Microsoft News Tracker

If you’ve read Massachusetts Plans to Dump Office or Lights out in Massachusetts for Microsoft or Massachusetts to adopt ‘open’ desktop, it’s worthwhile reading Joe Wilcox’s explanation - Is this a Closed Debate on Open Standards? - to clarify the situation.

However, the specifics of the Massachusetts situation aside, the demands of political entities world wide for open standards will continue to be a problem for Microsoft.

Mary Jo Foley reports It’s the End of the Line for Microsoft’s Services for Unix Product:

After folding some of the SFU features into Windows Server 2003 R2, Microsoft is planning to discontinue support for SFU as a standalone product.

SFU isn’t that well known despite being free and winning a best of show at LinuxWorld in 2003. As it currently exists, SFU is a combination of an earlier SFU offering and the Interix product line Microsoft acquired when they purchased Softway Systems in 1999. It was always an accomodation to enterprise customers who needed some Unix interoperability.

Dare Obasanjo has the details in MSN Search Adds Feed Search and Other Operators. The punchline:

So it looks like MSN Search is the first of the big three search engines to provide RSS search and the improvements to the site: operator are also quite cool. They definitely get mad props from me for getting these features out there.

(Via Inside Microsoft) Douglass C. Perry at IGN reports US Retailers: Xbox 360 Primed for Thanksgiving:

Microsoft plans to launch the Xbox 360 as late as Friday, November 25, the day after Thanksgiving, with software potentially hitting shelves earlier that week, sources from three US retailers told IGN today.

Some reasons for the late date by hitting the link. It’s looking like it’s a tight squeeze to get the Xbox 360 out in time for the Christmas shoppers.

Angus Kidman at ZDNet Australia reports Microsoft unveils Freeze Dry for Windows Vista:

… senior product manager Amy Stephan offered a preview of the Freeze Dry technology.

Many IT managers plan to automatically install patches and updates on machines during periods when they are inactive, such as overnight or on weekends. However, as some patches require machines to reboot, users who leave documents open and unsaved run the risk of losing that data if the machine is automatically updated.

Freeze Dry eliminates that problem by automatically saving application state and documents and then restoring them once the system restarts, Stephan said.