Microsoft Talk

Nancy Gohring wrote a great article about microsoft losing a patent case.

A jury in Rhode Island found Microsoft guilty of patent infringement, ordering it to pay US$38 million to Uniloc, the patent holder.

Initially filed in 2003 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the suit alleges that Microsoft’s product activation system infringes on a patent held by Uniloc.

The jury decided that the patent is valid and that Microsoft willfully infringes it.

The software giant still thinks otherwise and intends to appeal the decision. “We believe that we do not infringe, that the patent is invalid and that this award of damages is legally and factually unsupported. We will ask the court to overturn the verdict,” the company said in a statement.

Microsoft’s product activation process aims to reduce piracy by requiring people to activate their software, tying it to a particular machine in the process. Users can then reinstall the software repeatedly on that machine, but can’t share the software with other people and PCs.

Uniloc sells technology that software developers use to offer flexible licensing terms, such as trial periods.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, said it was disappointed in the verdict, and plans to appeal.

The verdict was reached by a jury in a long-running case in federal court in Rhode Island, which found that Microsoft infringed Uniloc’s patent on software that generates unique identities for licensed users and prevents unauthorized use or copying of programs.

“We believe that we do not infringe, that the patent is invalid and that this award of damages is legally and factually unsupported,” said a Microsoft spokesman. “We will ask the court to overturn the verdict.”

Uniloc USA and its Singapore-based parent originally filed suit against Microsoft in 2003, claiming that Microsoft infringed its patent with security software it was using to prevent unlicensed use of its Windows XP operating system and parts of its Office suite of products.

After six years of legal wrangling, the jury trial started in March. The damages award is one of the largest on record in patent law disputes.

The case: Uniloc USA, Inc., et al v. Microsoft Corp., et al, U.S. District Court District of Rhode Island (Providence), 1:03-cv-00440-S-DLM.

From Yahoo Tech: Windows 7 on netbooks? No problem, says Microsoft.

“Looking forward, we can confidently say that no matter how netbook PC hardware evolves, we’re gearing up to ensure that Windows 7 will run great on them,” Brandon LeBlanc, a Windows communication manager, wrote in Friday blog post.

“We’ve been testing Windows 7 on netbook PCs since before Windows 7 was feature complete, and our plan is to enable these small notebook PCs to run any edition of Windows 7,” he wrote.

A beta version of Windows 7 was released in January.

LeBlanc’s comments were part of a “year in review” blog about Windows netbooks. He shot down suggestions that netbooks will hurt Microsoft, and touted the company’s gains over Linux-based netbooks.

“Initially, some in the industry viewed low-cost netbook PCs as a new challenge for Microsoft and an opportunity for Linux to make inroads in the consumer market. Some believed consumers wouldn’t want or need their netbook PC to be a full-featured PC,” he wrote. “In fact, the exact opposite turned out to be true – a number of analysts and researchers following the space see ample evidence indicating customers really DO want netbook PCs to work like their larger brethren – and that the way the vast majority of consumers make that happen is by buying a netbook PC with Windows.”

He pointed to NPD data that said Windows-based netbooks have gone from 10 percent of units sales in the first half of 2008 to 96 percent as of February 2009. LeBlanc also said that return rates for Linux-based netbooks were four times as higher than Windows, according to vendor data.

[FromYahoo Tech]In essence, all browsers have gotten so good at delivering the basics that I find little reason to change. The frills are what sets each browser apart, but getting unique offerings in one means giving up features in another. However thrilling IE8’s new offerings may be, I’m not ready to give up Flock, Firefox or Chrome just yet.

Still, Microsoft should be applauded for trying.

Most notable in Microsoft’s free, Windows-only browser are tools called Accelerators, which are designed to better mirror how people use the Web these days. Accelerators help you share content and blend services from various sites.

You can install Accelerators written by Microsoft, Yahoo Inc., Google Inc., Facebook or any developer that wants to participate — no one needs permission from Microsoft.

IE8 also offers “Web Slices” to quickly alert users to updates on their eBay auctions, stock quotes, sports scores and other frequently viewed services. They appear on your favorites bar just like other bookmarks, but instead of static pages or text headlines, you get the latest photos and other goodies as well.

The new Microsoft browser also makes it easier to switch between search engines from the search box. And it offers a “private” mode during which IE8 doesn’t store the addresses of sites you visit or keep the small advertising data files called cookies.

But to use any of that, I’d have to give up one of my favorite things about Flock: the way it helps people share content and blend services.

Enjoy.

