Windows 7 Deployment Would be Slow?
KACE, a systems management appliance company, conducted a survey to IT market if they are going to support Windows 7 and leave Windows Vista to rot upon its deployment. 83 percent said yes, but 17 percent of the respondents also said that they are doing it within 12 months time.
Windows Vista's lack of stability drives many users to excitement when Windows 7 beta was released. This time around, Microsoft is heavily relying on the feedback it receives from Windows 7 beta testers to ensure that the new OS is stable and secure.
"We've had millions of people install and use the beta since January," noted the Windows 7 test team. "The feedback and telemetry have been of tremendous value as we finalize the product."
Another issue was the lack of support to large array of drivers, a reason why many IT industry was doubtful in deploying Vista.
"We have made significant investment in application compatibility, ensuring applications that worked on Vista continue to work on Windows 7, and we've also rescued some applications that were broken in Vista to work on Windows 7," Microsoft's Windows 7 test team reported.
Microsoft's goal in selecting applications is to test as many applications as it can that will expose the most issues across different scenarios and markets, Microsoft's test team said. "For Windows 7 we are testing over 1,200 applications across 25 specific markets," the team said. "We have improved our coverage over Vista by adding over 300 more international applications."
read the full story.
Large electronics companies set to create a wireless HD standard
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK - Sony, Samsung and other consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home.
The consortium due to be announced Wednesday is an important development in the race to create a definitive way to replace tangles of video cables, but doesn't end it — both Sony and Samsung also are supporting a competing technology.
In the new consortium, Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., along with Motorola Inc., Sharp Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., will develop an industry standard around technology from Amimon Ltd. of Israel called WHDI, for Wireless Home Digital Interface.
"If you have a TV in the home, that TV will be able to access any source in the home, whether it's a set-top box in the living room, or the PlayStation in the bedroom, or a DVD player in another bedroom. That's the message of WHDI," said Noam Geri, co-founder of Amimon.
Amimon is already selling chips that fulfill part of that promise, but the creation of a broad industry group makes it more likely that consumers will be able to buy WHDI-enabled devices from different manufacturers and have them all work together.
Geri expects TVs with Amimon's chips to reach stores next year, costing about $100 more than equivalent, non-wireless TVs.
Wireless streaming of high-definition video is a relatively tricky engineering problem that many companies are trying to tackle. It can be done with the fastest versions of Wi-Fi, a technology already in many homes, but that requires "compression," or reduction of the data rate, with picture quality degrading as a result. There's also a delay in transmission as chips on both ends of the link work to compress, then decompress the image.
That's prompted much research into radio technologies that are faster, requiring less compression. A leading contender is WirelessHD, centered on technology from SiBEAM Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif. It uses an open portion of the radio band, at 60 gigahertz, for ultrafast transmission of uncompressed video, but it could be years away from commercialization. Its range is limited, meaning that it would be used for in-room links rather than whole-house networking, like WHDI.
Sony is part of the WirelessHD group as well, and is supporting WHDI to have "wider options," the company said in a statement.
Samsung, on the other hand, looks at WHDI as a stopgap technology until the higher-picture-quality WirelessHD takes over. JaeMoon Jo, Samsung's vice president of TV research, said the company believes WirelessHD will be the "ultimate solution in the long run."
Still another contending wireless technology is ultra-wideband, or UWB. It requires less compression than Wi-Fi, but its range is more limited, generally to in-room networking. Monster Cable Products Inc. plans to introduce a kit that produces a wireless video link using UWB.
WHDI is less exotic than either WirelessHD or UWB. It uses a radio band at 5 gigahertz that's used by some Wi-Fi devices, which means it can take advantage of research in that field. To get around the limitations of the limited bandwidth, Amimon uses a clever trick instead of compression.
Before transmission, Amimon's chips separate the important components of the video signal, the ones that really make a difference to the viewer, from the less important ones, like tiny variations in color over a small area. It then gives priority to the important parts, while putting less effort into getting the fine nuances to the receiver.
That means the transmission works over relatively long distances, albeit with lower image quality as the distance increases.
Motorola has looked at competing technologies, but WHDI is the only group it's joined because of Amimon's "extremely unique" approach, said Paul Moroney, a Motorola research fellow who works with WHDI.
Motorola plans to build the technology into its set-top boxes, which are used by many cable providers around the country. But the first product will likely be a pair of adapters that talk wirelessly to one another. One could be attached to a set-top box, the other to a TV set, Moroney said.
Belkin International Inc. already sells a pair of adapters based on Amimon's chips for $1,000, and Sony has announced a similar set for its TVs. Moroney said Motorola hopes to sell a kit for significantly less than Belkin's price next year, as the technology matures.
