Vista launch to add 100,000 Europe IT jobs: study
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The release of Microsoft Corp.'s   much-anticipated Windows Vista operating system will  drive $40 billion in economic activity and create 100,000 new  jobs in six European countries next year, a study said on  Thursday.
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Microsoft has released a new build of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to about 15,000 testers, lending credence to recent speculation that the final code release is fast approaching.
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HYDERABAD: Microsoft Corporation will hire several hundred new staff at its new Indian campus in the next year, its chief executive said yesterday, in a move aimed at strengthening its presence in Asia&#39;s fourth-biggest economy.
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(InfoWorld) - As Windows VistaÂ appeared in computer stores worldwide, Microsoft said Tuesday that part of the design of the new operating system is the work of the European Commission. "Following discussions with European Commission, Microsoft committed to make a number of changes to the Windows Vista operating system prior to release," the software maker said in a statement, pointing to three functions of the operating system: security, search, and fixed document formats. Windows Security Center (WSC), which looks like a dashboard, gives the user an overview of what security software is running on the system and the status of checks and upgrades of firewalls and antispyware protection. Rival security software firms and the Commission suspected this could give WSC an unfair advantage. Microsoft said it agreed to develop a new set of APIsÂ for release in the first service pack, scheduled for later this year, which can be invoked by third-party security programs to turn off the alerts presented by WSC. Similarly, PatchGuard -- software that protects against the modification of the kernel of the operating system -- has been added to Vista. Some security vendors have in the past made modifications to the kernel as part of the implementation of their security software. PatchGuard prevents such modifications in the 64-bit version. Microsoft is now working with vendors to develop new kernel-level APIs that will provide programmatic access to the kernel to address this issue, Microsoft said. The APIs will be available in Windows Vista 64 with the first service pack, scheduled for later this year. Regarding search, Microsoft has changed the way default settings are made for Internet search within both Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). "These changes now ensure for users that they are able -- through a series of windows and options -- to make a clear, conscious, and open decision on their default search provider. Furthermore, users will retain at all times the ability to change this and all further defaults in the operating system at will," Microsoft said. Microsoft's own fixed document format software is known as XPS. "In response to the Commission's concerns, the company has made fundamental changes to the licensing structure of the XPS fixed-format technology and has committed to submit the technology to an international standards body for adoption as an open industry standard," Microsoft said. The XPS standard will be made available under licensing terms that do not exclude any industry or licensing model including the GPL (general public license), it said. "In response to Commissioner Kroes' letter of March 2006, Microsoft created a singleÂ API so that independent software developers can create applications to allow users to save documents in XPS or other formats, such as Adobe's PDF," Microsoft said. Microsoft said it has also disclosed through a licensing program the relevant information to enable the implementation of XPS technology on competing client and server operating systems. Microsoft has also responded to a further Commission demand to submit XPS (as well as future extensions) to a standards-setting body. Microsoft will submit XPS to the Ecma International. Microsoft said it will also enable the implementation of XPS under an open-source business model (GPL) through use of a covenant not to sue -- a model that Microsoft has applied to Web services and open XMLÂ  document formats and that has, it said, "been welcomed by the open-source community." European customers and OEMs will be able to buy a version of Vista that has Microsoft's Media Player stripped out. This unbundled version of the operating system complies with the 2004 European antitrust ruling, which ordered the company to offer two separate versions of both the home and professional versions of the operating system. "In compliance with the European Commission's decision of March 2004, home and professional editions of Windows Vista without Media Player functionality will be released in Europe on the same schedule as the Windows Vista general availability launch," Microsoft said. These are called the 'N' versions -- denoting "no media player," the company said.
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A new study on Vista adoption shows that the year-old Microsoft operating system may be finding a groove with business users.