From Yahoo Tech News:

Money

Microsoft slaps hefty licensing fees on the use of its Windows OS, whereas Google charges no such fee for Android. The Linux-based Android could save HP, and other Netbook manufacturers, loads of money, and thereby allow for price cuts. Consider HP’s Mini 1000 MIE (Mobile Internet Experience), the Linux-based version of its popular Mini 1000 series. The Mini 1000 MIE was priced at $379, compared to Windows-based iterations of the same computer that fetched $549.

Exposure

It might take a while for those used to the Windows experience to grow accustomed to Android, and many would be hesitant to make the switch. However, Google has become a trusted name in the industry. Those tired of dropping top dollar for Windows may find themselves gravitating to the Android alternative, and as this trend progress, open-source Android would evolve into a richer, more popular experience, giving Google a considerable advantage in a Microsoft-congested OS battleground. That kind of exposure could bolster Google into a powerful position in the computer biz.

Simplicity

Netbooks are primarily aimed at the casual computing crowd, so what better OS than one originally intended for a device that fits in the palm of your hand? Windows can be a complicated, fickle beast — especially the much-hated Vista — that’s packed with memory-hogging features that are useless to those who just want to surf the Web and write e-mail. Android on a Netbook can streamline the computing process with a simple UI and online-based applications, such as Google Docs. Google was practically born to serve straightforward means.

HP is currently “studying” the Android OS and refuse to speculate on future products that may or may not happen. But the stars are aligned, and it looks like HP could hit one out of the park — and crush its competition — if these speculations became reality.

Microsoft Corp. is to exit its Encarta encyclopedia business later this year after losing ground over the years to freely available reference material on the Internet on web sites like Wikipedia.

“People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past,” the software maker said in a notice posted on its MSN website.

Microsoft, which axed 5,000 jobs earlier this year to cut costs and warned profit and revenue would fall over the next two quarters, said it would stop selling Encarta software products by June.

Encarta websites worldwide, except Encarta Japan, would be discontinued on October 31 and Encarta Japan will cease after December 31, the company said.

About the encyclopedia
MSN Encarta Encyclopedia contains award-winning content to help you learn about almost anything. Some of the content is available free of charge. For access to MSN Encarta Premium content, become a subscriber of MSN Encarta Premium.

The encyclopedia contains over 5,000 detailed articles and associated multimedia, such as illustrations and photos.

Articles may also include: article outlines, media items, Web links, related items, and further reading lists.

Related items give you more information about the topic of the article you’re currently reading.

Further Reading lists provide links to recommended books and journals related to the topic of the encyclopedia article you are reading.

About Products
The Products section spotlights Encarta CD and DVD products. On this page, you will find links to help you learn more about the latest Encarta products and other Microsoft software. On the Products page, follow the on-screen instructions to purchase a product. For more information, go to Encarta Products.

For information about returns, contact your Microsoft distributor.

A product is ineligible for return if it was:

Installed by the computer manufacturer on a personal computer. Contact the computer manufacturer.
Obtained through volume licensing or subscription. Contact your reseller or distributor about the return policy.
Purchased as an electronic software distribution through an online software vendor. Product returns are handled by the online software vendor.
Acquired for free through electronic distribution.
Obtained as a Not For Resale product.

From Microsoft Watch: Steve’s comments about Yahoo are more important than Apple slap downs. “We’re largely on the same strategy, with or without a partnership with Yahoo,” he affirmed. But what about with Yahoo? Had he spoken to Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s new CEO, about a deal?

“Carol arrived at Yahoo, what, in January sometime?” Steve asked. “I did have a discussion with her to welcome her and tell her I wanted to chat.” He spoke to her on the phone, but said there would be a meeting when it was appropriate. Steve continued:

I’ve known Carol for years. Carol is very straightforward. Very friendly. She makes up her mind about what she wants to do. I know that if I want to talk to her about something, when she’s ready we’ll have a real discussion because she’s that kind of person. Whether a deal gets done or not, who knows?
Fine. Fine. But will there ever be a deal, Steven Adler pressed. “There are a lot of things that are fairly compelling economically in trying to put together our two search efforts in some type of partnership. … I spoke fairly strongly economically with the bid we made last year.”

Microsoft’s CEO emphasized that there is a “fairly compelling set of economics that underpin the idea of a search partnership. And, unless I’m fooling myself, over time I expect there to be a good opportunity for a deal.”

