Stuart J. Johnston

In a move aimed at broadening its unified communications reach, Microsoft announced Thursday it has agreed to purchase enterprise chat vendor Parlano. The seven-year old Chicago-based company is the developer of MindAlign which “enables people to carry on topic-specific, multiparty instant messaging discussions that persist over time,” according to a Microsoft statement. Microsoft says it’s […]

Amid the hubbub surrounding the impending beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 this week, Microsoft  also quietly disclosed it is delaying the release of Vista’s complement – Windows Server 2008 – until the first quarter of next year. “This seems like the best place to let you know that Windows Server 2008, which we […]

After weeks of confusion over when the beta of Windows Vista’s first service pack will see the light of day, Microsoft finally announced a tentative schedule today. The bad news is that the beta is still a ways off. In fact, the most that Microsoft will say in trying to pin down the start of beta […]

After looking questionable earlier this summer, Microsoft will likely get the U.S.’s vote on its pitch to make Office Open XML (OOXML) an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard. Meanwhile, the cut-off date for the final vote tally as to whether it will become a recognized ISO standard looms this coming Sunday, Sept. 2. However, […]

Multi-touch screen technologies are the latest thing for high-tech gadgets, from Apple’s iPhone to Microsoft’s Surface tabletop computer. But to date, there has been a limit to how useful a multi-touch interface could be. It’s not practical in most circumstances, for instance, to put all ten fingers on a touch screen at once. For one […]

Nokia and Microsoft announced Thursday that the Redmond software firm has created a suite of its Live services specifically for S60 mobile handsets. Users in 11 countries with compatible S60 devices – including phones from not only Nokia but also its S60 licensees, such as LG Electronics, Samsung, and Lenovo – can download the suite […]

Microsoft  next week will begin beta testing a new advertising offering for its online properties – keyword ads on content pages. Prosaically named Content Ads, the new addition, which goes into public beta test for U.S. advertisers on August 29, is an enhancement to Microsoft’s adCenter advertising platform. Content Ads will provide just what it […]

Tafiti: It sounds like something contestants might yell on Survivor Africa. But it’s really an experimental Microsoft  search mashup application built around the company’s Silverlight cross-platform streaming media technology and Microsoft’s Live Search engine. The experimental application, which uses Silverlight to front-end Windows Live Search, is available online as of this week. “[Tafiti is] meant […]

Hewlett-Packard  retained its lead in global server shipments during the second quarter, according to a new report, but IBM  also retained its lead in revenue from server sales. Overall, according to Gartner, worldwide server shipments increased 2.7 percent from the same quarter in 2006, while revenue rose 5.1 percent year over year. Additionally, worldwide server […]

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it is shipping Beta 2 of the first service pack for Exchange Server 2007. With this beta, which is also being called a community technology preview or CTP, Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now feature complete, according to company officials. Exchange Server 2007 shipped last December. Among the new capabilities coming […]

Our ever-evolving digital lifestyle has changed the way we do many things, from online banking to researching school papers to finding a soul mate to buying airline tickets and homes. The consequence of that is that energy consumption by datacenters in the U.S. has doubled over the past five years and that growth rate shows […]

An adult photo publisher Thursday sued Microsoft for copyright infringement, saying the software giant’s MSN Search engine displays thumbnails of pirated versions of the company’s copyrighted pictures in search results, and that those results include links to the full-size pirated versions. Never mind that a federal appeals court less than three months ago tossed out […]