Microsoft News Tracker

Press release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced U.S. availability of Virtual Earth™ 3D, a new online mapping interface that is part of the Live Search offering, providing consumers with a three-dimensional experience to search, browse and explore the real world online.

When people visit Live Search (http://live.com), type a query into the search bar and click on the “maps” tab, they get their search results in a map context that offers the option to explore the area using two-dimensional views (aerial and bird’s-eye) or three dimensional models with Virtual Earth 3D. This new technology compiles photographic images of cities and terrain to generate textured, photorealistic 3-D models with engineering level accuracy.

Three-dimensional models are available initially for 15 U.S. cities: San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Detroit, Phoenix, Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas and Fort Worth. Terrain imagery in 3-D is available globally, and Microsoft expects to offer 3-D imagery in an ever expanding set of cities. Other features provided by Live Search include access to real-time traffic information in select major U.S. cities, and access to business listings “yellow pages” and people listings “white pages” that allows consumers to easily find local information and act on it.

The shareholders will also be relieved by this part:

Advertisements will be available within the Virtual Earth 3D experience. Similar to billboards on the side of roads, virtual billboards will be available throughout Live Search in the 3-D view. The ads available within the Virtual Earth 3D experience are created using a combination of technologies from Virtual Earth, Massive Inc. technology, and the advertising platform from Microsoft^® Digital Advertising Solutions.

I guess I’d have to see one, but it’s the thought of monetization that counts. 

The press release also mentions that Virtual Earth APIs are available at no cost for use by Web developers - there are more technical details at the Windows Live Dev blog.

In Munich today, Bill Gates kicked off Microsoft’s first Convergence Conference for EMEA and used the occasion to tout how the Microsoft Dynamics solutions fit into the overall Microsoft picture including the “Live” push:

In his keynote speech Gates also outlined the vision for Microsoft Dynamics in the “Live” era that takes business productivity to the next level by deeply integrating Microsoft Dynamics and the Microsoft Office system with online services that accelerate user adoption and maximize the value people get from their business applications. Key elements of this vision follow:

Online business processes from Microsoft and its partners will give customers a rich set of choices when they decide to move a particular process online in a secure environment. The first set of processes that will be available online are the marketing, sales and service capabilities offered within Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM. These will be followed by additional services:

Microsoft adCenter integration is a service that enables Microsoft Dynamics CRM to create online marketing campaigns that place keyword advertising on MSN^®. In addition, similar integrations to Yahoo! and Google can be made by Microsoft Dynamics partners. Integration with Microsoft adCenter will be offered for all deployment options of Microsoft Dynamics CRM: on-premise, partner-hosted and Live.

eBay integration allows on-premise Microsoft Dynamics AX customers to use eBay as an online sales channel, enabling easy placement of inventory and downloading of financial details for sold items.

There’s more by following the link including online collaboration services and communities.

And speaking of online, the other big news was that Microsoft announced a new hosted subscription licensing model for Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics SL. Julio De Villasante, Director of Software as a Service Strategy, Microsoft Dynamics:

Another missing piece of the puzzle has been the availability of new licensing models that allow a company to choose between purchasing the solution or subscribing to a monthly service. This is what we are able to deliver today through our ecosystem of Microsoft industry partners. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been available as a hosted application since last March and it has been extremely well received by partners and customers alike.

Now, our partners can also deliver the full suite of Microsoft Dynamics ERP applications, in either a hosted or on-premise deployment model – and they have the option of purchasing, subscription licensing or a combination of both. The grand finale to this offering is that there is no minimum time commitment; customers can sign up for a short time period, such as a few months, or as long as they would like.

Microsoft ran into a conflict with partners already offering hosted Dynamics CRM in July when they rolled out their own offering and it looks like they have consciously avoided that this time around by leaving it solely to the partners. Of course, that’s what the partners thought back in March when hosted CRM was first announced.

Update Nov. 7: Microsoft also announced Dynamics CRM 2007 which, among other enhancements, works with Vista and Office 2007 and has an additional licensing model. It will be released at the same time as Office 2007 and will be a free upgrade for exisiting customers.

Credit where credit is due. Microsoft announced an interesting twist in marketing enterprise software today - ship the tirekickers a preconfigured virtual machine using Microsoft’s virtual hard disk image format:

At VMworld 2006, Microsoft is making available their new virtual hard disk (VHD) Test Drive Program, which allows customers to confidently evaluate enterprise software from Microsoft and its software partners in a fraction of the time.