Maybe I’ve watched too many episodes of the Fox TV show “Lie to Me.” As a journalist, I’m fascinating by lying because people lie to me so often. On the telephone, those lies are hard to perceive, and even live when I’m taking notes.

From CNET news: Microsoft is increasing its environmental commitment, the company’s chief environmental strategist said this week at the GreenNet conference in San Francisco.

Robert Bernard

(Credit: Microsoft)”Recently our CEO, Steve Ballmer, sent out an e-mail to all 90,000 Microsoft employees. He made clear that environmental sustainability is a core value for the company that is embedded in all we do,” Robert Bernard said in an interview with CNET News. He added that Ballmer talked about the topic as a corporate belief, “as opposed to a green campaign or a marketing campaign or a marketing issue.”

This could be good news for both the environment in general and laptop users in particular.

Computers running the Windows operating system have had problems with power hunger, most notably laptops, where battery life is said to have suffered. So power hungry, in fact, that PC manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard developed their own power management software, instead of the application shipped with the latest Windows Vista operating system.

Microsoft’s global market share in operating systems is almost 90 percent, and recent reports indicate that the global IT industry generates as much greenhouse gases as the aviation industry. So Microsoft’s environmental footprint can be considered significant.

Microsoft is now promising lower power consumption in its next operating system, Windows 7, among other products.

“The real opportunity is when consumers see the results rather than actually having to notice them,” Bernard said. “For example, when they buy or deploy a new version of Windows their energy consumption, and therefore their bills, will decrease over time.”

Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope desktop program still has a “better” experience than this new online (within your browser) offering

WorldWide Telescope Online Features:

Access to hundreds of terabytes of sky, earth and planet data
Ability to navigate seamlessly through 3D spherical environments
Finder Scope to quickly identify astronomical objects
Instant thumbnail previews of tens of thousands of popular astronomical objects
Access to billions of objects in web-based astronomical catalogue
Loading tours, images and other WorldWide Telescope data files on local machine
Real-time positions of planets and moons
Move forwards and backwards in time 2000 years
View guided tours (without 3D planets)
Browsing local user collections
Virtual Observatory Cone search/registry look up and SIMBAD search

Try WorldWide Telescope HERE

From the website:

What is WWT?
The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

Choose from a growing number of guided tours of the sky by astronomers and educators from some of the most famous observatories and planetariums in the country. Feel free at any time to pause the tour, explore on your own (with multiple information sources for objects at your fingertips), and rejoin the tour where you left off. Join Harvard Astronomer Alyssa Goodman on a journey showing how dust in the Milky Way Galaxy condenses into stars and planets. Take a tour with University of Chicago Cosmologist Mike Gladders two billion years into the past to see a gravitational lens bending the light from galaxies allowing you to see billions more years into the past.

To mark St Patrick’s Day, Faith Central has compiled 10 celebratory tidbits, some myth, some fact, on the Patron Saint of the Irish.

1. The potato crop was traditionally planted in Ireland after March 17

2. Blue not green is the color originally associated with St Patrick. “St Patrick’s Blue” is used on Ireland’s Presidential Standard or flag, while the Irish Guards sport a plume of St Patrick’s blue in their bearskins. The emphasis on green is thought to be linked to “wearing the Green”, a symbol from the 18th century on, of sympathy with Irish independence.

3. St Patrick is patron of fishermen in the Loire, where a legend associates him with a blackthorn bush. The saint is said to have slept beneath it, and when he awoke the next day, Christmas, the bush flowered, and was said to have continued to do so every Christmas until its destruction during the First World War.

4. A regiment of the Mexican army in the 1846 -8 War between Mexico and America was named after St Patrick. Members of the Batellón de San Patricio included Afro-Americans freshly liberated from the slave plantations of the South, and the soldiers were granted Mexican citizenship afterwards.

5. The first St Patrick’s Day parade took place in 1737 in Boston, followed in 1762 by New York. George Washington allowed his soldiers a holiday on March 17, 1780 as “an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence.”

6. Until the 1970’s, all pubs were shut in Ireland on St Patrick’s Day, and the sole venue selling drink the annual dog show. Lenten fasting – and the obligation to abstain from meat – were lifted on the day, which most families would begin with Mass.

7. St Patrick’s Day is a public holiday in Ireland and also in Monserrat “the Emerald Isle of the Carribean,” so called because it was settled in 1633 by Irish migrants from St Kitts.

8. According to legend, on the day of Judgement, while Christ judges all other nations, St Patrick will be the judge of the Irish.

