Microsoft Talk

With New In-Game Display, Marketplace and Upcoming Premium Downloadable Content. “Fallout 3,” “Grand Theft Auto IV” and “James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace” coming to Games for Windows — LIVE this holiday season.

Microsoft Corp. today unveiled significant updates to the Games for Windows — LIVE online gaming service, enhancing the service to provide an unmatched Windows multiplayer experience and excite the growing online gaming community. These compelling changes build on the foundation of Games for Windows — LIVE, which allows gamers to connect and play with their friends for free, and includes unique features such as Achievements, TrueSkill matchmaking, voice and text chat, and a single identity (Gamertag) that works across both Windows and Xbox 360.

• Redesigned for PC Gamers. Available for immediate download, the revitalized in-game display provides quick and easy access to the full set of Games for Windows — LIVE features, optimized for use with a keyboard and mouse, and built from the ground up with PC gamers in mind.

• Games for Windows — LIVE Marketplace. In early December, users will be able to easily download exciting game trailers, demos and add-on game content such as extended chapters and new characters, as well as give publishers a straightforward way to extend the experience of their Games for Windows — LIVE titles for consumers around the world.

“The online space is and will remain the driving force behind Windows gaming, and we’re taking steps to ensure that Games for Windows — LIVE provides a unique online home for PC gamers,” said John Schappert, corporate vice president of LIVE, Software and Studios at Microsoft. “This new release was designed specifically with our community of PC gamers and game developers in mind. It’s a natural next step in delivering a world-class online service for Windows gamers.”

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as Microsoft Mediaroom-Powered Services Surpasses 2 Million Subscribers. Microsoft Mediaroom hits another subscriber milestone as consumers embrace the adoption of connected TV services.

In less than a year, subscribers to TV services powered by the Microsoft Mediaroom Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and multimedia software platform have more than doubled, reaching over 2 million subscriber homes and powering services on nearly 4 million set-top boxes worldwide. In the past quarter alone, Mediaroom customers have connected 500,000 new subscribers across the globe.

The accelerated growth rate comes as customers begin to maximize the functionality of the Mediaroom platform to differentiate their service offering with features such as personalized weather and sports information, the freedom to play back standard-definition and high-definition recorded programs on any connected TV in the home, or the ability to set the digital video recorder (DVR) remotely via a PC or mobile device.

AT&T Inc. is one of Microsoft’s fastest-growing Mediaroom customers with 781,000 AT&T U-verseSM subscribers as of the end of the third quarter. In September, it launched AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR using Mediaroom DVR Anywhere technology (http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26067), and has plans to roll out the service to its entire U-verse footprint by the end of the year.

“AT&T U-verse TV delivers a new and exciting consumer experience that gives AT&T the edge to compete and grow market share in a highly competitive TV market,” said G.W. Shaw, AT&T executive director of U-verse marketing. “Take Total Home DVR, for example. Because of our flexible software platform, we were able to download this powerful new feature directly to consumers’ homes overnight and to further differentiate versus cable.”

The commercial rollout of advanced Mediaroom features is raising the bar for all TV services, as recognized by recent industry awards. In addition, monitoring solutions specialist Witbe last month found Microsoft Mediaroom-powered services to have the fastest channel changing speeds of any TV services tested globally (http://www.witbe.net/qoe/images/stories/presse/communiques/cp_zapping_en.pdf).

BY MELISSA NEWMAN

EVERY YEAR, AMID the excitement of Halloween-related fun, conversations commonly turn toward scary and unnerving talk of the mysterious world of paranormal and supernatural phenomena. Unlike the entertaining “safe scares” that Halloween brings, for those who encounter “real paranormal phenomena,” the encounters can be truly terrifying and even life-changing.
Unlike the entertaining “safe scares” that Halloween brings, for those who encounter “real paranormal phenomena,” the encounters can be truly terrifying and even life-changing. And while these otherworldly phenomena have been a part of the human experience since the dawn of humankind – and, incidentally, is where Halloween originates – not even western society’s modern-day cynical culture of scientific analysis could dismiss and suppress the existence of these elusive phenomena. On the contrary, whether you are a believer or a hardened skeptic, an avalanche of experiences involving paranormal and supernatural phenomena continues to be reported worldwide.

