microsoft

Last week, Time Warner's new CEO Jeff Bewkes confirmed the corporation would separate AOL's Internet dial-up division from the company's advertising and content business. This leads analysts to believe that Time Warner may sell one or both of its ... AOL divisions.(Source: cnn.com ) "We're working on separating AOL's access and audience businesses so we can run them independently. This should significantly increase AOL's strategic options," Bewkes said during a conference call with investors. AOL's subscription business has been faltering since the Web 2.0 explosion, and rival firms ... (view more)

Microsoft researchers are working on ways to make web advertising even smarter. They want to teach computers to do a more accurate job of targeting ads, by specifying which to put into video clips, and those for more specific users. They ... demonstrated the techniques at their headquarters this week. The timing may be an intentional effort to boost their bid for Yahoo which, if successful, would make Microsoft the second biggest Internet ad seller behind Google. (Source: informationweek.com ) The demonstration included a 'dashboard' which advertisers can use to predict how well particular ... (view more)

Microsoft is hoping that its acquisition of Yahoo will help it gain ground on the advertising and search front, and adding Yahoo's 500 million users to its base. But assuming that Jerry Yang and Co. yield to the Redmond giant, will it be enough? The ... New York Times recently ran a picture depicting the Microsoft and Google as two large sharks consuming everything in their path: aQuantive, DoubleClick, and MultiMap. Then there are the smaller exclusivity agreements with prominent tech companies such as The Wall Street Journal and Facebook for Microsoft, and Google's deals with MySpace, Fox, and ... (view more)

In a move that could change the pecking order of the Internet search and advertising marketplace, Microsoft has made an unsolicited bid to purchase ailing Yahoo. In a letter sent to Yahoo's board of directors, Microsoft offered $44.6 billion in cash ... and stock for the troubled company; what's more, it has also been revealed that Microsoft explored an offer a year previous only to be rebuffed by Yahoo because of their confidence in the operational changes they were making at the time. (Source: cnn.com ) The last year, however, has been difficult for Yahoo. Their new ad delivery platform was ... (view more)

Microsoft has struck another blow in its advertising war with rivals Yahoo and Google. On Tuesday, the Redmond-based company announced it was becoming the exclusive third-party provider of contextual and paid search advertising for The Wall Street ... Journal's network of sites. (Source: microsoft.com ) The Wall Street Journal Online, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com and others will now become part of Microsoft's ever-expanding network; the agreement is expected to bring 20 million unique visitors per month in traffic to the ad platform. "The Wall Street Journal Digital Network is one ... (view more)

Microsoft posted notice to administrators that on February 12, 2008 Microsoft will release the Windows Internet Explorer 7 Installation and Availability update to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) marked as an Update Rollup package -- and they ... included instructions on how to prevent it to ensure you end up with the version of Internet Explorer you want. Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article 946202 describes the Windows Internet Explorer 7 Installation and Availability Update that will upgrade machines running Internet Explorer 6 to Windows Internet Explorer 7 if you use WSUS to manage ... (view more)

Trying to sway public opinion about a flailing product, Microsoft has reportedly once again boasted about the security of Windows Vista, claiming that the operating system had 36 vulnerabilities in its first year compared to the 65 found in Windows ... XP during that same period. Analysts remain skeptical. "I think that it's fair to say that Windows Vista is proving to be the most secure version of Windows to date. Our investments in the SDL (Security Development Lifecycle) and our defense in depth approach to building Windows Vista seem to be paying off," wrote Austin Wilson in a recent ... (view more)

Dell and Microsoft have agreed to join forces. They're not about to take down a rival company, but instead help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. Both have promised to donate up to $80 from the sale of three new computer models to help cover the ... cost of delivering medication from the western world. While seemingly a small donation considering the cost of a brand new computer, the $80 donated from each model would be enough to purchase up to six months of medical supplies in developing nations. (Source: iht.com ) Dell has agreed to provide the hardware in the partnership, coming out with two ... (view more)

Rumor has it the first service pack update for Windows Vista will be out on 15 February. A 'service pack' is a single download produced by Microsoft to fix many different problems and add general improvements to a version of its Windows operating ... system. Microsoft have so far only confirmed that the update will be out in the current quarter (by the end of March). It's thought Microsoft may be confident about releasing Service Pack 1 early because a test version, which users download at their discretion from the company website, has proven successful. The official service pack releases ... (view more)

Microsoft has warned that several older versions of Excel contain a bug that could be exploited by hackers. It affects both Windows and Macintosh users. The bug could make it possible to execute code remotely. That means a hacker would be able to ... gain some degree of access to a user's computer, with the potential to steal personal information. The problem affects versions of Excel (including the stand-alone viewer) dated up to and including 2004. However, if the user has downloaded Office Service Pack 3, the bug will have been removed. Those versions dated 2007 or 2008 do not have the bug. To ... (view more)