-for-2012-127600.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Availability-Planned-for-2012-127600.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-9-IE9-Behind-the-Curtain-127597.shtml With Internet Explorer 9 early in the making, Microsoft revealed at the Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles that it had identified a total of three pillars for IE’s evolution: standards and interoperability, hardware acceleration, and JavaScript performance.

At the bottom of this article, you will be able to find three videos embedded, each dealing with one of IE9’s development focuses. The videos feature the General Manager of Internet Explorer but also additional members of the IE team, actively involved in building the next generation of Microsoft’s proprietary browser.

“At the PDC, in addition to demonstrating some of the progress on performance and interoperable standards, we showed how IE and Windows will make the power of PC hardware available to web developers in the browser. Specifically, we demonstrated hardware-accelerated rendering of all graphics and text in web pages, something that other browsers don’t do today. Web site developers will see performance gains and other benefits without having to re-write their sites,” revealed Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager, Internet Explorer.

Although the Redmond-based company did deliver a taste of IE9, it did not offer the actual bits for the browser. Now, it could have done so, since Intern... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:41:02 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-9-IE9-Behind-the-Curtain-127597.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-9-IE9-Behind-the-Curtain-127597.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-RTM-Already-Has-9-000-Logo-d-Products-127594.shtml At just approximately a month after the general availability deadline of Windows 7, the operating system enjoys strong support from hardware and software companies worldwide. In fact, there are approximately 9,000 products that now feature the “Compatible with Windows 7” logo, Microsoft revealed at the Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles earlier this week. In this regard, Windows 7 is definitely not a repeat of Windows Vista, as the readiness level of the ecosystem of hardware and software products reveals.

“The ecosystem around Windows is really amazing. Think about the install base - there are more than one billion users who use Windows. Those users want great applications and there are 3 million programmers building applications around the world and 90 percent of those developers target Windows. You could also look at our telemetry from the beta cycle which shows more than 800,000 unique applications (which includes multiple versions, 32/64 bit & languages) running on Windows 7 during the beta timeframe,” explained vice president of the Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) Group, Mark Relph.

According to Relph, the actual number of apps designed to run on the latest iteration of the Windows client is in the hundreds of thousands, Microsoft not knowing the exa... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:01:01 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-RTM-Already-Has-9-000-Logo-d-Products-127594.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-RTM-Already-Has-9-000-Logo-d-Products-127594.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/With-IE9-in-Sight-Firefox-Jumping-over-50-Market-Share-127580.shtml Internet Explorer is not what it used to be. Firefox, but also additional rival browser such as Safari and Google Chrome, have eroded Microsoft’s dominance on the browser market. IE is left struggling even after the release of Internet Explorer 8 this year and with no end in sight to its downward trajectory. The Redmond company’s proprietary browser has continually bled audience to competitors, and it looks like on certain markets, Internet Explorer no longer occupies the dominant position. And it is only Mozilla’s Firefox to blame for IE being forced to give up the lion’s share of the browser market. According to statistics made available by Gemius Ranking, Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer in terms of market share in Central and Eastern Europe.

The chart below, courtesy of Mozilla, indicated the trends on the browser market share data, from the start of 2007 until present day. Users need to understand that the information provided is in no way illustrative of the worldwide browser usage trends. Instead, the graphics only show data aggregated from users across nine countries: Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.

As of mid-November 2009, Gemius put the market share of Firefox above that of Internet Explorer for C... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:02:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/With-IE9-in-Sight-Firefox-Jumping-over-50-Market-Share-127580.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/With-IE9-in-Sight-Firefox-Jumping-over-50-Market-Share-127580.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Record-Sales-Figures-127565.shtml Windows 7 has nothing short of hit the ground running in terms of sales, Microsoft has already noted on multiple occasions. Most recently, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer speaking to participants at Microsoft’s Annual Shareholder Meeting today, underlined the strength in Windows sales following the general availability of Windows 7, on October 22nd, 2009. Ballmer has mentioned that Windows 7 is off to a fantastic start with record sales figures, an early success that more than mirrors the rave reviews and accolades that the operating system received.

But in spite of Windows 7 reaching a new apex for sales of a new Microsoft OS release, the Redmond company has actually dodged revealing any figures. The software giant is so far keeping mum on the actual qualities of Windows 7 that are being purchased by customers worldwide. But it shouldn’t be that hard to estimate just how many copies of its latest iteration of the Windows client Microsoft actually sold.

