Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley's blog covers the products, people and strategies that make Microsoft tick.
Novell went public on November 7 with more specifics, including the financial terms, of the partnership it announced last week with Microsoft. In spite of the additional details, there are still a few things still remain mysterious.
When you hear tomorrow that Vista is finally cooked, remember that the oven is still on....
In yet another "Why isn't this a Windows Live service?" development, Microsoft has released a beta of a social-bookmarking tool, code-named "TagSpace."
According to a couple of Microsoft bloggers, Microsoft is taking IronPython to the next level by integrating it more tightly with Microsoft's own ASP.Net scripting language.
Microsoft hit another milestone on the road to Windows Vista on November 6: The .Net Framework 3.0 has gone to manufacturing.
For some reason, Microsoft isn't calling the hosted versions of its Microsoft Dynamics ERP products "ERP Live." But, in effect, that is what the hostable Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics SL and Dynamics AX products, rolled out in Munich on November 6 by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the Convergence EMEA conference, really are.
On November 6, however, Microsoft broke the cone of silence around its plans for Vista-optimized versions of its own apps by announcing that it will roll out a new version of its Dyanmics CRM product "at the same time as the 2007 Office release.
The development work on Office 2007 is done, Microsoft confirmed on November 6.The team's work isn't done; now it's time for Microsoft to roll out new distribution, deployment and management tools to convince customers -- especially the usually recalcitrant business ones, for whom older versions of Office work just fine, thanks -- to upgrade.
Checking around the Web this weekend, there are a couple of reports -- unconfirmed by Microsoft officials, as far as I can tell -- that Office 2007 was released to manufacturing some time after Friday evening, and that Vista is set to RTM on November 8.
I don't know about you, but I'm all Novell'ed out for now. However, here are a few related links to ponder over the weekend.
Much of what you are reading about the Microsoft-Novell alliance announced Thursday is overblown. There is no hell freezing over, no snowballs melting and definitely no white flags fluttering over the Microsoft headquarters building. Microsoft is not conceding that desktop Linux is gaining ground. It's not admitting that its closed-source strategy has failed.
The most meaty part of the November 2 cooperative-technology deal between Microsoft and Novell is also the hardest to understand: The patent portion.
There's no way anyone can tell me that this Microsoft-Novell deal isn't all about Oracle
Less than a month after the death of long-time Microsoft adversary and Novell founder Ray Noorda, might Microsoft and Novell find common ground? It sounds wild, but it's not impossible. I can think of a few areas where such a partnership would make sense.
Microsoft has launched three new (and unrelated) Web sites worth checking out.
Microsoft's new Outlook email client is live (at least for now)
Productivity
Microsoft to rebrand its partner program and focus resellers further around its cloud
Cloud
Microsoft readies its latest 'industrial metaverse' pitch
Metaverse
Microsoft's latest Windows patches fix the bug causing user data not to be erased
Windows
Microsoft starts testing 'Suggested Actions' in new Windows 11 test build
Windows 11