According to several polls and surveys conducted around the world, belief in the paranormal and supernatural is at an all time high and shows no evidence of decline. In the U.S. alone, a recent Gallop poll showed that 75% of Americans have some sort of paranormal belief; a Harris poll showed that half of Americans believe in ghosts; a CBS poll showed that one in five Americans have seen or physically encountered a ghost; and still another survey taken from more than 400 college students with the highest GPAs found seniors and grad students more likely to believe in the paranormal then their “uneducated” freshman counterparts. Paranormal beliefs include such phenomena as extraterrestrial and UFO close encounters, all types of psychic phenomena, miracles and demonic possession, ghosts and poltergeists, witchcraft and metaphysics, and encounters with extraordinary life forms, including Bigfoot and the notorious chupacabra.

HALLOWEEN ORIGINS

Whether one is a believer or a skeptic, Halloween in the U.S. might be the one time of the year that both stand united in simply having a good time in the shadow of such reported phenomena. The origins of Halloween itself lay in supernatural beliefs and an ancient Celtic festival that dates back some 2,000 years. Originally called Samhain (pronounced sow-in), the festival originated amidst the region now known as the United Kingdom and celebrated the one night each year that the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became indistinguishable. On this night, the Celts believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to Earth for good or for bad and allowed Druid priests to additionally interact with them for the wellbeing of them all.

Over the course of hundreds of years, early Christianity would attempt to suppress and replace the Celtic festival with All Saints’ Day, which was celebrated on November 1, a holy day of obligation to honor saints and martyrs in the Christian faith. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. But even the powerful influence of the church was unable to squelch the supernatural festival, and Halloween endured and flourished over the centuries to become the sensationalistic celebration it is today in the U.S.

While Halloween is still mostly an American commercial phenomenon, little by little every year, evidence that the spooky holiday is being embraced globally is being seen more and more. UNICEF itself has a special “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” program aimed to empower kids, not just in the U.S., but in other countries as well, by trick-or-treating for donations to help their counter-parts in need all over the world. The reluctance to embrace Halloween in other countries has been primarily due to the seriousness that the supernatural and paranormal is taken in other cultures. While the western world can make light of beliefs, both religious and metaphysical, other old-world cultures are very sensitive to and deeply immersed in their beliefs and find such playfulness like the Amercanized version of Halloween to be considered as taboo and, in some cultures, even sacrilegious.

Enjoy your Halloween!

for Fast-Growing Healthcare IT Services Provider With Shot in the Arm From Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Vitalize Consulting Solutions Inc. (VCS), a rapidly expanding healthcare IT services provider based in Kennett Square, Pa., and Reading, Mass., and serving hospitals and healthcare organizations across the U.S. and Canada, has selected Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 to keep pace with growing demand and set up the company for future success.

Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Computer Generated Solutions Inc. (CGS), VCS will roll out Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Financials, Professional Services Automation, AX Enterprise Portal and Human Resources modules to fully automate its financial accounting, project management and personnel operations. The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 modules will replace an assortment of point solutions riddled with manual processes, which the company has added incrementally over the past five years to cope with its rapid expansion from small startup to midsize organization.

Microsoft beat out competition from Salesforce.com Inc., SAP AG, Agresso and other rival vendors in a rigorous vetting process to land the lucrative contract. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 got the nod for the overall integration of the solution; the ability to address the breadth of VCS’s functional needs; its robust, scalable platform that allows for future growth; and sheer user-friendliness, giving employees ready access to critical data through a familiar, intuitive interface similar to Microsoft Office.

“Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 will provide VCS with a completely integrated solution,” said Eric Egnet, chief information officer at VCS. “This will provide us with the access and agility we need to respond to our marketplace, service our customers and help grow our company.”

VCS also was drawn to the native integration of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 with its existing investments in Microsoft Office, including SharePoint, Excel, Exchange Serve and Outlook, plus Microsoft SQL Server. The company’s installed base of Microsoft productivity applications will give its employees an easy point of entry into Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 capabilities.

Released in June, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is a comprehensive business management solution for midsized and larger organizations that enables fast-growing organizations to streamline processes, pare costs, identify and capitalize on business opportunities, monitor performance, and, thanks to innovative new roles-based functionality, maximize individual employees’ productivity.

As the second annual Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference opens, Microsoft BI tools empower information workers and drive performance at pharmaceutical leader Merck & Co., Inc., highlighting market momentum.

