Microsoft's week included Convergence 2012 announcements, Windows Phone in China, and news related to an RDP vulnerability patch.
Microsofts
big event of the week was Convergence 2012, in which it pumped its latest
software and cloud-based services for businesses.
By the end of
2012, Microsoft plans to update a sizable portion of its business-solution
portfolio. These updates include enabling Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2012 and
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 for Windows Azure. Microsoft is aiming its Dynamics
suit at small and midsize businesses in addition to the enterprise, with the
ability to tailor the platform to meet unique process models.
In its battle
against Oracle, Salesforce and other cloud-based companies for businesses
dollars, Microsoft is betting heavily on its ability to not only offer cloud
applications, and integrate those applications with its existing product lines,
but also offer those clients the ability to tailor Microsofts offerings to
meet specific requirements.
Being able to
bring a cloud story across the Microsoft portfolio is one of the things that
were most proud of today, Kevin Turner, Microsofts chief operating officer,
told the audience during his March 19 Convergence
keynote,
because the cloud story that we have today, across the three distinct types of
clouds from the private cloud to the public cloud and the hybrid cloud, is
without a doubt the deepest, broadest and most enterprise-ready cloud solutions
on the planet are Microsoft solutions.
He also
suggested that Microsoft would embrace and manage third-party vendors, such
as Google Android and Apple iOS, as part of giving companies the ability to
manage data across a variety of employee devices.
Microsoft also
used this week to begin some big consumer-related pushes. Windows Phone has now
launched in China, one of the largest (and fastest-growing) smartphone markets
in the world. The first device on store shelves there is the HTC Eternity. Our
goal is No. 1, Microsoft executive Simon Leung told media in Beijing,
according to
Bloomberg.
Having a goal to be No. 2 is not really a goal.
Bloomberg also
offered up rumors that Microsoft will release
Windows
8 in October, information the news service drew from unnamed sources with
knowledge of the schedule. That would be wholly unsurprising, considering how
Windows XP and Windows 7 (Microsofts two most successful Windows versions)
both arrived on store shelves in October of their respective release years.
To make
Windows 8 operate effectively on both traditional PCs and tablets, Microsoft
added a start screen composed of colorful, touch-friendly tiles linked to
applications. From there, another click or finger tap will send the user to a
regular desktop, which has undergone added tweaks from Windows 7.
IDC predicted
this week that Windows 8 has a shot at reviving somewhat moribund PC shipments,
which topped out at 1.8 percent for 2011. Windows 8 and Ultrabooks are a
definitive step in the right direction to recapturing the relevance of the PC,
Jay Chou, an analyst with IDC, wrote in a March 20 research note, but its
promise of meshing a tablet experience with a PC body will likely entail a
period of trial and error, thus the market will likely see modest growth in the
near term.
Modest growth
or not, IDC predicts PC sales to rise 5 percent for 2012.
In the
meantime, Microsoft has some more immediate concerns. This week, the company
asked customers to deploy a patch for a critical bulletin from last weeks
Patch Tuesday, after the public appearance of proof-of-concept code that
targets the vulnerability.
That critical
bulletin, MS12-020 (Windows) addresses an issue in Remote Desktop Protocol
(RDP). While Microsoft insisted in a March 13 posting on the
Microsoft
Security Response Center blog that we know of no active exploitation
in the wild, it also advised customers to examine and prepare to apply this
bulletin as soon as possible.
Moreover,
information about the vulnerability may have been leaked.
The details
of the proof-of-concept code appear to match the vulnerability information
shared with Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) Partners, Ynsun Wee,
director of Trustworthy Computing, wrote in a March 16 corporate blog posting,
three days after Patch Tuesday. Microsoft is actively investigating the
disclosure of these details and will take the necessary actions to protect
customers and ensure that confidential information we share is protected.
Follow
Nicholas Kolakowski on Twitter
Email
Print
