Stuart J. Johnston

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appears to be following through with his plans to move forward on the search engine front after the company’s ill-fated bid for Yahoo failed. That is – if Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) with a side of advertising is no longer on the menu, there are other fish to fry when it comes […]

The past week has been a momentous one. Co-founder Bill Gates officially retired. A few days later, Windows XP was retired. Officially, Monday, June 30 was the last day you could get Windows XP. Kinda, sorta, maybe … well, not really. It’s true that XP will no longer be sold by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) to […]

This is Bill Gates’ last official day as a Microsoft employee, though as the company’s largest shareholder, he remains the company’s chairman. To underline his exit, Gates gave an emotional goodbye speech to employees Friday morning that was Webcast across the globe. However, his departure leaves more than one burning question. Despite all of the […]

Image courtesy Reuters Friday, June 27, 2008, is truly the end of an era. The founder of the software industry’s most successful company is leaving after 33 years. Bill Gates is iconic, and despite all the press coverage that constantly surrounds him, enigmatic. He’s probably a certifiable genius; it certainly showed early on when he […]

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Windows Vista’s demise have been exaggerated. Somewhat, at any rate. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. recently released a report that indicated Vista still isn’t ringing many bells with major IT shops. “A year of overwhelmingly bad publicity, coupled with opportunities for continued XP ‘downgrades’ or potentially skipping over Vista […]

As they prepare for their regular quarterly meeting with the judge next week, lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and Microsoft Tuesday filed the two sides’ quarterly joint report regarding the company’s antitrust compliance. The verdict: there are still some loose ends. Slow delivery of documentation for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) communications protocols lands […]

In another move to solidify its overall advertising business strategy, Microsoft Wednesday said it bought privately held Navic Networks, which specializes in providing tools for managing advertising inventory for interactive television. Additionally, the company gains Navic’s Admira media placement platform, Microsoft said in a statement. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has been on a buying spree in […]

Microsoft announced Monday that hosted applications provider Concentric will offer hosted Exchange 2007 packages to small and medium-sized business customers beginning on July 15. According to a statement by the two companies, Concentric will provide four hosted Exchange offerings as a lower-cost alternative for customers who cannot afford the high startup costs of setting up […]

Despite CEO Steve Ballmer’s claims last year that Linux vendors are violating some 235 Microsoft patents, the company seems to be trying harder to learn to live with the open source world – and vice versa. Redmond said Monday it will co-sponsor the Open Source Census (OSC), a project aimed at getting a handle on […]

Remember that feeling as a kid when you had a crush on someone but that person obviously preferred the company of someone else – two’s company, three’s a crowd? Microsoft execs must have that left out feeling about now. After formerly pursuing Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) only to have the number two search player not only […]

They’re not Siegfried and Roy, but Las Vegas’ newest attraction hit the floor this week at Harrah’s Rio casino and hotel. What is it? Microsoft’s Surface multitouch, table-top computers have arrived. They’ve been a little slower arriving than promised when they were first shown this time last year, but Microsoft’s Surface computers are finally up […]