Microsoft News Tracker

Some Microsoft news items from this week that didn’t find a post of their own:

Michael Gartenberg leaves Jupiter Research to become a Microsoft “enthusiast evangelist.”

More episodes of the Odd Couple: Microsoft, Novell Detail Their Linux-Windows Roadmap (press release here) but Ballmer: Novell deal proves open source needs to ‘respect IP rights’ and Novell CEO: We’re Going to ‘Attack’ Vista. I always enjoy light comedy.

Russian Judge Dismisses Any Penalty in Piracy Case. I’m sure Microsoft is glad to dodge the public relations bullet, but the rationale sets an odd precedent:

A Russian judge convicted a provincial school headmaster on Thursday for using pirated Microsoft software in school computers, but declined to impose any penalty, saying that Microsoft’s loss was insignificant compared with its overall earnings.

Microsoft comes under fire from BBC’s Watchdog programme over Xbox 360 defects.

VirnetX files VPN patent suit against Microsoft.

Microsoft Announces Microsoft Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation to Drive Business Intelligence.

MSN Soapbox, Microsoft’s YouTube clone, has shed it’s restricted beta for a public beta. I’m not kidding about the clone part - if you’ve seen YouTube, you’ve seen Soapbox except that the interface is slicker (i.e. more AJAX) and there are no ads.

A public release candidate of Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) was made available for download.

Internet Advertising Revenues Surpass $4 Billion for Q3 and the fact that it is up 33% over Q3 2005 is the good news. The bad news is that it is only up 2% over Q2 2006. Of course, the worst news is that the spoils are unevenly distributed among the players and while Google shows great growth, other players like Microsoft just get by.

And speaking of advertising, Microsoft apparently thinks Google shouldn’t have the eyeballs in the US municipal free Wi-Fi market all to itself, so it signed up to provide ads for MetroFi’s public network in Portland, Oregon. No financial details were disclosed.

Internet Explorer 7 Auto-Updates Begin

Office 2007 and Windows Vista were made available for download by members of Microsoft’s MSDN and TechNet programs. Vista is also now available to Volume License customers. Also, CompUSA will start retailing Vista and Office 2007 to small businesses on Nov. 30 through a special volume licensing plan. Unsurprisingly, bootleg versions are also available, but Microsoft says they won’t work for long.

Microsoft’s Software Update Services (SUS) users got a 6 month reprieve until July 10, 2007. It’s being replaced by Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

If Linux violates Microsoft’s patents, let’s see the proof. I can’t believe that Microsoft would be so foolish as to sue its customers, so FUD like Ballmer’s remarks and deals with impoverished Linux vendors like Novell are all we’ll see. Related: Red Hat Rejects Patent Agreement with Microsoft.

Microsoft Delays Halo 3 to Late 2007

Had to happen: Universal sues MySpace over “user-stolen” content

Hardware hackers (in the old, good sense) are already taking apart their Zunes.

Microsoft is either going to release a low end version of Longhorn Server called Fresno for the appliance market or they aren’t.

“Summertime and the living is easy.” There’s just a small list of odds and ends this week.

Google reopens Writely, the online word processor it bought in March. Online services related: Wall Street loved Salesforce.com’s earnings report.

Yankee Group Predicts PS 3 Will Win The Battle For Most Console Sales, but Microsoft is making hay while the sun shines.

Mary Jo Foley at Microsoft Watch reminds us that support for Microsoft’s Software Update Services (SUS) is coming to an end in December, so it is time to migrate to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). If you aren’t familiar with either, they are Microsoft offerings for enterprise patch management.

The Zune fans are getting restless - Is The Microsoft Zune Just A Re-Skinned Toshiba Gigabeat?

Florida schools get $80 million from Microsoft antitrust case