Dell is to stop selling new computers with Windows XP from today unless buyers spend an extra $50 to downgrade their operating system.

Customers looking to buy models from the company’s Vostro line will be offered Vista Business, but Dell will downgrade the system for an extra $50.

Some of the company’s XPS gaming systems will also carry a charge for the downgrade.

The move will raise eyebrows, since Dell may be seen as trying to cash in on the unpopularity of Microsoft’s latest operating system.

Dell was one of the first companies to offer a free downgrade service to customers, primarily aimed at small businesses reluctant to make the move to Vista.

Microsoft has said that it will stop selling XP licences and boxed software on 30 June, although it has already extended the lifespan of the operating system.

Microsoft’s TownSquare internal social network provides employees with feeds and updates about their colleagues

At the request of its SharePoint and Office product development teams, Microsoft ’s Office Labs operation has created and is testing a prototype of an internal social network that can provide employees with feeds and updates about their colleagues.

Chris Pratley, general manager of Office Labs , is slated to disclose details of the prototype — called TownSquare — Thursday at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. He spoke to Computerworld about the project, which was launched in January and has already been used by about 8,000 Microsoft employees.

With a layout that is strikingly similar to Facebook.com’s (in which Microsoft invested $240 million in October 2007), TownSquare is fueled by enterprise news feeds that use Web services to query SharePoint for public information, such as promotions and company anniversaries, about an employee.

TownSquare also notifies users when a document or file is modified. Users can customize their feeds and monitor who is receiving information about them.

In early January, Pratley’s group told 100 Microsoft employees about the network. Since then, 8,000 employees who learned of TownSquare by word of mouth have visited the network at least once, Pratley noted. About 700 use it daily.

Some Microsoft customers, which he declined to name, are testing the TownSquare network for use in their companies.

Office Labs works as a sort of advance development team that tests technology concepts suggested by employees and, as in this case, development teams. Pratley stressed that TownSquare is not a product, but a platform to test the technology concepts. By hammering out the various likes and dislikes of its users before releasing a product, “We’re trying to get version three goodness into a first release,” he added.

“We have instrumentation ?so we know which things people use,” Pratley noted. “We share that with the client teams we work with. They take the knowledge about usage so they don’t make so many mistakes in product design.”

Many third party vendors have targeted SharePoint as the core data source for information to feed their enterprise social networking and other Enterprise 2.0 applications. Several have announced upgrades to their products or new integration with SharePoint this week at the conference.

Anecdotal evidence has shown that employees like the TownSquare tool, Pratley noted. Employees especially appreciate being able to monitor the creation and editing of documents by colleagues, he added. One employee used the network to find a sponsor within Microsoft to fund her trip to the Enterprise 2.0 Conference.

“That is the kind of information that spreads through an enterprise social network,” he said. “By posting it out there, the people interested can pick up on it, and other people can ignore it. It’s a way to keep in touch in a social way with people you work with.”

Like Facebook , TownSquare also includes a photos of users and allows them to note when they are away from their workstations, such as at a meeting or in the cafeteria for coffee.

While some employees have expressed initial surprise at all the information that Microsoft has about them in its intranet, once people see the type of information that is included in the feeds about them, “they see it’s pretty safe stuff and say okay,” Pratley said.

By Heather Havenstein, Computerworld

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP/Vista/2000/Server 2003/Server 2008 (KB950759)
Security issues have been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a system that is running Microsoft Internet Explorer and gain control over it. You can help protect your system by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Security Update for Windows XP/Vista/Server 2003 (KB951376)
A security issue has been identified that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to compromise your Microsoft Windows-based system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Security Update for Windows XP/Vista/Server 2003 (KB950762)
A security issue has been identified that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the affected system to stop responding. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Cumulative Security Update for ActiveX Killbits for Windows XP/Vista/2000/Server 2003/Server 2008 (KB950760)
Security issues have been identified in ActiveX controls that could allow an attacker to compromise a system that is running Microsoft Internet Explorer and gain control over it. You can help protect your system by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Security Update for Windows XP/Vista/2000/Server 2003/Server 2008 (KB951698)
A security issue has been identified in Microsoft DirectShow that could allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - June 2008 (KB890830)
After the download, this tool runs one time to check your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps remove any infection that is found. If an infection is found, the tool will display a status report the next time that you start your computer. A new version of the tool will be offered every month. If you want to manually run the tool on your computer, you can download a copy from the Microsoft Download Center, or you can run an online version from microsoft.com. This tool is not a replacement for an antivirus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an antivirus product.

The embarrassing shareholder class action lawsuit filed by the pensions funds for Detroit policemen and firemen as well as its city workers against Yahoo! spells out not just what it calls a web of cushy interlocking relationships and rich pay for the board members, but what it says is the real reason why Yahoo!’s board rejected Microsoft’s $33 a share offer to buy the Internet giant.

The lawsuit created headlines this week as it contained allegations that the board and Yahoo! chief executive Jerry Yang had enacted a brand new employee compensation plan that acted as a deal spoiler, as it could have encouraged employees to walk out en masse for “any good reason,” including changes in job titles, with total payouts reaching as much as $2.4bn, including accelerated stock and stock option vesting for all employees, all sums an acquirer such as Microsoft would have to pay (the reason why Microsoft said it set aside an extra $1.5bn to do the deal).

