Microsoft

A public beta of Microsoft's highly-anticipated Windows Live Essentials will be made available today, and promises to lure many curious onlookers with Office Web Apps and new social networking and media sharing options. Many of the programs which ... were part of Windows XP have been taken out of Windows 7 and re-branded into Windows Live Essentials. Programs included are: Messenger, Photo Gallery, Mail, Movie Maker, Writer, Family Safety, and Toolbar, plus Microsoft Office Outlook Connector, Office Live Add-in, and Microsoft Silverlight. (Source: microsoft.com ) Windows Live Internet Integration ... (view more)

Dell executive Amit Midha on Monday announced that the hardware company is considering using the Google Chrome operating system (OS) on a select list of its laptop computers. That could represent a step away by Dell from Microsoft's Windows ... offerings, and will likely be a major concern for the Redmond-based software giant. In an interview with Reuters, Google senior executive Midha admitted that the company was considering a partial switch from Windows to Chrome on its laptops and perhaps some of its smartphones and tablet computers. The move could be enormous for all of the firms involved, ... (view more)

Microsoft is making it easier to help spread the word on incidents of Internet fraud and stolen personal data. In its latest corporate venture, the company has teamed with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) to establish a ... centralized service called "Internet Fraud Alert." Security researchers now have one universal location for which to report any kind of stolen data, ranging from online account login information to credit card numbers. The service can also be used to warn financial institutions immediately after a security breach has been identified. Program ... (view more)

Microsoft is running a special offer allowing students to upgrade to Windows 7 for just $29.99. They can also buy a special academic edition of Office 2010 for $79.95 outright. The upgrade offer is for the Professional edition of Windows 7. That's ... effectively the midway point between Home Premium (the edition most home users will be running) and Ultimate (the most feature-filled and expensive edition for individuals). Compared with Home Premium, the Professional edition offers some extra features which might not appeal to students, such as easier company network connections, but one which ... (view more)

Amazon has slashed the price of several versions of its Microsoft Office 2010 applications suite. Cuts have been as high as 13 per cent at the online retailer, which insists the reductions have nothing to do with weak demand. Leading the cuts is the ... Home and Student version of Office: Microsoft lists the software at $149, but Amazon currently posts it at just $129. Receiving slightly less drastic cuts is the Home and Business edition, available for $259 (usually $279) and the Professional version, listed at $459 by Microsoft but sold by Amazon for a whopping $499. (Source: informationweek.com ... (view more)

One of the major concerns about the launch of Windows 7 was that the new operating system would be too bulky for a very popular kind of PC: the netbook. The alternative was the decade-old Windows XP, but that option won't be around come the end of ... October, 2010. In a recent statement, Microsoft officials noted the deadline date for OEMs to cut off the loading of Windows XP on new netbooks: October 22, 2010, one year to the day since the launch of Windows 7. "OEMs will no longer be able to pre-install Windows XP Home on new netbook PCs," Microsoft said. (Source: appscout.com ) Performance, ... (view more)

Microsoft has released security updates for 34 different problems, a monthly total that has only been matched once. Three sets of problems are ranked as critical, and several are so-called zero-day bugs. A zero-day bug is one in which the problem is ... not discovered by the software developer itself. This creates the risk that hackers will be able to get a head-start on finding a way to exploit the bug before the developer is able to produce a fix. The critical issues affect both Internet Explorer and Windows itself. Of the 10 security bulletins, these are the priority for installation and ... (view more)

Microsoft has officially unveiled online versions of its Microsoft Office 2010 applications, including cloud versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The company revealed its new products with surprisingly little fanfare, though it's likely ... they'll garner considerable attention in the next few days. Microsoft's move towards cloud computing alternatives for its traditional Office suite of applications is largely a response to Google's line of rival online products. The search giant has had considerable success with its Google Docs program, which allows users from anywhere in the world ... (view more)

Microsoft has confirmed that the first official version of Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 will be released next month (July, 2010). It doesn't appear the pack will bring any major updates, but it could still drive up business sales. A service pack is ... a collection of all updates released for the software since its original launch. At one stage service packs were a way to get updates (via disc) to people on dial-up modems who didn't want to use the automatic update download service; today they are used more among people who prefer to carry out major updates in a single batch. Another benefit of ... (view more)

Microsoft has decided to remove its "Bing cashback" feature after a lack of interest among retailers. The scheme allowed users to search for products and then get a rebate for buying from a selected seller. The scheme originally launched as part of ... Microsoft's Live search engine, before being rebranded when Live merged with MSN to produce the new Bing site. The launch of Bing arguably made the cashback tool more useful for both Microsoft and customers, as Bing is based around providing results in a variety of categories depending on the subject of a search. For example, people ... (view more)