Microsoft Gives Developers Early Look at Internet Explorer 9
November 19, 2009 by The Editor
Filed under Online Services
Microsoft showed off early work on Internet Explorer 9, a browser that will feature improved performance, new features, and the possibility of new standards.
Stephen Sinofsky, president of the newly renamed Windows and Windows Live division said the company was looking at new standards like HTML 5, and noted how far behind IE is on the current ACID test, a test designed to expose browser flaws.
Microsoft has only been working on IE9 for about three weeks, so an actual release is not expected in the near future. Sinofsky stressed how different sites and applications used different features. However, he displayed a chart showing how much faster IE9 is on Webkit.org’s SunSpider performance test. It appeared to be very close to the current betas of the other browsers. Microsoft is also working on the Acid tests for compatibility, he said.
Other new features on display included hardware acceleration using Direct Write and Direct 2D for text support. This should improve the appearance of fonts and performance of text animation without requiring changes to the sites themselves. One particularly impressive rendering showed Bing Maps displaying a map at about 13-14 frames per second. Using hardware acceleration, it was running at 60 frames per second
Great Video: Microsoft TV Ads From Yesteryear
November 18, 2009 by The Editor
Filed under Company Strategy
I’m not a big fan of Slate.com, but they did a great job collecting some of Microsoft’s TV Ads of the ages.
BTW – I never got the Seinfeld/Gates ads either.
Despite Line Dancing Employees, Microsoft Stores STILL Not As Cool As Apple Stores
November 18, 2009 by The Editor
Filed under Company Strategy
The marketing folks at HQ in Redmond have had some wins and some flops. I can’t imagine who dreamed this up? They guy who writes the birthday songs for Red Robin?
watch the video
Office 2010 Beta Released To Developer Community
November 18, 2009 by The Editor
Filed under Office
Microsoft on Monday released the beta version of Office 2010to its MSDN and TechNet subscribers.
As for the general public, they just have to wait.
“Office 2010 has not yet officially released for the public and we have no further information to share at this time,” a Microsoft spokesperson stated via e-mail. Presumably, SharePoint 2010 is also unavailable to the public.
Microsoft has typically said that its Office 2010 products will be available to the general public in the first half of next year.
Office 2010 will include Office Web Apps — browser-based versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Organizations will be able to host those applications on their own servers or pay for access through Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) offerings. The consumer versions will be ad-supported, at no additional cost.
IT organizations considering whether to upgrade to Office 2010 should poll users, according to a study released last week by Forrester Research, “Best Practices: Microsoft Office Enterprise Strategy.” About 80 percent of companies surveyed earlier this year by Forrester use Office, but there are alternatives, including Google Apps, Zoho’s hosted apps and OpenOffice.org, among others.
600K Modded Xbox Systems Banned from Xbox Live
November 10, 2009 by The Editor
Filed under Xbox
One of Microsoft’s most popular features of its Xbox 360 system is the ability to participate in the Xbox Live service. However, some of its most engaged customers are also eager owners of ‘modified’ gaming systems. These “mods” provide new features and even the ability to play pirated games.
Microsoft, under the justification of providing a ‘level playing field’, banned 600,000 Xbox Live accounts in the US and Canada who are playing with Modified Xbox 360 systems.
Ballmer Talks Down Hopes of I/T Recovery
November 2, 2009 by The Editor
Filed under Financials
Many articles hit the wires last night as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made comments at a company meeting about conditions in the Information Technology industry. ”The economy went through a set of changes on a global basis over the course of the last year which are, I think is fair to say, once in a lifetime,” Ballmer told executives, as reported by the Associated Press. “While we will see growth, we will not see recovery.”
Dell CEO Michael Dell has made similar comments about the enterprise I/T sector, however, other surveys including analysis firm Changewave suggest that the sector will make a slow but real recovery over the coming months.
