On second thought, IE8 will default to full Web standards
Should Microsoft choose for IE8 to follow the standards developers want or the ones they use? It's been a tough call, and late yesterday, the company reversed that call.
In a complete reversal of policy that will probably be reflected in later builds sent to private beta testers, the team building Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 has decided to make its Web standards-compliant mode -- the one reported to have passed the Acid2 standards compliance test -- the browser's default operating mode. The team made this choice apparently knowing full well that some existing Web pages -- those designed to work well with the majority browser rather than with written W3C standards -- may break.
Not your usual Microsoft keynote: Tom Brokaw
Last Wednesday in Los Angeles, developers and admins expecting Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer were treated to Tom Brokaw, a developer of a different kind with a message that changed the tone of the day, and maybe of Microsoft as well.
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - The message this time wasn't about how great things are, or how empowering the acceleration of agility can motivate the enterprise to harness the power of workflow. It was a mangled metaphor-free message, and it came from a source no one expected to hear from that day: former NBC News managing editor and NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw.
Adding LINQ to Visual Studio: Does this change everything?
For over a decade, database developers have been begging for a kind of bridge that enables procedural language programs to access relational databases relationally. Now that bridge is coming. But are developers ready for LINQ? We asked Microsoft's Visual Studio general manager, Jason Zander.
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - The first genuine effort to create a uniform set of database drivers for Windows came in 1988, when an independent firm started as a consultancy called Pioneer Software launched a product and an idea called Q+E -- a tool for linking its own database editor, and later Microsoft applications such as Excel, to any number of existing databases through stand-alone providers. It was indeed a revolutionary concept, and it gave birth to a never-equaled database connectivity standard called ODBC.
Intel unveils Atom: new microarchitecture for UMPCs, MIDs
When you make smaller transistors, you can make much smaller processors, and the immediate payoff is that you use less power. The trick is to make the consumer want the smaller processor, and that may not be as easy as having invented the thing.
You know Intel's coming into this year's CeBIT conference in Hannover with a full arsenal of innovations when it makes its first announcements on Sunday just to be able to fit everything in. This morning, the latest upshot of its discovery of the high-k-plus-metal-gate (HK+MG) process takes center stage, with an entirely new 25 square-micrometer processor called Atom whose thermal design point plunges as low as 0.6 watts.
Double-whammy for Qualcomm as Nokia wins two rounds
Last November, trade courts effectively neutralized many of Nokia's key weapons against Qualcomm in a long-running patent dispute. In the past few days, though, the same courts have deflated Qualcomm's strategy in turn.
In the Nokia / Qualcomm intellectual property dogfight, which originally erupted over a royalties spat, suddenly it's both planes that appear smoking, leaking fuel, and headed into a tailspin. This morning, a High Court judge in the UK has thrown out all of Qualcomm's patent disputes against Nokia, in so doing rendering one of the two Qualcomm patents under examination invalid, reportedly for "lack of novelty."
Windows Server 2008: To keep things stable, you need new hardware
Microsoft has a growing number of beneficiaries to whom it must simultaneously appeal. There are OEM partners who want Windows Server to drive sales, and clients who at the same time plead for no more disruptions.
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - The big message from Microsoft's gala launch on Wednesday had to do with changing the world, and the role information workers may play to that end. Yet Microsoft's own business customers are looking for operating systems to stop making sweeping changes to the way they work, to stop forcing them to make plans around Microsoft's itinerary...and the company's own program mangers are acknowledging this new reality.
Microsoft's Jason Zander on Visual Studio and dynamic languages
The mindsets of the dynamic language programmer and the classical, static language developer are practically different beasts. So can they share the same IDE? We spoke with the man in charge of what aims to be that one IDE, Visual Studio 2008.
Of the two dilemmas, one would probably prefer the type that Microsoft's newly appointed Visual Studio general manager Jason Zander faced this week, to the one facing the SQL Server team: holding a gala launch for a product that actually started shipping last November, as opposed to one that may end up shipping in July.
