Microsoft News, Part Three (Final)
Oct 14, 2008 10:15:28 GMT
Post by CharlieChomper on Oct 14, 2008 10:15:28 GMT
As this is it (so far) of articles involving the company that doesn't cross into other matters, this will mark the last of this particular series. I still have more articles on other subjects to come including more security-related matters, hardware insights and issues, articles involving Apple as well as Google, along with a few other things which you'll just have to wait and see.
That said, I was originally going to post about the ongoing ODF vs OOXML document standard issue (as it's a matter that on some level may affect you--and in the case of this subject is relevant as OOXML is Microsoft's entry into the matter), but thought better of it given the most recent sources of information also getting into more of the political aspects of the industry. So, I'll leave it at saying it's gone from what appeared to be a "definite" OOXML victory as far as adoption was concerned to current investigations regarding issues with the voting processes as well as formal protests from countries such as Brazil (who have since independently adopted ODF) and South Africa to name but two (South Africa was actually the second country to file a formal protest over this)--the minimum number of countries required in order to halt the adoption of a standard file format and cause a possible re-examination or investigation into the matter is three. In this situation, given some of the issues that were involved and possible problems with the vote (anything ranging from conflicts of interest, accusations of possible bribery/corruption, people with no actual background or knowledge of the subject matter or even technology being placed on the voting committee, to anything else you might imagine), they had many more countries than that file formal protests over the voting process. However, more recently, it's become much more industry political in ways I can't really post here, so I will just leave it at that.
So, onto the news that I can post, I'll start off with something Microsoft is doing that's actually good. They're going after the so-called "scareware" writers (scam artists who basically create/write fake alerts in an attempt to scare people into thinking there's something wrong or a threat to Windows that actually doesn't exist in an attempt to get people to pay them for worthless/useless software that supposedly will "protect" their computers against this non-existent threat (some of you may have run across them from time to time--they'll say things like claiming that your registry is somehow "damaged" or "corrupted" and that if you purchase product x for a certain amount of money from them, it would supposedly fix it for you or offering to do a "free scan" of your computer, finds something "wrong" or a "problem" or non-existent exploit or vulnerability and recommends you buy a given product that will supposedly "protect" Windows against it when it's really more of a scam to get your money and some of them are either themselves malware or may introduce it to your system. Quite a number of them appear as annoying flash pop-ups (not to be confused with actual pop-up windows)).
The highest profile of those listed in this lawsuit is a company that makes a program called Registry Cleaner X. For those wishing to read about this (it comes from a blog written by a member of the security community), you can do so here.
For the next article, it's back to more news concerning the upcoming next release of Windows, codenamed Windows 7. As I may have mentioned before, the US Department of Justice/Justice Department (DOJ) is currently having to oversee development of it (it appears that Google, along with other Microsoft competitors, made the request for them to do so, citing concerns of anti-trust violations among other things) and Microsoft was required early on to submit plans regarding it early on. The result has been more information coming out as to what to expect and more recently, some insight into the current state of things. So far, it appears this may be released as "early" as around the Christmas holidays 2009 (it's previously gone back and forth between a 2009 and 2010 release, with the most recent estimate at early 2010, however, according to the latest documentation to be released, this has now changed in hopes apparently of getting out there in time for the holiday shopping season).
There has also been some grumbling amongst those who made the request for government oversight into the matter, over concerns of Microsoft attempting to do a repeat of what happened early on with just Vista's search capabilities of where it wouldn't permit users to set other search engines as the default (setting it to Microsoft and not allowing that to be changed). Google sued the company over the matter and won on the grounds that it was in violation of anti-trust laws. This, in turn, caused Microsoft to release a "patch" to "fix" Vista so that this wouldn't happen--it was made very clear to Microsoft that the problem had to be resolved (and with Microsoft apparently concerned over users who didn't patch, since they could still be in held responsible over it).
