Microsoft News Tracker

From CNET:

Microsoft is discounting its MSN TV 2 set-top box–and adding several new features.

The company announced on Tuesday that it’s offering a $100 rebate that effectively halves the cost of the set-top box, which allows users to send and receive e-mail, browse the Web and access information from a PC located elsewhere in the home. The rebate runs through Jan. 31.

Microsoft debuted the MSN TV 2 box, which is the successor to Web TV, last September.

Now that’s a discount! More on the new features by following the link. More details on the MSN TV2 and its evolving market niche here.

Update (8/25): Today, Microsoft issued a press release on the new features.

Tony Smith at The Register:

Intel CEO Paul Otellini today pledged to permit handheld users to run Windows Vista on their palmtops by the end of the decade.

Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer may none be too happy that his Wintel colleague is setting out to rid the world of Windows Mobile but that’s the way it goes. And anyway, Steve Jobs is a customer too, now.

Otellini’s pitch was a new generation of devices he dubbed the ‘handtop’. The platform is nothing new, of course - PDAs, palmtops and handheld PCs have been around for years - but past attempts to create truly mobile, wireless micro PCs have been hindered by performance and battery life limitations.

Otellini said Intel’s new focus on “performance per watt” will remove those limits.

It’s the Intel Developer Forum and so we’ll be hearing a variety of bright futures:

Over the course of the next three days, you’ll be transported so far into the future you may never want to come back.

I’m afraid that a handheld gadget running Vista isn’t going to do it for me - my mobile form factor remains a pad of paper and a pencil. Someday maybe I can get a tablet PC that truly replaces it.

Daniel Feies reports that MSN Messenger 7.5 (build 7.5.0299) was just released. You can get it now at http://messenger.msn.com/. He has a list of new features and Leah provides more details. With the rumor of Google’s IM entry coming tomorrow, it certainly is good timing.

S. Somasegar (Microsoft Corporate VP, Developer Division) lays out the timeline for the run up to the launch of Visual Studio 2005 on November 7 in a post on his weblog. Note that Team Foundation Server will not ship until 1Q06, but Premier support has been arranged for Beta 3 via a Go Live license so that customers can roll out the full package.

Gene Koprowski at eWeek - Google Prepares to Take On Microsoft on the Desktop:

Google is poised to compete with Microsoft and produce an alternate computing platform for PC users, analysts contend.

Google Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., on Monday launched a beta version of the forthcoming upgrade of its desktop search tool, and on Wednesday the company is expected to unveil a “communications tool” that is said to be a step beyond the company’s current search-related business focus.

More on the new desktop here, and about that “communications tool”:

Google Inc. is set to introduce its own instant messaging system, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday, marking the expansion by the Web search leader into text and also voice communications.

Citing unnamed sources “familiar with the service,” the Los Angeles Times said that Google’s Instant Messaging program would be called Google Talk and could be launched as early as Wednesday.

Google Talk goes beyond text-based instant messaging using a computer keyboard to let users hold voice conversations with other computer users, the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

Of course, there are other big players in IM, but Google is continuing to branch out.