This post was written by Jeff Johnston
On Computerworld, Scot Finnie says that Microsoft Inc. is standing at the most important crossroads. The company, which always managed to provide customers with what they wanted, seems to have lost its focus after the 2004 antitrust ruling. It even allowed the search business opportunity to pass by and started taking focusing on generating short-term profits rather than on charting a long-term strategy. IT customers expect the industry leader to ante up some big-time vision and R&D that delivers significant innovation.
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Microsoft Inc. has further extended the life of Windows XP so that computer makers can include the operating system on low-cost desktop PCs. Microsoft has been under pressure from computer makers to provide a version of its OS for an emerging class of very low-cost laptops and desktops. Its new Windows Vista OS is widely seen as too resource-hungry for those machines. PC makers can now include Windows XP in those systems until 2010, the same as the deadline for low-cost laptops.
Awareness Inc. has launched its platform that has been integrated with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. This integration, developed by working with Microsoft Inc., brings the value of social media to Microsoft Office SharePoint Products and Technologies and enables users to directly engage with Awareness-powered, external-facing Web 2.0 communities. The scalable and searchable backend of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, ideal for broad information-sharing within an enterprise, combined with Awareness’ expertise in powering social media communities, gives companies an effective way to tie their internal collaboration closely to their external Web communities.
On ChannelWeb, Joseph F. Kovar has quoted solution providers as saying that there is little chance that Microsoft Inc.’s imminent release of Hyper-V server virtualization technology will pose a challenge to VMware and other server virtualization vendors for the next couple of years. However, the solution providers said that customer acceptance of the new Microsoft technology combined with how Microsoft advances technology has the potential to impact VMware and others over time.