Stuart J. Johnston

If you can’t beat ’em – surround ’em. That may be the crux of Microsoft’s emerging strategy for combating emerging software-as-a-service (SaaS) competitors. Although Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) executives continue to criticize Office competitors such as OpenOffice.org, Sun’s StarOffice, and Google Docs as inadequate for most users’ needs, the company is not beyond changing directions when […]

Microsoft opened its annual Management Summit in Las Vegas Tuesday by announcing broad beta testing of two key products in its System Center management tool set. During the opening keynote, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Business, announced that System Center Operations Manager 2007 Cross Platform Extensions and System Center Virtual […]

In a move a little like Lucy pulling the ball out of the path of Charlie Brown’s lunging foot at the last moment, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) withdrew plans to make Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) publicly available today. The reason? The company ran into compatibility issues with Windows XP customers who also run Microsoft’s […]

Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) may provide a jolt to the company’s Windows-only culture — and not the kind you get from Jolt Cola. Microsoft’s FAST purchase, which closed Friday, gives it one of the premier enterprise search players, and a search platform that, in addition to Windows, supports rival operating […]

Microsoft has spoken. Windows XP’s days are numbered, and the clock runs out on June 30, 2008… or does it? It turns out that creative thinkers at Dell and Lenovo – and reportedly HP – have figured out a way that some customers can continue to get new PCs configured with XP Professional through January […]

Microsoft announced another stellar quarter on Thursday — at least in terms of breaking its old record for revenues in the third fiscal quarter of 2008, which ended on March 31. However, the quarterly tap dance that the company’s CFO typically performs for financial analysts didn’t impress many of them this time around. One of […]

UPDATED: Microsoft may appear to be under fire from a lot of quadrants these days, but that doesn’t appear to have harmed the company’s ability to print money. Despite a fairly strong showing, however, financial analysts were not impressed. The company announced Thursday another record for its fiscal third quarter in terms of gross revenues, […]

Microsoft’s Mesh goes live at Web 2.0. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has taken the wraps off an early version of its new Live Mesh online connectivity and synchronization service. The announcement, which includes the release of a “limited” technology preview of Live Mesh, was made in a blog post by Amit Mital, general manager of Live […]

Microsoft took another hit on the legal front Monday when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to let the software behemoth appeal a ruling by the judge in the so-called “Vista Capable” lawsuit that had granted the plaintiffs class action status. In a brief, one-paragraph order, the appeals court denied Microsoft’s request to […]

Attention Microsoft customers waiting to try out the company’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) hosted CRM offering: The wait is over. The software giant began delivering its Dynamics CRM Online service today, a Microsoft-hosted version of the company’s Dynamics CRM 4 customer relationship management software. Dynamics CRM Online, which Microsoft first demonstrated in July at its Worldwide Partner […]

For Windows XP users, the wait is nearly over. As predicted last week, Microsoft announced Monday that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) has been released to manufacturing (RTM) and is available to OEMs and enterprise customers. Meanwhile, downloads of XP SP3 will begin next Tuesday on April 29, also as expected. Chris Keroack, release […]

Microsoft emerged the victor last month when the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) confirmed that the company’s Office Open XML (OOXML) specification had garnered enough votes to qualify for standards certification. However, one ironic drawback remains following Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) efforts to win the votes of ISO representatives: It’s now incompatible with Microsoft Office. According […]