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Microsoft Launches Consumer Subscription Offering That Combines Microsoft Office and Windows Live OneCare

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Microsoft Equipt gives consumers powerful productivity and security protection technologies in a single package through Circuit City.

Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Microsoft Equipt, an all-in-one security and productivity software subscription service for consumers. In one easy installation, the service delivers award-winning anti-malware protection technology and features to simplify PC management and help improve performance, the productivity tools people use to organize their lives, and online services that help make it easy to keep in touch with friends and family.

Initially code-named “Albany,” Microsoft Equipt offers consumers Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, giving them the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for their personal and school projects; Windows Live OneCare, the all-in-one security and PC management service; Windows Live tools, such as Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Photo Gallery so they can connect and share with people they care about most; and Office Live Workspace, a new service from Microsoft that makes it easy to save documents to a dedicated online Workspace and share them with friends and classmates. Anytime a new version of Office or Windows Live OneCare is released, Microsoft Equipt customers will get the version upgrades as part of their subscriptions.

Pricing and Availability

Microsoft Equipt is $69.99 (U.S.) estimated retail price for a one-year renewable subscription. Each subscription will be good for three home PCs, making Microsoft Equipt ideal for families and individuals with one or several computers.

Microsoft Equipt will be sold in nearly 700 Circuit City stores in the U.S. starting mid-July 2008.

“With Microsoft Equipt we’re improving our customers’ computing experience by giving them essential software in a package that offers an easy install and setup experience, as well as a convenient and affordable way to stay updated with the latest versions of Office and Windows Live OneCare,” said Bryson Gordon, group product manager, Microsoft Office.

“We are very pleased to be the first partner to offer Microsoft Equipt through nearly 700 Circuit City retail outlets throughout the U.S.,” said Elliot Becker, vice president, general merchandise manager technology, Circuit City. “Microsoft Equipt delivers on an unmet customer need for an easy way to get the essential productivity and security software in an all-in-one package. And with the added benefit of getting the latest software as part of the Microsoft Equipt subscription, we expect this service to be a runaway hit.”

Check out BOK Center Opens on Labor Day Weekend on the tulsa, ok blog here on 451 Press.

Microsoft details plans for new social bookmarking tool

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Tool will focus on its tech sites, MSDN, TechNet and Expression

Microsoft, which released a preview version of its social bookmarking application in May, is adding new features to the first version, such as the ability to subscribe to bookmarking tags via RSS and to import bookmarks from other bookmarking sites like Delicious.

Microsoft is focusing its application on its sites that provide forums and support for developers and designers. Since releasing a preview version of the application for new MSDN, TechNet and Expression sites, thousands of users in IT have begun using the application to “save their Web favorites online, share them with others, see what other technical pros are favoriting and connecting with others,” noted Microsoft’s John Martin in a blog post. Martin is the lead evangelist for server and tools online at Microsoft.

In the early September release, Microsoft will add:

The ability to subscribe to tags or people: Users can follow a tag or a fellow bookmarker through an RSS feed subscription. The ability to search for people by username and other criteria. Import tools: The new application will provide a tool to allow users to import their favorite bookmarks from Microsoft Internet Explorer and Delicious. A bookmarking widget: Users who have their own blog or Web site can post the bookmarking widget to make it easy for other users to bookmark the blog or personal Web site directly to their social bookmarks on MSDN, TechNet and Expression. Those who have posted the widget will then get traffic on their sites when a bookmarked page is published in the social feeds on Microsoft’s global site, Martin said.

Check out My Friendly Pets here on the 451 Press network, written by Susan Mead.

Microsoft and Nikon Enter Into Patent Cross-Licensing Agreement

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Agreement furthers Microsoft and Nikon collaboration on new products and features in digital imaging.

Microsoft Corp. and Nikon Corp. have signed a patent cross-licensing agreement to further the development of each company’s current and future product lines.

The agreement covers digital cameras made by Nikon as well as a broad range of other consumer products each company manufactures and sells. The agreement was signed by representatives from both companies at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Although the contents of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by Nikon.

Microsoft and Nikon have a long history of collaborating to bring high-quality, cutting-edge consumer products to the market, including wireless cameras and RAW processing technologies. The companies believe that this patent cross-licensing agreement will substantially benefit customers of consumer products including digital cameras. Both parties will be able to innovate openly with each other’s technologies, enabling new features and products to come to market.

