Microsoft News Tracker

Bill Gates delivered his last Microsoft keynote at the International Consumer Electronics Show yesterday and it was fortunately missing a lot of the goofy geek tech of recent years although the more staid and occasionally self-congratulatory tone has drawn some complaints about lack of Microsoft innovation ([1], [ 2]). You can catch the replay video online, but here’s a rundown of the new announcements:

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Viacom apparently isn’t put off by Microsoft’s abandonment of the URGE music service that their MTV subsidiary created with Microsoft, because they have signed on for a new long term advertising and content deal.

Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) and Microsoft Corp. today announced a broad-based, strategic alliance under which major divisions of both companies will collaborate on advertising, content distribution, event promotions and games over the next several years.

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Yesterday, Microsoft announced that Timothy Chen had resigned as head of Microsoft Greater China Region and that the company was searching for a successor. All the press release said about Mr. Chen’s future plans was that he was assuming a leadership role outside the IT industry, but elaboration was soon forthcoming.

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Sun’s JavaFX to take on AJAX, Silverlight in the Rich Internet Application (RIA) competition. I thought the days of slow, cheesy looking Java client apps were thankfully past, but I guess not. Hearing that “JavaFX Script leverages 2D graphics APIs in the Swing GUI toolkit” merely reminds me how awful Swing applications actually were. We’ll see if Sun can find a pony here with a scripting variant of Java, but I doubt it. While they were at it, Sun mostly open sourced Java.

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar v1 released. I’ve long used something similar with FireFox, but one was really needed for IE.

SQL Server ‘Katmai’ Lacks Anticipated WinFS Features. Why spoil a perfect record? Related: David Boschmann explains Microsoft database projects Jasper and Astoria.

Microsoft publicly betas Tahiti, renamed SharedView. It’s a screen sharing program which up to 15 people can use for collaboration. There’s still no hint as to where it fits in the Microsoft galaxy of products although the original rumor was as part of Office Live.

Symantec attacks Microsoft’s Forefront Client Security. The fact that Forefront Client Security (for businesses) is using the same engine as the troubled OneCare consumer product leads to predictable snarking.

Microsoft signs Web video deals:

While it’s tempting to label the shows advertorials and leave it at that, Ben Silverman, Reveille’s chief executive, said he’s tried to find more elegant ways to incorporate products and entertainment.

I think Ron Popeil beat them to it.

Microsoft must answer racketeering claims over Best Buy deal.

Xbox Spring update released including Windows Live Messenger.

PS3 to ‘Win’ Console War Because of Blu-ray according to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst.

Mac share of US Web surfers doubles in 8 months - it’s up to 6%

Chicago Tribune media columnist Phil Rosenthal reports that Microsoft has bought a minority share in CareerBuilder.com for an undisclosed price that according to sources amounts to 4%. CareerBuilder.com is an online job site owned by the Tribune Co., Gannett Co. and McClatchy Co. which are newspaper companies (among other things). Not unconnected:

Separately, Microsoft’s MSN and CareerBuilder said they have extended their strategic alliance, launched in 2004. That arrangement continues to make CareerBuilder the exclusive U.S. content supplier for MSN Careers at least through 2013.

CareerBuilder will pay MSN up to $443 million over the next seven years, based on the quality and quantity of the traffic MSN delivers.

MSN and CareerBuilder are also broadening their alliance to include MSN international sites, helping accelerate CareerBuilder’s overseas expansion, the companies said.