Report: Microsoft will alter Vista to address search concerns
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Blog: Reuters reports that the software maker will change the operating system to address concerns from Google over desktop search.
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U.S. antitrust authorities confirmed on  Tuesday they reached an accord with Microsoft Corp. requiring  the company to modify its Vista operating system in response to  complaints its desktop search function puts Google Inc.   and other potential competitors at a disadvantage.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Wednesday it plans to release the first major update to its  Windows Vista operating system early next year.
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Blog: Tucked inside Microsoft's agreement to change Vista's desktop search is word that a beta of the first service pack for Vista will come this year. No word on when the final version will ship, however.
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A bizarre episode in which Microsoft announced, then rescinded, plans to change EULA restrictions on how consumers can use Vista made for a strange Tuesday for observers, and an unhappy ending for users hoping to use the OS on virtual machines.
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Microsoft Corp. will make changes to its desktop search program following a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) by Google Inc., a news report said late Tuesday.
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Readers pitch on whether Microsoft should change default IP settings amid concerns that Vista's launch could overwhelm the Net.
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NEW YORK -- Microsoft Corp. took great pains to improve security in its newly released computer operating system, Windows Vista, redesigning it to reduce users' exposure to destructive programs from the Internet. Outside researchers commend the retooled approach -- yet they say the changes won't make online life much safer.
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Microsoft overhauls its search site and Yahoo changes are coming, following site redesigns at Google and Ask.com in search version of duck, duck, goose.
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California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Wednesday that Microsoft Corp. has agreed to make "significant changes" in its new Vista operating system to stay in compliance with a U.S. court agreement in Microsoft's antitrust case.
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Google's move to present results from multiple vertical searches in general search results will affect both searchers and search marketers.
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The software maker is in the midst of a major revamp to its search product. Over the coming weeks, the company will make more changes, including to the engine itself. Whether the changes add up to more eyeballs is an open question.
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(InfoWorld) - Google's claims thatÂ Microsoft's built-in Vista desktop indexing and search tool violates its antitrust agreementÂ could be difficult to prove even if the software does slow down the performance of Google's competitive Google Desktop offering. As long as a user can run alternative software to Microsoft's Instant Search software, it's unlikely that U.S. federal antitrust officials would consider coming down on the software giant, analysts and users said. Google's claims are far different than the ones posed by Netscape during the browser wars that led to the Department of Justice's antitrust suit in the 1990s, said Rob Helm, research director at Directions on Microsoft. "Microsoft beat Netscape in part by leveraging its relationship with PC manufacturers," he said. "This is a lot subtler." Google seems to be alleging that "if two pieces of software don't play together, then it must be an anticompetitive tactic of Microsoft's," Helm said. "I don't recall any past antitrust cases asserting something so broad," he said. The presence of Microsoft's Vista desktop search could be slowing down Google's product merely as an accident of product design, not because of any malicious intent by Microsoft, Helm said. "Even if Microsoft's software was perfectly written, the way Google interacts with it might be bad, and either company might be at fault," he said. "They could have both done the right things in different ways that might conflict with each other." According to a report in The Wall Street Journal Monday, Google sent a white paper to U.S. federal and state antitrust officials in April to try to convince them that Vista makes it difficult for consumers to use rival desktop search software. In its white paper, Google claims that Vista's search boxes and bars -- available in several places in the OS, including the Start menu and in the Windows Explorer file manager -- work only with Microsoft's search and indexing tool. The company also said it is nearly impossible to turn off Vista's indexing, which means a competitor must add a second indexer that slows down a PC. Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes confirmed the company's charge against Microsoft Monday. Microsoft is disputing Google's charges and said that it has worked closely with federal officials to ensure its Vista OS, released to consumers in January, fosters rather than inhibits competition in the area of desktop search. Users can disable Vista's desktop search service, but the company has not made it simple for them to do so, acknowledged Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman. He said this is because the company designed Vista's desktop search specifically "to not affect performance and back off any other programs running" -- including any third-party desktop search software -- in a way that should resolve any claims of anticompetitive behavior, Evans said. Andrew Brust, chief, new technology of consulting firm Twentysix New York, said he used Google's desktop search when it first came out but switched to Microsoft's product when it became available for Windows XP because he preferred it. "Microsoft chose to integrate into Windows, whereas Google decided to be browser-based," he said. "Plus, at least back then, Google installed its own local Web server as part of the product and I really didn't like all that baggage. Microsoft's was just more useful." Brust, who has used Vista in beta form, said integrating desktop search into Vista is "common sense" and suggested that Google's complaints might be sour grapes over Microsoft's own antitrust charges against the search vendor when it unveiled plans toÂ purchase online advertising and marketing powerhouse DoubleClick. Samir Bhavnani, research director for analyst firm Current Analysis West, said that Microsoft's integration of desktop search into Vista was a response to Apple's inclusion of desktop search in their Mac OS, not a move against Google. He said it wouldn't be fair for Google to accuse Microsoft of being anticompetitive without leveling the same charge at Apple. However, Helm contradicted this reasoning and said that Apple was not found in a U.S. court to have a monopoly on PC OSes, while Microsoft was in the DoJ case. "I don't have the impression that Google is worried about Apple," he said.
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Microsoft yanks wish list of features for Vista's successor.
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Won't take 'No' for an answer A week ago, a federal judge told Google it should contact the Department of Justice with any complaints about the desktop search tools built into Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system. But Google has other ideas.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general are concerned that Microsoft is revising deadlines that it agreed to as part of its antitrust settlement. At issue are changes that Microsoft says it needs to make in the schedule for releasing documentation related to Vista, according to a court document filed Tuesday. "Plaintiffs are concerned that Microsoft has not been able to meet its original schedule and are particularly troubled that at this late hour in the program, Microsoft is still discovering protocols that should have been included in the original documentation," the DOJ and the states said in a joint status report. "Plaintiffs are discussing this matter with Microsoft and will report to the court further at the status conference." The plaintiffs and Microsoft attorneys are due to meet with U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly next Tuesday for the status conference. Such conferences are held periodically so that the judge can assess whether Microsoft is complying with requirements of the 2003 antitrust order against the company. As part of the judgment, Microsoft is required to provide technical documentation for its software to help ISVs make their products interoperable with Microsoft's. On Feb. 15, Microsoft said that it needed to modify the schedule for documentation because protocols that must be documented were added to the Vista Server after the initial schedule for rewriting documentation was set or because those protocols were "inadvertently overlooked." For its part, Microsoft said in the status report filed Tuesday and made public Wednesday that it found it could "enhance" rewritten documentation of some existing protocols "by providing more detailed and comprehensive descriptions. This increased significantly the number of pages that Microsoft expected to produce in connection with the existing documentation." The number of pages of documentation Microsoft expects will be part of the rewrite project is "likely thousands of pages larger" than the company expected late last year. Under the revised schedule, Microsoft is expected to deliver documents related to Vista by April 3. It has already met three "milestones" that are part of the schedule and besides the Vista documentation has two other sets due May 11 and July 20 under the revised schedule. Microsoft said that the schedule, even since it was revised, is still aggressive. The antitrust case was tried in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which continues to oversee Microsoft compliance with requirements laid out in the judgment against the company.
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Within its recent response to the U.S. Department of Justice that stated it would modify Windows Vista to enable end users and OEMs to change the default desktop search it uses, Microsoft for the first time discussed Service Pack 1 for the OS, saying a beta will come this year.