“Windows 7 is the simply best PC operating system we have ever built,” Ballmer explained. “It enables people to do more of what they want to do more easily and more quickly, and customers are responding. Since launch, we’ve already sold twice as many units of Windows 7 than any other operating system we’ve ever launched in a... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:00:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Record-Sales-Figures-127565.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Record-Sales-Figures-127565.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Cache-Extension-1-0-for-PHP-Now-Available-127552.shtml Adding extra horsepower to PHP applications running on top of the Windows operating system is now a simple task. On November 19th, Microsoft made available for download version 1.0 of the Windows Cache Extension for PHP, or WinCache. The extension was put together by the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) team and is essentially designed to provide a PHP accelerator for customers choosing Windows and Windows Server rather than Linux and Apache to run their PHP apps.

Peter Galli, the Open Source Community manager for Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group, has revealed that with the GA of version 1.0, Windows Cache Extension is ready for deployment into production environments. WinCache is an open source project offered under the BSD license, with Microsoft providing full access to the source code.

WinCache extension is a significant open source contribution from Microsoft to the PHP on Windows community. The extension code is hosted and maintained on PHP Extensions Community Library (PECL) and is available for everyone to view, branch, compile, and contribute to,” Galli noted.

As a Windows PHP caching extension, WinCache was made a part of the PECL extension library, offered for free and requiring little additional efforts from developers beyond implementation. The promis... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:05:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Cache-Extension-1-0-for-PHP-Now-Available-127552.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Cache-Extension-1-0-for-PHP-Now-Available-127552.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Windows-Home-Server-Power-Pack-3-PP3-on-November-24th-127549.shtml The third major update for Microsoft’s home server is now just days away. Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 (PP3) will be made available on November 24, 2009, and users will be able to grab it through Windows Update. From the get go, the Redmond company will make available Windows Home Server PP3 in the following languages Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, and users will need to already be running the second Power Pack for the home server in order to be able to integrate the latest release. Windows Home Server PP2 customers need only turn on Automatic Updates in order to have PP3 automatically delivered and installed on their machines.

“Power Pack 3 improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing new features like: backup and restore of computers running Windows 7, Windows 7 Libraries integration, enhancements for Windows Media Center, and better support for netbook computers. Power Pack 3 will enable the most optimal experience for Windows 7 users on a Windows Home Server network,” noted Microsoft’s Mark Pendergrast.

When it comes down to Windows Home Server, this Microsoft OS is a tad special, in the sense that major upgrades are not served through Service Packs but rather to Power Pa... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:34:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Windows-Home-Server-Power-Pack-3-PP3-on-November-24th-127549.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Windows-Home-Server-Power-Pack-3-PP3-on-November-24th-127549.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bing-Maps-China-Grows-with-New-Features-127545.shtml Microsoft continues to push forward with efforts to expand its mapping, search and location platform. While Bing Maps, formerly Virtual Earth and Live Search Maps, is essentially a Cloud based application covering the entire world, the company does focus on specific markets more than on others. Case in point: Bing Maps China, which along with Bing Maps (US) and Bing Maps UK, gets preferential treatment in comparison with other countries around the world. Chris Pendleton, the Bing Maps technical evangelist for Microsoft, announced that the software giant introduced a massive update to Bing Maps China.

“The Bing Maps China site has updated much of their data, added tons of new data and added a few new features,” Pendleton noted. Usually, the Redmond company measures its Bing Maps updates in multi-Terabytes, and most probably it is the case here, but no actual figures on the size of the refresh were made public.

Instead, Pendleton enumerated a range of new features that were brought to the table with the latest update. Chinese users of Bing Maps will be able to enjoy enhancements associated with the Yellow Pages integration, business images, transit and traffic information, road data, directions, etc. At the same time, Microsoft has also bumped up a notch the resources made available to developers to bu... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:12:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bing-Maps-China-Grows-with-New-Features-127545.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bing-Maps-China-Grows-with-New-Features-127545.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Unix-to-Windows-API-for-HPC-Porting-Dictionary-Project-127533.shtml Because of fundamental differences in the architecture of operating systems today, multi-platform applications have to be tailored to each specific OS on their own, as they won’t work by simply compiling the source code which was developed for a certain platform on all alternatives available. Unix and Windows are an illustrative example in this regard, forcing developers that need their app to run on both operating systems to take a series of actions in order to adapt their code, a process referred to as porting. One Microsoft employee, working with people from InteropSystems, put together a project designed to streamline the porting of Unix apps on Windows, when it comes down to the high performance computing environments.

