February 9th, 2010

Microsoft on Google Buzz: Been there, done that

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 12:41 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, SharePoint Server, Web 2.0, Windows Live

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Social Networking, Groupware, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion, Enterprise Software, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Google Buzz, which sounds like the slightly less confusing successor to Google’s “future of e-mail” Wave product, is coming in both consumer and enterprise flavors, according to Google. Are the Softies quaking in their boots?

Not exactly. I asked Microsoft officials for comment on Google Buzz, which Google unveiled on February 9.

I received a response attributable to Dharmesh Mehta, Director of Product Management for Windows Live:

“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefitted from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”

(Not sure I’d call that statement a “slam,” like TechCrunch did… Felt to me more like attempted buzzzzzzkill.)

Microsoft also has been working to integrate social networks from third parties not just into its Web-mail product, but also into its Outlook mail client, via the Outlook Social Connector that the company unveiled at the Professional Developers Conference in 2009.

Microsoft is integrating the Social Connector into the Outlook 2010 product which is due out in the first half of this year. Microsoft’s Social Connector is designed to do a lot of what Buzz does, except with more of a business-centric focus.When Microsoft announced the Connector, there weren’t major providers on board (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.), but company officials did say Windows Live integration, unsurprisingly, would be happening in 2010.

Microsoft’s Social Connector also provides regularly updated “activity feeds” for those in a user’s social connector via a connection with SharePoint 2010.

(My ZDNet blogging colleague Larry Dignan blogged today that Google’s real target with Buzz was Microsoft SharePoint, not Twitter or FriendFeed. With the Social Connector front end taken into account, I wouldn’t say he’s far off the mark.)

In the longer term, Microsoft is working on infusing a lot of its products with more social networking capabilities. That’s a key piece of the mission of the recently created FUSE Labs at Microsoft, headed by Lili Cheng. Cheng, as Microsoft watchers may recall, has been working on the Social Desktop concept for a few years now….

Is Google actually chasing Microsoft’s taillights with Buzz — despite the lack of acknowledgment of counterofferings from Redmond by the majority of the press/bloggers covering today’s Buzz launch? What’s your take?

January 22nd, 2010

Microsoft: Developing Windows Phone apps and games on the Mix 2010 agenda

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:57 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Google, Legal, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Search, Silverlight (wpf/e), Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Windows 7, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Xbox, Yahoo

Tags: Game, Phone, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Corp., Experience Pack, EC, Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems, Operating Systems

Windows Mobile news and rumors dominated a lot of the Microsoft headlines this week, but that wasn’t all that was happening in Redmond-related circles. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the stories that I didn’t get to:

Mobile dev is back on the Mix agenda: The folks running the Microsoft Mix 2010 conference decided after pulling a placeholder note announcing that Windows Mobile content would be on the show agenda, to reinstate the placeholder. They also added a new tidbit to it, claiming that Microsoft officials would be discussing both app and game development for next-generation Windows Phones at the show. Interesting they didn’t say Windows Mobile 6.6 or 7.0 (or Pink)…

That leaves the door open for a variety of potential topics, including how Microsoft plans to add mobile-dev support to Visual Studio 2010 (the Softies removed mobile-dev support from the VS 2010 betas, as I noted previously), as well as exactly what Silverlight on Windows Mobile 7 will enable developers to do.

Windows Mobile devs complain about not getting paid: As Ars Technica reported, some Windows Mobile developers are none too happy that they aren’t getting their expected 70 percent cut of sales from Windows Marketplace for Mobile apps. Microsoft officials are attributing some of the complaints to lack of clarity about when and how developers will get paid. Still, Microsoft doesn’t need any more Windows Mobile black eyes, especially with the Mobile World Congress show right around the corner.

Microsoft releases a Windows Experience Pack: This isn’t another Ultimate Extra kind of thing (although if there were a Windows 7 Ultimate Extra program — not that I’m advocating for one — the new Experience Pack freebies would likely be in it. The Experience Pack is a free add-on for Windows 7 and Windows Live Essentials that allows users to customize avatars and backgrounds.