Mike Neil, senior director of virtualization strategy in Microsoft’s Windows Server Division:

This program enables Microsoft and its partners to distribute their enterprise software and applications within a virtual machine so that IT professionals can confidently and quickly evaluate Windows Server-based software. A similar program for Windows Vista will be available in the first quarter of 2007.

These virtual machines, which are provided in Microsoft’s virtual hard disk image format, are pre-built and pre-configured so that they can be downloaded or distributed for easy setup and evaluation. This allows customers to evaluate software in a fraction of the time it usually takes, such as setting up SQL Server 2005 in minutes instead of hours.

The VHD Test Drive Program is a first for Microsoft software and the more than 7,000 software vendors who can now deliver pre-configured applications within Windows Server-based virtual machines to their customers. Today the program launches with the latest versions of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition SP1, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 (32-bit beta) with Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, and Internet Security & Acceleration (ISA) 2006 Standard Edition. Partners and customers can expect to see additional Microsoft software added to this program.

We expect more than 20 partners to begin distributing their software via the VHD Test Drive Program later this quarter, including Altiris, BEA Systems, Check Point, Citrix, CommVault, Dell, FullArmor, HP, Network Appliance, Platespin, Portlock, Quest Software, SourceCode Technology Holdings, Symantec and UGS. Over the coming year, we anticipate our partners will use this program to get more than $10 billion in software into the hands of IT professionals to evaluate.

Virtual machines are incredibly convenient for testing server software unless you really like wiping and re-building test machines, and VHD is a perfect fit for shipping a pre-built system image. Also don’t forget that Microsoft’s Virtual Server is free. VMs would also be good for demoing client software too, but I suspect that they are beyond the average user.

Update: Patrick at Microsoft’s Windows Server Division WebLog says the VHD Test Drive Program is now live and remarks the similarity to VMware’s Virtual Appliances.

Vodafone, the European cellphone carrier, has chosen decided to limit the mobile phone operating systems they support to three and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile made the cut:

Vodafone unveiled plans on Monday to become the first mobile operator to standardise the software on its handsets, striking a deal with Microsoft and saying it will work with just two other software providers.

Vodafone said it planned to slash the number of operating systems it would develop applications for in the next five years to just three, supporting just Microsoft Windows Mobile, Symbian/S60 and Linux in the future.

With little standardisation in the mobile software world, applications such as e-mail, instant messaging and music players currently have to be written in an array of different software languages to enable them to work on different handsets.

The duplication of the software writers’ work makes developing new applications costly and time consuming for operators.

Microsoft Mobile and Embedded Devices senior vice president Pieter Knook told Reuters other operators were planning similar reductions in scale.

It would have added spice to the narrative if Vodafone had mentioned how many operating systems they currently deal with since three still seems rather large. No financial terms were revealed.

We were expecting to see Vista today, but Office 2007 is first off the mark to go gold:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the completion of the 2007 Microsoft Office system code and confirmed its release to manufacturing (RTM). This gold code milestone concludes the largest Microsoft Office beta program to date, with more than 3.5 million people downloading Beta 2. The unprecedented quantity of feedback from beta testers and customers helped the Office development team effectively validate product quality and optimize performance. Microsoft Office RTM also marks a critical step toward worldwide business availability of the 2007 Office system, Windows Vista™ operating system and Exchange Server 2007 on Nov. 30, 2006. To underscore the significance of this new day for business, Microsoft executives will participate in events around the globe, including an event with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in New York. General availability of the products will follow in early 2007.

Some other items of note snipped from the press release:

Starting Dec. 1 in the U.S. and Canada, and coming soon after to an additional 13 international markets,* Microsoft will make available free, downloadable product trials via Office Online. Expanding on the Online Test Drive already available today, the trials will allow people to try the new desktop programs before they decide to buy or upgrade to the 2007 release.

They will likely need all the jumper cables they can get.

SMS Link for Office Outlook® 2007. This new service allows Outlook 2007 users to connect with friends’, families’ and colleagues’ mobile phones by using SMS text messaging. It allows people to send and receive e-mail, contacts, appointments and tasks as text messages to mobile phones.

The thought of yet another SMS client is frightening, but the Office tie-in likely gives this one a leg up.

Multilanguage support. For the first time, 2007 Office system customers will be able to purchase individual, single-language add-on packs that enable applications and suites to instantly become bilingual. The packs add a secondary localized user interface, help files, dictionary and thesaurus.

I hardly keep track of all the nuances of language localization, but the last bullet looks like Microsoft decided to split the difference between their Multilingual User Interface (MUI) support and regular localized Office versions.

More Office 2007 details at the revamped Office Online.