redmondians Resources on ZDNet

ZDNet Resources

Microsoft finally takes the beta tag off its Salesforce competitor: For the past couple of years, Microsoft has been crowing about its hosted CRM service that competes head-to-head with services from Salesforce.com. It wasn't until today, April 22, however, that Microsoft's offering in this space became generally available. Microsoft has now taken the "Early Access" label...; Tags: Salesforce.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Beta, CRM, Redmondians, Advertising & Promotion, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Sales Force Management, Enterprise Software, Marketing, Software, Sales, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-04-22

Additional Resources

The real question: Is Microsoft still interested in Yahoo?: I actually believed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer when he said he was walking away from buying Yahoo. I wasn't among the crowd who thought Ballmer was just posturing, waiting for Yahoo stock prices to plummet and Yahoo shareholder lawsuits to mount before sweeping back in and getting Yahoo for a...; Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., Web Site Development, Financial Accounting, Internet, Finance, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-05-15
Office streaming: What Microsoft will and won't say: Last week, there was talk that Microsoft was considering broadening the way it makes Microsoft Office available over the Web using streaming technology. (For the record, it wasn't Microsoft doing the talking; it was some overly enthused partners.) On April 30, Microsoft shared a...; Tags: Softricity SoftGrid, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-04-30
Microsoft's competitor to Adobe Lightroom gets another champion: What's Microsoft want with Adobe Photoshop guru Mark Hamburg, who recently joined the Redmond juggernaut? Hamburg a programmer who has been part of the Adobe Photoshop team since version 2.0 and helped lead the Photoshop Lightroom one, is now a Softie, as News.com's Stephen Shankland reported on...; Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Lightroom, Microsoft Corp., Team Management, Management, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-04-29
Doing the Microsoft patent math: Just over a year ago, Microsoft officials threw down the patent gauntlet, claiming free and open-source software violated 235 of its patents -- but refused and continue to refuse to get more specific. Today, thanks to a post by my ZDNet blogging colleague Jason Perlow, there's a new piece of...; Tags: Patent, Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Corp., Patent Application, Microsoft Windows, Servers, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-04-22