EU antitrust regulators are seeking comments on the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership: Reuters reporters have seen a 38-question document that the EC is circulating in Europe that is asks “Will the merger make Microsoft a better competitor to Google?” To be clear: The Microsoft-Yahoo arrangement is not a merger; it’s a partnership unveiled in the summer of 2009, via which Bing becomes Yahoo’s primary search engine across various properties and Yahoo execs sell ads on Microsoft sites. The EC is accepting feedback through January 29, and has given itself a deadline of February 19 to clear or bar the deal. (That date can be extended, however.)

Microsoft is suing Tivo (on behalf of AT&T): The issue is DVR patents that may or may not infringe on technology used by  Microsoft in its Mediaroom IPTV offering. The show-down results from a lawsuit filed by TiVo against AT&T last year in federal court in Texas over the telecom company’s U-Verse system, an IPTV service built on top of Microsoft’s Mediaroom technology, according to TechFlash, which has the posted the full text of the lawsuit.

Bing: Now indexing more recipe sites near you. Microsoft’s search engine is indexing more food/cooking sites and making queries about what to make with particular ingredients more easily discoverable and clearly displayed. Now, if you enter ingredients, such as “scallops” or “dried cherries” into the Bing engine, one of the results categories on the left pane is a collection of recipes using those ingredients.

January 22nd, 2010

Microsoft shakes up its Entertainment and Devices unit

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:23 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Gaming, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows client, Xbox, Xbox Live, Zune

Tags: Team, Phone, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Zune, Microsoft Corp., Entertainment, Rodriquez, Pink, Microsoft Windows

Microsoft has made some major organizational changes to its Entertainment and Devices unit — the part of the company responsible for its mobile, Zune, Media Center and Mediaroom IPTV products.

Earlier this week, Microsoft reorg’d the TV, Video and Media (TVM) group, which was headed by Corporate Vice President Enrique Rodriguez. Rodriguez has left the company (”decided to pursue other interests”). Rodriguez’s core teams — Zune software/services, Mediaroom IPTV, Media Center — have been moved to Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB), which is also part of Entertainment and Devices. IEB is the unit in charge of Xbox, Games for Windows and Microsoft Game Studios.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the move:

“As a natural evolution of the Interactive Entertainment Business, our consumer products and experiences focused on games, movies, TV and music will move into IEB, led by SVP Don Mattrick. In addition, we’ve formed a new centralized E&D services infrastructure team, which will act as a combined resource across the division. Finally, Enrique Rodriguez has decided to move on from his leadership position running the TV, video and music business and is evaluating his next career opportunity. The TVM first party business, Zune and Windows Medica Center will move to IEB, and Mediaroom, the TV platform businesss, will become a standalone group within E&D, reporting directly to (E&D) President Robbie Bach.”

It was just a year ago that Microsoft execs tinkered with the structure of E&D, splitting the Zune team in two. The software and services part of Zune was moved under Rodriguez. The hardware team was shipped off to Tom Gibbons, the Corporate Vice President in charge of Mobile Device Strategy and Commercialization — the group that interfaces directly with phone OEMs.

So what happens to Windows Mobile in all of this? For now, it’s staying in Entertainment and Devices. But there is a rumor on the anonymous Mini Microsoft blog that Mobile could be moved under President Steven Sinofsky. Sinofsky currently runs development and business strategy for Windows, Internet Explorer and Windows Live. I asked Microsoft officials for comment on the Sinofsky rumor and they had none, given Microsoft typically doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation. (I’m kind of doubtful about the veracity of the Sinofsky piece, but stranger things have happened….)

Andrew Lees, Senior vice president of Microsoft’s Mobile Communication Business, has been leading marketing and development for Windows Mobile software and Live mobile services since 2008. No word as to whether this week’s reorg affected Lees and his organization.

The shake-up in Entertainment and Devices comes at a time when Microsoft is fending off criticism from all corners regarding its Windows Mobile product line. The company is expected to talk about the next major version of Windows Mobile, Windows Mobile 7, and possibly show off prototype Windows Mobile 7 phones at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona in mid-February. Microsoft also is on tap to discuss new development tools and strategies for Windows Mobile at the Mix 2010 conference in mid-March.

