Josh Ledgard Program Manager working with the Visual Studio – Community Team at MSFT has a great post regarding the broader collaboration between Microsoft and the vast open source community (via /.).

“It should be easy for teams here at Microsoft to develop extensions to their platforms and potentially pieces of the platforms with customers in an open/transparent fashion. What better way (especially for teams that make tools for developers) to form real connections with developers than working with them collaboratively on real technical challenges?”

Samuel Druker the Microsoft Development Lead for WinFS speaks on Channel 9 in video and in the threads about how WinFS will mean much more than simply full-text searching. (via Philipp Lenssen)

Quotes from Samuel regarding WinFS differences with respect to the current crop of Personal Search Tools:

“X1 (and enfish and lookout) do the job for full-text search on the stuff they know about in the particular application they support. However, WinFS is a database platform. As I said in the other video, it’s a storage platform. Developers write new apps, those apps use schemas to describe the user’s data and rely on the system repository to hold those items. Full-text search is just one thing that you can build on that. Much more important, IMO, is what the database guys call query and relations.”

My buddy Martin over at BA-Insight (who incidentally kicked-off a great new blog on enterprise search) sent me a link to this article on CNET about comments Bill Gates made during a media briefing in Sydney Australia regarding the new revamped MSN Search capabilities Microsoft is set to release in July. Here are some interesting yet not surprising quotes from the article.

“Microsoft’s chairman told a media briefing here that the company had “several milestones with its search site” on the way.”

Scott Woodgate over at MSDN TV demos “how easy it is to build a business process using Visual Studio .NET and BizTalk Server 2004, expose that business process as a Web service, and then consume the business process inside InfoPath – all within 20 minutes.”

After spending a week learning how to do something similar with the Integration Tools found in PeopleSoft 8.44 I can honestly say that VS.Net + BizTalk Server 2004 is wicked cool.

MSDN posted this week a series of InfoPath 2003 SP-1 Training Exercises for the recent preview of InfoPath 2003 Service Pack 1.

I haven’t had time yet to run through the exercises, but they seem to be a good primer for anyone interested in utilizing InfoPath. (Thanks for the link Martin!)

MSFT made a preview of OneNote 2003 SP1 available yesterday.

In addition to being able to “Record video notes”, there are a number of other niceties too — like for example inserting documents from other Office programs into OneNote and the ability to share OneNote sessions in real time.

IMHO, OneNote is a wonderful environment for aggregating and now sharing disparate information.

Yet, there’s still no mention of MSFT opening the file format.

Among the many interesting quotes in the recent Business Week Online Article regarding Microsoft’s Midlife Crisis, I found the following quote suggesting that one of the features scrapped from the initial release of Longhorn will be in the updated file system (WinFS).

In particular, it appears that WinFS will not include the ability to index and search corporate file systems.

“Longhorn will now ship with a scaled-back version of the file system. The current plan, in practical terms, means people will be able to search their PCs for documents and information related to each other, but they won’t be able to reach into corporate servers for similar files.” (link via John Battelle)

At work, when I evangelize the benefits of using InfoPath as a tool for structured data collection and distribution, I talk about how, IMHO, InfoPath will someday unlock all the black-box business intelligence stuffed into Excel, Word, PowerPoint et al. In addition, I mention that it’s primarily an end-user tool that doesn’t require developers to implement any of those simple form-based workflow processes that deluge most corporations with endless forest killing paper forms.

CNET has an article that highlights some of Mr. Gates’ comments during a speech at the RSA Security conference held this week in SF.

In particular, the following comment, which we’ve heard before with the hype around Smart Cards, but hopefully the obvious end to passwords will come to fruition sooner this time than later (this time).

“Bill Gates predicted the demise of the traditional password because it cannot “meet the challenge” of keeping critical information secure.”

Via CNET I just read that today Microsoft released an update for InfoPath

“Microsoft released a trial version Monday of its first major update to InfoPath, the new electronic forms application released last year as part of the Office family.”

“The beta version of Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes several significant new features, said Microsoft product manager Bobby Moore, along with the typical performance enhancements and bug fixes included in a service pack…”

Tom’s Hardware Guide provides an in-depth review of Windows Future Storage (WinFS). Including some points I wasn’t quite sure of myselft…

“Microsoft will not be building an entirely new file system after all. Windows Future Storage (WinFS) is integrated into Longhorn as a modular extension to file management.”

