Microsoft News Tracker

Todd Bishop spelunks Microsoft’s financial filings and discovers where the 10,000 new employees went and that Microsoft’s legal payouts declined to $1.3 billion.

MySpace driving more retail traffic than MSN search according to Hitwise.

MSN Chat to close, apparently killed by instant messaging.

Depending on who is counting, MSNBC.com still gets 3 to 4 times the traffic of CBSnews.com or ABCnews.com. As always, note that MSNBC.com is still equally owned by Microsoft and NBC and is separate from MSNBC TV which Microsoft largely divested in December.

Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 released.

Microsoft launches Mac blog (via Bink.nu). Why not? Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit is a tidy little niche business.

Microsoft Re-Aligns U.S. Financial Services Group into 3 separate groups targeting insurance, capital markets, and banking.

The Xbox game compatibility list for Xbox 360 has been updated and the fans are still grumpy.

Indian state moves to bar Microsoft from schools. The Communists are back in power in Kerala and have banned the sale and manufacture of Coke and Pepsi too. Somehow being the vanguard of the proletariat lacks the verve of the good old days.

There are still developers protesting Microsoft’s renaming of WinFX as .NET 3.0, but it is proceeding in step with Windows Vista and Release Candidate 1 was released last week and can be downloaded here:

The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly known as WinFX), is the new managed code programming model for Windows. It combines the power of the .NET Framework 2.0 with new technologies for building applications that have visually compelling user experiences, seamless communication across technology boundaries, and the ability to support a wide range of business processes. These new technologies are Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows CardSpace (formerly code named “Infocard”). Microsoft plans to ship .NET Framework 3.0 as part of the Windows Vista operating system. In addition, Microsoft is making these technologies available on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The following Community Technology Preview of .NET Framework 3.0 enables you to continue experimenting with early builds of these technologies, get acquainted with the development experience, and provide feedback to Microsoft.
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Please note that the License Agreement in this pre-release version of the .NET Framework v3.0 does not allow usage in a live operating environment. Information about Go-Live possibilities can be found here.
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This release supports Visual Studio 2005 RTM and is compatible with 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2 Technical Refresh.

I suppose I should update my categories - I’m still calling them Avalon, Indigo, and Infocard. Also to get up to speed, there’s David Chappell’s new MSDN paper, Introducing the .NET Framework 3.0.