There have been rumors that Microsoft also might show off the long-rumored Pink phones/services at the Mobile World Congress show. Pink is the codename for both the set of premium mobile services and one or more Windows Mobile phones aimed at the teen/twenty-something market. Both the Pink phones and forthcoming Windows Mobile 7 phones are expected to begin shipping this year, with Windows Mobile 7 phones expected in the last quarter of 2010.

Microsoft officials won’t comment officially on what Pink is or when Windows Mobile 7 will be released.

January 21st, 2010

The consumerization of IT -- and of Microsoft

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:22 am

Categories: Apple, Channel, Corporate strategy, Exchange Server, Facebook, Google, SharePoint Server, Web 2.0, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows client, Xbox, Zune

Tags: Deck, Information Technology, Microsoft Corp., Tool, Productivity, Content Management, Enterprise Software, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is spending an awful lot of money these days on projects at which company officials might have scoffed not so long ago. Training in the form of collecting Facebook-based achievement awards? Twitter-update clients for your media player? A BorgVille equivalent of FarmVille? (OK. I made that last one up. But if/when it happens, — like Windows 7 –it was my idea.)

Microsoft has established its reputation as an enterprise software/services vendor. It’s trying to be a consumer one, too, and is spending money on retail ads, brick-and-mortar stores and viral marketing campaigns to try to gain more mind share there.

Not everyone thinks Microsoft should be so focused on the gadget and Web 2.0 space. More than a few industry watchers, customers, partners and Microsoft employees themselves believe Microsoft is spreading itself too thin and should stick to its enterprise knitting.

With that in mind, I read with interest a recently posted PowerPoint presentation deck that Microsoft is offering its partners to explain Microsoft’s official views on the “consumerization of IT.” The deck is designed for partners to use with their business customers when trying to position (justify?) Microsoft’s growing investments in more consumer-focused markets and technologies.

Microsoft’s definition of the consumerization of IT is “the increasing influence that our technology experiences as consumers -— both hardware and applications -— have on the technology that we expect to use at work,” according to the deck. More:

“The reality is that many of us have powerful computer systems at home, and social computing tools like MySpace, Twitter, blogs, etc. are a part of our everyday lives. As technology plays an increasingly important role in our personal lives and we become accustomed to the power, convenience, flexibility, and connectedness of consumer technology experiences, we want those same capabilities to help us at work. However, in most cases we aren’t being given the tools.”

Enter, Microsoft. It has the tools and the technologies that will help get these kinds of socially friendly deliverables into business users hands, the deck says.

Using virtualization (desktop, application or user state, where appropriate), user settings can be centralized, synchronized and safeguarded. “People search,” like what’s being built into SharePoint, can help users find answers to questions faster by calling on established experts. Content feeds, podcasts, shared documents, Wikis — all available as part of SharePoint — also can help with quicker information discovery and sharing, the deck notes. (It’s no coincidence that Microsoft plans to push the built-in social-networking tools as one of the big selling points of SharePoint 2010 this year.) And don’t forget about corporate instant messaging, presence capabilities, built-in VOIP and other unified communication features in Exchange, Office Communications Server, and other Microsoft software/services.

Even if you yourself aren’t a social-networking believer, there’s evidence your next-generation workforce will be, the deck points out. The “millennial generation” are avid social networking/social computing tool users

“They love their devices and stay at the forefront of what technology can do. And this generation expects to be able to use these same tools at work,” Microsoft warns in the deck.

What’s your take? Do you think Microsoft is right in obsessing so much about Apple and Google? Or do you agree with one Microsoft shareholder, who recently said: “I don’t expect (Microsoft) to be Apple, I don’t want them to be Apple. They need to be really good at being 50, an elder statesman”?

Update: Right after I hit publish, I noticed IDC has just published a new Social Business Survey. The study “confirmed that consumer social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn continue to dominate business use, although the gap between consumer and corporate-sponsored social networks has narrowed in the past nine months. This survey also showed that the use of social media has penetrated deeper into U.S. organizations, with executive managers and IT leveraging these tools for business as well as line-of-business workers.”