“This agreement will extend and enhance our already successful, long-standing collaboration with Nikon, and will allow us to provide even better products to our customers,” said Josh Weisberg, director of the Rich Media Group at Microsoft.

“This agreement is another great example of how industry leaders are coming together to collaborate through intellectual property licensing, and by doing so enabling innovation that will ultimately benefit the consumer,” said Horacio Gutierrez, vice president of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft. “We are proud of the quality of our broad, global patent portfolio, and we are pleased to be working with an industry leader such as Nikon.”

“At Nikon, we want to continue to lead the industry in pioneering photography solutions and give our customers access to innovative technology,” said Naoki Tomino, director, member of the board and General Manager of Intellectual Property Headquarters at Nikon. “This agreement is a natural extension of our long-standing relationship with Microsoft, and we look forward to collaborating and bringing exciting new products to the market.”

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Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Fact Sheet

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

An overview of the features and benefits of Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer 8.

Windows Internet Explorer 8 is the next version of the world’s most popular browser that optimizes developer and end-user experiences to provide a window to the Web of online services. Moreover, Internet Explorer 8 offers new features and functionality that enable customers to reach beyond the page in more secure, easier and faster ways than ever. Following are brief descriptions of the key new and enhanced features in Internet Explorer 8. Features that are new in beta 2 or have been significantly improved since beta 1 are noted with an asterisk (*).

Faster, Easier Web Browsing

Internet Explorer 8 makes great strides in both features and performance improvements that provide faster day-to-day browsing. Many ways in which Internet Explorer 8 makes browsing faster and easier include these:

• Smart Address Bar*. In addition to matching URLs in the user’s site history, the Smart Address Bar in Internet Explorer 8 matches what a user types in the Address Bar with titles in the history as well as content in their favorites and feeds, making it easier to locate sites the user wants to visit.

• Enhanced Find On Page. Find On Page functionality has been enhanced to improve how users search for text on Web pages.

• Find On Page. Find On Page now appears as a toolbar activated by pressing Ctrl-F or choosing Find On Page from the Edit menu or Instant Search Box. The toolbar appears below the user’s tab so it doesn’t obscure any of the text on the page.

• Result count. The enhanced Find On Page functionality shows the user how many places the search text appears on the page.

• Result highlighting. The enhanced Find On Page functionality highlights all places on the page where the search text appears so users can locate them at a glance.

• Redesigned New Tab Page. The New Tab Page in Internet Explorer 8 has been redesigned to allow the user to perform common tasks by clicking links on the New Tab Page.

• Tab Groups*. When one tab is opened from another, the new tab is placed next to the originating tab, and both are marked with a colored tab, so users can quickly discern which tabs have related content.

• Reopen last browsing session*. Internet Explorer 8 enables users to reopen their last browsing session from the most recently closed instance of Internet Explorer, which is useful if the user accidentally closes the browser.

Check out the Albuquerque, NMBlog here on the 451 Press Network, then click below for more on Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2.

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PCs Make a Fashion Statement at PROJECT

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

Microsoft to highlight PCs with Windows that are fashionable and downright cool.

The New Black

Why does Microsoft, primarily a software company, care about the physical design and style of a PC?

“We’re interested in bringing choice and innovation to the total end-user experience,” explains Poznanski, who came to Microsoft more than two years ago from the music industry. “The design of your computer is as important as the design of your handbag or living-room couch. After all, if a customer isn’t attracted by a PC, they’ll never get to experience our software.”

That’s why Microsoft supports its PC partners in their efforts to produce truly innovative designs. “We give these companies early feedback on the prototypes they show us, and we help showcase some of the most fashionable PCs, as we are here at PROJECT,” he says. “It’s a two-way street; our partners are constantly encouraging us to be as innovative as we can be.”

Poznanski believes that a PC should be an extension of someone’s personality and taste, just as their clothes, home and car are. “We don’t think customers should be limited to PCs that are black, white or silver. PCs with Windows are available in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, colors, designs and accessories, so you can have a PC that reflects who you are — your personal style and fashion sense. There’s a PC with Windows out there for everyone and with any style.”

What are some of the design elements that consumers want now? The obvious ones are choice of shape, color, texture and pattern, but Poznanski notes that factors such as small footprint and light weight are particularly important for the road-warrior lifestyle and are also part of the latest design trends.