“Technologically, Longhorn is in any case not entrenched in WinFS. The OS works just as well on FAT32 volumes. Conversely, WinFS can be used in other systems, too…”

Michael Sippey has a couple of good comments regarding Salesforce.com’s recently released “Office Edition,” which integrates its hosted SFA tightly with Microsoft Office:

“The company that championed went overboard with their “no software” positioning is now touting their integration into the world’s most widely used piece of personal productivity software. Which really isn’t that big of a deal, when you realize that this fits in perfectly with Microsoft’s strategy of morphing Office into a combination productivity app and very rich client…”

Anil Dash put together a first-class summary of the *nix goodies found in Microsoft’s Windows Services for Unix, which was recently re-released as a free download (passport registration required).

Even though I’m using Samba at home to connect my Windows and Linux file systems, it might be nice (and more efficient) to use the native NFS support in WSfU instead.

I’m in training all week. So I’m a bit out of touch, but I just spotted this little Office “add-in” released by Microsoft that “can permanently remove hidden data and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files.” (via Lockergnome)

Others have mentioned the impact of the embedded RSS capabilities that will be in Longhorn. This time however, it’s Scoble talking about the broader implications of a syndication friendly OS

“In Longhorn you can store a ton of metadata with your files. You can also find those files much more easily. Why is that important to syndication? Because now you have a file system that supports sending files out via a syndication feed, storing them locally, and then letting users get to them in new and interesting ways.”

Michael Kanellos from CNET exposes some of the research at Microsoft to make search a greater part of its Windows operating system. The following are some interesting quotes from the article:

“Search in many ways is brute force,” Dumais said. “If the two of us type in a query, we get the same thing back, and that is just brain dead. There is no way an intelligent human being would tell us the same thing about the same topic.”

Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft Watch interviews Microsoft social computing group researcher Lili Cheng, which reveals some more insight (including screen shots) into MSFT’s social-networking software code-named “Wallop“:

“We’ve been really interested in blogs, wikis, authoring and syndication around RSS, and social networking software in general,” Cheng tells Microsoft Watch. “We were imagining how these things could combine. And Wallop is our first experiment in this space.”

“A lot of these ideas (RSS, wikis) are more novel and intriguing,” she says. “They are about aggregating sites and getting more information out. It matches the way people communicate.”

John Carroll over at ZDNet has posted, IMHO one of the best overviews of Longhorn to date coming off of last weeks PDC.

Here are some good quotes from the article:

“I’ve noticed before that it is much easier to create reasonably complex user interfaces in HTML than in WIN32. For instance, it’s far easier to write a “skinnable” web site than it is to write a “skinnable” WIN32 application. Granted, you could do practically anything you wanted in WIN32, but if you wanted to escape the look and feel imposed by WIN32 controls, you had to perform a bunch of programming gymnastics.”

I was in meetings all morning. So, I missed this report earlier, but Dave just alerted me to the Microsoft and Google news.

“Microsoft approached Google, the internet search engine, two months ago to discuss a partnership or even a merger it emerged today.”

“Google showed little interest in overtures from the company that dominates the market for operating systems.”
(via The Guardian)

This is certainly interesting, yet given MSFT’s track record in this respect, the news is not surprising. My guess is that the initial rejection by Google spured MSFT’s recent MSN Search push.

This article about integrating Google into the research pane of Office is from a few months ago, but I think relevant given that today is the official launch of Office 2003

J. Wilcox over at Microsoft Monitor tries to determine if the new file system, dubbed WinFS, in Microsoft’s NG:OS Longhorn, will indeed be considered “new“:

“If Mr. LaMonica’s WinFS description is accurate, then WinFS really is Microsoft database technology running on top of the existing NTFS file system.”

Not much new in this AP article on Yahoo, but worth a read anyway…

…many analysts are most closely watching Microsoft’s project to develop its own indexing and searching system for the Internet — and how the technology might later be deployed throughout the company.”

I was just helping out a friend who was trying to remotely restart a server that was somewhat locked-up and I found this gem on the JSI FAQ, which describes a “feature” of the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) on Windows 2000 & XP that will enable you to remotely restart a server.

Q: How can I log off or shutdown a remote Windows 2000 computer? (Quoted from the JSI FAQ)
A: You can do this from your Windows 2000 desktop.

