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A selection of “small” Microsoft stories from last week:
Vista’s voice recognition feature provided the comedic relief at last week’s Financial Analyst Meeting, but the claim is that it was a known beta bug. Speaking of Vista, Developers cry foul over Windows kernel security which makes things harder for both hackers and legitimate security software from third parties. Microsoft released Vista upgrade information, but take it with a grain of salt. Finally, a frequent refrain: “No one outside of the 98052 ZIP code seems to believe that Windows Vista is really going to ship when Microsoft says it will.”
What RealNetworks thinks about Microsoft’s Zune – Rob Glaser would like Microsoft’s spurned partners to call.
Shocking news: Lehman Bros. thinks Microsoft Poses Long-Term Web Threat To Google, Yahoo. The NY Times had more on the same competition from a Yahoo perspective.
Californians to Soon Get $1.1B from Microsoft. It’s another state antitrust settlement.
Microsoft plans to charge $1.50 for the next Office 2007 beta to help pay for the bandwidth and hosting required by the unprecedented demand. Starts next Wednesday at 6PM PDT, but only applies to new testers.
The Microsoft Developer Network Library is now a free download. It used to be only available to MSDN subscribers although there is an online version.
Microsoft recalled Small Business Server 2003 R2 due to a manufacturing defect.
Microsoft Sets Sights on iSCSI: “Microsoft on Friday will release the iSCSI target technology it acquired from String Bean Software earlier this year.”
Microsoft Releases Free Commerce Server 2007 Developer Edition . This used to be Commerce Server 2006 but has undergone a name change. The full version is supposed to be available on August 1.
Windows Live Mail Desktop starts an open beta – also sometimes called Windows Live Mail Center.
Microsoft Defends WGA, Plans Similar Tool to Validate Office
As expected, Microsoft today launched Windows Storage Server 2003 R2:
Today at Storage Networking World Spring 2006, Microsoft Corp. announced further progress toward its Universal Distributed Storage commitment with the availability of Microsoft® Windows® Storage Server 2003 R2 through original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). In addition, Microsoft announced the availability of software-enabled Storage Area Network (SAN) boot of Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 using Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) technology that was co-developed with IBM Corp. The company also highlighted new partner solutions within the Simple SAN for Windows Server Program.
On that latter item, although IBM shed its consumer PC division, they are still a big player in Windows servers. More details:
Today Microsoft announced support for software-enabled SAN boot of Windows using iSCSI and standard network interface cards (NICs), a technology co-developed by Microsoft and IBM. This implementation was piloted with IBM and will be published publicly for implementation by other Microsoft partners to develop iSCSI software-enabled boot solutions.
Lucas Mearian at Computerworld has more information on why this is a good thing.
At Microsoft’s Windows Server Division WebLog, product manager Shola Aluko reports that Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 will be officially launched next week at the Storage Networking World conference. You may recall that it was released to manufacturing last December.
Joseph F. Kovar at CRN:
Microsoft is extending its storage operating system from NAS to the iSCSI SAN space thanks to iSCSI initiator software technology it acquired.
Microsoft said Friday it has acquired the technical assets and intellectual property of String Bean Software and hired three of the four people who worked at the Montgomery Village, Md.-based developer of iSCSI targets.
Building a SAN based on iSCSI requires that the host server has an iSCSI initiator for sending data and that the storage device has an iSCSI target for receiving the data.
While Microsoft has included iSCSI initiators with its server operating systems for some time, the company has not made an iSCSI target available with its storage operating system, Windows Storage Server 2003.
With the iSCSI target, Microsoft plans to make it possible for OEMs, and possibly eventually custom system builders, to use its WSS 2003 to build hybrid storage appliances that can be used for file (NAS) or block (iSCSI) applications, said Claude Lorenson, group product manager for the company’s Windows Server Division.
According to Byte and Switch, the Microsoft version of String Bean’s WinTarget software will be an extra cost option.