Shedding Your Skin

Users’ ability to personalize their PCs doesn’t end with the PC design itself. It can stretch into the software they use as well. Windows DreamScene, for example, is a utility that allows videos and animations — like waves breaking on a beach — to be used as desktop wallpapers.

A company called Stardock, a Microsoft partner that will also be at PROJECT, offers a utility called MyColors that can change the look and feel of the entire Windows environment so that it conforms to any one of a variety of themes, like a sports team or a car brand. Their visual “skins” change nearly every element of the Windows GUI (graphical user interface), including icons, title bars, push buttons, menus and the Start bar.

For example, environment-minded users can show their passion for the planet by downloading a Think Green skin, which will change their desktop to incorporate an animated start menu, a matching weather forecast gadget and many other similarly theme-related elements. Other available themes include animal prints, wood grains and sleek stainless steel.

Voice your opinion over at Pride & Opinion on Gays Can’t Adopt in Arkansas.

StartupNation and Microsoft Office Live Small Business Search

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

for Nation’s Top Home-Based Businesses for Second Annual “Home-Based 100”

StartupNation (http://www.startupnation.com) and Microsoft Office Live Small Business (http://www.smallbusiness.officelive.com) have launched the second annual “Home-Based 100” to find the top home-based businesses in the country. Home-based businesses interested in making the list can submit their business profile at http://www.startupnation.com/homebased100, with results to be announced in November.

According to the Small Business Administration, over half of all U.S. businesses are based out of an owner’s home, and home-based businesses contribute more than $530 billion to the U.S. economy each year. With more than 19 million entrepreneurs currently running a business from home, most experts believe this trend is at an all-time high.

“2008 is the year of the home-based business. While home businesses have long been the backbone of the U.S. economy — surpassing more than half of all businesses — this year’s economic pressures have accelerated this trend and fueled a new crop of home-based entrepreneurs,” said Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation LLC and one of the country’s leading small-business experts. “Our 2008 ranking of home-based businesses will showcase these unsung heroes of entrepreneurship and demonstrate that home is not only where the heart is, but also where passion, drive and tomorrow’s business success stories live.”

The StartupNation Home-Based 100 is composed of 10 top-10 lists making it not just an ordinary business list. Including the grungiest, the most innovative and the best financial performers, the unique and diverse list highlights the home-based businesses that are often unrecognized, but which still play a vital role in the economy today. The 10 categories for 2008 follow:

• Best Financial Performers

• Most Innovative

• Boomers Back in Business

• Greenest

• Yummiest

• Wackiest

• Grungiest

• Recession Busters

• Most Slacker-Friendly

• Most Glamorous

Check out fellow blog Dealing with Headaches.

For investing, PCs are hands-down winners vs. Macs

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Apple’s advertising campaign railing against people who use PCs using Microsoft’s Windows has been funny, and relentless. So, it’s only natural for investors to wonder whether a PC or an Apple Mac computer is best for them.

And while PCs running Windows outsell Macs 30 to 1, based on an estimate by Microsoft’s CEO in a company memo, Apple’s recent momentum is hard to deny.

The biggest point to make, for an online investor, is that you’ll most likely be fine with either a Windows PC or a Mac. Both will run Web browser software, allowing you to complete 99% of the investing and money management tasks you’d want to do. Just about every online brokerage website is compatible with all the major browsers, and the operating system you’re running means nothing at all. I know of several high-powered stock research firms that use both PCs and Macs.

When it comes to investing, you want to keep your costs down. As investors we’ve been trained to reduce the commissions we pay, limit ourselves to low-cost mutual funds and reduce our capital gains taxes. Why then, should you overpay for a computer?

Let’s take an example. For less than $500, you can buy a Compaq Presario CQ50Z laptop. It comes with a 1.9 GHz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of memory, an Nvidia GeForce graphics card, 120 gigabyte harddrive and wireless networking. A capable machine by today’s standards and more than adequate for an online investor, for less than $500.

Now, let’s see what’s available from Apple. You’ll need to spend at least $1,099 for a MacBook, which comes with the same memory and hard drive. The MacBook has a slightly faster microprocessor, 2.1 GHz, but you won’t notice the difference if you’re just Web surfing.