Companies and non-profit organizations alike are now concerned that given Microsoft's current push toward its "Live" services, and going subscription-only along with their past history, it could lead to another repeat of what happened earlier, hence why they requested the oversight (with Google being the highest profile of companies involved in making that request).
The fact that the next release so far appears as though it will be "modular" (as in, if you want to use certain types of features, you have to pay Microsoft a subscription fee to gain access to them for a given year or until your next reinstall--something that has been noted in past articles and news stories) has a number of people concerned.
Internally, it also appears that among the reasons as to why Microsoft is attempting to "rush" Windows 7 for release and push up its release date is because of the current situation with Vista and the fact that the company appears to have realized that it has been something of a disaster for them, to put it mildly--they're hoping that people will forgive/forget Vista and move onto Windows 7 instead (in fact, among the reasons as to why people whose computers have had problems with Vista's business editions working with their hardware are now getting an additional "extension" of sorts on XP Pro rescue CDs from the companies who built/sold the computers that went from ending on January 31 of next year to now July 31 of next year instead--the reason being that Microsoft is hoping to push those same people into Windows 7).
They've also approached Asus regarding the Eee and trying to get it running on that in hopes of not only selling more copies of 7, but also to try and do more to dominate that market as well and try and push Linux out (as I've mentioned in the past, Microsoft not only hates Linux, they consider it and open source software to be their "biggest threat").
On an almost lighter/odder note, the last article involves Microsoft finally ending OEM (think of your computer coming with Windows or Office or any other type of application preinstalled or your PDA's (such as Blackberry or Palm) software and even just operating system--those are all examples of what's known as OEM) licensing for Windows 3.11 (apparently, it still appears to be in use in the making of some embedded devices--although, I've honestly yet to know what would be an example of something in this day and age still that might still be using 3.11).
One point I tend to disagree with the author of this article on is on mocking the embedded market insisting upon such old software (although, it could as easily apply to hardware) and not moving toward something "newer".
However, the only comment I can really make on this is that that market has its own very specific requirements and needs which are very different from that of most people. Their main emphasis is on producing something that either uses the least amount of power necessary or uses it the most efficiently as it can for what it's supposed to do, uses up the least amount of space it can, and most importantly be as cheap as possible. The result of this means sometimes relying upon old or older technologies that are still available in an attempt to meet those criteria.
That said, I was originally going to post about the ongoing ODF vs OOXML document standard issue (as it's a matter that on some level may affect you--and in the case of this subject is relevant as OOXML is Microsoft's entry into the matter), but thought better of it given the most recent sources of information also getting into more of the political aspects of the industry. So, I'll leave it at saying it's gone from what appeared to be a "definite" OOXML victory as far as adoption was concerned to current investigations regarding issues with the voting processes as well as formal protests from countries such as Brazil (who have since independently adopted ODF) and South Africa to name but two (South Africa was actually the second country to file a formal protest over this)--the minimum number of countries required in order to halt the adoption of a standard file format and cause a possible re-examination or investigation into the matter is three. In this situation, given some of the issues that were involved and possible problems with the vote (anything ranging from conflicts of interest, accusations of possible bribery/corruption, people with no actual background or knowledge of the subject matter or even technology being placed on the voting committee, to anything else you might imagine), they had many more countries than that file formal protests over the voting process. However, more recently, it's become much more industry political in ways I can't really post here, so I will just leave it at that.
So, onto the news that I can post, I'll start off with something Microsoft is doing that's actually good. They're going after the so-called "scareware" writers (scam artists who basically create/write fake alerts in an attempt to scare people into thinking there's something wrong or a threat to Windows that actually doesn't exist in an attempt to get people to pay them for worthless/useless software that supposedly will "protect" their computers against this non-existent threat (some of you may have run across them from time to time--they'll say things like claiming that your registry is somehow "damaged" or "corrupted" and that if you purchase product x for a certain amount of money from them, it would supposedly fix it for you or offering to do a "free scan" of your computer, finds something "wrong" or a "problem" or non-existent exploit or vulnerability and recommends you buy a given product that will supposedly "protect" Windows against it when it's really more of a scam to get your money and some of them are either themselves malware or may introduce it to your system. Quite a number of them appear as annoying flash pop-ups (not to be confused with actual pop-up windows)).
