Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft held its third invitation-only Blue Hat Security Briefings event last week and after some initial reluctance is planning to publicly release the proceedings. Ryan Naraine:

After first refusing to share any details on the third “Blue Hat” hacker briefings held in Redmond earlier this month, Microsoft has loosened up and launched a new blog and a TechNet site with the skinny on what was discussed.

The Spring 2006 version of the secret invitation-only security powwow featured a Who’s Who of respected hackers/researchers, including NGS Software’s David Litchfield, Metasploit’s HD Moore, Sabre Security’s Halvar Flake and Alexander Kornbrust from Red-Database-Security.

Microsoft has also promised to post video and podcasts of the individual speakers on the new TechNet site.

Robert McMillan has more details at Infoworld including this background:

Microsoft started the Blue Hat briefings a year ago to begin dialogue between the company’s security team and external security researchers, many of whom have been critical of the company’s approach to security. A handful of outside security researchers spend a few days at Blue Hat discussing Microsoft’s security vulnerabilities with several hundred of the company’s engineers and executives.

There were more than 650 attendees at Blue Hat 3, which was also broadcast to Microsoft employees worldwide, according to Alexander Kornbrust, a business director at Red-Database-Security, in Neunkirchen, Germany, who attended the event.

(Via Tech Crunch) It’s Web real estate, of course, but Microsoft’s Ian McAllister lets us know that the sign is up at http://shopping.live.com/. There are some sparse details in the linked “help wanted” posting which reveal that they are building the “the largest structured commercial catalog in the world, ingesting data from hundreds of thousands of retailers” in “50+ international markets.”

Interestingly, the hiring is for the whole MSN Marketplaces team which includes Windows Live Expo and MSN Shopping as well as Windows Live Shopping. Are we having brand confusion yet? Since MSN Shopping reported last Holiday season they had 7,000 retailers (which was, in itself, admirable growth), the folks at Microsoft clearly have high hopes for their new venue.

Of course, Windows Live Shopping isn’t the only new store on the street with high hopes. Colin Barker at ZDNet UK reports on Google Base:

Google is hoping to take on the huge task of moving a significant portion of the European retail sector online.

The company is extending Google Base, its system for advertising and selling goods and services, into a full retail operation, it revealed this week.

Some industry analysts are sceptical about Google’s prospects and have dismissed Google Base as “just advertising”. Another analyst believes that Google Base’s true worth goes beyond just retail and that its “rounded, more complete, approach” will make life tough for companies like Amazon.com and eBay.

Tough for Windows Live Shopping as well, of course. And along with the shopping comes the paying which is pretty good business too, as eBay discovered with PayPal. TechCrunch shows what the kids from Mountain View are up to in that arena with an Exclusive Look At Google Payments. I’m sure they’ll all find the competition bracing.

As promised (and preannounced yesterday) Microsoft has released Team Foundation Server.

If you aren’t familiar with it, Team Server is a key component of the Visual Studio Team System which enables and enhances collaboration for teams working on large programming projects. S. “Soma” Somasegar, Microsoft’s corporate VP of Developer Tools provides a bit of the philosophy in a post on his weblog.

John Battelle intrigues the punters with Please, Give me LiveSoft (Or…Please Split Up Microsoft!):

Now, I know it’s Gates’ job to make the world of tech seem approachable and understandable to the typical MS Office user - the same person who apparently has a dinosaur for a head and stopped paying attention to technology somewhere back in 1997. But g’damn, we’ve been hearing this speech for more than ten years now, and if Microsoft ever wants to get back out in front of the pack in technology, if it really wants to lead again, as it did in the mid 1990s, it needs to do one simple thing: Split the company up.

He’s not really advocating splitting the company up, though. It’s more like a splinter:

But really, what it needs to do is spin out a Google/Yahoo killer. Take Search, Live, and a good chunk of MSR (research) and make it a separately traded division of MSFT. Take the damn thing public. Imagine that IPO!

There’s much more by following the link including some supportive comments. Heck, it’s a natural temptation for shareholders of a mature company like Microsoft when they finally realize the heady days are over (although I don’t think most Microsoft shareholders are there yet). Position the old company as a cash cow giving rich creamy dividends and create a sexy growth stock out of the new areas of the business. Battelle suggests that they put a wild man/woman in charge of the splinter, but I’m thinking more of the current Microsoft employees. Would there be a line outside the new company or not?