Microsoft News Tracker

The Boy Genius Report got hold of a new Motorola Q9 phone with Wi-Fi and were surprised to see that it is running Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard. Hit the link for commentary and 100 pictures, but the changes while pleasant aren’t that large since it is a point release. The most popular around the phone gadget sites seems to be the threaded SMS.

Coincidently, another 6.1 appeared last week, Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1 which was finally released after having been shipped and then withdrawn in September. The biggest change is support for the Open Office XML (OOXML) document formats introduced with Office 2007. Other enhancements are:

• Enhanced viewing experience for charts in Excel Mobile
• Ability to view SmartArt in PowerPoint Mobile
• Ability to view and extract files from compressed (.zip) folders

One other change - Windows Mobile users pining for Office Mobile but left bereft by their carriers can now buy Office Mobile 6.1 direct from Microsoft for $50 via Handango.com.

Last Thursday, Microsoft released Service Pack1 for Exchange Server 2007. Aside from the usual fix roll-up, there are a variety of enhancements including:

• Compatibility fixes for the upcoming Windows Server 2008 including support of IPv6
• Tighter interlock with Office Communications Server 2007
• Enhancements to the Outlook Web Access Web mail facility
• Improved Exchange Server management
• Addition of Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) for site resilient high availability deployments

Microsoft today decked out its Web advertising and webmaster outreach efforts with some of the bells and whistles already available to Yahoo and Google customers:

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