DOJ Pushes Microsoft to Produce Vista SP1 in '07
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It's unusual, but confirmation of the availability of Windows Vista's first service pack came not from Microsoft Corp., but from the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Wednesday it plans to release the first major update to its  Windows Vista operating system early next year.
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A check of yesterday's status report from the Department of Justice officials monitoring the status of Microsoft's 2002 antitrust settlement revealed an interesting nugget: We can expect Vista's first service pack before the end of the year, along with Windows XP SP3.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will make changes to its desktop search program following a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) by Google. Google suggested in a white paper submitted to the DOJ earlier this year that Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system puts other search software companies at a disadvantage, making it difficult for users to utilize non-Microsoft desktop-search software. Microsoft has reached an agreement with the DOJ to make it easier for end users to employ desktop search programs made by rival software developers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Microsoft will also provide more documentation and information to developers about how to make those search programs run smoothly, it said. The changes will be included in Microsoft's first Vista update, called Service Pack 1, slated to be released later this year, the report said. California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Microsoft had agreed to make the "significant changes" in Vista operating system to stay in compliance with a U.S. court agreement in Microsoft's antitrust case. Brown's office intervened in the wake of reports that Microsoft's new operating system included a desktop search function called "Instant Search" that violated terms of its agreement to open its products to more competition. Google Inc. which offers the most popular search engine on the Internet, said "Instant Search" is a "Microsoft middleware product," which is subject to the federal agreement in the antitrust case. The State of California contended that Vistaâs desktop search feature is a functionality that did not exist in prior Windows operating systems and is therefore covered under the agreement. Brown said Microsoft will provide users and computer manufacturers, such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell with greater flexibility to choose and access competing desktop search products. The agreement was included in a joint status report that was filed Wednesday with federal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., who presided over the 2002 agreement in the case. "This agreement - while not perfect - is a positive step towards greater competition in the software industry," said Brown. "It will enhance the ability of consumers to select the desktop search tool of their choice." Microsoft was found to be operating an illegal monopoly in software by another U.S. District Judge in Washington. Microsoft entered into a settlement agreement with the federal government and attorneys general for several U.S. states to abide by certain rules to allow more competition. Microsoft had originally denied that its own desktop search interfered with non-Microsoft indexing software, noting that its search indexing could be turned off, although with some difficulty. The Redmond company also seemed to have the DOJ, its former antitrust foe, on its side: Thomas O. Barnett, now the DOJ's top-ranking antitrust official, recommended in May that the DOJ and state attorneys general reject Google's complaint, according to a New York Times report earlier this month.
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Microsoft is counting on its beta testers to be "aggressive" as they start working on Release Candidate 1 of Windows Vista if the software maker is to make its ship dates.
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Many admins are waiting for Microsoft to release service pack 1 before upgrading to Office Project 2007.
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Software giant Microsoft confirmed Monday that the first update to its Windows Vista operating system will be available as an official download in mid-March. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will address various performance and stability issues and improve the desktop OS's hardware support.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Thursday that more than 200 million users will be using one of  its new products -- including its highly-anticipated Windows  Vista operating system, Office 2007 software suite and Exchange  server -- by the end of 2007.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on Thursday that more than 200 million users will be using one of its new products -- including its highly-anticipated Windows Vista operating system, Office 2007 software suite and Exchange server -- by the end of 2007.
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Monday that the Windows application platform is to be fitted with "Fluent UI" ribbon capabilities now offered in Office 2007.The ribbon UI presents a new interface in Office 2007. "We usability-tested it massively, and fortunatel, it has had a very strong positive reaction," Gates said during a keynote presentation the 2008 Office System Developer Conference in San Jose, Calif. "We in the next version of Windows will be using this Fluent UI quite a bit across a number of applications," he said. "It turns out it's a user interface that works very well for the pen and touch [interfaces] as well as being a better way of revealing application functionality."The Fluent UI represented "a major risk that Microsoft took," Gates said. But the older interface with its dropdown menus was hiding so much functionality that the company was being asked for features that were already there but were concealed, he said.At the conference, Microsoft is promoting Office as a development platform with users able to write extensions. During Gates's presentation, third party applications were shown that extended Office with custom development, such as the MindJet MindManager planning application and FedEx's QuickShip for processing FedEx shipments from within Microsoft Outlook.During a subsequent question-and-answer session with the audience, Gates was asked to compare and contrast opportunities for developers working with platforms like Microsoft's with platforms like open source. Gates responded, "Our platform is a commercial platform where customers expect a very high level of service, a very high level of integration, but the nice thing about it is they are willing to pay for software."Free software has always been around, he said. "We've always had free software out there, it's not really a new thing. In fact, I'd say in some ways it's less of a factor than it's ever been," Gates said.Everyone has the same business model, he said: Software developers have free versions of their software, inexpensive software, and robust commercial versions of their software. "The commercial environment, I think, will always be the pre-eminent thing in terms of providing business productivity," said Gates.He advised those who want to develop free software to be careful which licensing model they choose and to select an option that does not restrict commercial versions of their software.Asked about Yahoo, which has rejected Microsoft's $44.6 billion acquisition offer, Gates said the question was whether Yahoo should be a media company or focus on engineering. In an ad model, scale is needed, he said. Yahoo's engineering could be combined with what Microsoft has done, he said.Gates's overall presentation did not impress one attendee, who nonetheless was impressed with Gates himself."Bill is definitely a visionary, and he's one of the greatest men in the 20th century, but I have to wonder how much of that was just reading from a script," said Aaron Alanen, senior consultant at Sogeti."I did see in his questions later on that he really had some deeper knowledge," Alanen said.During Gates's presentation, he also played a tongue-in-cheek video about what he would do during his upcoming semi-retirement from Microsoft. Included were possibilities such as getting into politics, joining the rock band U2, and becoming a rapper or actor. Guests featured in the video included, among others, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Bono from U2, and George Clooney.
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Microsoft has released a new build of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to about 15,000 testers, lending credence to recent speculation that the final code release is fast approaching.
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Don't mention the word open, ok Microsoft pumped out its service pack 1 (SP1) for the 2007 Office suite yesterday, which it said should cheer up customers unhappy with the number of system failures in the previous release.â¦
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Despite being released to manufacturing last week, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not being made available to all customers because Microsoft is trying to resolve an issue in which hardware devices may stop functioning after SP1 is installed.
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U.S. government office not yet upgrading to Windows Vista, Office 2007, or IE 7.
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The U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general are concerned that Microsoft is revising deadlines that it agreed to as part of its antitrust settlement. At issue are changes that Microsoft says it needs to make in the schedule for releasing documentation related to Vista, according to a court document filed Tuesday.
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Microsoft plans to issue a service pack for Visual Studio on Friday, as well as a version of the update specifically aimed at fixing issues with the software for those running Windows Vista.
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With Vista just out the door, Microsoft Corp. is now drawing up plans to deliver its follow-up client operating system by the end of 2009, according to the executive in charge of building the product's core components.