Microsoft News Tracker

Rachel Rosmarin at Forbes:

Microsoft can’t stop playing follow the leader.

Now that it has ramped up its Windows Live product suite–a direct response to Google and Yahoo!’s popular Web-based software–the company can’t bear to leave any popular Internet category untouched, no matter how crowded the playing field already is.

Microsoft has owned up to eventually entering the Web-based, user-generated video space, with a project code-named “Warhol” that could end up as Windows Live Video. Blogs have reported that the product will launch in April, though a Microsoft spokesman said it would be later than that.

“We are keeping the possibility of user-generated video content top-of-mind as we plan for upcoming MSN and Windows Live Services,” says Rob Bennett, general manager of entertainment and video for MSN.

Dozens of companies have already popularized the user-generated video category, with YouTube and Google Video leading the pack.

Codename Warhol? More on Web video and Windows Live by following the link. And LiveSide had the original rumor.

Daily Tech:

The Japanese newspaper Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun has reported that Sony will delay the launch of PlayStation 3 until November of 2006. The North American launch date is still up in the air.

So, as rumored, not only did Sony miss their Spring launch, but the holiday shopping season in the USA as well. Apparently it’s due to issues surrounding the Blu-ray high definition DVD drive championed by Sony. Since the Xbox 360 launched in November 2005 (later elsewhere), Microsoft will have a year all by itself at the top of the market in most areas. More by following the link including a nice (stock) photo of a properly thankful Bill Gates.

Final confirmation will likely come at a meeting tomorrow in Tokyo for PS3 game developers which has now been opened to the press.

Update: Reuters:

The Nikkei said consumer electronics makers and movie companies have been unable to reach an agreement on the development of the copy protection technology.

We knew that there was going to be a big buzz blitz planned for the launch of Windows Vista, but could the Madcap Microsoft Marketers be planning a joint launch later this year for both Vista and Office 2007? That’s what David Flynn reports at Australian IT in Vista hype-fest planned:

When Microsoft launches Windows Vista on an as-yet-unnamed date towards the end of this year, it is likely that the new Office 2007 suite will touch down on the same day.

The likelihood of a double-barrelled launch was revealed by Dave Block, senior product manager on the Windows Vista marketing team during a presentation at last week’s Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The company has set aggressive sales targets for Vista and hopes the successor to Office 2003 will benefit from the repetition of the shared launch strategy adopted for Windows 95 and Windows XP and their companion Office editions.

Marc Orchant is entranced by the possibility of geeks dancing in the streets like in 1995.

“Windows Vista will probably go on to 400 million PCs in the first 24 months,” Block says. “That’s both new system sales and upgrades from XP. When you think we’re going to launch Office simultaneously there’s this huge wave of upgrades and opportunities.”

Forget the dubious prospect of a “huge wave” of Vista or Office upgrades. Since PC sales are running well above 200 million a year and growing, if Vista doesn’t go on 400 million new PCs in the first 24 months, it will be a disaster of epic proportions. When you sell new hardware there’s always the opportunity to sell a new version of Office, so the question is how more likely than normal will the consumers be to rise to the Office bait given their new machine has Vista on it?

As far as the dates go, hapless Microsoft blogger Greg Randall let slip the magic words “Yes, Vista will be released in November of this year” and various commentators were all over it. He’s changed it now, but it’s no real surprise that Vista will miss the back-to-school rush, but hopefully make the holiday shopping season. Office 2007 was always planned to precede Vista, but the last rumor was that it was slipping, so it would be natural to align them.

Finally, the rumored technical refresh of Office 2007 Beta 1 was released today to selected testers. It’s the one that introduces the new color scheme.

There’s always something brewing in the Microsoft antitrust case in the European Union. Today, Microsoft seeks open antitrust hearing, EU says no:

Microsoft asked the European Commission to open to the public a hearing that could lead to a large fine, but the Commission said procedural regulations require it be closed, the two sides said on Tuesday.

The administrative hearings on March 30 and 31 will be on charges that Microsoft failed to carry out sanctions imposed by the European Commission two years ago for violations of antitrust law.

Yesterday, Outgoing EU Consultancy Wants to Help on Microsoft:

A consultancy retained by the European Commission in the Microsoft antitrust case believes it can help break an impasse to avoid a large fine against the firm, a source familiar with the situation said on Monday.

OTR Consultants of London has helped the Commission in the Microsoft case for several years, but its contract is nearing an end because of time limits imposed under Commission procurement rules, a second source said.

Now OTR has suggested a new role for itself: it would help improve Microsoft technical documentation that the Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, says is inadequate.
…
On March 3, OTR sent a letter proposing a changed role.

OTR suggested it would work with Microsoft, the Commission and a Commission monitoring trustee to improve the documentation.

Microsoft, in a letter sent a few days ago to OTR and copied to the Commission, said it would like to accept the offer.

Asked about the exchange of letters, a Microsoft spokesman had no comment. Neither did a Commission spokesman.

It’s not obvious what OTR adds to the stew unless the other parties won’t talk to each other.

The Microsoft Business Solutions products aren’t just for medium sized businesses any more - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Adds Thousands of Seats in Enterprise-Scale Deployments:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that since its introduction in December 2005, Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 has been deployed by a broad range of enterprise-scale businesses, many of which comprise thousands of CRM users. The growing adoption worldwide of Microsoft® CRM in corporations and their divisions reflects how Microsoft CRM is meeting the demand for a solution that provides the right level of functionality and extensibility to serve the needs of diverse global enterprises.

Some of the reference customers are H&R Block Inc. (2,000 seats going on 6,000), AGFirst Farm Credit Bank (1,500 seats), Chiesi Farmaceutici SpA (Italy, 500 seats), and Maccabi Healthcare Services (Israel, 1,200 seats).

Microsoft Business Solutions’ customer relationship management solution provides a complete suite of powerful marketing, sales and service capabilities, all with a familiar and consistent user experience based on Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Outlook®.

And that seems to be the plan for the turnaround in MBS: linkage with the ubiquitous Microsoft Office. In February, Microsoft kept that ball rolling with the launch of Microsoft Dynamics Snap:

Microsoft today announced the release of Microsoft Dynamics Snap, a new collection of software programs that snap in to Microsoft Office 2003. These four new programs help enable information workers to easily coordinate and manage data in certain Microsoft Dynamics business management solutions using the familiar interface of Microsoft Office 2003. These applications can enhance the productivity of information workers by allowing them to access and use business processes and data from business management solutions back-end applications like Microsoft Dynamics AX 3.0 (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions-Axapta) and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, directly from within certain Microsoft Office applications.

They are all free and made available with the source code.