Microsoft's field of dreams
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The Arsenal Stadium Mystery Comment Hmm. How to decide where to stage your biggest product launch, actually your only product launch as far as most people are concerned, for over five years.â¦
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Microsoft is giving away development and design software to university and high school students around the world through a program aimed at fostering technology innovation worldwide.Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates&#160;is expected to unveil the DreamSpark program Tuesday at Stanford University on the first stop of a U.S. and Canadian college tour. The program is now available to more than 35 million college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.Software available to students through DreamSpark includes Microsoft&#39;s development environment, Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition, and its Web and graphic design toolset, the Expression Studio. Microsoft also is making available XNA Game Studio 2.0, SQL Server Developer Edition, Windows Server Standard Edition and other software and resources through the program.In the next six months Microsoft expects to extend the program to college students in Australia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Japan, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and other countries. And in the third quarter, the software will be available to high school students as well, Microsoft said.DreamSpark is part of a company-wide effort to work with local governments, communities, and academic institutions worldwide to give potential technology workers a head start in the competitive job market to foster technology innovation and improve citizens&#39; quality of life, especially in developing countries.Microsoft also is trying to compete worldwide with open-source technologies such as Linux that are freely available to anyone and thus popular with student computer enthusiasts who may not be able to afford to purchase Microsoft products.One major benefactor of DreamSpark is Aisec, an international exchange student program. Its 28,000 students will get software such as Microsoft&#39;s Office productivity suite, said Michelle Galant, vice president of communications.Aisec, which has 1,100 offices in 100 countries, will also use the company&#39;s Exchange e-mail server, Gallant said. &quot;It enables us to run offices and enables us to run our exchange program,&quot; she said.More information about DreamSpark can be found on Microsoft&#39;s MSDN developer site.
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Although it is not yet widely visible to the outside world, some people inside Microsoft are beginning to change how the company has traditionally developed software.
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Software maker has its eye on consumers who might be ready to make the switch from Windows.
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Microsoft Corp.&#039;s best-known business software is for creating spreadsheets, documents and presentations, but the company is hoping to convince corporations that it also can be the one-stop shop for sophisticated communications technology.
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Software giant Microsoft Corp.   sees the future and it is robots.
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With SP2 out the door, Microsoft turns sights to Longhorn--which won't look quite as expected.
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Surprise, surprise. Microsoft apparently uses its operating system software monopoly to dominate new markets. That, at least, is what European courts have just determined.
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In the six months since Microsoft announced Unlimited Potential, a company-wide plan to help bring technology skills and resources to developing countries to foster social and economic growth, it has been building programs and testing products around the world, said Will Poole, corporate vice president for the effort.Poole was in New York Friday to discuss Unlimited Potential, a program through which the company works with community leaders in countries where technology has not yet had as much of an impact on businesses and communities as it could.&quot;If you look at the challenge of addressing the needs of [developing countries], it isn&#39;t going to be met by donations by Microsoft [and others], it&#39;s going to be met by people building a business to serve the needs,&quot; Poole said.Analysts and observers have suggested another reason Microsoft is interested in working with emerging markets on technology efforts: The fight against Linux, which is proving a less expensive and easier to access option for people in countries with scant access to technology. In its effort to make it a Windows world, Microsoft has recognized the need to foster education and business development to get software like Windows and Office in the hands of people who wouldn&#39;t typically be able to afford it, they said.To do this, Microsoft is working with business leaders in countries to find the most viable business methods for bringing PCs to as many people as possible. Through this work, the company recently tweaked its FlexGo pay-as-you-go computing program it was piloting in Brazil with partner Telefonica to offer PCs on a subscription basis instead because it was a better fit for customers, Poole said.&quot;It depends on the dynamics of each market and the development of that market&quot; what kind of business models work in that country, he said.In fact, the new business model for PCs in Brazil grew out of work Microsoft had been doing in Mexico with telecom partner Telmex to offer PCs on a subscription basis as part of a bill for monthly Internet access and phone service, Poole said. That work was done through the Subscription Computing Program, which preceded the idea of linking Microsoft&#39;s global efforts under the Unlimited Potential umbrella but has since been subsumed into that more focused effort.&quot;We use the &#39;Unlimited Potential&#39; label to apply to ... things that have been going on for a number of years as well as new things,&quot; Poole said.Microsoft also is making progress on its commitment to building 200 more Microsoft Innovation Centers -- aimed at helping local software communities develop skills and create jobs -- in 35 more countries by 2009. Innovation centers in Hungary and Romania have opened in the last six months, Poole said.Another program that has been in place since 2004, Partners in Learning, is making progress as part of Unlimited Potential. Through the program, which promotes digital literacy for educators and hooks them up with one another to share best practices for teaching students about technology, Microsoft is sponsoring the Innovative Teachers Forum, which kicks off Monday in Helsinki. The forum brings together teachers worldwide who won regional prizes for sharing their methods to educate students about technology and promote digital literacy. Since its inception, the Partners in Learning program has trained nearly 3.5 million teachers and reach over 71 million students in 101 countries, Poole said.Microsoft also is piloting other technologies around the world that were developed specifically to meet the needs of people in developing countries. One of those is Windows Multipoint, a technology that enables multiple users to use one PC simultaneously to collaborate through educational software programs.Microsoft also developed technology called SteadyState out of research done in emerging countries that offer shared-access facilities like Internet cafes and libraries to give people access to PCs and the Internet. According to Poole, it was reported that it&#39;s difficult to maintain and manage these facilities because people make changes to the PCs -- like downloading software or deleting files -- that makes them crash or pick up viruses that disrupt other users&#39; experience with them. To remedy this, Microsoft developed SteadyState, which restores a PC to its original settings anytime it is turned off and turned on again.&quot;We looked at the global trend around shared access and made that trend more effective,&quot; Poole said.Microsoft will provide more progress reports on Unlimited Potential in the next six months, he added. More information on the initiative can be found on Microsoft&#39;s Web site.
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At a conference for users of its Project software, Microsoft demonstrated a variety of features that likely will be in the next version of the project management application.
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It's got the right stuff to be king of the software jungle.
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Office, Microsoft Corp.&#39;s collection of programs for business documents and tasks, is fast becoming a software platform unto itself.
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The Microsoft Chairman discusses where the XO laptop fits on his radar screen (not too high) as well as other efforts to bring low-cost computing to emerging markets.
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It was a matter of minutes before news of Microsoftâs bid  jumped from front pages to the vibrant world of technology blogs.  Hereâs some of the more interesting thoughts so far.
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Our colleagues over at PC World gathered up a list of products that each of them simply couldn't imagine going through daily life without. Some are relatively obvious, such as Windows 2003,  TiVO and Skype, and others a bit more odd, such as Cyber Systems' RoboForm. Heh?
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Microsoft is turning the software into what it hopes will be a one-stop shop for e-mail, voice mail and faxes.
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Microsoft is now aiming at a market that Apple Computer pioneered more than a year ago with its iTunes online music store.