Microsoft gets a fashion makeover
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com October 15, 2004, 5:11 AM PT. Wood paneling and chrome made your dad&#39;s station wagon look like a million bucks, and they might also be just the ticket for Microsoft&#39;s fledgling
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SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corp. has taken the wraps off "Surface," a coffee-table shaped computer that responds to touch and to special bar codes attached to everyday objects.
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The traditional pattern shakes its fussy image as designers give it a new look
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Microsoft showed off some features of the next version of Project, to the delight of the crowd gathered at the Microsoft Office Project Conference in Seattle.The audience applauded a new timeline view that will become available. Alice Steinglass, senior program manager for Microsoft Office Project, showed how users can cut and paste the timeline into other applications, such as a PowerPoint slide. Once pasted, users can alter individual components of the image, deleting sections and changing the font, for example.That&#39;s one feature that furthers Microsoft&#39;s goal of making Project not only easier to use for project managers but usable by more people in an organization. &quot;At the end of the day, the fundamental thesis here is that we are all project managers because we all manage work,&quot; said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft&#39;s CEO, addressing the audience on Tuesday. &quot;Whether my personal project management system happens to look more like a formal project or a task list that I might keep in something like Excel or Outlook, we need to make sure that we give rich tool sets to people at all levels of the food chain to help them do work management.&quot;A major user interface change to come within Project that Steinglass showed off is the icon ribbon at the top of the screen, similar to the one featured on many other Microsoft programs&#160;such as&#160;Word. Users can click on different tabs at the top and the icons available in the ribbon change. With the click of an icon, users can, for example,&#160;filter for incomplete tasks or group by resource name. These functions currently require several clicks in Project 2007.Future versions of Project will give customers an easier way to customize fields. The current method is complicated and will eventually be replaced with a blank column that users can simply start filling in with any information they want. As soon as they do, a new blank column automatically appears. If a user inputs a dollar figure in the column, the rest of the column automatically configures for dollars.Steinglass also showed off enhancements that will come to Web access to Projects. If a user makes changes to several time frames for completing tasks, the application won&#39;t automatically update the overall schedule, so as not to slow down performance. When a user is done making changes, a Calculate Changes button makes the alterations, highlighting every item that has changed. Users can hit Undo repeatedly to get rid of changes.Microsoft doesn&#39;t even have a name for the next version of Project, so there&#39;s no time frame for when these features will become available. Project 2007 began shipping earlier this year, and some Project 2003 users say they&#39;re waiting for the first Service Pack release before they&#39;ll move to the latest version.Microsoft executives expect that Web access will become important in the future. Practically every user of Project will take advantage of Web access, allowing partners and remote workers access to it from online, said Mike Angiulo, general manager of the Microsoft Project business unit. Ballmer wagered that in five years, about 50 percent of Project customers would use a fully hosted version, with the rest using an on-premise server.Microsoft may also do some work enabling more access to Project from Windows Mobile devices. While there is a need for access to Project from mobile phones, users won&#39;t want the full version, Ballmer said. &quot;What you want to do is say what aspects of the Project experience are people going to want to take on the phone,&quot; he said. For example, people may want to check on the status of a project and input information from their phones, he said.Some existing functions already available let people use their phones to change tasks within Outlook and those changes will be replicated on the Project server, said Angiulo.On Monday, Microsoft said that in two or three weeks it will announce the ship date for Service Pack 1 for Project 2007. When pressed for more details on Tuesday, Angiulo said that it&#39;s on the same schedule as the release date for Office 2007. He added that the final code is being tested, an indication that release is imminent.
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Nanotechnology is coming to a clothing store near you.
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Microsoft (Quote, Chart) released a Community Technology Preview of the framework and software development kit for building custom visual designers based on the modeling technology in Visual Studio 2005.
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With the release of its first suite of Web and graphic design software expected to be delivered at some point in the upcoming months, Microsoft is gearing up to go head-to-head with graphics leader Adobe Systems.
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Microsoft used a Seattle conference to show off some features of the next version of Project.
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Microsoft Corp. has launched a new entry in its ongoing effort to bring more innovative PC form factors to marketâin the somewhat quirky form of a high-end system specialized for project managers.
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Microsoft enters the home stretch for completion of its next-generation OS.
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The company's original visionary returns to the helm.
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For the past five years, Bill Gates and the people at Microsoft have been trying to turn that boring gray computer box on your desk into a sexy entertainment gadget that you would welcome into your living room or media room.
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IAC's comparison shopping site Pronto gets a Web 2.0 makeover.
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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 flexes its parody muscles with another in-house lampoon. In Gear Factor.
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The Microsoft Download Centre has been updated with some graphical improvements on both the search, listings and item pages. Crucially in the new look download centre many application downloads are now being
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The quiet clothing industry powerhouse is undergoing a makeover in an effort to attract style-conscious consumers.