Via Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley

“Rumors about SoBig and Blaster are propagating almost as fast as the worms themselves. The latest rumor circulating on Bugtraq: Blaster caused last week’s east coast blackout. Some are speculating that Blaster brought down the monitoring and control systems at a power-plant master terminal. Meanwhile, on the SoBig front, Gartner analysts are estimating that damages incurred by businesses from the e-mail worm could top $50 million.”

Via Microsoft Monitor:

“Office Standard 2003 full version will sell for $399 and the Pro version for $499. Respectively, upgrades will cost $239 and $329.”

However, InfoPath and OneNote will sell for $199 each, which seems a bit steep — especially if they want to get them deep into the enterprise.

I still don’t get MSFT’s strategy with InfoPath. I think they should at least have a stripped down version or “reader” (like Acrobat) that they just give away.

Over the weekend Microsoft released a new site-wide search engine for Microsoft.com that utilizes the soon-to-be-released SharePoint 2.0 and Windows 2003 Server. (Thanks for the link Martin)

In what I think is a related note, for search results.

Although I can’t seem to find the interface to this yet, but you can customize the query by changing the “search keyword” value after the “q=” in the above link. (via Anil Dash)

Some interesting quotes from this article on CNET News.com about Microsoft new search initiatives:

“The fact that Longhorn is on the horizon raises questions to whether search services will be integrated into the Longhorn experience and what the ramifications will be to other folks,”

“Microsoft’s target will be to create little perceived difference between Web search and local search,”

“Ballmer identified search as one area where Microsoft will offer “new end-user functionality and services.” As part of his “integrated innovation” message, he said the company needs to “reach out broadly” through search, consumer services and other avenues to grow.”

Cringely writes in his latest InfoWorld column:

“…one of my moles reported that Team Redmond might be looking to buy Accenture, the $11 billion consulting company. Apparently, Microsoft and Accenture have been engaged in some intense talks, with folks frequently flying back and forth between Redmond and New York, particularly during March and April. “

PCWorld reports “Microsoft is on track to release its “refresh” of Office 2003 beta 2 to testers before the end of the month, a company spokesman said Friday.”

This is good news, because I’ve been having problems with Outlook 2003 freezing occasionally. Otherwise, the other apllications in the Office 2003 beta have been stable.

Mike Gunderloy has written up an article that demonstrates how to use Word 2003 as an RSS viewer. Mike did this cool hack by transforming an RSS feed into into Words own XML flavor, WordML — Of course using XSLT and a little VBS. (via Lockergnome)

It just occurred to me that Microsoft’s OneNote, the application “for capturing, organizing, and collaboratively sharing information”, would work well as a front-end to a Wiki.

For example: A Wiki server could act as repository for publishing shared OneNote pages that in turn can be collaborated on either via the browser (in the true Wiki sense) or within the OneNote application itself.

IMHO, this type of integration would push Wiki’s into corporate environments where knowledge management seems to involve too much post-processing work.

I didn’t see this feature in the latest beta of FP 2003, but according to this article on CRN FrontPage 2003 will include a blogging tool.

However, what I also found interesting is that FP 2003 will also “incorporate a full WYSIWYG editor for Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSLT)”,

Very cool!

Hmmm… Perhaps I missed that in the beta. (note to self: re-check FP 2003 beta)

It would be pretty cool to get an RSS-2-SPOT gateway up and running so we can read our newsfeeds inbetween trips to the fridge for that next beer ;-)

“Microsoft has revealed details of its wireless service for personal devices as it tests the network prior to the availability of products due in the fall. “(via CNet)

Martin sent me a link to this article by Alexander Wolfe of EmbeddedWatch.com about Microsoft newly granted US patent for “interactive entertainment”.

To quote Alexander…

“[Microsoft’s]… patent [number 6,571,390] appears to claim the invention of networked interactive entertainment.”

Hmm, I wonder what this will mean for video-on-demand systems and perhaps even network-capable PVRs like Replay and hacked TiVo’s.

Ben Schorr has put together a useful OneNote FAQ

I’m not surprised by the following announcement and in my opinion, this could make SharePoint Portal as ubiquitous as Office; if Microsoft can find the pricing sweet-spot.