January 19th, 2010

Five Windows Mobile 7 questions and five speculative answers

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:25 pm

Categories: .Net Framework, App Compatibility, Apple, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, Google, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Speech, Telecommunications, VOIP, Windows CE, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Zune

Tags: Phone, Microsoft Windows CE, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Zune, Microsoft Corp., Readers, Pink, Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems

Readers are sending me URLs for so many Windows Mobile 7 rumors that my head is reeling.  (Keep ‘em coming!)

Microsoft isn’t commenting, and many of the “usual” mobile analysts we bloggers/journalists would ask are under non-disclosure agreements because they attended an early Windows Mobile briefing at Microsoft headquarters last November… So the rest of us are left speculating and wondering and guessing…

I’ve decided to go back and re-examine not just the new claims, but also some older links for clues. Here’s are my five most pressing questions regarding Windows Mobile 7 at this point — and the way I’m leaning on these various issues (again, with no information from Microsoft).

1. What is the underlying core of Windows Mobile 7? Previous releases of Windows Mobile have built on top of Microsoft’s embedded Windows CE operating system. I’ve seen rumors claiming Windows Mobile 7 won’t be based on CE (it instead will be built on top of Silverlight and .Net, one claimed). I’ve also seen reports claiming it will be built on top of Windows CE 6.0 R3 — the latest version of Windows Embedded Compact that was released to manufacturing in September 2009. (CE 6.0 R3 was codenamed “Cashmere.”) If Windows Mobile 7 is based on Cashmere, that’s significant and interesting because the Cashmere release includes support for IE7 and Silverlight, among other features.

While there has been talk that Microsoft is moving toward basing Windows and Windows Mobile on the same core operating system base, I’m guessing Windows Mobile 7 is still based on some version of CE, possibly CE 6.0 R3.

2. Are there two versions of Windows Mobile 7, a “business” version and a “consumer/entertainment” version? I have zero insider information about this, but I can’t help but wonder whether the business and consumer “versions” are simply different sets of specs with which Windows Phone makers are being asked to comply. I ran a spec list for “Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1″ last year. At the time, I was told this was the set of specs for Pink phones. But maybe that list was one of two sets of chassis specs (either the business or consumer set)? Or maybe what the “two versions” rumor actually reflects is there will be more Windows Mobile 6.X phones coming from various vendors with all the usual vendor customization, and another set of Windows Mobile 7 phones which limit those customizations?

Because Microsoft keeps banging the convergence drum, claiming users don’t want a business phone and a consumer phone, but instead a single phone that can be used for both kinds of tasks, I’m thinking there is only one Windows Mobile 7 but at least two sets of chassis specs.

3. Will Windows Mobile 7 be backward-compatible with Windows Mobile 6.x? Will many folks, other than those with custom Windows Mobile apps and developers who took a chance and backed the Windows Mobile 6.x platform, really care? More on that in my earlier post on Microsoft’s compatibility conundrum today.

4. Is there a “Zune phone,” after all — in spite of repeated Microsoft claims to the contrary? I’m betting no on this one. Microsoft officials did split the Zune team up a year ago, sending the hardware side of the Zune unit to Windows Mobile and the software side to the IPTV/MediaRoom side of the house. The Zune HD was said by some to be a showcase of some of the user-interface, video marketplace, music subscription/playback and other elements which would show up, at some point, on Windows Phones. Zune music and video are probably among the premium mobile services that the Danger/Pink team has been developing. But does that mean Windows Mobile 7 phones + Zune services = Zune phones? Not exactly.

5. So what the heck is Pink? I’ve been wavering as to whether Microsoft is going to deliver a Pink phone. The reason for my uncertainty? First I heard Pink was just a set of premium mobile services. Then I heard from my sources that Pink was the services plus a Microsoft-branded phone. Then Microsoft officials began to criticize Google for competing with its partners by releasing a Google phone. Did that mean Microsoft had decided to kill the phone component of Pink? I thought so… but then Pink phone rumors resurfaced, the latest of which are claiming Pink phones could debut this calendar quarter.

