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A selection of Microsoft goodies from Santa’s sack:
Visions of sugarplums danced in their heads – Merrill Bets On Yahoo!-AOL Merger, but they don’t rule out Microsoft. Most interesting part:
Merrill also highlights this tidbit: “our understanding is that AOL’s current contract with Google has a change in control clause that would allow either [Microsoft] or Yahoo! to move its traffic onto their platforms.”
And Apple must have been not naughty, but nice this year – Planned Home PC Purchases Surge, Apple Closes On HP. Also IDC says that while 3Q2006 US sales were flat, global sales are rising and laptops now outsell desktops. More on IDC’s report here.
More gifts – Microsoft Teams With Macrovision to Populate Windows Marketplace with over 1,000 games. I’d nearly forgotten about Windows Marketplace, Microsoft’s digital delivery store for PC software and more.
Mom’s Genuine Holiday Surprise - Microsoft no longer thinks Joe Wilcox’s mother is a software pirate.
Finally, a lump of coal for Windows Live Drive which may be DOA.
Wait, there’s more!
First Exploit Of Windows Vista Spotted. It doesn’t seem to be much of an exploit, but it’s notable for being the first admitted exploit for Vista. Microsoft is very precise these days on which security holes are attributable to Vista and which to programs that run on Vista.
Here it comes – Microsoft builds Vista buzz in Tokyo’s Akihabara.
Google edged out Yahoo to become the number 2 Web venue in term of worldwide visitors during November according to comScore. Microsoft is still number 1. Google results did not include YouTube which was 10th.
Microsoft fights Gmail in the workplace – it’s all about mailbox size.
Microsoft made available version 1.2 of the Team Foundation Server MSSCCI (Microsoft Source Code Control Interface) Provider which allows a range of IDEs to access Team Foundation Server, the collaboration component of the Visual Studio 2005 Team System platform.
Microsoft in legal battle over ‘Halo’ game for mobile phones. Follow the link for Todd Bishop’s explanation of why French game maker In-Fusio is suing Microsoft. I’m still trying to figure what playing Halo on a mobile phone could possibly be like.
There’s no formal announcement yet, but you can now check out Windows Marketplace for the new look at www.windowsmarketplace.com. Basically, Microsoft has mapped its Xbox Live Marketplace to the PC space and users can purchase a variety of software and other downloadable digital goodies using the Digital Locker technology announced last September. Liveside has more (including the as yet unrealized expectation of a renaming to Windows Live Marketplace), as does Ed Bott who came upon the link interestingly embedded in a beta Windows Vista setup screen and notes that it seems to be yet another stealth Microsoft announcement:
By my calculations, this site should be open for business at noon, Pacific Daylight Time, on Monday, August 28. It’s a curiously soft launch. No one from Microsoft has pitched this story to me, and the only mention I’ve seen online is this short blurb at LiveSide.
Windows Vista was one of the two big themes of PDC05, but I’m having a hard time pointing out new news. In the words of Paul Thurrott, “There isn’t really anything new to say about Windows Vista. We already knew just about everything there is to know.”
First cut to the screenshots. They’re nice and the sidebar is back, just like in 2003. PCMag has a photo review here.
Then:
- There is going to be extensive beta testing with roughly monthly Community Technical Previews (CTP). But the Community seems to be just MSDN and TechNet subscribers and technical beta program testers.
- Speaking of the sidebar, it isn’t actually in the version 5219 bits handed out to attendees but will be in the October CTP. The mini-apps that can run in the sidebar are now termed “gadgets.” Somewhat confusingly, that’s also the name for the mini-apps that run at start.com and on Windows Sideshow auxiliary displays and they now jointly have a web site to encourage developers to create them.
- Some spiffy games exploiting Avalon and some new Tablet tweaks.
- 30 ISVs announced plans for optimized Vista apps and there will be “a new service within Windows Marketplace called Digital Locker, which will be available in the Windows Vista timeframe” was announced to promote same.
- New Windows Vista home page
- People Near Me and SuperFetch