The Unix to Windows Porting Dictionary for HPC is currently live and accessible for devs around the world. The dictionary is designed with a focus on Unix calls, allowing users to easily find the Windows equivalent to Unix functions. In addition, the resource will also provide the header files associated with that specific function as well as a demonstration of how the header files can be used.

“This dictionary is organized by frequently used HPC Unix calls. Each entry show the Unix function, its Windows equivalent (if it exists), required header files, an example ... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:21:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Unix-to-Windows-API-for-HPC-Porting-Dictionary-Project-127533.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Unix-to-Windows-API-for-HPC-Porting-Dictionary-Project-127533.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Win-15-000-Cash-by-Building-with-Windows-Embedded-CE-127526.shtml Microsoft is offering developers a chance to win no less than $15,000 in cash via a new contest with the Windows Embedded CE operating system at the core. The Redmond company is currently accepting participants in the embeddedSPARK 2010 Challenge, that requires developers to put together an embedded project for a chance to win $15,000 and additional prizes. According to the software giant, the contest has already started on September 22nd, 2009, but it’s by no means too late to enter. In fact, the first round is not scheduled to end until January 9th, 2010, so there’s plenty of time to put together the initial stage of your embedded project.

For round one, devs need to “submit a 1-3-page paper that outlines an embedded project that catches the eye and brings a smile to your face. Perhaps it is a game you designed for an embedded device. Perhaps it is a magic button that turns your house into a disco, or an interactive toy for children. As long as it catches people’s attention and brings a smile to their faces, you are on the right track. Be creative, have fun but remember this is an embedded challenge,” Microsoft revealed.

But once the first round is finished, participants in the embeddedSpark 2010 challenge will need to get their hands dirty. Fortunately enough, Micros... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:58:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Win-15-000-Cash-by-Building-with-Windows-Embedded-CE-127526.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Win-15-000-Cash-by-Building-with-Windows-Embedded-CE-127526.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Chrome-OS-vs-Windows-and-So-It-Begins-127498.shtml Inevitable, the advent of a new operating system has to be branded with certain coordinates that position the platform in relation to the ubiquitous Windows OS from Microsoft. Google Chrome OS has in this manner joined the club of non-Windows operating systems, and don’t think for a minute that this does not apply to Microsoft’s itself. The Redmond company is also cooking non-Windows platforms (Singularity and Midori), and time will come when the software giant will have to go against itself on the OS market. However, which such a scenario is most probably reserved for the next decade, the Google Chrome OS has become tangible.

Almost tangible, because the actual bits for the Google Chrome OS aren’t yet available for download. Instead, what the Mountain View-based search giant did was release the source code associated with the Chromium OS project. Users and developers, familiar with the way that the Google Chrome browser is built, already know that it too has a Chromium underlining project. And in fact, the similarities between the Chrome browser and the Chrome OS doesn’t stop at this.

“We released Chromium OS, the open source project behind Google Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is an operating system that is intended for people who spend most of their time on the web. It aims to ... (read more)]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:00:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Chrome-OS-vs-Windows-and-So-It-Begins-127498.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Chrome-OS-vs-Windows-and-So-It-Begins-127498.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-9-the-Evolution-127471.shtml While just a single month into the development of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft has opened up to participants at the Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles, and subsequently to the world, revealing the first details about the next generation of IE. Steven Sinofsky, president, Windows and Windows Live Division noted that there were three key areas of interest in developing IE9, namely standards support, performance improvements, and the introduction of hardware acceleration.

Dean Hachamovitch, general manager, Internet Explorer, has shared the results of the SunSpider test involving a very early development build of Internet Explorer 9, as well as pre-release versions of rival products, such as Firefox 3.6 and Google Chrome 4.0. As you can see from the chart below, IE9 is miles away from IE7 and IE8 in terms of performance, and almost matching in speed the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome.