Microsoft’s comprehensive, fully integrated BI platform includes Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for group and organization-wide BI, and Microsoft Office Excel and other Office applications for individual BI. Microsoft SQL Server provides the data management and analysis platform, and Microsoft Office Performance Point Server delivers powerful performance management capabilities.

To weigh the solutions’ respective merits, Merck managers compared their performance on 10 “business use cases” representing common usage scenarios and real-life business processes mapped out by information workers themselves, with real-life end users on hand to put them through their paces.

The answers Merck sought from the exercise were simple, says Carlin. “We wanted to see if the functionality could meet all our needs, how long this took and how much it cost. We were looking for maximum functionality at minimum cost.”

The results were emphatic. Microsoft emerged as the hands-down winner, accomplishing all 10 challenges within four weeks.

The other solution? “It managed three out of 10,” says Carlin. As for the remaining seven tasks, “We gave up after six months.”

The Microsoft BI solution gave Merck immediate relief from the headaches it had been experiencing with its previous solution — and at a fraction of the cost, said Carlin, an increasingly critical consideration in the current financial climate.

Today, the system counts 3,000 users and rising across Merck’s Research Labs’ global operations, and other divisions within the multinational company are now sizing it up for prospective rollout.

Soaring Demand

Merck is in the vanguard of a growing wave of companies embracing Microsoft’s BI platform. In 2007, sales of Microsoft’s BI tools spiked by 15.6 percent to US$555 million, outpacing the overall industry growth rate and ranking Microsoft as the fifth-largest BI vendor, according to analyst firm IDC.2

Adoption of SQL Server 2008, released in August, has been especially brisk. More than 1,350 applications based on the platform are already under development by more than 1,000 independent software vendors (ISVs); early customers include Acosta Inc., Clalit Health Services, Hilton Hotels Corp. and Xerox Corp. Looking ahead, Microsoft’s data platform is likely to become more attractive still to large-scale enterprises, thanks to the recent acquisitions of large-volume, high-performance data warehouse application vendor DATAllegro and data quality specialist Zoomix — moves wholeheartedly endorsed by Microsoft BI partner Hitachi Consulting.

“Microsoft continues to be aggressive in adding massive scalability to its enterprise data warehouse capabilities with the acquisition of DATAllegro,” says Todd Price, managing vice president for BI and Performance Management National Practice at Hitachi Consulting. “Hitachi Consulting’s Enterprise Data Warehouse practice will be an active partner in this new product direction as well.”

Earlier this year, Microsoft was placed in the Leaders Quadrant in Gartner’s BI Platforms Magic Quadrant, an accolade it also received in Gartner’s data warehouse database management systems Magic Quadrant in 2007.3

It’s no secret that the nature of software development is radically changing. Come to PDC2008 to experience Microsoft’s vision for cloud computing and building applications that seamlessly bridge the gaps between PC, Web, and phone, and be the first to see the full range of advances in Windows 7, the next major version of the Windows client operating system.

What are the platform infrastructure details behind the Mesh technologies? Corporate Vice President of Live Platform Services, David Treadwell, will be spilling all the beans in his PDC keynote in just a few weeks, but in this Q&A he gives us a sneak peek. David explains how there’s so much more to Mesh than just the user experience, and how he and his team will be revealing the underlying particulars that fall below the line at PDC – the platform infrastructure that helps developers build stellar Software + Services apps. And did Treadwell mention bits that will be given out at the PDC? We think he did, but you gotta listen to find out more about what the PDC team affectionately calls the “goods.”

Use this letter to convince your boss to let you attend the event!

Dear {Enter Your Manager’s Name Here},

I enjoy my job and have always appreciated how well you manage me. As you know, I don’t ask for much. I am a humble employee with simple needs, and I would like to attend Microsoft’s Professional Developer’s Conference in Los Angeles, October 27th-30th.

Wait! Before you respond, let me explain. This is not the typical conference that is more boondoggle than substance. The PDC (which is what the kids on Facebook call it) is where the best and brightest come together with the technical geniuses of Microsoft.

The PDC is where the speakers are not marketing folks, but actual developers and technologists who build the products. Remember those tough questions about Microsoft tools we had last week that we could not find an answer to? Well, I will have an opportunity to talk directly to the product team from Microsoft. In fact, one night they all gather in one place where I can ask all the questions we ever had and get real answers! And business cards!