I’m starting to think Pink phones may be nothing more than Windows Mobile 6.x-based phones built by a Microsoft partner (or two) to spec. They may be the first Windows Phones to offer the Pink premium mobile services. But otherwise, it’s looking more and more like they won’t end up carrying a Microsoft logo.

What other Windows Mobile 7 questions — beyond the obvious pricing, timing and availability ones — are you most interested in having answered?

January 19th, 2010

Microsoft's compatibility conundrum: When is it wrong to do the 'right' thing?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:54 am

Categories: App Compatibility, Apple, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, Google, Internet Explorer, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Multicore/distributed computing, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows client, Zune

Tags: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., WM7, Midori Team, Microsoft Windows, Web Browsers, Mobile Operating Systems

Over the past couple of days, on a couple of different fronts, Microsoft watchers have been musing about compatibility — or, to be more precise, backward compatibility.

In the case of Windows Mobile (WM) — where rumors about WM7 are ramping up at an almost iSlate-like pace — folks are wondering about reports that WM7 might not be backward-compatible with Windows Mobile 6.X. Meanwhile, on the Internet Explorer side of the house, , an exploit in IE 6 that affected Google in China has led a number of company watchers to wonder why Microsoft is continuing to support IE 6. Why not drop backward compatibility so as to force IE stalwarts to move to IE7 or IE8?

On the WM front, the issue of backward compatibility is less pressing than it is on the IE/Windows one. Microsoft has broken compatibility in the past when releasing new WM versions running on phones with different processors. While there is some indeterminate number of custom Windows Mobile apps out there which may have been written for WM6.X, there still aren’t more than a few hundred commercial WM apps in the Microsoft Marketplace for Mobile store. And you can be sure Microsoft will be prompt in getting its own apps (Office Mobile 2010, Silverlight, Windows Live, Bing, Zune, etc.) out for WM7.

The stakes are higher in Windows than Windows Mobile. Microsoft officials have insisted over the years that one of Microsoft’s biggest strengths is its commitment to providing backward compatibility. With more than 1 billion Windows users out there, Microsoft officials haven’t been willing (so far, at least) to create a new, smaller, less convoluted version of an operating system without thinking about how to continue to support the majority of existing apps and customers.

That “strength” also has become a great weakness for Microsoft, however.

Remember this August 2009 blog post from IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch, where he explained why Microsoft wasn’t dropping IE6 support? Even though doing so would make life a lot simpler for developers who are tired of having to create different versions of their apps/services not just for browsers from different vendors, but for different versions of IE, Microsoft was not going to do it. Hachamovitch attributed the decision to a number of factors, including the fact that some IT departments are lacking the money to shell out for the latest hardware/software, as well as the existence of custom internal apps that require IE6.

(It’s still unclear exactly what the IE6/XP connection to Google is/was. Google hasn’t explained how it was hacked, though there are plenty of rumors about that, too.)

Microsoft officials know IE6 running on older versions of Windows is a security nightmare. But they still decided to stand by the company’s commitment to support IE6 on XP for the full lifecycle of those products. (In the case of IE6 on XP, I *think* that means Microsoft’s support will continue until support for XP SP3 ends, which seems to look like some time in 2010. If anyone has any better luck deciphering the many support caveats and can come up with a more accurate date, let me know.)

Update: Here’s the good news/bad news (depending on how you look at it): Microsoft officials say support doesn’t end for IE 6 on XP SP3 until April 8, 2014. So this IE6 backward-compat debate is going to drag on for quite a while….

Back to Microsoft’s conundrum. At some point, in order to truly advance IE and make it more standards-compliant, I’d assume Microsoft is going to have to drop IE6 compatibility. And in order to make any real changes in Windows, in terms of size, performance and complexity, wouldn’t the Softies also have to cut the cord and deliver an operating system with a new kernel? Midori, the so-called “successor to Windows,” is supposedly based to some degree on the Microsoft-Research-developed Singularity microkernel. The Midori team has been known to be debating how and if Midori will be backward-compatible with Windows.

One way around backward compatibility headaches is to use virtualization. But, as one of my readers recently noted, not all apps work well in a virtual machine running virtualized drivers. So maybe a preferable solution is to support two OSes simultaneously: Both WM 6.x and WM7. Both Windows and Midori (or whatever Microsoft’s next-generation OS ends up being). But what about proprietary IE and more standards-based IE? Should Microsoft continue along that dual path here, as well?

