Microsoft opens portals for governments
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The Solutions Sharing Network allows government entities to post their own tips, procedures and even in-house software.
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Portal's software is designed to let communications and media companies bill and manage a range of services including wireline and wireless phones, broadband, cable, VoIP, IP television, music and video.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O unveiled on  Wednesday a new set of Web-based services allowing users of its  MSN service to publish and track each other's blogs, or online  journals.
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Facing growing competition from open source software providers, Microsoft Corp. has decided to allow governments and international organizations access to source code for its Office 2003 productivity suite.
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Microsoft joins Concordia Project to improve interoperability among identity management systems.
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Web services are becoming increasingly popular for linking software programs. Now, Microsoft and some other big companies are pitching the technology as a way to manage everything from big corporate servers to mobile phones.
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Microsoft Corp. said on Sunday that it  would share the underlying software code for its Office program  as part of its efforts to make governments more confident in  the security and compatibility of the world's largest software  maker's products.
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Microsoft on Sunday expanded its controversial Government Security Program to allow governments that Microsoft trusts to review the source code of Microsoft Office.
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More than 60 governments and international organizations will be permitted to view the proprietary code for the latest version of Office.
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Microsoft to Share Software Code Microsoft plans to announce that it will give dozens of governments and international agencies access to the programming code in its Office desktop software.
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Microsoft Corp.  unveiled on Wednesday a new set of Web-based services allowing users of its MSN service to publish and track each other's blogs, or online journals.
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In Berlin on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled a product package aimed at local and regional e-government initiatives, in the midst of growing government opposition in Europe to proprietary software.Microsoft&#39;s Citizen Service Platform includes applications and templates designed for local and regional governments primarily in Europe and the United States. It is built on products, including SharePoint, Office Live, and Windows Server.While Microsoft has been selling software to the public sector for years, it has recently begun focusing on local governments after discovering that many people interact with their local governments more often than the federal government, said Ralph Young, vice president of Microsoft&#39;s Worldwide Public Sector group.Europe alone has more than 80,000 local and regional governments, Young said.Governments can use the Citizen Service Platform to create portals, manage documents, deploy alert systems in the case of emergencies, and create and manage citizen information databases that can be shared among different agencies.Microsoft is introducing the product as it faces&#160;mounting opposition Europe. Some governments there are migrating to open source products as a way to avoid being locked into a single vendor of proprietary software.Others, such as the Netherlands, are taking a more extreme route. Late last year, the Dutch parliament mandated that government organizations choose open source over proprietary software if a viable product is available. Agencies must also use open standards. The national government must comply with the new rules by May, with local governments following by the end of this year.Young was unfazed by the mandate. &quot;We have many opportunities in the Netherlands to work with local and regional governments,&quot; he said. &quot;We don&#39;t see any federal mandates having real impact locally because of local jurisdictions&#39; ability to make decisions in their best interest in terms of how to better serve citizens.&quot;Microsoft could be counting on local governments having autonomy from such federal mandates, said Mark Anderson, a consultant and founder of the Strategic News Service. &quot;There are a lot of times when a government will posture, and it doesn&#39;t really intend that posture to be carried through the rest of the country,&quot; he said.Still, some European government agencies may be predisposed to choose software other than Microsoft&#39;s, more so since the software giant began pushing its Open XML document format there, Anderson said. Microsoft is in the process of&#160;attempting to have Open XML be accepted as a standard&#160;by the International Organization for Standardization. Open XML competes with the Open Document Format promoted by IBM. Critics of Open XML accused Microsoft of stacking votes in the standardization process, souring some in Europe on Microsoft even further.Microsoft thinks that cost will determine decisions for many local governments. &quot;It&#39;s much less a religious discussion about open source and commercial software as it is about what are the solutions available that governments can see value from,&quot; said Young. &quot;Local governments are empowered to make decisions and if they say &#39;This is the best value for the dollar I spend over the life of a service capability, that will govern my decision-making process.&#39;&quot;
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InfoWorld - In Berlin on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled a product package aimed at local and regional e-government initiatives, in the midst of growing government opposition in Europe to proprietary software.
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Microsoft Corp., a worldwide leader in operating systems, announced its decision to share Office 2003 source code with governments from over 30 countries.
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Microsoft Corp. launched a redesigned  MSN portal optimized for mobile phones on Sunday, stepping up  its offering at a time when more powerful devices increase the  demand for richer content on handsets.
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Massachusetts Monday proposed adding Microsoft-developed Open XML to its list of approved open documents formats.
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Microsoft invites business users to preview its integrated performance management applications.