Dozens of companies build computers that run Microsoft’s Windows, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo and Sony. But the list doesn’t stop there. There’s an innovative Asian PC maker, Asus, which is making interesting miniature laptops called the Eee. The Eee weighs just two pounds, is about the size of a tissue box and costs less than $300. These tiny PCs could be great machines for online investors on the run. Then there are even smaller PCs, like the FlipStart, which runs Windows too.

Microsoft has a nearly unblemished history making sure that files and data you have created in its operating systems are readable in the future. Floppy disks created with Microsoft’s early MS-DOS operating system decades ago will open on standard Windows Vista machines today, if you spring for an external floppy disk drive. Apple on the other hand, will often start from a clean slate, and doesn’t appear to hold backward compatibility as dear. Maybe some readers know if disks formatted using Apple DOS on an Apple II computer will open on a modern Mac PC?

This is a key factor with financial data. If you burn a CD with your past tax records, for instance, you want to know that in 20 years you’ll be able to call up those records if you need them. Microsoft has demonstrated it will make sure your old data are readable.

Check out The Bookstacks and today’s post about devine books.

Circuit City Enhances Customer Experience

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

With Customized Microsoft Software-Based Tablet PCs for Sales Associates in New-Format Stores

Called the Enhanced Digital Guide Experience (EDGE), Circuit City’s new mobile devices can speed the sales process by providing associates with immediate access to product recommendations, demos, usage questions, competitive pricing and more for thousands of items across hundreds of categories. EDGE is helping transform the retailer’s customer-service model in new-format stores known as the city™ by enabling any available associate to sell or discuss any product with any guest using a boundless selling approach to consumer electronics.

“With EDGE, sales associates can engage the guest, ask questions and input feedback for product recommendations that match the guest’s preferences and budget,” said Brian Leach, vice president of new concepts for Circuit City. “Because EDGE puts a wealth of information at our associates’ fingertips, we can hire from a broader talent pool and prepare them for the sales floor more quickly.”

“With consumer electronics products being upgraded as often as every 90 days, retailers are pressured to stay on top of all the latest trends while at the same time ensuring competitive pricing, clean stores and well-stocked shelves,” said David Gruehn, U.S. retail industry director at Microsoft. “By using a Tablet PC running a Windows-based application such as EDGE to elevate sales associates’ knowledge and effectiveness, Circuit City is differentiating itself from other retailers and tackling a key issue that all retailers face: how to increase customer loyalty and sales with a frequently evolving workforce.”

“What started as a selling tool turned into something that has removed boundaries from our service model and changed the way that we run our business,” Leach said.

Circuit City Innovates Stores With Interactive, Assisted Selling Capabilities

Circuit City teamed with Microsoft and its partners to design EDGE to extract product information, inventory data, in-store promotions, third-party reviews, and other information over the Internet and from multiple back-end business systems. Once the information is extracted, EDGE is then optimized with decision-support intelligence and a friendly user interface.

“Working with Microsoft was critical to getting us moving with this concept,” said Dave Romero, senior manager of new concepts for Circuit City. “We knew we had to create a more consistent approach to how we engaged guests in our stores, and Microsoft had the insight to show us where the industry was heading and provided knowledge and resources to move us in that direction.”

Browse Living Without Meat and find out why life’s a Peach.

Xbox and Rock the Vote to Give Voters a New Platform for Change

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

First-of-its-kind partnership creates new ways to register to vote and jump into 2008 election.

A leading gaming and entertainment platform just became a leading platform for change. Microsoft Corp. and Rock the Vote today announced a groundbreaking partnership that will allow Xbox 360 owners to register to vote, participate in presidential polls and voice their opinions to the presidential candidates. It will all happen through Xbox LIVE starting Monday, Aug. 25, the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

“Xbox is a natural partner to help us reach out to youth voters,” said Heather Smith, executive director, Rock the Vote. “To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there’s no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE.”

This is the first time that Rock the Vote has joined forces with an entertainment partner such as Xbox to reach voters under 30. Xbox LIVE is the largest online social network connected to the television, with membership totaling 12 million — if Xbox LIVE were a state, it would rank as the country’s seventh largest, giving it approximately 20 electoral votes.

“The Xbox LIVE community is active, vocal and passionate,” said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE. “We’re thrilled to partner with Rock the Vote to make it easier than ever for youth voters — and our members — to register and be heard.”

Through the Rock the Vote partnership, Xbox LIVE members will be able to register to vote, voice their opinions to the candidates through an exclusive forum and participate in potentially election-predicting polls. They will also be able to download Rock the Vote public service announcements.

