Microsoft News Tracker

Press Q&A:

Nov. 17, 2005 – Microsoft today announced a leadership transition in which Doug Burgum, senior vice president, MBS business group, will assume the newly created role of chairman of Microsoft Business Solutions. In his new position, Burgum will continue to report to Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division.

Microsoft will launch a formal search for a new senior vice president of MBS. The new executive will also report directly to Raikes. Throughout the entire search and transition process, Burgum will continue to lead and drive the MBS business, and Orlando Ayala will remain chief operating officer of MBS and senior vice president of the Worldwide Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners (SMS&P) group. The roles of the rest of the MBS senior leadership team will remain unchanged.

There’s more, but Ina Fried has a good summary at CNET:

Microsoft said Thursday that it is searching for a new leader for its Microsoft Business Solutions unit, which sells software to medium-sized businesses.

Doug Burgum, who has had financial responsibility for the division, will remain in a new role as chairman of the unit. However, the software maker aims to recruit someone else to oversee the unit’s financial performance.
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In his new role, Burgum will be responsible for helping MBS be better understood within Microsoft, help with development of business leaders in the unit and act as an ambassador for the unit to partners and customers.

Ingrid Marson at ZDNet UK:

The Indian government is pushing an ambitious project to distribute CDs containing Firefox and OpenOffice in all official Indian languages

Open source groups are helping the Indian government meet its target of creating open source CDs in all official Indian languages by February 2006.

The open source applications included on the CDs, such as the Firefox browser and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, have already been translated into five Indian languages — Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Punjabi and Urdu. But there are still 17 languages left to be translated in just three months.

The localised open source applications will also be available on PCs soon, after the Indian government struck a deal with a number of PC vendors to pre-install the software on computers sold in the country. The Indian government is trying to encourage the use of computers across the country by distributing free CDs that contain localised versions of popular open source applications.
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Although the Indian government has funded this open source initiative, overall it has a neutral policy to open source, according to a recent ZDNet UK article looking at open source in the Indian government.

Press release:

Nov. 17, 2005 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that three new data providers, Cyota Inc., Internet Identity and MarkMonitor Inc., will be regularly providing Microsoft with information on confirmed phishing Web sites as part of efforts to help enhance the protection offered by Microsoft® Phishing Filter and Microsoft SmartScreen™ Technology. Microsoft Phishing Filter, introduced in July 2005, helps protect customers from phishing scams when they are browsing the Internet and is available via the Phishing Filter Add-in for the MSN Search Toolbar, which launched in final release today, and the upcoming release of Windows® Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista™ and Windows XP Service Pack 2, both currently in beta 1 testing. The phishing information provided by the phishing data providers will also be used to help Microsoft SmartScreen Technology detect phishing scams in e-mail sent to MSN® Hotmail® and Windows Live™ Mail beta customers. This cooperation underscores Microsoft’s goal of continuing to work with a number of organizations to employ an effective mix of data sources and other resources to help protect customers.

(Via InsideMicrosoft) Slashdot rounds ‘em up from around the web and to net out the results, the Xbox 360 graphics are great but the games are just OK with the exception of Project Gotham Racing 3, which gets a rave review at 1UP. Every manufacturer wants a “must have” game for a new console and it’s not clear yet whether any of the games will fill the bill for the Xbox 360.

Press release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the technical beta release of the new Office system, code-named Office “12.” The technical beta is available only to nominated customers and partners worldwide and is an important step toward general availability scheduled for the second half of 2006.

Microsoft® Office “12” is designed to help improve information workers’ productivity through a new results-oriented user interface, powerful graphics and diagramming engines, and advanced task and information management tools. In addition, through broader investments in enhancing business intelligence, collaboration and enterprise content management capabilities within Office “12,” there are new solutions to help customers control content, streamline business processes, collaborate across organizational boundaries and make more-informed decisions.

“Office ‘12’ will redefine the Office experience,” said Chris Capossela, corporate vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group at Microsoft. “The next version of Office is the most significant release in more than 10 years and includes new technologies designed to allow information workers to drive greater business success.
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Microsoft Office “12” will expand on the benefits Office 2003 delivered nearly two years ago, but will remain an integrated set of programs, servers and services designed to empower people to get better results more quickly. It will include new functionality across the core applications, such as Microsoft Office Word, Excel®, PowerPoint®, Outlook®, Access, InfoPath®, OneNote®, Publisher, Project, Visio® and Groove Virtual Office, as well as new server-based functionality to help amplify customers’ ability to successfully manage the creation, consumption and flow of information.

“Most significant release in more then 10 years” seems a trifle extreme, but Office 12 is important, if not necessarily for itself, then for the delivery of a Vista exploitive application. Per Ina Fried at CNET:

The company said it is offering up the Beta 1 code to about 10,000 pre-approved testers, with a broader test release slated for the spring. Microsoft is promising a final version of Office 12 for the second half of next year, around the same time as the company releases the Vista upgrade to its Windows operating system.
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So far with Office 12, Microsoft has showed off a revamp of the user interface and talked about other broad areas of improvement. But the company has not released a full set of new features or said how it will price and package up the new software.

At a financial analyst meeting in July, CEO Steve Ballmer did say there would be a “premium” version of Office, but the company has not elaborated on its plans there. The company has also pledged there will be some new server-based capabilities for Office, but has not given complete details.

The Office 12 web site has more info as does Mary Jo Foley.

Update: Jensen Harris blogs the “beta launch” party and provides a list of “the top 30 articles you should read if you want to familiarize yourself with the user interface changes in Office 12.”

Update: Bink.nu has a list of exactly what downloads are available to beta testers.