9. Since 1962, tons of green dye are tipped on St Patrick’s Day into the Chicago river, although the quantity has reduced, for environmental reasons, from 100 to 40.

10. Should you wish to carry on celebrating St Patrick after March 17, in the United States, you might visit the four Shamrocks in the USA including Mount Gay-Shamrock, W.Va or the nine cities named Dublin, including Dublin, Ohio (the largest Dublin in the U.S.) and Dublin, Georgia.

On March 15 the Sprint Palm Treo Pro officially goes on sale, and I’ve been testing a production unit for the past few weeks. It’s basically the same Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone as the unlocked Treo Pro that I tested in late 2008. But the addition of Microsoft’s new mobile browser makes this release notable.

Sprint is the first carrier to ship the Treo Pro with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Mobile 6 browser, which will soon become available on other Windows Mobile 6.1 handsets as well. IE Mobile 6 brings more of a desktop browsing experience to mobile devices — and therefore easier access to enterprise Web applications.

To quickly recap the other Treo Pro features, on the hardware side you get a high-resolution touch screen (resistive), a physical QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, and GPS — plus support for Sprint’s EV-DO Rev. A mobile broadband network.

Mobile browser throwdown
For years Windows Mobile has included Pocket Internet Explorer 4, old technology that was designed for viewing mobile Web sites on the small screens of devices with little memory. Obviously, the past 18 months have seen massive changes in screen sizes, processor power, and available memory on handhelds. And Microsoft has been taken to task for not engineering Internet Explorer Mobile to make use of these new technologies. IE Mobile 6 partially makes amends.

IE Mobile 6 uses the same rendering engine as IE 6 on the desktop. That’s important because many enterprise applications are written for IE 6, and now those sites should finally render properly. Indeed, after selecting the desktop mode (the old mobile setting remains an option), my intranet sites appeared properly.

Also a plus, IE Mobile 6 operates much like the old version, with the important addition of new menu options for viewing pages. For instance, with a full page displayed, I can move a rectangle to zero in on a section, then touch the area to zoom in completely so that text is readable. You can also use the zoom-in and zoom-out menu commands (in combination with finger or stylus gestures) to move around a page at different scales.

As part of Microsoft’s routine, monthly security update cycle, we released 3 new security updates on March 10, 2009. Click HERE

Here are the new security updates:

• MS09-006 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 958690)

• MS09-007 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 960225)

• MS09-008 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Server (KB 962238)

How to get the updates
If you are using Windows Vista you can manage your updates through the control panel. For more information, see Windows Vista: How to update your operating system.

To manually download available updates, go to Microsoft Update or in Windows Vista go to your control panel. After your computer has been scanned to see which updates it needs, click the Custom button to find and choose the update you want to install. We recommend you install all High-Priority Security and Critical updates immediately.

We recommend that you get the updates delivered automatically to your PC. When your computer is on and connected to the Internet, the most current security updates are automatically downloaded and installed. To learn how to turn on automatic updating for your particular operating system, see Update your computer automatically.

Installing Updates
If you manage your own computer, install updates as soon as they become available. If your computer is part of a managed network, contact your system administrator before making changes.

Update Your PC Automatically

To help keep your PC more secure and reliable, it’s a good idea to install new updates as soon as they’re available. The easiest way to install updates is to use the Windows Update service and make sure automatic updating is turned on.

In Windows Vista, you can set Windows Update to automatically install both Important and Recommended updates. Optional updates are not downloaded or installed automatically. If you choose not to turn on automatic updating, please make sure that you check for updates regularly.

Co-sponsoring this year’s contest with Media Center Integrator Alliance, Microsoft again seeks best residential project design based on Windows Media Center in custom installation industry.

Today at the Electronic House Expo in Orlando, Microsoft Corp., in cooperation with co-sponsor Media Center Integrator Alliance, announced the 2009 Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Contest. This industry design contest, now in its third year, seeks to recognize the residential integration business that best utilizes Windows Media Center in a custom home installation project. With the support of the newly formed Media Center Integrator Alliance (MCIA), a group dedicated to driving awareness and adoption of Windows Media Center technologies in the custom channel, the Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Contest will represent the best of the best in the ecosystem.

Last year, the winner of the Windows Media Center Ultimate Install Contest was a home installation designed and implemented by Los Gatos, Calif.-based integration firm cyberManor. The system was created for a family in Sunnyvale, Calif., that desired a centralized, user-friendly entertainment and automation system. The result was a complete integration solution with Windows Media Center at the helm.

