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Long Zheng spots the elusive Vista Service Pack (SP1) and shockingly it was mentioned at Microsoft Downloads. The fact that there will be an SP1 is hardly a surprise and the download for a beta automated installation kit doesn’t reveal anything about SP1 features. It’s just that Microsoft Windows executives have decreed that public discussion of SP1 is forbidden so it is rather poetic justice to see it mentioned prominently on their own website. Long Zheng has some graphic thoughts in that regard too.
Microsoft: “We’re in it to win!” (with Windows Live):
We can’t disclose a lot of what we saw [or even if we saw anything at all] at the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Global Summit [isn't that a typical Microsoft name?]. However, consistently we heard that Microsoft at all levels are committed to win. Both Steven [not Steve] Sinofsky and Chris Jones were very aggressive about driving that in, regardless of what’s happened in the past.
…
The Internet industry is such a fast, always changing field that Microsoft’s management is attempting to morph with it. They’ve realized that the first wave of Windows Live was a little rocky, but they’re learning from it for wave 2.
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Ideas are going to be well developed inside the company before pushing them out to the public, where confusion can become rampant as we’ve seen. There’s going to be a clear distinction between what’s a Windows Live product and what’s an MSN product, as well as what’s a beta product, or a technical preview product.
Offhand, I’d say that public confusion was purely a reflection of internal Microsoft confusion.
Ballmer calls Google’s growth plans ‘insane’ (video here):
While many investors have knocked Microsoft for not moving as quickly as Google, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggested that his chief rival may be trying to grow too fast.
Microsoft took nearly three decades to grow to 75,000 people, while Google has become a very large company in a fraction of that time.
“They are trying to double in a year,” Ballmer told a crowd of Stanford Graduate School of Business students on Thursday. “That’s insane in my opinion.”
But, he added, “it doesn’t mean they won’t do it well.”
There are advantages to the deliberate management structure that Microsoft has put in place, he said, adding that he isn’t sure anyone has proven “that a random collection of people doing their own thing” has created value.
Fair enough point, although a large collection of people led by bureaucrats usually don’t fare much better.
As in the past, he characterized Google as a one-trick pony, playing down the company’s efforts beyond search.“They do a lot of cute things,” Ballmer said, to huge laughs from the business students.
“We do a lot of cute things too,” he said. “We have a robotics effort.”
Hard cheese for the robotics folks, I guess.
And last but not least, Microsoft: OneCare should not have been rolled out:
Microsoft has said that its OneCare security suite has “a problem” with the underlying antivirus code, and admitted that security is just “a little part of Microsoft”.
Speaking to ZDNet UK exclusively at the CeBIT show in Hanover, a senior manager for the software giant said that its consumer security product is far from perfect and that pieces are actually “missing”.
Skipping the litany of OneCare problems including dining on email, we cut to the chase:
Asked about these problems, Arno Edelmann, Microsoft’s European business security product manager, told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the code itself has pieces missing.
“Usually Microsoft doesn’t develop products, we buy products. It’s not a bad product, but bits and pieces are missing,” said Edelmann.
The problem lies with a core technology of OneCare, the GeCAD antivirus code, and how it interacts with Microsoft mailservers. According to Edelmann, the Microsoft updates and mailserver infrastructure do not harmonise.
“It’s a problem with the updates, and it’s a problem with the implementation,” said Edelmann.
If mail is received from a server running Exchange 2007, users are unlikely to encounter problems. However, if mail is received from servers running Exchange 2000 or 2003, the likelihood of quarantining is high, said Edelmann.
“OneCare is a new product — they shouldn’t have rolled it out when they did, but they’re fixing the problems now,” said Edelmann.
According to the security manager, security is only a small part of what Microsoft does, suggesting it does not have as much security expertise as established security vendors.
One suspects that Mr. Edelmann is in for quite a tongue lashing when he gets back to HQ.
There seems to be a shortage of real Microsoft news today, but there’s no shortage of rumors:
The Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo rumor is back again. Or is it Yahoo buying AOL? Or merging with eBay or buying Facebook or…? The variants are seemingly as endless as Yahoo’s perceived problems.
For a brief while Windows Vista RTM was imminent today, but the definitive rumor remains Paul Thurrott’s prediction of a just in time delivery on November 8. For humor there’s also the cyclical theory of Microsoft operating system quality which indicates that Vista may be doomed from the start (via Enterprise OpenSource Magazine).
News is filtering out that Steve Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering, is orchestrating another reorg at MSN and Windows Live.
Zune European Launch May Be Delayed Until 2008 (via Zune News Site):
One reason for the delay is that Microsoft doesn’t yet have a European product czar for the Zune to coordinate a launch. And the recently appointed figurehead for Zune International is just now working to build up relationships in region. Even more telling is that fact that Microsoft’s doesn’t yet have an infrastructure in place in Europe to provide music online. “We haven’t yet selected a music store provider to build marketplace in the UK, which means we’re way off launch,” said Dene Schonknecht, media and entertainment alliance manager for Microsoft.
and via the same source since no list of rumors is complete without one involving Apple, Apple iPhone Speculation Reaches Fever Pitch. It’s supposedly coming in January.
Ina Fried has the full story at CNET, but here’s the net:
Now that Senior VP Steven Sinfosky moved from Office to run a major portion of Windows and Windows Live development, he has brought in a number of his previous Office associates:
- Julie Larson-Green who was in charge of the Office 2007 users interface, will head program management for Windows Experience
- Grant George who led Office testing, will do the same for Windows
- Arthur DeHaan moves over from Office to run testing for Windows Live
and a related move:
- Chris Jones who currently heads Vista client development work, will move to shift to “overseeing the ‘Windows Live Experience’ program management” when Vista ships
Separately, Microsoft is creating a new unit within its Mobile and Embedded Devices business call the Consumer Media Technology Group to be headed by Corporate VP Amir Majidimehr which will “deliver Microsoft digital media technology to mobile operators and consumer electronics manufacturers, and owns Microsoft’s digital rights management and advanced media strategies, including HD DVD.”
