microsoft

Have you ever wondered why casinos in Las Vegas are able to survive when offering dinners for 99 cents? It's a marketing tactic designed to lure consumers, with the hopes that they will stay and purchase regular-priced items out of convenience. ... Microsoft is now using a similar strategy to attract curious individuals to an all-new revamped version of their Bing search engine . Bing to Offer TV, Games, and Music Bing now features an entertainment page that will let users watch TV shows, play games and listen to music -- all without leaving the website. This, Microsoft hopes, will entice users ... (view more)

Microsoft representatives have promised that the forthcoming Windows 7 Phone system will be based around the way customers use their phones in their everyday lives. But when Microsoft speaks to the marketing world, it tells a different story. Kostas ... Mallios, who oversees Microsoft's Strategy and Business Development unit, recently spoke at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. He spoke about the way in which Windows Phone 7 is designed to be a seamless experience for the user such that everything from social networking to multimedia is linked together smoothly. However, he also ... (view more)

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)

After multiple delays , the first handsets running the next Windows mobile operating system are said to emerge next month. But they won't be on sale: instead, they'll go to software developers to make it easier for them to produce high-quality apps. ... App Developers to get Real Deal So far developers have had to rely on emulators to try out their new apps for Windows Phone 7. That does the job, but doesn't really recreate how an app looks and feels when it is on a phone in your hand. It is theoretically possible for developers to run beta editions of Windows Phone 7 on existing handsets through ... (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)

According to reports, a flaw in the Windows XP operating system, which was first reported last week by a Google researcher, has been exploited by hackers in an attempt to spread malware. The flaw was reported on Monday , and is related to a ... vulnerability in Windows XP's Help function. A Google researcher by the name of Tavis Ormandy discovered that the web link script used in XP's Help and Support Center could be manipulated in order to route users towards malicious online content. (Source: itproportal.com ) Google Researcher Publishes Hacking Guide To Microsoft's disappointment, Ormandy ... (view more)

Microsoft recent criticized Google for publicly disclosing a remote code execution vulnerability affecting Windows XP and Server 2003. The problem was first reported to Microsoft on June 5th, but most of the world knew about it only four days later. ... This did not sit well with Microsoft, as the company believes that they were ousted before any meaningful repairs could be made to combat the issue. Worse yet, the company believes that revealing the situation to the public could have put users in danger. Windows XP, 2003 Consumers At Risk In an emotionally-charged rebuttal, Microsoft spokesperson ... (view more)

Microsoft has identified a potential security risk in the Help function of Windows XP. But there is some controversy over the way the issue has come to light. This bug involves XP's Help and Support Center, and specifically a style of link which ... routes a browser to a help page built into Windows rather than a web page. Such links begin hcp:// rather than the more familiar http:// and are a way of making it easier to give online help and advice by allowing writers to include smooth links to Windows' own help pages. Whitelist Help Pages Spoofed Tavis Ormandy, an information security engineer ... (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)