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(InfoWorld) - Hoping to accelerate the adoption of Vista for businesses, MicrosoftÂ on Tuesday unveiled toolsÂ that willÂ help companies deploy the new Windows client OS, including software that allows older versions of Windows to run virtually alongside Vista. The company released six tools designed to help business customers migrate from previous versions of Windows to Vista, which was widely released on Jan. 30. The tools are the Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Solution Accelerator for BDD (Business Desktop Deployment) 2007, the Microsoft ACT (Application Compatibility Toolkit) 5.0, the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 1.0, and two volume activation tools -- Volume Activation Management Tool and Key Management Service for Windows Server 2003. Businesses have said they are in no rush to update to Vista, and Microsoft seems concerned about their apparent reluctance. Last Thursday during a meeting with financial analysts, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called analysts' sales estimates for Vista "overly aggressive" and tried to downplay expectations for OS sales. The company is hoping the tools will make moving to Vista less painless for business customers, particularly those who depend on older versions of Windows. Virtual PC 2007, a virtualization tool that lets businesses simultaneously run multiple OSes on a single PC, could come in handy in this scenario. The tool allows business customers to move computers to Vista while keeping previous versions of Windows available for those PCs to run legacy or custom applications in a virtual environment, Microsoft said. Virtual PC 2007 is available for free from this Web site. Solution Accelerator for BDD 2007 includes user migration tools, remote deployment tools, and integration with other Microsoft deployment products, such as System Management Server 2003. BDD also includes or can be used to integrate other tools unveiled Tuesday, including ACT 5.0, Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, and the Volume Activation 2.0, into the deployment process. A free download of BDD 2007 is available to all customers and partners here. ACT 5.0 helps businesses handle potential application compatibility issues encountered when moving to Windows Vista, Microsoft said. The tool includes a series of compatibility evaluators that lets companies assess whether applications will be compatible with Vista and, if not, how to resolve conflicts. ACT 5.0 also includes a link to an online community that provides users with updated application assessments and test results not only from Microsoft, but also its partners. It is available as a free download here. The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool helps businesses determine which existing PCs can upgrade to Vista and gives them the resources required to complete the process, Microsoft said. The tool assesses PCs' hardware and device compatibility with Vista,Â and itÂ provides reports with upgrade recommendations for each PC. The tool is available for download here. Microsoft Volume Activation 2.0 and KMS (Key Management Service) for Windows Server 2003 provide volume activation technologies so businesses can activate multiple Vista PCs across the company. The Windows VAMT (Volume Activation Management Tool) enables IT professionals to automate and manage the volume activation process using a Multiple Activation Key, which requires a one-time communication with Microsoft either independently by each computer or by multiple computers at once. KMS for Windows Server 2003 lets business customers host a local service within their environment that can be used to activate Windows Vista without sending information to Microsoft. VAMT and KMS for Windows Server 2003 are available on the Microsoft Download Center here and here.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft tried to dazzle the antitrust regulators in Brussels on Thursday with new research that illustrates how immense the effect of Windows Vista will be next year on Europe's IT industry and the broader economy. Microsoft warnedÂ earlier this week that the launch of Vista might be delayed in Europe because of the regulators' concerns about its impact on competition. On Thursday it used research conducted by IDC -- and sponsored by Microsoft -- to illustrate how much Vista is set to benefit Europe in terms of revenues and jobs next year. Within a year of going on sale, IDC said, Windows Vista will be installed on more than 30 million computers in the six E.U. countries included in the study: Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Poland and Denmark. More than 100 million computers worldwide will run Vista within a year of its launch. The predictions come from a research paper titled "The economic impact of Microsoft Windows Vista." Vista-related employment will account for more than 20 percent of all IT jobs within a year of its arrival, IDC predicted. That translates into around one million IT professionals in the six countries, including 100,000 new jobs by the end of 2007, assuming that Vista is launched on time at the beginning of next year. The European Commission, Europe's top antitrust regulator, is concerned that new features planned for Vista, like its improved security software, willÂ fall foul of the same antitrust rulesÂ the company was found guilty of breaching two and a half years ago with its bundling of Windows Media Player. Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, said the impact of Vista will be much greater than the direct benefits to Microsoft. "The economic opportunity Windows Vista creates for small and large companies across the region is clearly much more significant," he said at a press conference to unveil the study. But some commentators saw the unveiling of the IDC research as a way of pressuring the Commission to back off. Last week, four members of the European Parliament wrote to competition commissioner Neelie Kroes warning her not to scupper the launch of Vista. "It looks like operation shock and awe," said one person following Microsoft's antitrust travails in Europe, who asked not to be named. Microsoft is "losing the legal argument, so it's turning to political means to maintain its abusive monopoly," said the person, who is close to some of Microsoft's nearest competitors. For every euro ($1.27) Microsoft generates in its own revenues from Vista, other firms in the six countries that are involved in distributing the OS, building applications for it or servicing computers using Vista will generate â¬14 (17.76) in sales, IDC said. These companies should sell "over â¬32 billion ($40.6 billion) in products and services revolving around Windows Vista," IDC said. "Rapid and widespread adoption of Windows Vista means that its launch ... will have a pronounced positive impact on local economies throughout Europe," IDC said. The six countries in the study account for over 65 percent of all IT spending in the European Union, Croatia, Norway, and Switzerland. (IDC is owned by International Data Group, the parent company of IDG News Service.)
