Mary Jo

Few Microsoft watchers would count ‘adCenter’ as important to Microsoft as Windows, Office, Visual Studio and Xbox. But much of Microsoft’s software-services future is dependent on the success of its online-advertising platform, which Microsoft plans to beef up over the next 12 to 18 months. Company officials shared with customers and other interested parties via […]

From Microsoft Watch: Microsoft is feeling its way, as it continues to evolve its online advertising platform. On August 5, Microsoft is preparing to refresh the platform with a rash of new features. Longer term, the company is working to integrate contextual advertising and its Deep Metrix analytics capabilities into upcoming adCenter releases. adCenter is […]

Windows PowerShell isn’t soup yet. But virus writers already have created a proof-of-concept worm that targets the Microsoft’s scripting shell, formerly code-named “Monad.” PowerShell is slated to debut as part of Exchange Server 2007 in late 2006 or early 2007. (Thanks to Steven Bink for the link.)

The first non-beta version of Windows Live Spaces (the blogging platform formerly known as MSN Spaces) is done. Check out the refreshed Live Spaces site here. LiveSide has posted a useful diagram that illustrates the features (gadgets, search and tagging and Friends Explorer) that will be part of Live Spaces that weren’t part of MSN […]

Microsoft better have some amazing business evangelism ideas for Windows Vista. According to newly published Jupiter Research data, about 50 percent of companies either won’t deploy Windows Vista at all or will wait at least 13 months after the system’s November corporate release to begin installation. (Thirteen months is actually a fairly short cycle, compared […]

From Microsoft Watch: It’s not only Platforms and Services Co-President Jim Allchin who will be leaving the Windows team once Windows Vista is released to manufacturing. Long-time Windows development head Brian Valentine is out, too. (Valentine is moving to some unspecified job on a different Microsoft division, company officials said.) Jon DeVaan, a Microsoft Office […]

As part of our never-ending Microsoft code-name quest, we’ve got one brand-new one (and one clarification) to add to our list. It looks like Microsoft’s designated namers on the development-tool team are continuing with their “islands” code-name theme. “Rosario” is the code name for the next version of Visual Studio Team System that will be […]

The next test release of Windows Vista, slated for late August, according to our testing tipsters, will be designated Release Candidate (RC) 1. That usually means near-final, stable, generally usable code. But in the case of Vista, will RC1 live up to its name? That’s the question Longhorn Blogger Robert McLaws is pondering. McLaws is […]

eWEEK columnist David Morgenstern makes a case for why Apple is well positioned to sell even more Macs to a power-hungry premium audience. With Windows Vista, Microsoft also is looking for ways to sell more premium SKUs (at premium prices) to the same kinds of users who’ve been at Apple’s core. Microsoft has identified 14 […]

Users have been asking how, when and if they will be able to upgrade directly from older versions of Windows to Vista. The official – and confusing – word on Vista upgrades is in. Inside Microsoft blogger Nathan Weinberg summarizes: “If you have Windows 2000 or a 64-bit version of XP, you’ll be installing from […]

During the Black Hat security confab this week, a security researcher is set to demo a new technique for defeating the device-driver-signing feature that Microsoft is adding to Vista. Rather than improve user security by allowing only signed drivers to load, the exploit loads a rootkit on Vista.

Microsoft has started to provide sneak peeks of the first technology to be hatched by its LiveLabs organization. Officials showed off the technology, code-named “PhotoSynth,” at the Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting this week. They also are set to provide a preview next week at SIGGRAPH. PhotoSynth “takes a large collection of photos of a place […]