The highest profile of those listed in this lawsuit is a company that makes a program called Registry Cleaner X. For those wishing to read about this (it comes from a blog written by a member of the security community), you can do so here.
For the next article, it's back to more news concerning the upcoming next release of Windows, codenamed Windows 7. As I may have mentioned before, the US Department of Justice/Justice Department (DOJ) is currently having to oversee development of it (it appears that Google, along with other Microsoft competitors, made the request for them to do so, citing concerns of anti-trust violations among other things) and Microsoft was required early on to submit plans regarding it early on. The result has been more information coming out as to what to expect and more recently, some insight into the current state of things. So far, it appears this may be released as "early" as around the Christmas holidays 2009 (it's previously gone back and forth between a 2009 and 2010 release, with the most recent estimate at early 2010, however, according to the latest documentation to be released, this has now changed in hopes apparently of getting out there in time for the holiday shopping season).
There has also been some grumbling amongst those who made the request for government oversight into the matter, over concerns of Microsoft attempting to do a repeat of what happened early on with just Vista's search capabilities of where it wouldn't permit users to set other search engines as the default (setting it to Microsoft and not allowing that to be changed). Google sued the company over the matter and won on the grounds that it was in violation of anti-trust laws. This, in turn, caused Microsoft to release a "patch" to "fix" Vista so that this wouldn't happen--it was made very clear to Microsoft that the problem had to be resolved (and with Microsoft apparently concerned over users who didn't patch, since they could still be in held responsible over it).
Companies and non-profit organizations alike are now concerned that given Microsoft's current push toward its "Live" services, and going subscription-only along with their past history, it could lead to another repeat of what happened earlier, hence why they requested the oversight (with Google being the highest profile of companies involved in making that request).
The fact that the next release so far appears as though it will be "modular" (as in, if you want to use certain types of features, you have to pay Microsoft a subscription fee to gain access to them for a given year or until your next reinstall--something that has been noted in past articles and news stories) has a number of people concerned.
Internally, it also appears that among the reasons as to why Microsoft is attempting to "rush" Windows 7 for release and push up its release date is because of the current situation with Vista and the fact that the company appears to have realized that it has been something of a disaster for them, to put it mildly--they're hoping that people will forgive/forget Vista and move onto Windows 7 instead (in fact, among the reasons as to why people whose computers have had problems with Vista's business editions working with their hardware are now getting an additional "extension" of sorts on XP Pro rescue CDs from the companies who built/sold the computers that went from ending on January 31 of next year to now July 31 of next year instead--the reason being that Microsoft is hoping to push those same people into Windows 7).
They've also approached Asus regarding the Eee and trying to get it running on that in hopes of not only selling more copies of 7, but also to try and do more to dominate that market as well and try and push Linux out (as I've mentioned in the past, Microsoft not only hates Linux, they consider it and open source software to be their "biggest threat").
On an almost lighter/odder note, the last article involves Microsoft finally ending OEM (think of your computer coming with Windows or Office or any other type of application preinstalled or your PDA's (such as Blackberry or Palm) software and even just operating system--those are all examples of what's known as OEM) licensing for Windows 3.11 (apparently, it still appears to be in use in the making of some embedded devices--although, I've honestly yet to know what would be an example of something in this day and age still that might still be using 3.11).
One point I tend to disagree with the author of this article on is on mocking the embedded market insisting upon such old software (although, it could as easily apply to hardware) and not moving toward something "newer".
However, the only comment I can really make on this is that that market has its own very specific requirements and needs which are very different from that of most people. Their main emphasis is on producing something that either uses the least amount of power necessary or uses it the most efficiently as it can for what it's supposed to do, uses up the least amount of space it can, and most importantly be as cheap as possible. The result of this means sometimes relying upon old or older technologies that are still available in an attempt to meet those criteria.