Microsoft accidentally delivers Office Genuine nagware: Microsoft is acknowledging that on April 15 it accidentally delivered its new Office Genuine Notifications to users outside of its planned pilot areas of Chile, Italy, Spain and Turkey. Infoworld quotes Cori Hartje, the Director of Microsoft's Genuine Software Initiative, on the mix-up: "The Office Genuine...; Tags: Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-04-18
Microsoft blogger publishes Silverlight 2.0 timetable: Microsoft officials have been mostly careful about talking about their Silverlight 2.0 release schedule. (I say "mostly" because one Microsoft official told me at the Mix '08 conference last month that the Redmondians were planning to deliver the final Silverlight 2.0 release this coming fall.) ...; Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Corp., Blogger, Blogging, Internet, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-04-04
Forrester: Forget Macs. In business, it's still all about Windows: In spite of the continual noise around Macs gaining marketshare, Windows still totally and completely rules the enterprise roost. That's another of the findings of the Forrester Research report I cited earlier today -- "Enterprise Desktop And Web 2.0/SaaS Platform Trends, 2007. Consumer love...; Tags: Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows Vista, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Forrester Research Inc., Upgrades, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-31
OOXML vs. ODF: Lessons learned: The votes have been tallied but it's still not 100 percent certain that Microsoft's Office Open XML OOXML document-format is going to become an ISO standard. (Supposedly, the vote is still too close to call and neither ISO nor Microsoft is yet discussing the final results. But...; Tags: Microsoft Office, ISO, Microsoft Corp., OpenDocument Format, OOXML, Government Contract, OpenDocument Format (ODF), Iso standards, Process Improvement, Emerging Technologies, Quality, Business Operations, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-31
C2: Microsoft's take on FriendFeed?: Microsoft isn't usually the first or second or third company that folks associate with social networking. But maybe the Redmondians, or at least the researchers on the Microsoft Research C2 team, aren't as unsociable as some assume. Microsoft showed off earlier this month at its TechFest research...; Tags: Team, Microsoft Windows Live, Microsoft Corp., C2, C2 Data, Microsoft Windows, Team Management, Operating Systems, Software, Management, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-24
Microsoft inches toward public beta of 'Stirling' security suite: It's been a while since Microsoft has shared information on "Stirling," the all-in-one security suite the company is assembling. Microsoft is planning to release a public beta of Stirling -- the suite of Forefront client, server and edge security products, wrapped in a unified management and reporting...; Tags: Microsoft Corp., Beta, Stirling Castle, Forefront Online, Security, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-20
Could Yahoo's 'openness' be another anti-Microsoft poison pill?: Even though Microsoft and Yahoo allegedly are at the bargaining table, I can't help but wonder what Yahoo is doing behind the scenes to minimize Microsoft's impact when and if it acquires Yahoo. We already know that Yahoo CEO Yang created golden parachutes for Yahoo employees (along...; Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., Open Source, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-14
A look back at Microsoft's advertising-related acquisitions: On March 14, Microsoft acquired another Web-advertising vendor, Rapt. It's clear: The Redmondians are building out their advertising portfolio through acquisitions. Microsoft was thwarted in its attempt to buy (and then block-Google's acquisition of) DoubleClick. And it's still uncertain whether Microsoft will pull off...; Tags: Acquisition, Advertisement, Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Law, Investment, Finance, Business Operations, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-14
Will IE 8 break the Web?: There's been one nagging question about Internet Explorer IE 8 about which I can't stop wondering: Once it finally ships, will it break the Web? It's not just because I'm an unabashed Microsoft skeptic that I am puzzling over this. It's also because right up until...; Tags: Developer, Web, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Standards, Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-12
This is why I'll always remain a Microsoft skeptic: As its leadership has changed, so, too, has Microsoft. But I am never going to stop being skeptical of Microsoft's motives. Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie may profess that the company's top priorities are transparency, standards and interoperability. But regardless of these kinds of pronouncements, the...; Tags: Antitrust, Phoenix Technologies, Microsoft Corp., Virtualization, Corporate Law, Storage Management, Utility Computing, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Hardware, Business Operations, Storage, Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows, Software, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-03-10
Google's Schmidt talks (about nothing you care about): Google's Schmidt talks about nothing you care aboutSo do you have some sort of point?This article is too short, too snarky, and frankly doesn't say much other than "The interview was boring." You don't even provide a single quote from the interview. Frankly looks like you skimmed the interview, and...; Tags: Google Inc.; Discussion threads 2008-02-29
European Commission vs. Microsoft: Who is being unreasonable?: Now we know another reason Microsoft rolled out with great fanfare last week its interoperability principles. Not only was it hoping for one more chance to claim openness around its Office Open XML document format, but it was also hoping to head off another hefty antitrust fine from the European...; Tags: Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-02-27
Microsoft courts open-source vendors to support Win Server 2008: When Microsoft officially launches Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 in one fell swoop on February 27, it will have a cadre of software, hardware and services partners backing its play. One group that won't be physically onstage with Microsoft CEO Steve...; Tags: Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-02-26
'Arrowhead' updates to .Net 3.5 to speed WPF apps: While Silverlight -- a k a "Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere" -- seems to be where all the Microsoft rich-media buzz is these days, the Redmondians haven't forgotten about plain-vanilla WPF, the presentation-layer piece of .Net. Microsoft is working under the covers to speed the loading times of...; Tags: Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Microsoft Corp., .Net, Application Servers, Middleware, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Enterprise Software, Software, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-02-19
What is it about Microsoft that Yahoo most hates?: By the end of today -- if TechCrunch's sources are right -- we may know whether Yahoo is going to accept or fight Microsoft's bid to buy out Yahoo. Whether or not the final word comes down today -- and launches the antitrust-investigation phase of the proposed...; Tags: Partnership, Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., Business Structures, Finance, Mary Jo Foley; Blog posts 2008-02-08