But it isn’t just the speakers; it’s the other attendees. These are some of the smartest folks using the same tools and technologies we are. I can learn a lot from them and see how they have overcome issues we have run into. I keep reading the blogs (on my own time, of course) and everyone says that networking is one of the top reasons to attend.

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Eight vendors receive Microsoft’s annual Excellence Awards.

Selected by a panel of Microsoft executives, recipients of the MSVP Excellence Awards are recognized for the exceptional service they provide to the company. To be considered for this award, vendors must first be nominated by a Microsoft employee based on the characteristics of value, quality, flexibility, innovation, security and privacy.

This year Microsoft expanded the awards to include a category for environmental excellence, an honor being shared by two companies. The vendors received their awards during the seventh MSVP Annual Vendor Summit on Microsoft’s corporate campus in Redmond.

“The MSVP Excellence Awards recognize those Microsoft vendors that stand head and shoulders above the rest for the quality and consistency of their service,” said Tim McBride, general manager and chief procurement officer at Microsoft. “Numerous companies make exceptional contributions to the success of Microsoft, making the selection process challenging each year. We congratulate our 2008 MSVP Excellence Awards recipients and look forward to continued partnership and collaboration.”

2008 MSVP Excellence Award Winners

Microsoft named winners in seven categories: Vendor of the Year, Diversity, Environmental, Service, Technology, Quality and Value.

• Vendor of the Year Award: Lionbridge Technologies Inc. Founded in 1996, this U.S.-based vendor has more than 4,000 employees around the world who provide Microsoft with development, test and globalization services worldwide.

• Diversity Award: Marriott International Inc. Marriott International is a leading lodging company, with about 3,000 lodging properties located in the U.S. and 67 other countries and territories. Recognizing Microsoft’s commitment to diversity initiatives, Marriott International built its growth plan around diversity and continues to expand.

• Environmental Award: Grubb & Ellis Co. Grubb & Ellis is a highly respected real estate management and business services firm, operating one of the nation’s largest full-service operations. Grubb & Ellis has worked diligently to reduce Microsoft’s environmental impact by delivering more than 30 initiatives during the past year.

• Environmental Award: Compass Group PLC. The Compass Group is one of the nation’s leading food management and hospitality service companies in North America. Recognizing that a significant component of municipal solid waste consists of food and food packaging, the Microsoft Compass Green team conducted intensive research and through these efforts received certification by the Green Restaurant Association, and plan to expand that certification to the five other Microsoft kitchens operating in the U.S.

• Service Award: CRG Events. CRG Events is a full-service event management and registration company with more than 28 years of experience. Each year, CRG Events produces more than160 events around the world, ranging in size from 10 attendees to more than 14,000. CRG Events developed a completely new registration process, database, Web site and customer service plan that supported event participants during Tech•Ed North America.

• Technology Award: Toshiba America Inc. Toshiba America is the holding company for one of the nation’s leading groups of high-technology companies, with a combined total of about 8,000 employees in the U.S. It also is a launch partner and hard disc drive vendor for the Zune 80 program.

• Quality Award: MV Transportation Inc. Founded in 1975, MV Transportation is the largest privately held and domestically owned transportation management company in the U.S. In 2007, MV Transportation worked closely with Microsoft’s Real Estate & Facilities staff to launch the Connector, an employee commuter bus program that now transports almost 2,000 Microsoft employees to work each day.

• Value Award: Revonet Inc. Revonet’s core responsibility has been helping Microsoft’s registered partners win competitive engagements. This year, in addition to delivering exceptional results on their core metrics, Revonet has made a number of strategic contributions, which include identifying and supporting a key Office Open XML solution for the American Red Cross disaster relief team, participating on a key technical standards committee and recruiting a record number of members for Microsoft’s strategic policy community.

Concept facility on Microsoft campus features new and updated displays spanning communications, entertainment and information management.

As part of its ongoing investments in exploring how software-driven innovations might influence consumers’ lives over the next five to 10 years, Microsoft Corp. today unveiled a host of new and updated technologies in the Microsoft® Home. The latest scenarios on display in this unique concept facility, which first opened 12 years ago, highlight prototype devices and software designed to deliver enriched entertainment, information and communication experiences throughout the home.