“It is worth noting that once the differences are this small, the other subsystems that contribute to performance become much more important, and perceiving the differences may be difficult on real-world sites. That said, we remain committed to improving script performance,” Hachamovitch explained. “We’re looking at the performance characteristics of all the browser sub-systems as re... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:05:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-9-the-Evolution-127471.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-9-the-Evolution-127471.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-Windows-7-Custom-Acer-Aspire-1420P-from-Microsoft-for-PDC-Participants-127469.shtml The Acer Aspire 1420P, featured in the images accompanying this article, is a custom PC built by Microsoft in collaboration with Acer and offered for free to full-conference attendees who are onsite at the Professional Developer Conference 2009, in Los Angeles. It was Windows and Windows Live Division President Steven Sinofsky that announced PDC2009 participants that they would be getting the free machine during his keynote in day two of the conference. The Acer Aspire 1420P Convertible Tablet PC is offered as a sign of the Redmond company’s gratitude for the support from PDC attendees in building Windows 7.

“This laptop promotion is the result of a collaborative effort with Acer, whom we worked closely with to have these laptops ready for PDC. This PC is not yet available in the US (Acer has not yet announced pricing and availability for this PC) so that makes this “PDC Edition” of the laptop exclusive to PDC attendees,” revealed Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team.

The Aspire 1420P PDC Edition features the 64-bit (x64) flavor of Windows 7 Ultimate preinstalled and is powered by an Intel Celeron CPU SU2300 running at 1.2GHz. The computer comes equipped with 2GB RAM, an Intel Graphics Media Acce... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:48:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-Windows-7-Custom-Acer-Aspire-1420P-from-Microsoft-for-PDC-Participants-127469.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-Windows-7-Custom-Acer-Aspire-1420P-from-Microsoft-for-PDC-Participants-127469.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-API-Code-Pack-1-0-1-Available-127466.shtml Microsoft has made available for download a new version of the resources designed to permit managed code developers to take advantage of the unique features brought to the table by Windows 7. On November 18th, 2009, version 1.0.1 of the Windows API Code Pack was released, and is currently up for grabs via MSDN. According to the Redmond company, devs already leveraging the old version of the Windows application programming interface Code Pack for the latest iteration of the Windows client will not see a major upgrade. Instead, the API Code Pack has been updated with bug fixes, performance, and enhancements. In addition, there are new demonstrations available, new wrappers and new features updates, noted Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 technical evangelist on the Client Platform Evangelist Group.

“The Windows API Code Pack is a free, managed Source Code Library provided by Microsoft as is. You should consider this library as if you wrote it yourself, as if it is your own code. It is a great starting point and provides a really good and solid solution for managed code developers,” Kiriaty added. “It covers a lot of the new Windows 7 features as well as some more fundamental core features from the Windows Vista timeframe. You may think of the Windows API Code Pack as the closest thing to an “official” man... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:22:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-API-Code-Pack-1-0-1-Available-127466.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-API-Code-Pack-1-0-1-Available-127466.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/New-Dynamics-ERP-Online-Services-to-Be-Introduced-in-2010-127458.shtml Microsoft plans to make it easier for customers that leverage its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) line of products to stretch into the Cloud. Two new services are currently cooking in Redmond, both designed to be attached to Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions, the Sites Service and the Commerce Service. In addition, the software giant will expand the existing Payment Service. The new Cloud-based offerings available to ERP customers will enable them to seamlessly bundle online services with both on-premise and on-demand in order to build custom solutions best tailored to their needs.

While the new Dynamics ERP services from Microsoft do indeed take customers into the Cloud, it is also clear that the company is tailoring the offerings to companies that are not yet ready to let go of their on-premise solutions. However, the company is more than willing to cater to customers that want to bundle traditional deployments in concert with Cloud offerings.

“Our customers increasingly appreciate the option of moving certain applications and services into the cloud while maintaining an on-premise option for their ERP solution,” explained Crispin Read, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics ERP. “Providing this choice and flexibility is a competitive advantage for us and our partners aroun... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:39:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/New-Dynamics-ERP-Online-Services-to-Be-Introduced-in-2010-127458.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/New-Dynamics-ERP-Online-Services-to-Be-Introduced-in-2010-127458.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-SharePoint-2010-Public-Beta-127445.shtml Concomitantly with the public availability of Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000, Microsoft has also widened the testing program for the next generation of SharePoint Server. In this regard, users can not only download the latest iteration of Office 2010 in Beta stage, but also access the first Beta development milestone of SharePoint Server 2010. IT professionals that decide to test drive SharePoint 2010 public beta should know that Microsoft doesn’t offer support for the release, and they will have to deal with eventual problems by themselves or look for answers with other Beta testers.

“Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Beta is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise and the Web that enables you to connect and empower people through an integrated set of rich features. Whether deployed on-premise or as a hosted service, SharePoint Server 2010 helps you cut costs with a unified infrastructure while allowing you to rapidly respond to your business needs,” Microsoft revealed.

According to the Redmond company, early adopters, that don’t want to go through the hassles associated with the actual deployment of SharePoint 2010 Beta, will have an alternative in the future. Microsoft is cooking a Virtual Hard Disk image with the first Beta of SharePoint, allowing testers to have a go to ... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:48:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-SharePoint-2010-Public-Beta-127445.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-SharePoint-2010-Public-Beta-127445.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Introducing-Pivot-from-Microsoft-Live-Labs-127435.shtml A new prototype from Microsoft Live Labs is designed to change the way in which the end users look at the Web. In this regard, the Redmond company explained that Pivot was a project dedicated to make the Web more like an actual web, and less like a series of disparate pages. “Pivot makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. We tried to step back and design an interaction model that accommodates the complexity and scale of information rather than the traditional structure of the Web,” reads an excerpt of Pivot’s introduction.

At this point in time, although the testing program for the Pivot project is live, access is restricted to just a small pool of customers. According to the Redmond company, the Technical Preview is full, with the company having already distributed all the invitations to the first testing milestone. Still, users that want an invite can submit their email address and wait for a notification from Microsoft. The software giant made no mention as to when it planned to open the testing program for Pivot to additional testers.

“When we use the Web today we treat the most fundamental scenarios as separate activities. Search takes us from many things to one, browsing moves us from one thing to another, a... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:59:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Introducing-Pivot-from-Microsoft-Live-Labs-127435.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Introducing-Pivot-from-Microsoft-Live-Labs-127435.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Hardened-with-the-Help-of-the-National-Security-Agency-127426.shtml Following the release of Windows XP, Microsoft implemented the Security Development Lifecycle in the building of Windows Vista, touting a tangibly superior operating system in terms of security. SDL was also the critical element in bulletproofing Windows 7, the Redmond company’s latest iteration of the Windows platform. But SDL should not get all the credit. In addition, it appears that the National Security Agency helped the software giant when it came down to securing Windows 7, and even Vista before it.

This is what Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, revealed before the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security earlier this week (via IT World). Of course, that word is still out on Windows 7’s security, with the operating system still having to prove itself, but Vista did manage to deliver a more secure OS compared to its predecessor, according to Microsoft.

"Working in partnership with Microsoft and elements of the Department of Defense, NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide without constraining the user to perform their everyday tasks, whether those tasks are being performed in the public or private sector," noted Sch... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:13:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Hardened-with-the-Help-of-the-National-Security-Agency-127426.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-Hardened-with-the-Help-of-the-National-Security-Agency-127426.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Silverlight-4-Beta-127413.shtml Just four months after the introduction of its last release of Silverlight, Microsoft has already kick started the testing of the next iteration of the technology designed as an alternative to Adobe Flash. On the second day at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Platform, announced the availability of the Silverlight 4 Beta, with the download links going live on November 18th, 2009.

It is by no coincidence that Microsoft has chosen PDC 2009 for the launch of Silverlight 4 Beta. According to the company, the first Beta development milestone of Silverlight 4 is a release reserved for developers. In this manner, the software giant is aiming to provide devs with an early preview of Silverlight 3’s successor in order to get them to start building content tailored to version 4 long before it actually becomes available for the general public.

“This is a developer beta release only! This release of Silverlight 4 Beta is a developer release. What this means is that there is no “go-live” licensing available and the end-user runtime of Silverlight 4 is not available. The tools below are intended for software developers only,” Microsoft explained.

While this is true, Microsoft is providing the Silver... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:54:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Silverlight-4-Beta-127413.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Silverlight-4-Beta-127413.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Eye-On-Earth-Evolves-with-AirWatch-127407.shtml The evolution of an environmental project, built through a partnership between Microsoft and European Environment Agency (EEA), now brigs users across the European Union information on not just water quality, but also air quality across the continent. First introduced in mid-2008, Eye on Earth was then a Cloud-based application designed to provide bathing water data, based on the monitoring of no less than 27 European countries. At that time, the Redmond company and EEA indicated that Eye On Earth’s WaterWatch was just the first step in an ambitious project designed to ultimately create a complete online environmental observatory. Approximately a year later, Eye On Earth evolved with the addition of a new Cloud: AirWatch. Like its water-focused counterpart, AirWatch is designed to offer information on air quality, centralizing measures, and modeling data, as well as input from people in Europe.

Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of EEA indicated that Eye On Earth could be used not only to access information harvested from monitoring spots across Europe, but also to share data. “The Microsoft technology behind Eye On Earth and AirWatch makes environmental information much more accessible. As more people understand what’s happening in their area, more will contribute to solving environmental problems," M... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:19:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Eye-On-Earth-Evolves-with-AirWatch-127407.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Eye-On-Earth-Evolves-with-AirWatch-127407.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Office-2010-Web-Apps-Beta-Now-Available-127396.shtml With the latest development milestone of the next-generation Office System, there’s no longer a gap between the availability of the testing build for the client-side productivity suite and the Cloud-based version of the main components of Office 2010. On November 19th, 2009, the release of Office 2010 Beta Build 14.0.4536.1000 coincided with that of Office Web Apps Beta. Early adopters that have followed the evolution of Office 2007’s successor closely already know that this wasn’t the case with the launch of the previous testing releases for Office 2010 and Office Web Apps.

In fact, this time around, Microsoft offered testers access to Office Web Apps Beta, even before the public download links for Build 14.0.4536.1000 went live. According to the Redmond company, the first Beta Build of Office Web Apps went live on November 17th, 2009 on the Microsoft Download Center, a couple of days ahead of Office 2010 Beta. The Technical Preview of Office 2010 preceded that of Office Web Apps by almost two months, but it looks like Microsoft managed to catch up.

“In September, we announced the Tech Preview of the Office Web Apps on Windows Live. As you may know, the Office Web Apps on Windows Live are free online companions to applications like Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint that let you ac... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:22:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Office-2010-Web-Apps-Beta-Now-Available-127396.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Office-2010-Web-Apps-Beta-Now-Available-127396.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Duet-Enterprise-for-Microsoft-SharePoint-and-SAP-127385.shtml Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP is a new product planned for availability in the second half of the coming year through a collaboration between Microsoft and SAP. The two companies are essentially pushing forward an already existing joint effort around bridging the office productivity suite and SAP, dating back to 2005. Four years ago, the duo introduced Duet for Microsoft Office and SAP, a step which led to the most recent announcement related to the delivery of Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP.

According to the Redmond company, Duet Enterprise is designed to take to the next level the bridge built between Microsoft and SAP solutions. “Duet Enterprise will empower people to blend SAP data and processes with Microsoft SharePoint content and collaboration tools to increase personal and team productivity across the PC, phone and browser,” explained Pascal Gibert, director of Duet product management at Microsoft.

However, in addition to connecting SAP processes and data with Office, Duet Enterprise is set up to streamline the effort developers and IT professionals need to pour into creating new end user solutions. This because Duet Enterprise comes to the table with interoperability, building blocks, templates, and tools that simplify the building of add... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:37:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Duet-Enterprise-for-Microsoft-SharePoint-and-SAP-127385.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Duet-Enterprise-for-Microsoft-SharePoint-and-SAP-127385.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Office-2010-Beta-14-0-4536-1000-and-Activation-Product-Keys-127364.shtml The first Beta Build is the next iteration of the Office System that is now opened to the general public, after being offered to MSND and TechNet subscribers, as well as Microsoft Connect testers. Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 public downloads went live on day two of the company’s Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles, and is currently up for grabs for all users that want to test drive the successor of Office 2007.

At the time of this article, both the 32-bit (x86) and the 64-bit (x64) flavors of Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 are available for download. What Microsoft is offering essentially is the Professional Plus edition, but customers are able to get not just the actual bits from Microsoft, but also the product keys necessary to activate the productivity suite.

According to the Redmond company, the Beta for Office 2010 is looking to attract as many testers as possible. Of course, Microsoft will harvest feedback from all machines running Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 an integrate it into the development process of the next generation of its productivity suite. In this regard, the software giant did not announce a deadline at which it would shut down the Beta program, so there’s not really a reason to hurry up and grab the bits. At the same ti... (read more)]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:06:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Office-2010-Beta-14-0-4536-1000-and-Activation-Product-Keys-127364.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Office-2010-Beta-14-0-4536-1000-and-Activation-Product-Keys-127364.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Firefox-3-6-Beta-3-127315.shtml A new development milestone of Firefox 3.6 is now available for download as the open source browser makes its way toward the Release Candidate Build, expected to drop later this month. Yesterday, you were able to read right here on Softpedia that the third revision to the Firefox 3.6 Beta was in the final stages of cooking, and that the release was just around the corner. Well, baking time was done soon after, and Firefox 3.6 Beta 3 is currently up for grabs for all early adopters looking to see what the next version of the browser has to offer.