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July 11 the 3G iPhone will reach the snatching hands of the crazed public. The new iPhone supports new features such as 3G wireless (surprise!), GPS mapping, enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange, and the new App Store. Keeping in line with the original iPhone, you get the same major features: widescreen iPod, and desktop-class web browser. It also includes smart sensors that help save battery life by adjusting the backlight based on ambient light.

The 3G iPhone is presented with the lines: “Twice as fast. Half the price.” The price will start at $199.

Click here to see the features of Apple iPhone 3G
 

By Kevin McLaughlin, ChannelWeb
9:00 PM EDT Mon. Jun. 09, 2008

From the June 09, 2008 issue of ChannelWeb In the latest salvo of its ongoing war against software piracy, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) late Monday announced the filing of 21 lawsuits in federal court in 14 states against resellers who it claims have been illegally distributing its software.

Sharon Cates, an antipiracy attorney at Microsoft, says many of the resellers targeted have been using a tactic known as hard disk loading, which involves taking a single piece of software and loading on multiple PCs, and then selling those PCs to unwitting customers.

In this scenario, not only do customers run the legal risks involved with using unlicensed software, they also lose out on upgrade rights, access to technical support, and key security protections, Cates said. Hard disk loading also leads to Microsoft’s honest channel partners being undercut by unscrupulous resellers, she added.

“A lot of people don’t know what kind of media they are supposed to get when they buy a PC, and that makes it easier for the software pirate to fool customers,” Cates said.

Cates says software piracy continues to be huge problem for Microsoft, which has been diligently tracking down those who distribute counterfeit or improperly licensed products as part of its ongoing Genuine Software Initiative.

While today’s lawsuits are civil cases, Microsoft has also been pursuing criminal cases against certain resellers. In August, a U.S. district court handed out a 46-month prison sentence in a criminal case to a Georgia man convicted of using fake certificates of authenticity to sell pirated versions of Microsoft software.

These efforts are beginning to have an impact on the software giant’s bottom line: Last November, Citigroup enterprise software analyst Brent Thill predicted that Microsoft’s efforts to battle software pirates could add up to an extra $1 billion in fiscal 2008 revenue.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Microsoft’s failed attempt to buy Yahoo will send it searching for new allies and likely see Yahoo’s share price plummet, leaving Internet giant Google the big winner, analysts said.

Microsoft announced Saturday that it had given up its quest for the struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo, which rejected Microsoft’s offer even after it raised the original bid by five billion to more than 46 billion dollars.

The announcement ended three months of overtures by the software giant, which wanted to merge its Internet resources with Yahoo’s worldwide offerings to gain ground on undisputed online advertising juggernaut Google.

Google meanwhile has increased its share of the Internet search engine market and multiplied its innovations. The firm recently also announced a way to refine its image searches, based on technology that recognizes images, not text.

Analysts believe moreover that the Microsoft-Yahoo talks have benefited Google, and suggest Microsoft did well to cut them short.

“Microsoft did the smart thing — they walked,” said Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle. “Yahoo’s stock price is going to come down like a rock on Monday.”

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Concerned that customers are confusing the impending end of Windows XP retail availability with the end of support, Microsoft Corp. has reminded users that the aged operating system will be supported until early April 2014. Jared Proudfoot, a manager in Microsoft’s support life cycle group, reiterated the final support dates for Windows XP in a post to a company blog.

“Recently, there have been a number of posts in the blogosphere about Windows XP and the upcoming end of direct OEM and retail license availability,” said Proudfoot. “Some people are interpreting this as the end of support for Windows XP.”

Not so, Proudfoot said. Windows XP will remain in what Microsoft calls “mainstream support” to April 14, 2009, and continue in “extended support” though April 8, 2014, he added. The former delivers free fixes — for both security patches and other bug fixes — to everyone. During the latter, all users receive security updates, but nonsecurity hot fixes are given only to companies that have signed support contracts with Microsoft.

Those are not new dates, Proudfoot reminded customers last week. In early 2007, for instance, Microsoft extended support for Windows XP Home and XP Media Center to the 2009 and 2014 dates to match those already set for Windows XP Professional.

Read Full Story - Click Here

Saturday May 3, 9:33 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) withdrew its offer for Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) on Saturday as negotiations fell through on price, even after the software giant raised its bid by about $5 billion to $47.5 billion.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said his company increased its offer to $33 per share, from the $31 per share cash-and-stock bid that it initially made on January 31. But Yahoo was looking for $37 a share, Ballmer said.

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer,” Ballmer said in a statement.

“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” said Ballmer.

Yahoo was not immediately available for comment.

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In the last few days, we have uncovered a compatibility issue between Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) and both Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). In order to make sure customers have the best possible experience, we have decided to delay releasing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to the web.

To help protect customers, we plan to put filtering in place shortly to prevent Windows Update from offering both service packs to systems running Microsoft Dynamics RMS.  Once filtering is in place, we expect to release Windows XP SP3 to the web.

We are also testing a fix, and will make it available once that process is complete.  Once they have installed the fix, Microsoft Dynamics RMS customers should be able to run both service packs.

Until then, we advise Microsoft Dynamics RMS customers to not install either service pack.  Microsoft Dynamics RMS customers running Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1 should contact Microsoft Customer Support Services for additional information.

 For Details .. click here