Visitors to the Microsoft Home, located inside the company’s Executive Briefing Center on the Redmond campus, can experience consumer technology innovations that are likely to emerge in Microsoft and partner products over the coming decade. These new technologies are presented through hands-on scenarios that highlight the following themes:

• Place. A series of demonstrations showcase how software, services and devices can combine to deliver timely, relevant information to people based on their location, whether inside the home or nearby. One example is display technology shown in the neighborhood bus stop that provides continuous updates of route and arrival information, and is used to demonstrate how location services can automatically notify people about services near them or even when someone they know arrives at the bus stop.

• Participation. Reflecting consumers’ widespread desire to more directly shape their sources of information and entertainment — through blogs, social networking Web sites, wikis and the like — the Microsoft Home features several emerging technologies designed to extend people’s self-expression. For instance, a teenager’s bedroom in the facility portrays what it would be like to have addressable wallpaper that employs organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology to display a variety of content such as artwork, video clips and Web pages.

• Discovery. Technology systems throughout the Microsoft Home demonstrate innovative ways of prioritizing the huge volumes of information, media and content choices to which consumers will have access in the future. These systems can filter through myriad content sources — from thousands of TV channels, news reports, e-mail messages and electronic documents to music files, on-demand videos and blog entries — to intelligently bring people the content they care about most and at the time when they’re in the mood to enjoy it.

Technology Companies Dominate Findings With Focus on Innovation, Localized Products and Regional R&D Presence

Once again, readers voted software giant Microsoft Corp. as Asia’s overall top company. It occupies first place for the 12th consecutive survey. Microsoft placed second in the innovation category, up from eighth place the in 2006. Readers again voted Microsoft No. 1 in two of the five categories: long-term vision and financial reputation.

Canon Inc. was selected No. 1 for quality of products and services, and BMW AG was voted tops for corporate reputation.

Toyota Motor Corp., Nokia Corp., and Intel Corp. round out the overall most-admired top five.

A total of 2,477 executives and professionals participated in the survey, which was conducted last year between May 11 and July 3. On behalf of The Wall Street Journal, market-research firm Colmar Brunton polled subscribers as well as other businesspeople in 12 Asia-Pacific countries.

Quest for Innovation

Asia now plays a key part in Microsoft’s global quest for innovation. Microsoft invests $7 billion annually in research and development, and today two of Microsoft Research’s five labs are in Asia — one in Bangalore, India, and one in Beijing. “Microsoft Research Asia has also achieved many technological breakthroughs. More than 200 innovations from the Beijing lab alone have been transferred to Microsoft products, including Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007, Xbox and Windows Live. In addition, the Microsoft India Development Centre in Hyderabad has filed over 220 patents over the last four years,” says Mr. Umeoka.

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More than just mouth-watering recipes, the site will focus on the culture and people behind the food we eat every day.

Hearst Magazines Digital Media, a unit of Hearst Magazines, and MSN today announced the launch of Delish.com (http://www.delish.com), a new online food destination. Delish.com, also available at http://www.msn.delish.com, features thousands of quick and easy food and cocktail recipes from Hearst Magazines and other sources, as well as fan blogs on the most popular food television shows, and the latest on food events and festivals worldwide. With an authoritative point of view that is simultaneously fun and informative, the site’s content will provide everyday chefs and busy individuals with the tools to expand their cooking and entertaining skills and knowledge of what is happening in and around the world of food. MSN and Hearst anticipate that Delish.com’s traffic numbers will immediately place the site into the top 10 food-related destinations on the Internet.

“Delish.com is very serious about the subject of food, but our writers, bloggers and overall editorial slant also look at the cultural and whimsical side of what we’re all eating,” said Chuck Cordray, vice president and general manager of Hearst Magazines Digital Media. “Together with MSN, we developed Delish.com to go way beyond a typical recipe site. We are confident that consumers will come to us for both information and entertainment.”

Delish.com will be accessible through the MSN home page and in editorial programming across its network, including on the MSN Lifestyle Channel and other relevant channels. In addition, all the advertising inventory for Delish.com will be sold by Microsoft Advertising. As part of the deal, MSN will sell targeted inventory in the food category on four Hearst properties: Countryliving.com, Goodhousekeeping.com, Quickandsimple.com and Redbookmag.com.

Many popular brands that have signed up as initial advertisers on the site include Hellmann’s/Best Foods, Knorr and Bertolli Frozen, Simply Orange, and Kraft.