“This update contains over 80 fixes from the last Firefox 3.6 beta, containing many improvements for web developers, Add-on developers, and users. More than half of the thousands of Firefox Add-ons have now been upgraded by their authors to be compatible with Firefox 3.6 Beta. If your favorite Add-on isn’t yet compatible, you can also download and install the Add-on Compatibility Reporter – your favorite Add-on author will appreciate it,” revealed Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla.

Mozilla revealed early on, after the public availability of the first fully-fledged Beta for Firefox 3.6, that it was considering serving minor updates to the Beta development milestones, labeled as revisions. In this regard, the company showed little consistency, and ... (read more)]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:19:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Firefox-3-6-Beta-3-127315.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Firefox-3-6-Beta-3-127315.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-RTM-December-2009-Cumulative-Time-Zone-Update-127347.shtml Microsoft has made available for download a new Cumulative Time Zone Update for all currently supported Windows platforms, designed to implement time-zone changes that reflect modifications introduced around the world. The software giant explained that the December 2009 cumulative time zone update was set up to replace the previous refresh that was offered in August. A detailed list with all the modifications brought to the table by KB 976098 is included below.

In case you live in one of the geographical areas mentioned further down in this article, then it would be best to apply the update as soon as possible in order to make sure that the Windows operating system keeps up-to-date with the time changes in your country without any intervention from you. Microsoft mentioned that users that were not directly impacted by the update could postpone deployment to a later date. “We recommend that you deploy the most current Windows cumulative time zone update to guarantee the consistency of the time zone database on all systems,” the company noted.

According to Microsoft, the December 2009 cumulative time zone update is available for a range of operating systems, including the latest releases of Windows client and server, namely Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. But, in addition, the... (read more)]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:56:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-RTM-December-2009-Cumulative-Time-Zone-Update-127347.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-7-RTM-December-2009-Cumulative-Time-Zone-Update-127347.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Windows-Server-AppFabric-Beta-1-127342.shtml Microsoft’s Cloud strategy spans well beyond Windows Azure, and the company made this abundantly clear during the opening keynote address at the Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles. In addition to providing the Cloud platform, Microsoft is also offering developers the tools necessary to streamline the migration of applications to private, hosted and public Clouds. But in addition to the migration process, the software giant is allowing companies to expand their apps with services, an evolution which is designed to take full advantage of what Cloud computing has to offer. In this regard, after announcing the release of Windows Azure, Microsoft also revealed that Windows Server AppFabric Beta 1 was available for download.

Windows Server AppFabric, accompanied by the Windows Azure platform AppFabric, is set up to provide devs with a collection of integrated, high-level application services. The Redmond company built a variety of technologies into AppFabric, leveraging hosting and caching technologies code-named “Dublin” and code-named “Velocity,” in combination with the Windows Azure platform AppFabric Service Bus and AppFabric Access Control (formerly .NET Services).

“So as we think about building scale-out, highly available applications, one of the key thing... (read more)]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:31:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Windows-Server-AppFabric-Beta-1-127342.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-Windows-Server-AppFabric-Beta-1-127342.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Explore-and-Map-Mars-via-Silverlight-and-Windows-Azure-127333.shtml Becoming a Martian while never leaving this planet might not have the same appeal or deliver the adrenaline levels that setting an actual foot on the soil of Mars would, but then again, exploring is not what it used to be. And don’t think for a minute that the comfort of an Earth home and exploring the alien, distant and cold surface of Mars can’t seamlessly go hand in hand. In fact, through a collaboration between Microsoft and NASA, users that would otherwise never get a chance to jump planets in the solar system, can visit Earth’s reddish neighbor using nothing more than their browser and the Silverlight plug-in as equipment.

The Redmond company and National Aeronautics and Space Administration are literally inviting users to become Martians and start exploring and mapping the Red Planet. Leveraging various examples of Microsoft technology, including Silverlight and the Windows Azure Cloud platform, NASA has launched “Be a Martian,” a new citizen-science Web site.