Kurt Scherf, an analyst at Parks Associates, noted that wireless video technologies have been talked up for years, but haven't lived up to their promises so far. Professional audio-video installers surveyed by his firm aren't excited about wireless, because they're afraid of reliability problems.
Still, he said, WHDI's range should give it an edge, since it allows the technology to do more than just replace a cable in the entertainment center.
___
On the Net:
http://www.amimon.com
http://www.wirelesshd.org
Microsoft To Release Office 2007 SP1 Via Automatic Update
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
Microsoft plans to release Office 2007 Service Pack 1 via the company's automatic update service starting June 16.
The advanced announcement is a result of the software maker's promise to give at least a 30-day notice before making Office service packs available through Microsoft Update, which is a part of Windows Vista and Windows XP, the company said in its Office Sustained Engineering blog.
Microsoft released Office 2007 SP1 five months ago as a download on the company's Web site. Over that time, Microsoft claims to have had tens of millions of downloads and "a very good reaction" from customers.
Microsoft said the automatic update would be rolled out gradually to ensure that the service's infrastructure can handle distribution of the software. "Think of the 16th as the earliest possible start of distribution and that no sooner than that date will SP1 start to become available to customers' systems via this channel," the company said.
The strategy of rolling out service packs in phases gives the market plenty of time to evaluate the software and gives Microsoft time to address specific customer concerns, the company said. Microsoft used the same strategy with Service Pack 3 for Office 2003.
Among the new technologies in Office 2007 is a controversial new document format called Office Open XML, which was approved last month as an open standard by the International Organization for Standardization.
The ISO's action sparked an outcry from critics who claimed Microsoft stuffed local voting committees with supporters of OOXML, an allegation the company denies. The ISO said 75% of its member nations voted to approve OOXML as a standard, 14% voted against the format, while the rest abstained, the ISO said.
People Still Loves Windows XP
By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Technology Writer Sun Apr 13, 2:30 PM ET
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems run most personal computers around the globe and are a cash cow for the world's largest software maker. But you'd never confuse a Windows user with the passionate fans of Mac OS X or even the free Linux operating system.
Unless it's someone running Windows XP, a version Microsoft wants to retire.
Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.
No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can't be wowed. They complain about Vista's hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows.
For them, the impending disappearance of XP computers from retailers, and the phased withdrawal of technical support in coming years, is causing a minor panic.
Take, for instance, Galen Gruman. A longtime technology journalist, Gruman is more accustomed to writing about trends than starting them.
But after talking to Windows users for months, he realized his distaste for Vista and strong attachment to XP were widespread.
"It sort of hit us that, wait a minute, XP will be gone as of June 30. What are we going to do?" he said. "If no one does something, it's going to be gone."
So Gruman started a Save XP Web petition, gathering since January more than 100,000 signatures and thousands of comments, mostly from die-hard XP users who want Microsoft to keep selling it until the next version of Windows is released, currently targeted for 2010.
On the petition site's comments section, some users proclaimed they will downgrade from Vista to XP — an option available in the past to businesses, but now open for the first time to consumers who buy Vista Ultimate or Business editions — if they need to buy a new computer after XP goes off the market.
Others used the comments section to rail against the very idea that Microsoft has the power to enforce the phase-out from a stable, decent product to one that many consider worse, while profiting from the move. Many threatened to leave Windows for Apple or Linux machines.
Microsoft already extended the XP deadline once, but it shows no signs it will do so again. The company has declined to meet with Gruman to consider the petition. Microsoft is aware of the petition, it said in a statement to The Associated Press, and "will continue to be guided by feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs."
Gruman said he'd keep pressing for a meeting.
"They really believe if they just close their eyes, people will have no choice," he said.
In fact, most people who get a new computer will end up with Vista. In 2008, 94 percent of new Windows machines for consumers worldwide will run Vista, forecasts industry research group IDC. For businesses, about 75 percent of new PCs will have Vista. (That figure takes into account companies that choose to downgrade to XP.)
Although Microsoft may not budge on selling new copies of XP, it may have to extend support for it.
Al Gillen, an IDC analyst, estimated that at the end of 2008 nearly 60 percent of consumer PCs and almost 70 percent of business PCs worldwide will still run XP. Microsoft plans to end full support — including warranty claims and free help with problems — in April 2009. The company will continue providing a more limited level of service until April 2014.
Gillen said efforts like Gruman's grass-roots petition may not influence the software maker, but business customers' demands should carry more clout.
"You really can't make 69 percent of your installed base unhappy with you," he said.
Some companies — such as Wells Manufacturing Co. in Woodstock, Ill. — are crossing their fingers that he's right. The company, which melts scrap steel and casts iron bars, has 200 PCs that run Windows 2000 or XP. (Windows 2000 is no longer sold on PCs. Mainstream support has ended, but limited support is available through the middle of 2010.)