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Microsoft is pushing hard to get its next-generation Windows operating system ready for a public launch in January, but now it has a new hurdle: the European Commission has raised concerns about Vista. The Redmond company said a delay may occur if the EU demands changes to the product.
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Ahead of Bill Gates' keynote Sunday night, Microsoft said that 100 million copies of Vista have been sold, but the new OS has little presence here at CES.
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(InfoWorld) - A new IDC report on the impact of Windows Vista on the industry claims Microsoft's business partners stand to benefit more financially from the OS than Microsoft itself will in 2007. According to the report on the U.S. economic impact of Vista, for every one U.S. dollar Microsoft makes on Vista in 2007, Microsoft partners that offer software, hardware and services related to Vista will make $18. "If there's a surprising thing to people, it's how extensively a Microsoft piece of software ripples out through the ecosystem," said John Gantz, one of the IDC analysts who wrote the report. "Microsoft, as a software vendor, casts a bigger shadow than its revenues." IDC analysts Al Gillen and Marcel Warmerdam co-wrote the report, released Monday, which was commissioned by Microsoft. The report also said that 35 percent to 45 percent of new PCs that ship to enterprises in 2007 will run Vista. "Some thought [adoption] would move faster," Gantz said. "But to me, that's relatively quick." However, he added that most of the Vista adoption in the enterprise will come from new PCs, not upgrades to enterprise computers that are running an earlier version of Windows. And 2008 will be the year Vista really takes hold in the enterprise, with about 80 percent of PCs being shipped to businesses running the OS, and nearly 40 percent of the enterprise installed base running Vista, Gantz said. According to the report, Vista will be good not only for the wallets of Microsoft partners in 2007, but also for the IT industry in general. The OS should produce more than 100,000 new jobs in 2007, according to the report. IDC said that within the U.S. in 2007, as many as 200,000 IT companies that produce, sell or distribute products or services running on Vista will employ more than 660,000 people. Another 1.15 million will be employed at companies using the OS. And more than 60 percent of the growth in Windows-related employment will be driven by Vista, according to the report.
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About half of businesses surveyed are in some phase of updating to Windows Vista, a CDW study finds.
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At his Sunday-evening CES keynote, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft has sold more than 100 million Vista licenses so far. The number requires some elucidation.
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PC vendors are beefing up their IT service offerings to try to capitalize on Microsoft's launch of Windows Vista Enterprise.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft Corp. released tools to help companies deploy Windows Vista, acknowledging that there are deployment and application-compatibility pains enterprise IT managers face when updating business desktops to the new OS.
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(InfoWorld) - Two engineers at the computer security firm Symantec are coming to Brussels next week to discuss theÂ antitrust threatÂ posed to their company by the upcoming version of Microsoft's Windows, dubbed Vista, a Symantec spokesman said Thursday. Vice President for Consumer Engineering Rowan Trollope and a senior engineer in the technology strategy office, Bruce McCorkendale, will press their case to the European antitrust regulator, the European Commission. Vista is due to launch at the beginning of next year. The Commission hasÂ warned MicrosoftÂ about the possible impact on competition ofÂ Vista's built-in security software. The regulator fears that by including a sophisticated antivirus program into Vista, this could have a similar effect to the bundling of Media Player with Windows XP. Two and a half years ago the Commission ruled that the bundling of Media Player into Windows was anticompetitive and ordered Microsoft to launch a second version of Windows without Media Player. It alsoÂ fined the companyÂ nearly â¬500 million ($634 million). Meanwhile, Adobe Systems has told European Union regulators that Microsoft should be banned from bundling in free competing software for reading and writing electronic documents into Vista, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal Europe. The paper cites unnamed people familiar with the situation. Adobe's and Symantec's lobbying moves will come as no surprise to the Commission. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes wrote to Microsoft in March expressing concern about Vista's impact on competition, and cited the computer security and document reader and writers sectors as examples of where Microsoft's bundling strategy might pose competition problems. However, earlier this week Kroes insisted she wasn't calling for Microsoft to launch Vista without any security system. "I have seen it suggested that the Commission may seek to prevent Microsoft from improving the security of its operating system. This is categorically not the case," she wrote in a letter to the Financial Times newspaper.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Microsoft  said on Thursday it  was on track to launch its Windows Vista operating system in  Europe in January but again asked the European Commission to  detail concerns it may have with the system.
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Companies that deploy Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista in tandem could see more than a threefold increase in networking performance, according to a Microsoft-commissioned study.