Stuart J. Johnston

Microsoft delivered the latest version of its unified communications platform on Tuesday, a release that makes progress towards its goal of integrating telephony and instant messaging (IM) features on the same commodity servers. The software titan unveiled Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 (R2) in mid-October at the VoiceCon conference in Amsterdam, saying at the […]

You might call it a tale of three operating systems. That’s the circumstance that Microsoft, its partners, and customers find themselves in as Microsoft works to support Windows XP, promote Windows Vista, and prepare for Windows 7’s debut. First off, Microsoft announced last week that it will stop blocking automatic downloads of Windows Vista Service […]

With availability of the Windows 7 beta slated to end less than two weeks from now, the Microsoft executive in charge said Friday that the new operating system is nearing the final testing phase. That may be a strong hint that Windows 7 is on, or even ahead of, schedule. It’s not the first time […]

Using a commonly-used open source license, Microsoft on Tuesday released source code for a virtualization technology it developed that is meant to make websites safer from attack. At least, that’s the hope. The technology, named Web Sandbox, is designed to isolate the different parts of a Web page from each other via virtualization, thus enhancing […]

The European Commission (EC) may require Microsoft and its PC manufacturing partners to include competing Internet browsers on new computers sold in Europe, Microsoft revealed in documents filed last week with securities regulators. Microsoft’s disclosure came after the EC’s competition directorate notified the software maker a week and a half ago that it had been […]

In wake of impending layoffs, Microsoft has released a preliminary response to a U.S. Senator who wants the software giant to cut non-citizens first. The upshot – it’s not that simple. Microsoft’s answer states that it will indeed layoff a significant number of H-1B temporary work visa holders but that their visiting worker status will […]

With all the hubbub last week regarding Microsoft’s first layoffs and dramatically lower sales, the company’s legal warriors were all but forgotten. So while facing the barbarians of Wall Street last Thursday, Microsoft was also struggling to cast out one of its biggest legal demons. In fact, as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was revealing how […]

Microsoft confirmed Friday it is going to provide a common location for users to connect with Office Live services and Windows Live. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has, until now, focused on providing Office Live services – principally Office Live Small Business and Office Live Workspace – that target small business users. Those services are currently in […]

Microsoft had grim news for investors and industry observers this morning, announcing its first large-scale layoffs while reporting that it missed earnings estimates during its second fiscal quarter of 2009. While the world’s largest software company continues to be profitable, its income has been scaled down since it last prognosticated about sales and earnings during […]

Despite receiving high marks for having few flaws in the public beta test of Windows 7 so far, some testers have run into a thorny problem with a bug reporting tool that causes the system to crash randomly. The good news is that several savvy bloggers, as well as Microsoft itself, have come up with […]

UPDATED: Remember what a rough time Microsoft had with the European Commission’s (EC) competition directorate in 2007 and 2008? If Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer thought those days of antitrust proceedings were receding into the past, he has another thing coming. The EC has sent Microsoft a so-called “Statement of Objections,” or SO, indicating that it […]

Dozens of major companies are announcing layoffs, while PC sales finished 2008 up only marginally. Even Microsoft is rumored to be looking at its first ever layoffs. Yet, according to a new survey, many small businesses are still optimistic about 2009 and are looking to expand their businesses’ presence on the Web. Released Wednesday, the […]