“Once again, custom installers have the chance to demonstrate how a connected home can be designed using the Windows Media Center platform,” said Kevin Collins, director of the Custom Installer Channel in the Connected TV Business, Entertainment and Devices Division, at Microsoft. “Microsoft and MCIA are excited to give custom installers the opportunity to showcase their creativity, execution and personalized solutions for their customers using all the products that make up the Windows Media Center ecosystem.”

Click the blue link to see contest eligibility.

Microsoft Corp. said Monday it named Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe to the software maker’s board of directors, returning the board’s size to 10 members.

“Maria has made significant research contributions to computer science and mathematics, and we are very fortunate to have her join Microsoft’s board of directors,” said Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman, in a statement. “In particular, I think her close connection to university students and the way they shape computing trends will bring an important perspective to the board.”

Since 2006, Klawe has been president of Harvey Mudd College, a private liberal arts college in Claremont, Calif., that focuses on engineering, science, and mathematics. Previously she served as dean of engineering and a professor of computer science at Princeton University, and worked at IBM Research in California for eight years, among other positions.

Klawe was the first woman to serve on the board of the Computing Research Association. She has served on the board of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology since its inception and as chair from 2003 through 2008.

“The underrepresentation of women in the fields of science and engineering is one of the critical issues facing the computing industry,” Klawe said. “Microsoft has been active and focused in helping to address this challenge, and I’m looking forward to helping the company continue to make progress on this important issue.”

The company also said its board maintained its quarterly dividend of 13 cents per share, next payable June 18 to shareholders of record on May 21.

Microsoft shares closed earlier down 13 cents at $15.15.

Microsoft Corp will favor neither American nor foreign workers as it cuts thousands of jobs, the company said on Tuesday in response to a senator’s call that the jobs of U.S. employees be preserved.

Microsoft said in January that it would eliminate up to 5,000 jobs, or about 5 percent of its workforce, surprising investors as it released quarterly results that missed Wall Street expectations.

The news also caught the eye of Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who fired off a letter asking that Microsoft detail the cuts, while urging the world’s biggest software company to preserve the jobs of Americans ahead of foreigners with visas.

Microsoft said it was too early to be precise, but the percentage of workers at the company who hold so-called H-1B visas would remain roughly the same.

“We do not expect to see a significant change in the proportion of H-1B employees in our workforce following the job reductions,” General Counsel Bradford Smith said in a letter to Grassley.

The Senator said the response left him wanting more details. “I’m still left without much information about how Microsoft is ensuring American workers are being protected or specifics of its H-1B visa hiring practices,” Grassley said in a statement.

H-1B employees have always amounted to less than 15 percent of Microsoft’s U.S. workforce, Smith said in the letter dated March 3.

“The potential to tap into the world’s best minds has long been essential to our success,” he wrote.

Microsoft has been a champion of expanding the H-1B temporary visa program, which lets American companies and universities hire foreign workers in a category the government considers “specialty occupations.”

The company also said that, including positions to be created, the net impact would be 2,000 to 3,000 fewer jobs.

Grassley, who is the ranking Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee, had asked Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to provide a breakdown of the jobs to be eliminated, how many of those are staffed with individuals with H-1B visas and how many with Americans.

In an effort to reduce costs, Microsoft is cutting current contractor pay by 10 percent and future contractor pay by 15 percent.

“We held discussions with some of the impacted agencies and settled on the 10 percent reduction based on the economic climate and the need to achieve greater cost reductions,” Microsoft said in a statement.

According to a letter reportedly sent to contract agencies that was posted on the TechFlash blog, Microsoft also plans to cut future contract pay 15 percent. Microsoft did not reply to a query asking to confirm the legitimacy of the letter.

The contractor pay cuts follow Microsoft’s announcement in late January that it plans to cut 5,000 employees. Microsoft employs nearly 96,000 people directly. It does not disclose how many contractors work at the company, although estimates are in the tens of thousands.

In a conference call with analysts and reporters earlier this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he’ll continue to look for ways that the company can reduce costs. He also emphasized the importance of continued investment during the global recession.

Staffing-industry analysts say the agencies that absorb more of the reduction themselves — rather than pass it all on to the workers — could gain favor with workers who will remember it when the market recovers and labor again becomes tight.

But these firms, which typically have single-digit profit margins, also have to stay in business until then.

For the workers facing smaller checks, the pay cut was an unwelcome, if not altogether unexpected, development.

Contract positions at Microsoft have been quietly eliminated over the past several months. One woman described earlier cuts in pay rates and benefits her husband has seen.

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