Xbox also will have a presence at both the Democratic and Republican conventions, promoting the Rock the Vote partnership and educating delegates about creating a safer entertainment environment on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE using the built-in parental controls known as Family Settings. These industry-leading settings allow parents to limit their children’s access to video games and movies and manage their activity and communications on Xbox LIVE. For more information on Family Settings and other safety-enhancing gaming tools and resources, delegates can stop by the Xbox on-site kiosk or visit http://www.xbox.com/isyourfamilyset.

Visit Copyright Talk and learn about youtube and copyright law.

HGTV Designer Genevieve Gorder Helps College Students Head Back to School in Style

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Microsoft teamed up with HGTV Designer Genevieve Gorder to help provide college students with some tips and tricks for outfitting the ultimate digital dorm room.

As parents send their kids back to school this fall, many families will be spending less on their annual back to school purchases. With current economic conditions putting a damper on spending, people are looking for the best value on everything from clothes to computers.

On Aug. 14, Microsoft teamed up with designer Genevieve Gordor of HGTV’s “Dear Genevieve” in New York to provide some useful tips and tricks on designing a dorm room that can strike the right balance between value and style.

Genevieve’s Digital Dorm Room Tips:

• A Windows PC can provide all the functionality college students need for as little as $860. The PC can serve multiple functions, from recording a recent episode of your favorite TV show to helping write a history paper.

• Layer the bed with sheets, a coverlet, a duvet, and a throw. All of these pieces add texture, dimension, color and function. The bed will determine your whole color palette. Remember, keep it light, keep it simple and add color and pattern with accent pillows.

• Use oversize box pillows against the walls to act as a couch during the day; a bolster at either side can serve as armrests.

• Utilize the space under the bed by lifting it up on wood posts cut at your local home improvement store. You can then put sliding drawers beneath the bed; the wood ones are best and last the longest.

• Like the bed, the floor is all about layering. Nobody loves industrial carpet. Buying several inexpensive floor mats and layering them creates a look that’s more luxurious than just one carpet.

• Turn off the fluorescents! Instead, bring in task and mood lighting. A desk lamp or a floor lamp will give you control of the environment instead of it controlling you.

• Once students are settled, they can keep in touch with friends and family back home using Windows Live services. With Windows Live, you can share your favorite photos with friends, send and receive e-mail from your Web-enabled mobile phone, even talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger video features.

Read how Medicare gap leaves elderly to skip mediication.

Microsoft Live Labs Introduces Photosynth, a Breakthrough Visual Medium

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Share more than photos; share an experience.

First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now there is Microsoft Photosynth, a new service from Microsoft Live Labs that goes far beyond how you now view, experience and share photos.

You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark; with a digital camera and your own creativity and inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your “synth” is put right in your shoes, sharing in the same sense of exhilaration and wonder that you did at the time, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Imagine yourself beneath the Eiffel Tower or in the heart of Times Square. Now imagine being able to see that exact scene in an amazing new way. With Photosynth, you can look up or down, pan from left to right, zoom in, or pull back to reveal the full sense of where you were. Photosynth provides incredibly realistic close-up detail of a place as seen in the collaboration with National Geographic. Exclusive synths of some of the world’s most renowned locations, such as Machu Picchu and the Parthenon, were created using photographs taken by National Geographic.

An Entirely New Medium

Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to estimate where a photo was taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos. The potential uses of Photosynth can range from sharing experiences to storytelling and documentation:

• Share experiences. Think about the times you have been in the midst of a beautiful location or having a once-in-a-lifetime experience and wished you could share it with more immediacy and sense of place than still photos or video can capture. Photosynth puts viewers in the center of the moment and in control of how they experience it.

• Tell a story. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a synth composed of 20 or 50 photos makes visual storytelling as rich and compelling as a short story. Synths capture the totality of important moments in time, such as the anticipation and joy of an entire wedding party and guests at the moment vows are exchanged, or the elation of a child scoring a winning soccer goal as the fans cheer.

• Form a community. Synths can bring the best of your digital photos together with the best of everybody else’s. Imagine if you took a trip to Rome with your friends and each of you took photos of the Trevi Fountain. Later, you can tag and upload all of the photos from each person’s camera to create a synth of it. In addition, you can share that experience and your favorite places with others by embedding the synth in your profile on a social networking site.