Microsoft's Ballmer on reconciling the gap between IT and executives
Along with Bill Gates, Microsoft may be hailing the departure of a mindset and a culture that's fixated on extending its hold on the pipeline of information. At least that's how Steve Ballmer presented his company yesterday.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in front of a projection of what's supposed to be the future, some of which he admitted to be "an inventory of what Microsoft has shown thus far."LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - The post-Gates era of Microsoft is already showing signs of a material difference in the company's objectives and its core message. During yesterday's keynote address for the company's single-day "Heroes Happen Here" launch event, CEO Steve Ballmer presented fewer of the meandering metaphors and enumerated participles that spawn, most obviously, from Bill Gates' mode of speech. And gone was any hint of the almost apelike stance Ballmer took during his famous "Developers, developers, developers" rant of years ago -- though it still managed to populate the screens of show visitors even yesterday, thanks to YouTube.
Next edition of .NET Micro Framework adds Web services support
The impending ubiquity of .NET in computing devices everywhere got a big boost this week with the unveiling of a new edition of its handheld and embedded device runtime, now capable of communicating with Web services.
As Java already proved, the ubiquity of a runtime platform depends on its ability to scale up to the data cluster level, and down to the handheld device level. Microsoft would like to one-up Java wherever it can, but in some respects, it has to play catch-up first. This week, the company may have caught up with Java in at least one more department, with the release of Web services support for the .NET Micro Framework, unveiled in its new 2.5 release.
Microsoft extends its openness policy to Windows Live developers
The message all this week from Microsoft has been one of openness, sharing with clients, and even global responsibility -- even in the wake of a new round of EC fines. This morning, the message continued into the online services space.
The communications ability of Microsoft's MSN messaging networks has been open for other IM tools to use for some time, but today, the company is making available the methodology for a concept it has been demonstrating to developers -- albeit in the prototype stage -- for over two years: integrating the ability to invoke Windows Live communications through Web applications.
Live from the Windows Server 2008 launch in LA
The question of the day is, with Visual Studio 2008 already happening and SQL Server 2008 maybe not happening for real for at least another six months, just how many "heroes" will be "happening here" at the Windows Server 2008 launch gala?
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - At the front gate of the Nokia Theater outside the Convention Center here this morning, one of the Nokia workers asked me, "So where are the heroes?"
FCC gives go-ahead for DirecTV transfer to Liberty Media
A 2004 challenge on the grounds that DirecTV might make News Corp. too great a media power, was denied yesterday. As a result, ironically, News Corp. can now be a lesser power, surrendering DirecTV to Liberty Media.
Not long after News Corp. acquired a controlling interest in direct broadcast satellite provider DirecTV, chairman Rupert Murdoch changed his mind on the viability of the deal. For DBS to be a viable product against "triple-play" options from cable providers, Murdoch needed upstream Internet frequency, and found himself uncharacteristically outbid for it.
Confirmation: Internet Explorer 8 beta testing has begun
As selected testers first received invitations from Microsoft yesterday, numerous reports speculated as to the nature of the IE 8 Beta 1 test. Late last night, Microsoft sorted out those reports for BetaNews.
In a response to a BetaNews inquiry, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that the Beta 1 testing process for Internet Explorer 8 has begun. To help distinguish it from the public preview process, in which prospective customers are given peeks at how the finished product might work, Microsoft officially calls this a "Techbeta."
The Open XML debate resumes before the ISO
As the world's principal standards body re-examines Microsoft's key applications standards format, one of ODF's chief proponents suggests the world will be better off if OOXML were to co-exist with ODF.
It may yet be approved as an international standard, but first, Microsoft's Office Open XML data format will need to withstand its most critical test to date: Beginning today in Geneva, and continuing on until Friday, 120 representatives of the world's national standards bodies will convene as ISO Subcommittee 34 to debate an estimated 1,100 separate issues, filtered from thousands of comments ranging from concerns to reservations, regarding whether Microsoft has done enough to bring OOXML up to their expectations.
Yahoo employees could come home to Microsoft, leaving assets behind
The man who would most likely lead Yahoo after a Microsoft acquisition, should that take place, wrote an FAQ on Friday ostensibly directed at his own employees, but actually -- and quite obviously -- meant to appease Yahoo's.
"The industry needs a more compelling alternative in search and online advertising," wrote Microsoft Platforms and Services Division President Kevin Johnson, in a memo directed to his own staff but publicly released by Microsoft over the weekend.
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