Microsoft News Tracker

It’s not exactly being shouted from the rooftops, but Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 has RTMed and there’s now a 180 day trial edition available for download.

Microsoft’s Ward Ralston at the Windows Server Division Weblog:

There have been a few articles floating around on the Internet since we released the private beta of Windows Server 2003 SP2 a couple of weeks ago. To remove any mystery or speculation about what this Service Pack 2 is about, I thought I would take a couple of minutes to lay it out.

It’s thankfully mostly a roll-up of fixes, but there are some new “limited-scope features” which Ralston details. Note that this SP2 also applies to Windows XP x64 Professional since it was built on the Windows Server 2003 codebase. Availability is some time before the end of the year.

Microsoft blogger Ryan Donovan had the news yesterday and I’ve already mentioned the free Developer version which was made available for download last week. However, Commerce Server has an uncertain future, in it’s present form at least, as it always seems to be at risk of having its functionality moved into another product like BizTalk Server or even into the ASP.Net platform.

Some recent and (mostly) pertinent news of Microsoft competitors:

Google replaces MSN as 3rd most popular Web site according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Microsoft.com is still number 2 though - maybe they should consider some PPC ads!

RealNetworks, Google and Mozilla Announce New Agreement to Distribute Firefox Web Browser and Google Toolbar with the RealPlayer, Rhapsody music service, and RealArcade games. They had been distributing the toolbar for the past two years.

Google ads will stream out to XM listeners which I expect most folks will consider a questionable distraction. Google had already been playing in terrestrial radio.

Yahoo ties knot with Indian marriage portal. How much more social could networking get than marriage? Should Microsoft be working on Windows Live Matrimony?

Lycos revamps free Webmail service with 3GB mailboxes and no limit on file attachment sizes. This puts them one up on Yahoo Mail, Google GMail, and Microsoft’s Hotmail.

AOL to Give Services Away to Broadband Users, Hoping for a Fortune in Ads. It seems like everyone’s doing it, although it may not have been an option for AOL since they were leaking users anyhow as they moved to broadband. Could it be the Last Chance For AOL? Biggest shocker: AOL will no longer actively market dial-up accounts which likely means the end of the ubiquitous promotional CDs.

McAfee unleashes the Falcon which is their answer to Windows Live OneCare.

Germany hopes to establish ‘Linux Valley’. It’s centered around Nuremberg, the home of SuSE Linux.

When Windows Live Spaces launched last night, I was curious to see what kind of marketing Microsoft put behind it, since I was commenting just a week ago (after the “stealth” launch of Windows Live Toolbar) that you couldn’t prove that Windows Live was particularly important to Microsoft based on the minimal marketing attention they seemed to be devoting to it. Well the good news is that Windows Live Spaces merited a press release that was picked up widely in the press and that Microsoft marketing took the opportunity to boost the whole brand:

Microsoft Continues to Deliver on Windows Live Strategy

As the launch season continues, additional Windows Live services continue to be rolled out, and by the end of the summer Microsoft expects to ship almost half of the 20 beta services the company has been testing. To help provide a safer and more secure online experience, Microsoft will launch a number of new safety services in the coming weeks, including Windows Live OneCare™ Safety Scanner, a beta version of which was released in November 2005 as Windows Live Safety Center. Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner is a free, on-demand PC scanner that checks for and removes viruses and gets rid of unused files on the hard disk for improved PC performance.

Microsoft will also integrate enhanced safety features into Windows Live Toolbar, which was launched in a total of 38 markets this week. Windows Live Toolbar is designed to help consumers easily find, save and act on information and services across the Internet. It also includes access to the newly launched Windows Live OneCare Advisor, which provides quick and easy access to the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner and an updated version of Microsoft® Phishing Filter that includes additional functionality to help protect consumers from online data theft.

Also coming soon to customers in the United States is the Windows Live QnA beta, a new vertical search experience designed to help people find the information they are looking for by allowing them to ask and answer questions from an online community on a given topic. Consumers will be able to tap into the power of the online community to search for answers on a variety of subject areas and topics including business, health, arts, sports, technology and more. Those interested can learn more and sign up for the beta at http://qna.live.com.

OK, it’s just a name change, a retroactive announce, and another beta, but it’s better than a mere blog post. Of course, a press release does not a marketing campaign make. Presumably there is some real sizzle coming.