UPDATE Microsoft has confirmed that Windows XP Service Pack 2 will ship in 2004.

In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft has pushed back the release date for the second Windows XP service pack to the third quarter of 2004. SP2 was long expected to debut before the end of 2003, one year after SP1 made the rounds.

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As numerous companies clamor to reign supreme in the music subscription space, On Demand Distribution (OD2) and Microsoft have partnered to bring the new version of OD2's music platform to consumers in Europe.

Based on Windows Media 9 Series, OD2 will power the MSN Music Club and Tiscali Music Club with downloads of individual songs from the five major labels and independent artists. OD2's music catalog currently stands at over 20,000 tracks by 8,500 artists.

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Intuit is courting beta testers for the 2004 edition of QuickBooks, its financial software aimed at small businesses. QuickBooks uses familiar on-screen checks, invoices and forms to simplify business accounting tasks.

Code-named "Thunder," QuickBooks 2004 will enter beta in September. Testers must be willing to download updates throughout the beta cycle, and submit bug reports and printed forms for review. Windows 98, Me, 2000 or XP is required, along with Internet Explorer 6.0 or later.

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Microsoft announced at the Silicon Valley Speaker Series Wednesday that Office Project 2003 will be released to manufacturing on August 18. Project is the first Office System 2003 offering to go gold, with the next generation Office suite expected to be available starting October 24.

Project 2003 is comprised of Project Professional 2003, Project Server 2003 and Project Web Access - collectively dubbed the "Office EPM Solution." The release will integrate with Outlook 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services in order to facilitate collaboration between a project group.

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Roughly a week after a select group of testers gained access to an early release Microsoft's Yukon beta, "Whidbey" -- a special version of Visual Studio which serves as the face of Yukon for developers -– has welcomed alpha testers.

BetaNews has learned that testers were notified via e-mail of a technical pre-release program that is set to kick off shortly. They can access the online community through Microsoft's BetaPlace Web site.

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Game developer and publisher Activision is looking for qualified testers to become part of its Visioneer beta program. Applications are being accepted via e-mail based on a series of questions. Activision is looking for attention to detail, notable writing skills, and creative thinking.

All testers must be 18 years of age or older, reside in the United States or Canada, own a high-end computer and play computer games. All information submitted will be kept confidential, according to Activision.

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Microsoft is seeking beta testers for the latest service pack to Visual Studio 6.0. Version 6.0 continues to be updated for compatibility purposes, although Microsoft is pushing its latest Visual Studio .NET 2003 release to developers.

"We have made substantial fixes to the 6.0 product since the last service pack, especially with VC++6.0 and VB 6.0," said Visual Studio program manager Tony Pacheco. "We are looking for quality customer feedback."

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Microsoft has released to manufacturing the long awaited successor to its Exchange 2000 messaging server. Originally code-named Titanium, Exchange Server 2003 focuses on improving productivity and security, with junk mail filtering, encrypted messages and support for third party virus scanners.

Microsoft has added a new cached mode that will automatically synchronize data in the background, ensuring that users are always working from an up-to-date local copy of their mailbox. MAPI, the protocol used for communication between Exchange and Outlook mail clients, has also been enhanced.

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Centercode is seeking technology professionals to beta test a new handheld device with multimedia functionality. Candidates must have access to a bluetooth-enabled mobile phone with GPRS or GSM connectivity in order to test wireless capabilities of the PDA.

Centercode is specifically looking for testers between the age of 30 and 50 that have attended college and work in a business profession. Frequent e-mail use away from the office using wireless is also a must.

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A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, which ordered Microsoft to ship Sun Microsystem's Java technology with Windows.

"We conclude that the district court's findings are insufficient to support its conclusion that immediate irreparable harm will be sustained if the mandatory preliminary injunction is not entered, and accordingly, that injunction must be vacated," the court wrote.

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Microsoft has launched its next generation Pocket PC software platform, now dubbed Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PCs. The new release features enhanced wireless networking with native Bluetooth support, and improved security. Mobile entertainment has also been given a boost, as Windows Mobile 2003 supports Windows Media 9 Series audio and video, along with digital photo viewing.

"Windows Mobile 2003 software for Pocket PCs creates new opportunities for hardware, software and wireless companies to partner and deliver innovative solutions to help improve the way people work and live," said Juha Christensen, Microsoft corporate vice president for the Mobile Devices Division.

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage Monday at WWDC 2003 in San Francisco, ushering in a new era of 64-bit desktop computing. Jobs offered developers a first look at Apple's upcoming release of Mac OS X version 10.3, code-named "Panther" and put to rest a myriad of rumors and speculation with the introduction of the Power Mac G5.

Based on the 64-bit PowerPC 970 processor from IBM, the G5 desktop features a 1 GHz front-side bus and supports up to 8GB of memory. The new systems utilize 400 MHz 128-bit DDR SDRAM, PCI-X, AGP 8X Pro graphics and dual Serial ATA hard drive interfaces.

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The long awaited refresh build of Office 2003 Beta 2 has been released to approximately 15,000 technical beta testers via BetaPlace. The update makes a number of improvements to the second beta and comes in the form of individual patches for each Office System application.

Microsoft chose to make a smaller initial release in order to evaluate the best method for distributing the refresh code to the over 600,000 Office 2003 beta users. The patches will eventually be available via Office Update for all users to download.

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UPDATED Microsoft has launched a public preview of its next generation instant messaging client, MSN Messenger 6. The fresh release sports new emoticons and customizable identities designed to create a "virtual playground."

An early beta version of MSN Messenger 6 leaked out in May, offering enthusiasts a peek at Microsoft's IM plans. Although Redmond usually condemns the spread of unauthorized beta releases, the company has embraced the promotion, openly boasting the number of illicit downloads.

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Microsoft this week issued a beta of the next release of Producer, a free add-on for PowerPoint that enables users to create rich-media presentations using synchronized audio, video and slides.

Producer 2003 integrates with PowerPoint 2003, which will be released with Office System 2003 in late summer, and offers improved audio and video using Windows Media 9 Series codecs. The beta release also adds support for playback under Internet Explorer for Mac and Netscape browsers on Windows.

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