Microsoft

Despite their competition with one another in the world of web browsers, Microsoft has reportedly invited the folks from Mozilla to its headquarters in Redmond, Washington for an information session designed to make Firefox (and other software ... products) more compatible with Vista. Like any operating system (OS), Vista will be successful or unsuccessful depending on the software it can run problem-free. Although Mozilla and Microsoft provide a fierce rivalry for one another with Firefox and Internet Explorer, respectively, the Redmond-based company clearly realizes that more people will ... (view more)

It's been some time since yours truly or anyone at Infopackets reported on Microsoft security. After a typhoon of activity earlier this summer with the release of OneCare Live and then the controversial Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), the ... Redmond-based company has remained relatively hush on its plans for protecting itself and its paying customers. However, Microsoft again enters the spotlight with a recent announcement regarding former McAfee veteran, Vincent Gullotto. (Source: hackinthebox.org ) Once dubbed by CNET News to be the industry's "Virus Hunter", Gullotto has in recent years been ... (view more)

In a recent address of tech industry executives in Orlando, Florida, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer encouraged his listeners to get behind a plan that would see PCs become drastically more affordable for the world's less affluent users. The magic price ... tag? Just $100 -- a number that for most North Americans has proved hardly enough cold hard cash to purchase basic software (usually from Microsoft itself), let alone an entire system. For Ballmer, lowering PC costs to just $100 could in turn curtail rising piracy rates, which Microsoft has recently becoming increasingly determined to root out. ... (view more)

As Microsoft hurries to release the next version of Windows before its (rather tentative) January 2007 release date, a recent announcement by the company has an "upgrade breakdown" for each of its six versions of Vista. The most important part of ... this development is the XP upgrade, which allows certain editions of XP to be supplemented instead of completely replaced by Vista's technology. In short: the five versions of Windows XP, including Windows XP Professional, XP Home, XP Media Center, XP Tablet PC, XP Professional x64, and additionally, Windows 2000, all require *different* installation ... (view more)

Just weeks after the European Union (EU) levied them with a hefty 280.5 million Euro (or $357 million) antitrust fine, Microsoft appears to be getting its act together. As discussed previously , the fine was issued because Microsoft refused to share ... information of its operating systems with foreign competitors. This was just one example of a rather infamous month or two for the Redmond-based company, which saw itself attacked in the media for a number of controversial decisions -- including its security program Windows Genuine Advantage . This was not the first time Microsoft has been found ... (view more)

Oh, the irony. In the middle of an industry firestorm launched by Microsoft against software pirates, the tech world's most hardcore investigators have discovered that the Redmond-based company has been using cracked .wav files in its Windows Media ... Player. In its most recent operating system -- XP -- Microsoft is allegedly running hacked music files for its background sound. Microsoft has attracted intense scrutiny in recent weeks over the release of the Windows Genuine Advantage ( WGA ). WGA is Microsoft's pioneer program in the war against software piracy, as it rather forcefully "offers" ... (view more)

Now that Microsoft knows you want it, Office 2007 Beta 2 downloads are no longer a gratuity. Since its release two months ago, the extremely popular program has been downloaded a total of three million times, leading the Redmond-based company to ... start charging $1.50 USD, beginning August 2. According to Microsoft, the beta program -- 550 MB for the basic version, 2GB for the full suite -- and its explosive popularity have put a fantastic strain on the company's networks. Even Microsoft itself has been caught off guard by the intense downloading of the Office beta, stating that the 3 million ... (view more)

Even with massive revenues through a number of initiatives, the cost of meeting demand for the Xbox 360 console has left the Microsoft Home and Entertainment division with a posted operating loss of $414 million for Quarter 4, 2006. Similar losses ... were felt last year in anticipation of the 360 launch, but despite promises that a number of concepts would force a profit, such explosive revenue has yet to materialize. Luckily for Microsoft, its SQL server (the language used to retrieve and manipulate database materials) has exploded in recent months, making up for the growing pains of raising ... (view more)

In a pair of recent surveys on brand power and popularity in Britain and the United States, Microsoft dominated and dropped out of the top ten in each, respectively. In a public survey by consultant agency Superbrands and research group YouGov, ... Microsoft launched into first in the hearts of British voters. The poll, conducted by a group considered "industry experts", asked 2,373 members of the public what brand they felt was the most reliable, distinct, and routinely showed the best quality. In the provided list of some 500 companies, Microsoft, to the astonishment of many UK tech insiders, ... (view more)

In a quarter that proved disastrous for the makers of the processing chips that power its software, Microsoft has reported strong earnings for the second financial period of 2006. So strong, in fact, that the Redmond-based company has pledged to buy ... back $40 billion of its own stock, with at least half of that within the next month. Normally, it takes years for a company to buy back just portions of its stock. In the past, much of Microsoft's pledge in doing so has been no different. It pledged three years ago to buy back $30 billion, and has only recently completed this purchase. The second ... (view more)