• Educate or archive. If you want to re-create how you decorated your home for the holidays or how you planted your garden last season, the ability of Photosynth to provide intricate detail allows documentation impossible to achieve with conventional photos.

Using Photosynth

Getting started with Photosynth is easy:

• To begin, just take a few dozen digital photos — 20 to 300 photos are required, depending on the size of the place or object — with overlap between each shot, from a number of locations and angles.

• Next, download a small, free software application to your computer from http://photosynth.com. This software works in concert with the Photosynth Web site, which is also a free service.

Is this a product and service you’ll use? Tell me how you will use Photysynth in your daily personal and work life.

Browse Encouraging Health.

Microsoft’s intention to buy DataAllegro, Inc.

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

On July 24th, Microsoft announced that it intends to acquire DATAllegro Inc., a provider of breakthrough data warehouse appliances. The acquisition will extend the capabilities of Microsoft’s mission-critical data platform, making it easier and more cost-effective for customers of all sizes to manage and glean insight from the ever-expanding amount of data generated by and for businesses, employees and consumers.

“DATAllegro is a tremendously innovative company that has started to redefine the data warehouse market,” said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers enterprise-class capabilities in business intelligence and data warehousing, and the addition of the DATAllegro team and its technology will take our data platform to the highest scale of data warehousing.”

“Integrating DATAllegro’s nonproprietary hardware platform and flexible software architecture into Microsoft SQL Server will provide customers with the strongest offering in the market,” said Stuart Frost, CEO of DATAllegro. “We are excited to join forces with Microsoft and continue the innovation this company was founded on.”

Unlike most data warehouse appliance vendors targeting the 1–25 terabyte range, DATAllegro has specialized in large-volume, high-performance data warehouses. DATAllegro’s data warehouse appliance installations boast some of the largest data volume capacities in the industry — up to hundreds of terabytes on a single system. DATAllegro clients span such markets as retail, telecommunications and manufacturing.

According to a report by Donald Feinberg of Gartner Inc., “As data warehouses are becoming more strategic to organizations and as data warehouse appliances mature, the adoption rate of the data warehouse appliance is increasing rapidly.” (“Data Warehouse Appliances Are More Than Just Plug-And-Play,” July 13, 2007.)

In addition to offering large capacities, DATAllegro’s patent-pending technology is designed for complex workloads including high concurrency and mixed queries. DATAllegro is one of the few data warehouse appliances built on a nonproprietary hardware platform including Dell and Bull servers and EMC storage. This flexible architecture makes it ideally suited to integrate with Microsoft SQL Server.

After completing the acquisition, Microsoft will retain most of DATAllegro’s team as well as its headquarters in Aliso Viejo, Calif., making it a Center of Excellence for data warehousing. Existing DATAllegro customers will continue to be supported.

What this means for you and me, is faster and more effecient service from any company.

Check out the newest books over on The BookStacks.

New Blogger for Microsoft Talk

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Hello Hello!

My name is Brick ONeil, and i’ve been with the 451 Press Network since March 2007. I’m the new blogger for Microsoft Talk. We’ll be discussing ‘About Microsoft’ itself. What’s happening, who’s coming/going, what new technologies they’re coming out with, updates and upgrades. I’ll try to bring you news each day that impacts your daily life and use of Microsoft products, or just interesting information I think you’ll enjoy.

I, myself, use a HP/Compaq TC1100 Tablet PC loaded with Microsoft XP for tablet and Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. I would be lost without these. I bought my tablet in 2007 preloaded with XP for tablet and was offered the chance to upgrade to Vista. I thought long and hard about it, but decided my tablet wasn’t powerful enough to load and run Vista appropriately. I really need to upgrade the RAM/memory to be more effective, and thats on ‘the list’ of things to do, if you know what I mean.

What computer and op system do you have?

Head on over and check out Reality on Bravo.

Feel free to drop me a line anytime in the comments or email!

About Microsoft Talk

My name is Brick ONeil, and I’ve been with the 451 Press Network since March 2007. I’m the new blogger for Microsoft Talk. We’ll be discussing ‘About Microsoft’ itself. What’s happening, who’s coming/going, what new technologies they’re coming out with, updates and upgrades. I’ll try to bring you news each day that impacts your daily life and use of Microsoft products, or just interesting information I think you’ll enjoy

Microsoft Talk Author(s)
    » Brick-ONeil

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