Speaking of WM7, I don’t have much new to contribute regarding all the new rumors showing up on various blogs and Wall Street missives. I can’t help but wonder whether talk of two versions of WM7 is simply confusion over WM7 and “Pink” phones/services. As I’ve noted before, Pink was supposed to be a set of consumer services (including a Zune music service) plus a phone or phones custom-made for the teen/20-something set which would carry Microsoft branding…. So your guess is as good as mine (or any of the others out there) as to what Microsoft will share about WM7 and/or Pink in a few more weeks at the Mobile World Congress.

January 12th, 2010

Microsoft strikes back at Google on new cloud storage limits

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 12:19 pm

Categories: Apple, Corporate strategy, Database, Google, Office, Office for Mac, SQL Server, Windows Live

Tags: Google Inc., Apple Macintosh, Storage Limit, Microsoft SQL Server, Storage, Microsoft Windows Live, Microsoft Corp., Redmondians, Mielke, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2

A couple of quick hits today from around the Microsoft-related sites and blogs:

Microsoft strikes back against Google: In a very uncharacteristic move, Microsoft is sending out notes to reporters and bloggers on January 12, reminding them that Google’s just-announced 1 GB Google Docs storage limit limit pales in comparison to what the Softies already are offering with Windows Live. (I say “uncharacteristic” here because most teams at Microsoft are not willing to comment officially on policies/products from their competitors.)

From an e-mail I received today from a Windows Live spokesperson:

“Just a friendly reminder that Windows Live has been offering its more than 450 million customers 25GB of cloud-based storage space for free through Windows Live SkyDrive since 2008. For more than a year now, Windows Live customers have been able to upload many different types of files to the cloud – including large graphic files, MP3s, PDFs, videos, and more – allowing them to access to their files and information anywhere and everywhere they have access to the Web.”

Microsoft also will be offering Office Web Apps users this free cloud storage once Microsoft delivers the final, free, consumer-version of Office Web Apps that will be accessible via SkyDrive, the spokesperson added.

Microsoft seeks Mac users for sneak peek of Outlook for Mac:: As Microsoft officials announced last summer, the company is planning to deliver a new version of Office for Mac before the end of 2010 — a version that will switch out Entourage for Outlook.

The Redmondians are conducting usability studies for the new Mac Outlook client, with the next one slated for Mountain View, Calif., the week of January 25, according to a blog post by Mac Business Unit User Experience researcher Nadyne Richmond. Richmond is looking for Mac users who use a Mac for work purposes, connect to an Exchange account, and use mail and calendar several times a week. Those interested in getting a sneak peek of Mac Office with Outlook should e-mail her directly via her blog, she said.

(And if you aren’t in Mountain View or available that week, more usability labs are on the docket, she said.)

No more support for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2: As of today (January 12), Microsoft is phasing out support for Service Pack 2 on SQL Server 2005. (This means no more mainstream or extended support.) And support for the released-to-manufacturing version of SQL Server 2008 (with no service packs) is slated to end on April 13 of this year. According to a support post from Microsoft:

“Both SQL Server 2005 SP2 and SQL Server 2008 RTM will no longer receive assisted support or security updates from Microsoft after their respective end of support dates. Self-Help online support will continue to be available for a minimum of 12 months after the product reaches the end of support.Self-Help options include public knowledge base articles, FAQs, troubleshooting tools which are typically available from http://support.microsoft.com and the Microsoft Download Center.”

Enterprise licensees still have the option of buying custom support for these products. But Microsoft is pushing all users to move to newer versions.

January 12th, 2010

Microsoft adds new health-search capabilities to Bing

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:24 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Search, Windows Live, Yahoo

Tags: Health Care, Microsoft Corp., Bing Community, Vertical Industries, Healthcare, Benefits, Human Resources, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft has “turned on” enhancements to its health search capabilities that are built into its Bing search engine, according to a January 12 blog post on the Bing Community site.