“The combination of the reach of MSN and the brand integrity and programming depth of Hearst is a competitive powerhouse that exponentially delivers on MSN and Hearst’s commitment to the food category,” said Sandy Henson, senior director, MSN Health and Lifestyles. “Consumers and advertisers on Delish.com will be able to choose from a wide variety of content that integrates food and entertainment in a personal and socially relevant way that has not been done before.”

Microsoft continues its commitment to advancing Hispanics through technology as New Technology Founding Partner for National Hispanic Business Information Clearinghouse.

In celebration of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) 29th Annual National Convention, Microsoft Corp. today announced its partnership with the National Hispanic Business Information Clearinghouse (BIC) as part of the company’s commitment to advance Hispanic entrepreneurs and businesses in the United States through the use of technology.

“The BIC is a unique, multilingual Web site that provides Latino entrepreneurs and small-business owners with top-rated business resources,” said Sal Gomez, founder and CEO of BIC. “At www.nhbic.org, you will find a wealth of information on starting, marketing and managing your business, as well as local resources and training to help you succeed.”

A 2002 U.S. Census Bureau study showed that close to 70 percent of all Hispanic-owned businesses make less than $50,000 a year in gross sales and close to 70 percent have fewer than four employees. According to the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, nearly one-third of all Hispanic-owned businesses fail to survive four years. Much of the success of a business depends on operations and management.

Microsoft has teamed with the BIC as the founding technology partner of this online initiative for Hispanic business owners and entrepreneurs. “Technology is a critical tool that will help Latinos advance in both their life and career,” said Jose Piñero, director of Multicultural Marketing for Microsoft. “At Microsoft we are very excited to provide content for the BIC’s technology section and empower Latinos to succeed in their business enterprises.”

As Hispanic entrepreneurs strive to start their businesses and keep them alive and profitable, access to resources and technology becomes a key component of their entrepreneurial success. “Our partnership with Microsoft will allow us to provide greater content and tools, including several free software solutions, technology disaster planning and recovery guidance, and even a technology budget worksheet for entrepreneurs,” said Michael Barrera, president of the BIC and former president of the USHCC. “These tools will also give local chambers another tool to help Hispanic entrepreneurs run a more efficient business and eventually obtain more contracts.”

U.S. military and families recognized with a special performance of Radio City Christmas Spectacular and a weekend in New York City.

During this year’s Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 7–9, 2008, Microsoft Corp. will partner with the USO to recognize and thank the military community by hosting the second annual A Salute to Our Troops through a unique New York weekend experience. A Salute to Our Troops is a national program honoring the many faces of courage and inspiration belonging to individuals who demonstrate selfless dedication to our country. The program seeks to inspire others into action and show unified support for our service men and women and their families.

Tickets for a private showing of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular are being made available today for service members and their families and can be reserved online at http://www.salutetoourtroops.org. The private showing of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular maintains the USO tradition of entertaining the troops and gives them a chance to spend valuable time with their families during the holiday season. As part of the commitment to ensuring that troops around the globe get to experience the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, the show will be rebroadcast multiple times on American Forces Network and the Pentagon Channel over the holiday season.

In addition, Microsoft and the USO will host 25 wounded warriors from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center to take part in a variety of distinctive activities throughout the weekend in New York City, including a U.S. Coast Guard tour of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty, lunch in Little Italy and an evening at New York’s Hard Rock café.

“Our service members and the USO volunteers who serve them exemplify leadership, duty and discipline, inspiring us to consider the various ways we can give back,” said Curt Kolcun, vice president of Microsoft U.S. Public Sector. “A Salute to Our Troops is our way of recognizing their sacrifices and honoring their efforts by providing some exciting New York moments they won’t forget.”

“A Salute to Our Troops once again aims to bring joy and show gratitude to our service men and women and their families for all they do for this country,” said Brian Whiting, president of USO of Metropolitan New York. “As we host them here in New York, in the proud tradition of partnership with our USO-Metro D.C. counterparts, we hope Americans will join us in considering ways they themselves can give back to those who give so much.”

A Salute to Our Troops also offers the opportunity for Americans to salute a USO volunteer or thank someone in the military for their service through the sharing of online stories in the A Salute to Our Troops community at http://www.salutetoourtroops.org.

of Microsoft’s Second Annual ICT for Development Conference: Microsoft kicks off a week of activities focused on the developing world with a conference in Washington, D.C.

