Microsoft News Tracker

Generally overlooked last week at NAB2007, the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, was the demonstration by Microsoft Research and partner Skinkers of LiveStation: Interactive live TV on the PC that works! The Gartner Group’s Allen Weiner explains:

Certainly not as physically large as the display at the large broadcast engineering booths at the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB2007), but of perhaps greater significance, is LiveStation. LiveStation is an effort from U.K.-based Skinkers, a firm that builds and manages RSS delivery ecosystems. It is alpha-testing a new system for delivering an unlimited number of live TV channels to the desktop. The solution is software-based and is built on top of Pastry, a peer-to-peer technology developed by Microsoft Research primarily in its Cambridge, U.K., labs. This flavor of P2P is secure and robust, requires less server-side infrastructure, because of its ability to optimize the network, and is suited for live streaming, while most P2P applications are focused on the on-demand streaming market.

The demo of LiveStation, which showed a good-quality picture from the BBC in the midst of a bandwidth-hogging tech show, has another thing going for it - its ability to leverage Microsoft’s new Silverlight platform to create “content experiences” based on LiveStation’s streams. Has interactive TV finally found its way to the consumer?

There’s more by following the link including that Microsoft is an equity partner in Skinkers. If you want to try LiveStation for yourself, you can apply here.

Microsoft has announced another spinoff under their IP Ventures program:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the launch of ZenZui, an independent company with the mission of transforming the way people engage, consume and interact with Web content through a revolutionary mobile user experience and information ecosystem. ZenZui’s Zooming User Interface, a technology patented by Microsoft, was initially developed by the Microsoft Research lab in Redmond, Wash. Microsoft’s IP Ventures helps startups and growing companies speed their time to market through access to Microsoft innovations. ZenZui worked with IP Ventures to acquire the technology and assistance in securing venture capital funding to help launch its company.
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ZenZui’s core technology brings advanced information visualization techniques out of the research lab and onto mobile phones and into the hands of mobile device operators, marketers and consumers. ZenZui’s high-frame rate Zooming User Interface employs up to 36 individual “tiles” that are selected and customized by users to reflect their interests and lifestyle with relevant content, interactive communications and fresh data.
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ZenZui has closed a Series-A financing round of $12 million from Oak Investment Partners and Hunt Ventures. Wireless entrepreneur Tom Huseby of SeaPoint Ventures acts as chairman of the board. Leading ZenZui as CEO is Eric Hertz, who brings 22 years of international wireless experience to the venture.

If the description of the technology is somewhat obtuse, this demo video will help as will Nick Gonzalez’s description from Techcrunch:

The whole service is a a clever way to increase deck placement on mobile phones. Deck placement is the set of default applications that come on mobile phones. It’s the most coveted space on your mobile and distribution through deck placement makes or breaks most mobile apps. Currently deck placement is hard to come by because it’s determined by carriers at the highest levels and often includes some revenue sharing. ZenZui application has essentially turned one spot into 36 (they hope to make it 1000).

This would all be well and good if ZenZui wasn’t essentially doing the same thing carriers are doing right now, charging for placement. You see, ZenZui isn’t a new way to surf the web on your phone, but rather a new way to surf ZenZui’s web on your phone. It’s all elegantly summed up in this chart showing marketers and developers piping content into your phone.

Each of the 36 spots currently included with ZenZui are powered by content partners, such as Zillow, Eventful, Kayak, OTOlabs, Avenue A, Razorfish and Traffic.com. They will be monetized using “well-established advertising principles like CPA and CPM (we call it CPZ – Cost Per Zoom)”. To encourage development, ZenZui will split ad revenue with widget developers.

I knew there was sure to be some money in the deal somewhere. Also, although it is not spelled out explicity in the press release, it is being generally reported that Microsoft reatins an equity stake in the company.

A flurry of miscellaneous Microsoft News:

Judge backs $1.5 billion patent decision against Microsoft in the first Alcatel-Lucent case decided in late February.

Microsoft joins OpenAjax Alliance standards group as rumored back in January. See also the OpenAjax Alliance website.

Microsoft offers a new Vista discount plan for consumers:

For customers who acquired a full or upgrade version of Windows Vista from retail or pre-installed, we’ve got a pretty sweet deal.  We’re announcing the Windows Vista Additional License program, which provides the ability to install the same edition of Windows Vista on any other additional computers you may own.  The program allows customers to purchase up to 5 additional licenses for PCs they own at 10% off the suggested retail price.

