Microsoft Claims Partnership Creates 1,000 .Net Platforms
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Executives with Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have disclosed that a 2-year-old partnership created to promote the use of .Net for Web services has resulted in the installation of 1,000 .
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Microsoft hailed the agreement as the culmination of a multibillion-dollar campaign to settle antitrust conflicts with its major antagonists.
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Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, and France's Dassault Systemes have forged a global, 5-year strategic alliance to deliver Dassault's 3D software to firms using the Microsoft software platform.
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Microsoft aims to bring programs and technology to underserved markets through its Unlimited Potential initiative.
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California consumers and  businesses will soon receive $1.1 billion in delayed payouts  from Microsoft Corp.  to settle antitrust claims  against the world's biggest software maker, lawyers in the case  said on Wednesday.
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Microsoft Corp., the world's largest  software maker, and France's Dassault Systemes have forged a  global, 5-year strategic alliance to deliver Dassault's 3D  software to firms using the Microsoft software platform.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft partners introduced to the company's software-plus-services strategy this week at its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) applauded the plan, though they noted a few challenges as the company makes the transition from selling business software to offering more hosted and Web-based services. Microsoft used its annual partner conference, held this year in Denver, as a coming-out party for the strategy, with CEO Steve Ballmer outlining the plan for the first time after other executives have been discussing it publicly for more than a year. It seemed fitting that the company's top executive was the one to deliver the message to thousands of partners who play a significant role in the company's success. "I had no idea how partner-focused Microsoft really is," said Linda Gillis, a first-time attendee of the WPC and director of marketing for Squirrel Systems, a British Columbia company that provides restaurant point-of-sale software and services. This dependency on partners is a double-edged sword for Microsoft as it moves to a more Web-centric services business model versus the software license model it has used successfully for years. The company not only has to revise its strategy, remaining several steps behind competitors such as Google that started business on the Web and have no traditional software business, but it also has to help its partners make changes, too. To do this, Microsoft has been slowly ramping up its hosted services portfolio with a series of both consumer and business services. Executives also said at the WPC that those services will eventually become a full-fledged development platform, being both an OS and platform for new applications on the Web in a similar way that Windows is on the desktop. Gillis said that moving toward offering more services for business in addition to software is the right direction for both Microsoft and its partners. "The addition of services helps to create long-term customer relationships and a recurring revenue stream," she said. Most partners agreed with this sentiment, but some noted challenges that both Microsoft and partners will face as they make the switch. Jay Blazensky, vice president of business development for RingCentral, a Microsoft partner that provides voice services, including click-to-call, agreed that creating repeatable revenue is a definite benefit of the plan. But he noted that a challenge for Microsoft and its partners is to convince sales people to "forgo the larger up-front commission in lieu of a recurring annuity." "Those that buy into the model and are successful -- and patient -- have the opportunity to be enormously successful," he said. Another partner, Joe McDermott of Solution Canvas, said Microsoft's strategy of transitioning services in a calculated and deliberateÂ manner is the only way to make the change, which is necessary because it is what customers are demanding. Solution Canvas has built a service for small law firms using Microsoft's Office Live hosted service. "I think the strategy is the way forward strategically for both Microsoft and [partners] ... because in the end the marketplace will dictate and demand," he said. "End-users are who ultimately matter, and now that we have new Web technologies like AJAX and a rapid application development platform in Office Live, the barriers to powerful online applications are gone." At the same time, McDermott acknowledged that some Microsoft partners will have to learn new skills to take advantage of the new services approach, though the company's "considered pace" for moving to services will help them in that endeavor. While McDermott praised the technologies that enable more hosted services, one of them -- reliable access to broadband -- remains a hindrance not only to Microsoft's services plan but also its competitors' plans, RingCentral's Blazensky said. "It's an industry-wide challenge ... [but] it's maturing every day," he noted.
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The widget powerhouse has announced that there are more than 1 million widgets being created every day across its network.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on Thursday that more than 200 million users will be using one of its new products -- including its highly-anticipated Windows Vista operating system, Office 2007 software suite and Exchange server -- by the end of 2007.
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Microsoft announced today that they were rolling out a new set of tools under the âMid-Market Netware Migration Programâ banner, aimed at convincing existing NetWare clients to move to Windows Server 2003 instead of Linux.
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NOVEMBER 16, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Microsoft Corp. is stepping up its efforts to win Novell Inc. NetWare users over to its Windows Server 2003 operating system by offering migration products and support, the company announced today.
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Neon Systems, a provider of mainframe integration solutions for Microsoft .Net and Java applications, has acquired ClientSoft for $10.5 million in cash and the rights to purchase 1.1 million shares of Neon stock. The privately held ClientSoft specializes in secure, high-performance integration solutions for mainframe Web services. The purchase, which adds 180 customers to Neon's base of 300 customers, brings together Neon's Shadow z/Services and ClientSoft's ServiceBuilder product lines and should provide customers with a robust set of solutions to support service-oriented architectures (SOAs).
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Velocity Micro is first system builder to offer Vista SP1
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The award for fees and costs comes in a case in which Microsoft agreed to allocate $1.1 billion for California consumers. By Associated Press.
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The 2-year-old .Net joint initiative between Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard has produced $600 million in revenue.
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Microsoft's partners showed support for the company's unified communications platform with hardware and software announcements.
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Citrix Systems and Microsoft (Quote, Chart) inked a five-year, code-sharing deal that will make sure customers of Citrix&#39;s MetaFrame Access Suite have a migration path to Longhorn.