It’s easy to forget that the vast majority of the world’s population — some five billion people — still lack access to even basic information and communication technology (ICT). Many of those who are underserved by technology live in countries that can’t yet provide all their citizens with the basic necessities of food, clean water, sanitation and health care. Experts agree that technology can be an essential component in addressing these issues and raising a country’s population out of poverty by creating sustainable economic growth and development.

Microsoft, though its Unlimited Potential effort, is committed to using its technology and resources to help address the world’s social, economic and health problems. On Sept. 22 and 23 in Washington, D.C., the company is hosting its second annual ICT for Development Conference, a gathering of leaders from government development agencies, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), the private sector and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The focus this year is on the importance of public-private partnerships in addressing development issues.

The ICT for Development conference is just one of the ways Microsoft is focusing on global development this week:

• On Sept. 23-26, the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting will be held in New York City. Microsoft is a co-sponsor of this gathering of current and former heads of state, CEOs, philanthropists and NGO leaders. This meeting has been held annually since 2005 and this year’s agenda addresses critical global challenges, like the food and energy crises, climate change, global health and poverty alleviation.

• On Sept. 25, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, in his capacity as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will address a special session of the United Nations (UN) on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of ambitious international development goals that UN member states, international organizations, and Microsoft and other private companies have committed to trying to achieve by the year 2015.

Cheick Diarra, Microsoft’s chairman for Africa, will attend both the ICT for Development conference and the UN MDG conference, where he will address how ICT investment can help boost economic and social development in African countries, stimulate growth and increase innovation.

Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Unified Communications Group, talks about why businesses are embracing Microsoft’s unified communications platform and the importance of providing customers with a single infrastructure and user experience.

In part;

Why should customers prefer an integrated product set over rival offerings that stitch together multiple systems?

Pall: Selling unified communications like a puzzle that customers need to assemble and configure themselves runs counter to the whole concept of unified communications. Our competitors are offering, in effect, an “un-unified” communications system. The risk for customers is that a patchwork system is slower to roll out, harder to train people on and more expensive to manage and maintain – resulting in a dramatically lower ROI.

By contrast, our unified communications is just that: “unified.” Deployment can be ramped up extremely rapidly with deeper reach into the organization by promoting wider user adoption. Businesses reduce costs – an all-important consideration in today’s financial climate. Our customers tell us that our system slashes their overall telephony costs by 30 to 60 percent, with their long distance charges reduced by up to 76 percent, and almost one-third sliced off their mobile telephony overhead. Those are some pretty compelling economics.

Consider the following case in point: a European university began installing Office Communications Server during the summer break in August. By the end of September when students and professors returned, instant messaging, video conferencing and voice technology were fully operational across campus. Now, professors, researchers and students can more easily communicate with each other from their office computers, mobile phones and home or dorm-room laptops. Across campus, there are richer discussions and more frequent contact through words and images without incurring any higher communication costs for the university.

Service update represents the first in a series, Microsoft’s rapid innovation.

The Internet marketing capabilities allow businesses to utilize the Internet as a revenue-generating marketing channel and an integral part of their CRM strategy, especially in conducting search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns. The new Internet marketing functionality will enable organizations to do the following:

• Create and manage online and search engine campaigns

• Research and bid on key words using search engine optimization

• Gain insight into marketing return on investment according to click-through and conversion rates

• Capture sales leads from the Web using pages hosted by Microsoft or the organization’s own Web site

• Unify search engine intelligence with CRM analytics to optimize campaign performance

“This update will help customers maximize marketing returns from online advertising spending by allowing them to monitor and measure the effectiveness of online ad campaigns,” said David J. Buggy, vice president of Beringer Associates Inc., a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online’s automatic update means we’re able to take advantage of advances like this on a far quicker cycle, so we don’t have to worry about being left flat-footed by changes in business.”

The service update also will provide customers with increased scale for teams of multiple thousands of employees and provide a direct link from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Resource Center to the Microsoft Pinpoint marketplace, where they can connect with more than 200 Microsoft Dynamics partners and choose from approximately 250 products and services. Future service updates will provide enhanced enterprise integration, enterprise analytics and extended service benefits.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is an on-demand customer relationship service, hosted and managed by Microsoft, that comprises a full suite of marketing, sales and service capabilities.

Availability

The Internet marketing module will be available initially to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customers in the United States with a version extended to customers in Canada in a subsequent update. To learn about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and to sign up for the online service, customers can visit http://crm.dynamics.com or call (877) CRM CHOICE (276-2464).