Although slightly more realistic than the Family Discount Plan, it has the same basic problem - the vast majority of consumers will only acquire Vista via a new PC purchase.

Meanwhile, Vista is reportedly bad for the PC business. Wait, someone else says it’s great. Hold on a sec, maybe it’s in between.

Dell launches low-cost PC in China running either Windows XP or Linux. No Vista. Well, Microsoft will still get paid for XP.

Virtualisation causes IDC to cut server forecast. Virtualization allows customers to buy fewer, bigger servers. Both units and revenue are predicted to be down from prior forecasts. There should also be a similar effect on Microsoft’s server revenue.

House Bill Would Free Up TV Airwaves for the Microsoft mystery device.

Microsoft Disappoints Zune Users Waiting For Firmware Update, particularly since it is supposed to fix a “skipping” problem on purchased music.

Windows Live Search Italy gets owned by a truly skillful malware deployment combined with search engine optimization. Check out the screenshots too. The problem of bogus websites in search results is a problem for all search engines though, as some Microsoft researchers demonstrated.

Yesterday was the start of this year’s TechFest where the staff at Microsoft Research shows off their latest efforts:

March 6, 2007 — Whether it’s helping people discover distant planets online, share their favorite digital photos with relatives, or show young kids how fun it can be to program computers, Microsoft Research speeds the way to a richer computing experience. Today the doors opened to Microsoft Research TechFest 2007, the company’s annual showcase of research projects, unveiling more than 100 innovations. At TechFest, researchers and product teams form close and lasting ties to jointly advance the frontiers of computing for the industry and customers.

Speaking today at TechFest before an audience of customers, industry and government leaders and independent software vendors, Microsoft Research Senior Vice President Rick Rashid said, “TechFest is one-stop shopping to see and experience the breadth of software innovations we’re pursuing that will allow people to explore their interests more deeply and share the things they care about more easily.”

Rashid moderated demonstrations of a number of key research projects, including World-Wide Telescope, which allows people to peer deep into the heavens on their PCs; Mix: Search-Based Authoring, a new way to build and share digital content at home and work; and Boku, an innovative way of using Xbox® to teach kids how exciting and rewarding computer programming can be.

There are more details by following the link and at the TechFest Demo site , but while interesting in an intellectual way, there really didn’t seem to be anything particularly earthshaking. Also bear in mind that the real audience is within Microsoft itself with the objective of getting these projects incorporated within a real product, the perennial quest of all corporate research arms:

Microsoft Research TechFest provides a strategic forum for Microsoft researchers to connect with the broader group of Microsoft employees. Hundreds of researchers from Microsoft’s worldwide labs in China, England, India and the United States gather for the annual event at the company’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Wash. They come together to exchange ideas with colleagues, show off their latest innovations, and shine a light into the future of computing. In many cases, the partnerships formed at TechFest between researchers and product teams allow innovations to begin making their way into game-changing products for Microsoft customers.

Also of note was the retirement of Dan Ling, the longtime head of Microsoft Research’s Redmond lab, and the announcement of his successor, Henrique “Rico” Malvar.

Last Thursday when Microsoft launched Vista, Office 2007, and Exchange 2007, a number of other products came along for the ride, including some that are quite a ways from availability. One such is Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 for which a CTP was released today:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the release of the first community technology preview (CTP) for its integrated performance management application Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. Scheduled for general availability in mid-2007, Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 brings together next-generation monitoring, analytics and planning capabilities in a complete performance management application. Beginning today, customers can visit http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?siteid=181 to download the first bits of code and test the product’s capabilities in a real-world business environment.

Sometimes you just have to laugh. Reading this you might justifiably think that PerformancePoint had something to do with computer system performance management, but actually it’s a Business Intelligence (BI) offering. And while one hears “get the bits” more often than necessary, “download the first bits of code” seems to have odd connotations. Things improve though:

Office PerformancePoint Server CTP 1 will combine the planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial consolidation capabilities of the product code-named “BizSharp” and the scorecarding functionality of Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager Server 2005. CTP 2, scheduled for early 2007, will incorporate the functionality of CTP 1 and analytics from ProClarity 6.2. Microsoft plans to release either one or two additional CTPs before the general availability of the product scheduled for mid-2007.

Microsoft acquired ProClarity in April and in case it’s not clear, PerformancePoint Server 2007 replaces Scorecard Manager Server 2005. The net is that PerformancePoint is Microsoft’s try for the BI market building on the strengths of SQL Server as the underlying database and Office as the front-end. The PerformancePoint Server website has more details.