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2010-02-09
Microsoft issued a large update for Patch Tuesday, plugging a total of 26 security holes in Windows and other Microsoft products.
2010-02-09
Nvidia's Optimus technology aims to improve battery life and power efficiency in notebooks by re-routing the processing workload based on what applications are in use.
2010-02-09
Microsoft has delivered the release candidate version of the company's Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 application development suite.
2010-02-08
Microsoft claims its engineers have been exploring complaints of poor battery life for some laptops running Windows 7, and that in every case the operating system is not at fault. Instead, Windows 7 had correctly evaluated via a new feature that those users’ batteries were failing, Microsoft said in a Feb. 8 blog posting. However, posts on Microsoft Watch, TechNet and other discussion forums seem to suggest that at least a percentage of users experiencing these issues also had batteries that were either new or nearly new, which in turn is raising further questions.
2010-02-08
Microsoft's smartphone-related rollout at Mobile World Congress on Feb. 15 could be a mobile operating system with a flashy Zune-like interface and lack of Flash support, according to online rumors. PPC Geeks is reporting through unnamed sources that Microsoft's offering will include no multitask support and that Windows Mobile Device Center will no longer be used. Microsoft has kept the subject of its announcement under wraps, but executives have nonetheless suggested that it will be a major update to the company's struggling mobile operating system franchise, currently facing intense competitive pressure from the likes of Apple's iPhone and Google Android.
2010-02-07
Microsoft experienced a cloud-centric week with Windows Azure, which is now generally available in 21 countries and no longer available for free. Microsoft hopes that the cloud-based platform and its application-building tools for developers will allow it to gain market share in the cloud computing arena, where it faces strong competition from the likes of Google and Amazon. In addition to Azure, Microsoft received some good news on the Windows 7 front, with a new report from Net Applications showing a rising rate of adoption for the new operating system. However, Microsoft continues to face some difficulties in mobile, with the rumor mill suggesting that the company may try to introduce a branded smartphone later this month.
2010-02-05
Microsoft announced as of April 15 the company will discontinue the Xbox Live online play service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals.
2010-02-04
Microsoft and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a collaboration to provide NSF-supported researchers with free access to the Windows Azure cloud platform and its development tools for three years. The evident hope is that those researchers will leverage the cloud-computing capabilities of the platform to analyze massive amounts of data inherent in large projects. Microsoft made the Windows Azure platform generally available on Feb. 1 in 21 countries, requiring users to pay for the service.
2010-02-04
Microsoft's new product R&D suffers from an internal culture of infighting and refusal to evolve, according to an op-ed piece by former Vice President Dick Brass published in The New York Times. As a result, Brass asserts, the Windows maker is failing even as it reports record profits. Furthermore, he says, Microsoft's attempts to develop a tablet PC nearly a decade ago were at least partially doomed by a refusal to modify popular Office applications to interface properly with such a device.
2010-02-04
Microsoft is planning to fix 26 vulnerabilities for February's Patch Tuesday. Most of the vulnerabilities are related to Windows.
2010-02-03
Microsoft releases an advisory about a new vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer that could allow an attacker to access files on a PC if the user is running Windows XP or using IE with Protected Mode disabled.
2010-02-03
Microsoft confirms that it will offer the Release Candidate of Office 2010 to testers enrolled in its Technology Adoption Program ahead of the productivity suite's general release in June. Microsoft previously opened Office 2010 to general public beta testing, much as it had with Windows 7, planning to use feedback from millions of users to refine the final product. Microsoft faces a growing challenge from Google Apps and other cloud-based competitors in the productivity software space.
2010-02-03
Gateway updates its FX, SX and DX desktop lines with slick designs, impressive price points, big power-saving drives, Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, and Intel Core i5 and i3 chips.
2010-02-03
Microsoft is investigating claims from irate users over allegedly poor battery life for laptops running Windows 7, an issue that primarily seems to be affecting users who upgraded from either Windows Vista or Windows XP. While the number of users affected is unknown, complaints about battery life as low as 15 minutes have been reported on Microsoft forums as far back as June 2009. Microsoft has seen the adoption rate for Windows 7 steadily climb since its Oct. 22 release, with one research firm suggesting that 7.5 percent of PCs now run the operating system.
2010-02-03
A worldwide survey of cost-conscious businesses, commissioned by Microsoft, finds those businesses that value IT as an enabler for better business productivity and effectiveness and those that use hosted services performed better fiscally than those that do not.
2010-02-02
While Microsoft is touting the fact Internet Explorer 8 is the single most widely used Web browser, the combined percentages of IE 6 and 7 users surpass it. The use of the older browsers means many users aren't taking advantage of the latest browser security protections.
2010-02-02
News Analysis: Since the global release of Windows Vista in January 2007, Microsoft has been paying heavy penalties for the mistakes it made in the development of its flagship desktop operating system. But now that Windows 7 is enjoying outstanding growth, things have changed. Microsoft is done paying for Vista. Now it needs to accept the situation and put Vista to rest with all speed.
2010-02-02
Adding to its alphabet soup, Sony introduces the E Series notebook line, which offers a number of cutting-edge features such as Intel Core i5 processors, Windows 7 Home Premium, 15.5-inch HD displays and a wide range of colors, for a starting price of $700.
2010-02-02
Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system continues its steady trend upward in terms of adoption, holding a 7.57 percent market share in January with one gust near 10 percent on Jan. 31. Meanwhile, the market share of Microsoft's Windows XP, a nearly decade-old warhorse, continues to steadily decline. Microsoft attributed its strong financial results for the second fiscal quarter of 2010 to robust Windows 7 sales, although some of its other divisions saw their year-over-year revenues slide.
2010-02-02
Microsoft announced the release of the beta version of Windows Azure Drive, which allows businesses and developers to transfer applications from a localized Windows environment to the cloud environment provided by Windows Azure. This follows Microsoft’s release of the Windows Azure platform to general availability in 21 countries starting on Feb. 1. Microsoft is hoping that Azure will become a major competitor in the cloud-computing space, where it faces other tech titans such as Amazon and Google.
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It's been almost a decade since I evaluated a PC migration solution aimed at moving installed applications from one Windows PC to another. Products such as PCmover Pro and Enterprise let you move a Windows XP installation to Windows 7, but is that the best upgrade path? I’d have to answer an unequivocal no.
After kicking the tires of Windows 7 in 2009, enterprises will be ready to adopt the new operating system in 2010. However, much-ballyhooed enterprise features may not make as big of an impact as Microsoft expected (or hoped), and IT managers will lean on trusty old technologies to aid in migration. Now that the standard has been ratified and competition is growing stiffer, the time is right for enterprise adoption of 802.11n. And you can expect to see bold moves in the mobile app space.
Some of the biggest events of 2009 served mostly to set the stage for bigger things in 2010. Poised to make a big bang in the new year are the fallout from Oracle's acquisition of Sun; Microsoft's new Azure operating system for the cloud, which will go from beta to service mode; Microsoft Office 2010, which will go from beta to full release; and two Windows alternatives, Ubuntu and Google Chrome OS.
Windows 7 was one of the biggest product stories of 2009, so why didn't Microsoft's new client OS make eWEEK Labs' Products of the Year list? A lack of true innovation and several outstanding questions are among the reasons.
In Office 2007, the Outlook mail client looked a lot like its previous iteration, lacking even a full implementation of the productivity suite's ribbon interface. With Outlook 2010, however, Microsoft has caught the mail client up with the rest of the Office suite. eWEEK Labs' tests of the Outlook 2010 beta show some significant improvements, but also some room for confusion.
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