“We’re providing more content from new partners and augmenting instant answers with hard-to-discover data that helps users get more out of their health search experience, both on- and off-line,” blogged Alain Rappaport, Microsoft’s General Manager of Health Search.

Among the new enhancements is the presentation of a “smart summary” related to a user’s query. Bing analyzes related tops from an index of medical sources and extracts related data automatically, according to Rappaport. He cited as an example a query on “Type 2 diabetes,” noting that it would return related conditions, such as obesity; medications that would be important to know about (like insulin); and a list of U.S. medical centers active in research in that field.

The health enhancements to Bing also include the presentation of “instant answers” as part of user queries. If a user clicks on a medical center in the aforementioned example, s/he would see patient ratings for hospitals, as well as other nearby facilities and points of interest. Medications also would get the instant-answers treatment. Medications also get related instant answers. For a particular medication, a searcher would see related medications and possible side effects, according to the blog post. Microsoft also has broadened the index of sources it is searching in health to include new content from previously omitted providers, Rappaport said.

I’m thinking these Bing health enhancements are part of the long and winding Bing 2.0 release, which began in November 2009. But they might be some of the smaller, more incremental enhancements that Microsoft officials have promised to deliver between big-bang Bing releases.

Health is one of a handful of areas on which Microsoft is focusing on with its Bing work. (Others include celebrity news, shopping, and travel, with particular focus on what’s interesting to those in the Bing sweet spot: 18-34 year olds.) Microsoft has integrated health search information and results into its main Bing engine, rather than offering it as a separate service, as it did originally, when it was known as Live Search Health, the front-end to Microsoft’s HealthVault medical-records service.

January 7th, 2010

Microsoft already setting a high expectation bar for Mobile World Congress

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:12 pm

Categories: Apple, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, Google, Live Mesh, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Network service providers, OEMs, Resellers, Speech, Telecommunications, VOIP, Windows Live, Windows Mobile

Tags: Phone, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, U.S. Congress, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems, Telecom & Utilities, Operating Systems, Software

After the no-show (and no mention) of Windows Mobile 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, Microsoft officials have begun touting the Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in mid-February in Barcelona as the place that Windows Mobile 7 will finally be on public display in some way for the first time.

Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach basically said as much in his January 7 Financial Analyst Briefing at CES (which I listened to via Webcast). In response to an analyst question, Bach said to expect in WM7 “things will be talked about at MWC.” (Istartedsomething blogger Long Zheng is expecting and hearing the same.)

On Thursday, Bach reiterated some of what the Redmondians have been saying for months, specifically that WM7 won’t be just a business-focused mobile OS platform any more.

“I’ve seen it and played with it,” Bach said. He said he believed Windows Mobile 7 will “set the bar forward not in (just) an evolutionary way.”

Bach said to expect Microsoft to step up its “go to market approach” so that it will be “more engaged” with its mobile OEMs. He didn’t get more specific than that, but my take was he was talking about Microsoft tightening its development and marketing connection with its mobile-phone-maker partners.

Bach also took a couple of shots at Apple (which controls the entire end-to-end mobile platform) and Google (for providing conflicting signals to its Android ecosystem by offering its own “Google phone”). I keep wavering as to whether or not Microsoft might actually release its own Microsoft phone, but if it does at this point, Bach would be the pot calling the kettle black. So maybe any kind of Microsoft-branded Pink phones are off the drawing board, after all.

I’m betting Microsoft is going to show off more than just the Windows Mobile platform in Barcelona, based on what the company did last year at the MWC show. I’m thinking the Softies might also be ready to talk about the next version of its My Phone service, which stores Windows Mobile phone data to the cloud.

Last year, according to my sources, the version 2.0 of My Phone (codenamed Skybox), was on the Microsoft internal roadmap. This release was supposed to allow users to change ringtones, backgrounds and manage their mobile apps, music and video all from the cloud. Version 2.0 was supposed to integrate with Skymarket (Microsoft’s Marketplace for Mobile site), providing users with a way to buy and store applications and application data on remote servers. Supposedly, with My Phone 2.0, Microsoft also ws supposed to enable integration with Windows Live services and Live Mesh.