“We really need the next generation of explorers,” explained Michelle Viotti, director of Mars Public Outreach at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “And we’re also accomplishing something important for NASA. There’s so much data coming back from Mars. Having a wider cro... (read more)]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:43:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Explore-and-Map-Mars-via-Silverlight-and-Windows-Azure-127333.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Explore-and-Map-Mars-via-Silverlight-and-Windows-Azure-127333.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/From-Windows-Server-2008-R2-to-Pure-Haiku-127309.shtml Where does Windows Server 2008 stop and pure poetry begin? This is a question that only a poetic server administrator can answer. And, of course, what better form for the answer to take than that of a Haiku, Japanese poetry filtered down to just 17 moras/on (sounds). Microsoft has the best place for harnessing and gathering all Windows Server 2—8 R2-examples of poetic creativity, namely R2 Haiku.

“Welcome to R2 Haiku,” reads a message from Microsoft on a website dedicated especially to allowing users to share Haikus about the latest iteration of Windows Server. “Take a moment to clear your mind and create a Haiku to win a home theater system and Xbox 360 Elite. For inspiration, explore the new features in Windows Server 2008 R2that will free up your time for simpler pursuits, like this. Or, browser and rate the Haikus of others.”

The contest debuted on November 8, 2009, but users have plenty of time at their disposal to come up with the perfect R2 poetry in the following format 5-7-5 syllables. This because Microsoft will only shut down submissions on January 15, 2010. According to the Redmond company a total of nine semi-finalist haikus will be selected, following which a public voting period will follow until January 29th, 2010.

“To be eligible for judging an ent... (read more)]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:42:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/From-Windows-Server-2008-R2-to-Pure-Haiku-127309.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/From-Windows-Server-2008-R2-to-Pure-Haiku-127309.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Azure-Cloud-OS-Is-Here-127307.shtml One year after Microsoft first unveiled its Cloud operating system to the world, Windows Azure has been officially launched. The Professional Developers Conference 2009 in Los Angeles acted as the stage for the Redmond company to release, what it referred to as critical pieces of its Cloud services strategy, namely the Windows Azure platform, composed by the Windows Azure operating system and the SQL Azure database. Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie explained, during his opening keynote address at PSD 2009, that Windows Azure was essentially Windows Server at the core.

“Windows Azure, which we introduced right here on this stage last year, is our cloud computing operating environment, designed from the outset to holistically manage extremely large pools of computation, storage and networking, all as a single, dynamic, seamless whole, as a service. It's a cloud OS designed for the future, but made familiar for today,” Ozzie stated.

Since its introduction at PDC 2008, Windows Azure has been available for testing, evolving through various Community Technology Preview releases. And in fact, Windows Azure will continue to be offered for testing as a CTP until the end of this year. This means that Microsoft will not charge companies anything for test driving Windows Azure by the end of 2009.

... (read more)]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:09:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Azure-Cloud-OS-Is-Here-127307.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Azure-Cloud-OS-Is-Here-127307.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-IE8-Mouse-Gestures-Add-on-Available-for-Download-127293.shtml It’s unlikely the Internet Explorer 9 will natively support mouse gestures, since Microsoft hasn’t really warmed up to such functionality with the existing iteration of its proprietary browser. However, while users could certainly put mouse gestures support for IE9 on their wish list, there is already an add-on offering this type of capabilities for Internet Explorer 8. Appropriately dubbed Mouse Gestures for Internet Explorer, the add-on developed by Ralph Hare comes with Microsoft’s recommendation, not only in terms of how it manages to expand the browser, but also in terms of quality.

“Mouse Gestures is compiled in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors (installed individually) making the gestures add-on one of the very few available for 64-bit IE. The add-on works in all versions of IE and I’ve personally used it on Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, and Windows 7 without problems,” revealed Eric Lawrence, IE PM. “The 32bit and 64bit installers together weigh in just under 1 megabyte. The add-on is packaged using the same NSIS installer that I use to install Fiddler.”

According to the Redmond company, there are a number of aspects recommending the Mouse Gestures for Internet Explorer for users searching an alternative model to interact ... (read more)]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:16:00 GMT Softpedia News - Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-IE8-Mouse-Gestures-Add-on-Available-for-Download-127293.shtml Microsoft http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-IE8-Mouse-Gestures-Add-on-Available-for-Download-127293.shtml#review_zone Softpedia News (Marius Oiaga)