Wells usually replaces 50 of its PCs every 18 months. In the most recent round of purchases, Chief Information Officer Lou Peterhans said, the company stuck with XP because several of its applications don't run well on Vista.
"There is no strong reason to go to Vista, other than eventually losing support for XP," he said. Peterhans added that the company isn't planning to bring in Vista computers for 18 months to two years. If Microsoft keeps to its current timetable, its next operating system, code-named Windows 7, will be on the market by then.
Windows Mobile now with PDF and Flash support
Nancy Gohring Mon Mar 17, 12:14 PM ET
In addition to its own Silverlight multimedia technology, Microsoft will support Adobe's competing Flash technology on Windows Mobile phones, the companies planned to announce on Monday.
Microsoft has licensed Adobe Flash Lite, the Flash Player runtime for mobile devices, so that Windows Mobile phone users can view Flash content in the Internet Explorer Mobile browser. Microsoft has also licensed the Adobe Reader LE software, so that Windows Mobile users will be able to view PDF documents.
The announcement means Windows Mobile phones will support both Flash and Silverlight, Microsoft's own fledgling technology that lets developers build multimedia Internet applications that run in browsers.
Microsoft hasn't yet said when it will add the support for Silverlight to Windows Mobile, and nor is it saying when it plans to support the Adobe programs, said Scott Rockfeld, group product manager at Microsoft's Windows Mobile group.
The companies have some integration work ahead of them. "The engineers have to work together to integrate the technology, and then the platforms have to be distributed to OEMs," said Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for mobile and devices at Adobe. Adobe hopes that the capabilities will be found in phones by the end of the year, "but that's something Microsoft would have to comment on," he said.
Having both Silverlight and Adobe Flash on Windows Mobile is a natural, Rockfeld said. "From a Windows Mobile perspective it comes down to choice," he said. "Flash and Silverlight can provide similar experiences, just like we see in other areas." For example, Microsoft's Live Search and Google Maps, which offer similar services, are both accessible from Windows Mobile phones, he said.
Regardless of which technology users are most drawn to -- Silverlight or Flash -- the technologies both enable the types of multimedia content that phone users are interested in, said Julie Ask, an analyst with Jupiter Research. Her research shows that consumers who have phones that support rich browsing experiences, like the iPhone and some Nokia phones, generate more page views and are more likely to sign up for a data plan with their operator, she said.
"Adding Flash into the user experience on the phone will make it a better one, a richer media experience," Ask said.
Microsoft said last year that it would develop Silverlight for Windows Mobile. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that Nokia will use Silverlight. Nokia said it planned to ship phones running its Series 60 software that support Silverlight by the end of the year, with Series 40 and its Internet Tablet to follow.
Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG are all shipping Flash-enabled devices today, Murarka said. In addition to supporting Flash-based content on Web sites, mobile-phone makers and operators can also use Flash in content like screen savers, wallpapers and animated ring tones. Flash is also used in mobile-phone user interfaces.
Notably absent from the list of handsets using either technology is the iPhone. "We'd love to see Flash come to the iPhone," said Murarka. But just like any other phone maker, Apple would have to work with Adobe to license Flash for the iPhone. "Hopefully when we have the opportunity to review the SDK, and if it's a vehicle to deliver a solution, we would look forward to working with Apple," he said. Apple recently released an SDK that will allow third parties to build applications for the iPhone.
Microsoft buying Yahoo might hurt Internet -- Google
BEIJING (Reuters) - Google Inc, the world's leading search engine, said on Monday it was concerned about the free flow of information on the Internet if Microsoft Corp were to succeed in acquiring Yahoo Inc.
Last month, Microsoft proposed buying Yahoo in a deal originally worth $44.6 billion, but Yahoo's board has rejected the offer, saying it was too low.
"We would be concerned by any kind of acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft," Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told reporters.
"We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be."
Schmidt pointed to Microsoft's past history and "the things that it has done that have been so difficult for everyone," but he did not elaborate.
Last year, a European court upheld a landmark 2004 decision that Microsoft abused the near-monopoly power of its Windows operating system to damage competitors, along with a 497 million euro ($695 million) fine.
"We are concerned that there are things Microsoft could do that would be bad for the Internet," said Schmidt.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer pledged earlier this month that his company would gain market share against Google in online advertising and Web searching, even if led to his "last breath" at the company.
In a Reuters poll of financial analysts, the overwhelming majority said they believed Microsoft would eventually succeed in buying Yahoo, but many said they felt it may not be the best use of its ample cash reserves.
($=7.09 yuan)
(Reporting by Kirby Chien; editing by Ken Wills)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