So I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a My Phone announcement in Barcelona, alongside whatever Microsoft says about WM7. Then, at Mix in mid-March, Microsoft is on tap to share details about developing for WM7, as officials said late last year.

What are you hoping and realistically expecting Microsoft to show in the Windows Mobile space next month?

December 18th, 2009

Microsoft begins testing new tech support forum staffed by paid 'independent experts'

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:18 am

Categories: Code names, Corporate strategy, Security, Support, Windows Live, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Corp., TechSupport Marketplace Site, Current Microsoft Answers Forum, Open Source, E-mail, Online Communications, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft launched a pilot test program for an online tech-support forum that will be staffed by paid “independent experts.”

News of the pilot was first reported by Manan Kakkar, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and blogger, who noted that the pilot is for a site currently known as “TechSupport Marketplace.”

TechSupport Marketplace is a new Microsoft site that will bring together “Customers who are having a problem and independent Experts with the skills and ability to troubleshoot and help resolve those problems. In return for helping Customers with their computer problems in a one on one manner, the Experts earn some money directly from the Customer they are helping,” according to an e-mail message about the program cited by Kakkar.

The new TechSupport Marketplace site seems to be an outgrowth of the current Microsoft Answers forum — and one designed to provide answers and help when customers need a deeper level of expertise or attention than what is currently available via the existing online forums.

Individuals with tech questions will submit queries on the new site and pre-selected members of the expert community will be able to bid on providing support and answers to those queries. Questioners will be able to specify whether they need an answer within a defined windows of time. Customers will pay via PayPal or some kind of similar mechanism.

According to Kakkar’s information, Microsoft won’t be charging the “experts” any kind of fee to broker the interaction between them and customers. The goal of the new site will be to reduce support costs so much that “customers will get even small problems fixed,” according to an excerpt of a Microsoft e-mail message provided by Kakkar.

The current Microsoft Answers forum provides information about Windows, Windows Live and Microsoft Security Essentials topics for free to users who submit queries via the Web site. Microsoft launched the Answers site in beta in December, 2008, and initially focused on providing help with Vista questions.

In the open-source world, there is a TechSupport Marketplace available via SourceForge. But the SourceForge Marketplace seems to be a site that allows consultants and service providers to list their services and support offerings for specific open-source projects, more than it is a place for users to get general technical help.

No word so far on how long the pilot will last or when the final site will launch. I’ve asked Microsoft for more specifics about the TechSupport Marketplace pilot and plans. I’ll update this post if and when I receive more information.

Update (December 19): Here are a few more specifics from a Microsoft spokesperson about the new program:

1.    How long has this pilot program existed?
The TechSupport Marketplace is a new pilot program that launched on December 17, 2009 in English.  It will run in a limited fashion for a few months in order for Microsoft to gather input from customers and experts.

2.    Who is invited into the pilot at this point?
Initially, people who visit the Windows XP and Windows Vista forums “Ask a Question” page on Microsoft Answers may be invited to participate.  The pilot is obviously limited in scale and Experts who help the customers have been selected by Microsoft especially for this pilot.

3.    When will this site/service launch?
We anticipate the pilot will conclude in Spring 2010.  There are no firm launch plans or date in place at this time.

4.    What kinds of fees will be charged?
During the pilot phase, those who are invited to participate will receive Expert help for free.  The pilot will ask customers for feedback on the value of the service.

5.    How will Microsoft staff it? And make sure the folks are qualified to provide answers?
During the pilot phase, a staff of professional Experts selected by Microsoft will help customers.  The support service will be available during business hours, 7:00 am – 5:00 pm PT.

6.    Will this be a complement to Microsoft Answers? Any relation to it? What topic areas will TechSupport Marketplace cover that Answers doesn’t?
TechSupport Marketplace will complement Microsoft Answers by giving customers greater choice in the type of support experience they want.  It will provide access to a more personalized experience and expedited response time if the customer wants it.   Microsoft’s support assets are interrelated and draw on shared resources.  We envision that this new support asset will gain its own identity and serve those looking for something between the Microsoft Answers free and unmanaged forum and more formal Microsoft Support.