David Worthington

According to Microsoft Watch, last week, Microsoft released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Visual Studio 2005 -- code-named Whidbey -- to MSDN subscribers and will follow up with a December preview of Visual Studio Team System. A second beta may arrive in February, confirming earlier speculation that the product has been pushed back into 2005.

Essentially, the delay means that the Longhorn wave of products will slip further into the horizon. Just like Whidbey is a rest stop on the way to Longhorn, Whidbey itself is dependent on a certain level of progress in the development of Longhorn itself.

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RealNetworks is upping the ante in its cat and mouse game with Apple. Tuesday, the company announced intentions to port its controversial Harmony technology to the iPod Photo after a firmware update broke compatibility.

In July, Real "stunned" Apple by unlocking the iPod's digital rights management components, essentially breaking Apple's proprietary hold on the player. Real has promoted iPod compatibility as a feature of its online music store.

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America Online subsidiary ICQ is previewing version 5.0 of its instant messaging software, which delivers more robust communication capabilities including a walkie-talkie like function called Push2Talk and improved video messaging.

Other tidbits provided by beta testers point to the addition of new customization options and core improvements that allow for dual screen support, full screen games support and the option to use the Enter key to send messages.

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For the first time, normal telephone users will be able to contact a deaf person without TTY terminals thanks to instant messaging. America Online and MCI have joined together to enable people with hearing disabilities to receive incoming calls using their own unique phone number. This improvement is made possible by an expansion of the AIM Relay service that enables deaf users to receive relay calls through AIM.

The AIM Relay Service launched in July 2004 as an accessibility feature for the deaf, hard of hearing and speech disabled that places outbound calls with AIM. To use the service, users can click on a Screen Name that invokes a session with an MCI relay operator who then places calls on the user's behalf and transcribes the conservation from text to voice and vice-versa.

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Yahoo! has jumped headlong into the deepening pool of vendors that are determined to establish themselves as leaders in the desktop search market. Yahoo! joins AOL, Ask Jeeves, Google and MSN in efforts to develop solutions that index and search hard drives as efficiently as they do the Web.

The company has paired up with search provider X1 to produce a beta version of Yahoo! Desktop Search within the coming weeks.

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A core group of 1,000 beta testers has received Beta 1 copies of R2, the next Microsoft Windows Server release, sporting build number 1711. R2 will fill the void between Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and the next generation Longhorn server, which is slated to hit the market some time in the 2007 timeframe.

Late November, Microsoft opened up nominations for a larger second round of testing, which, according to Microsoft Watch, is due to begin in Q2 2005. The final release of R2 is expected to ship in October 2005.

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Panda Software is gearing up for a new wave of corporate products that introduce new protection modules collectively named TruPrevent Technologies. With TruPrevent, Panda has added an additional layer of protection to its security line up that seeks out unknown viruses, malware and unauthorized users.

Panda claims that the technologies are interoperable with third party virus protection and versatile enough to be effective with or without updates, easing the burden for administrators.

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Xandros has publicly unveiled version 3 of its Desktop operating system, based on Linux. Xandros Desktop takes Linux to the consumer market with its own series of enhancements such as wireless network support, drag-and-drop CD burning, a personal firewall wizard, encrypted folders, simplified VPN access and alerts to software updates from the Xandros network.

The distribution is rooted in the 2.6.9 Linux kernel and sports a Xandros-enhanced version of KDE 3.3.

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International law enforcement and numerous industry leaders have joined forces to fight the growing problem of "phishing" scams. Digital PhishNet is a collaborative enforcement program designed to forestall socially engineered attacks executed via e-mail, which steal consumers' site passwords, credit card numbers and other personally identifiable information that relates to identity theft.

The program catches phish by tracing the origins of deceptive e-mails and phony Web sites in real time, then by passing that information on to law enforcement.

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Panda Software has extended its enterprise family of products and has released a free download of Panda SambaSecure Antivirus. A beta version of the software reveals Panda's intentions to offer customers a solution to protect Samba files servers and workstations from malware as they share resources between Windows and Linux on corporate networks.

Samba is a free, open source implementation of Microsoft's networking system that provides file and print sharing, as well as domain services. Samba is primarily used in Unix and Linux environments to facilitate communication with Windows systems, but the software is also included with Mac OS X.

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Artemis, a Microsoft system integrator, has opened its MCMS.RAPID beta program. MCMS.RAPID is a open source package designed to accelerate deployments of Microsoft Content Management Server 2003. The product is intended to make MCMS "quickstart" so that implementation costs are lower and utility is higher.

MCMS.RAPID is an alternative to Microsoft's FrontPage environment and is depicted by Microsoft Architectural Systems Engineer Mark Harrison as, "the primary building blocks needed for any CMS site." Harrison asserts that Microsoft is planning to invest heavily in the next version of the server and touts MCMS.RAPID as a platform for building repeatable vertical solutions.

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Microsoft has released a second Community Technical Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2005 and has announced the availability of a database management tool called SQL Server 2005 Express Manager. SQL Server 2005 now supports 64-bit Analysis Services and Integration Services in addition to its existing 64-bit database engine.

SQL Server 2005 Express Manager is based on the .NET Framework 2.0 and automates database administration and support tasks for several versions of the software including: SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000) and SQL Server 2005 Developer and Express Edition. The CTP may be downloaded at MSDN and Beta Place; 2005 Express Manager is a public download also available to MSDN and Beta Place subscribers.

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BetaNews has learned that Microsoft is developing a new consumer-oriented subscription service called Microsoft Office Outlook Live (MOOL) that is built on top of MSN Platform technologies.

According to several sources close to Microsoft who requested anonymity, MOOL leverages and extends existing MSN back-end platform infrastructure; services that are available in MSN Premium, such as MSN Outlook Connector; as well as MSN Hotmail integration.

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What do families, friends, soccer teams and book clubs have in common? America Online wants them to keep in contact with a new consumer version of its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) Voice Conferencing Service (AVC). The service is a based upon an existing voice conferencing service that is offered by AIM Business Services.

AOL is kicking off AVC's consumer availability with a sales promotion reminiscent of its ISP marketing tact, which offers customers the incentive of 500 free minutes within 30 days of registration.

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Microsoft's MSN division has announced a series of updates to its Internet services that it hopes will make e-mail, instant messaging and sharing easier and more personalized for customers.

Specifically, Microsoft is launching a beta version of a free blogging tool dubbed MSN Spaces, a new beta build of MSN Messenger 7.0 that alerts users of changes to their contact's Spaces, and an updated Hotmail that integrates MSN Spaces and presence awareness. The services are designed to be discoverable across each other and are more deeply integrated.

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