“Microsoft plans to add its SharePoint business portal software to its Office bundle, as the company looks to broaden the appeal of its desktop software. ” (via cnet)

I installed Office 2003 Beta 2 the other day and for the most part I’m very pleased and feel much of the hype is justified.

In particular, I see a lot of potential with the native XML capabilities — especially with respect to InfoPath. Although, I’m puzzled by Microsoft’s recent announcement that InfoPath will not be included as part of the retail Office 2003 “system”.

Otherwise, I think they did an excellent job with the updated visual prioritization of information in Outlook 2003.

cnet: “Microsoft will not include InfoPath and OneNote as part of the Office suite sold at retail or installed on new computers.”

I think this is a missed opportunity to broadly push InfoPath out to the masses.

I found Woody Leeonhard’s interesting tidbits on Office 2003 Beta while searching Google Groups for info on installing SharePoint Beta 2.

Still no luck with SharePoint, but Wood’s tips are worth a read.

From Business 2.0’s The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

“One question might be, and I’ll be as direct as I can be about this, what is .Net? Unlike Windows, where you could say it’s a product, it sits in one place, it’s got a nice little box. In some senses, it’s a very good question.”
– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, at a Microsoft .Net briefing day in July

“We don’t have the user-centricity. Until we understand context, which is way beyond presence — presence is the most trivial notion of context.”
– Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, on the same topic at the same briefing

jasnell has an interesting observation: “If InfoPath does for XML and Web services what Excel did for Spreadsheets, bravo to Microsoft, good job.”

Clemens Vasters seems to really dig InfoPath … some good quotes:

“On the surface, InfoPath is “just” a forms editor that allows you to build editable Forms for XML Schema, Web Services and Databases very quickly. From a technology perspective that’s very cool in itself, but the way InfoPath hides all of that behind its UI will simply make you say “Well, yes, that’s how it should be”. It’s really a no-nonsense data-capture and data-presentation centric variation of what could have been yet another feature of FrontPage that few people would have ever noticed, just because it’s UI is so simple. It’s all Office.”

Microsoft just released beta 2 of SPPS 2.0.

The Beta includes Office InfoPath integration, but I don’t have an Office 11 beta to test it against :-(

SecurityFocus: “Evidence obtained by German hardware site tecChannel suggests a list of software installed on an XP machine is sent to Microsoft when users run Windows Update.” (via BoingBoing)

I’m not really surprised by this, because technically this is how I thought Windows Update works. However, I’d have to read MSFT’s privacy policy for Windows Update to actually get a handle on what they intend to do with this information, but at least they are encrypting the data before it hit the wire.

Everything is coming up XML for Microsoft this year …

I don’t know about you, but I think the hype machine out west has me under a spell, because I am starting to feel giddy when I think of the future business user of Office 2003 creating InfoPath docs that are passed around by Exchange, integrated into the enterprise workflow via BizTalk and spit out into digestible chunks to SharePoint.

Oh, the productivity ;-)

Dubbed ‘Information Rights Management’ in the upcoming Office relesae, which is described as a ” … persistent file-level technology from Microsoft that allows the user to specify permission for who can access and use documents or e-mail messages, and helps prevent sensitive information from being printed, forwarded, or copied by unauthorized individuals…”
(via Microsoft Watch and Slashdot)

Jon Udell on the 10 things you need to know about InfoPath (aka XDocs)

Matt Williams of Micosoft says, “DUDE! Sharepoint is not a weblogging tool!” (via Scripting News)

However, as I mentioned back in November that SharePoint Team Services could be used as a Weblogging tool and that many Office users didn’t even realize that have it.

“The software giant is set to announce at a conference in San Diego that XDocs will officially be called InfoPath.”

“InfoPath will use XML to allow office workers to create electronic forms that will automatically share data with other documents and back-end business systems.”

“Microsoft is hoping to corner a share of the XML-based content management software market. Market researcher ZapThink, based in Waltham, Mass., estimates the value of the market for XML-based content management software at more than $11 billion by 2008.”

Scary. In the which OS are You? quiz, I came out as Windows XP.

I’d like to see this happen…

“Microsoft wants to help webloggers and others build strong communities like Slashdot around their products.”

Although according to The Scobleizer, it’s unlikely they “get it”.

However, there are a few exceptions, like for example, the IBS community at ASP.Net

“Microsoft’s SPOT smart objects might indeed be tomorrow’s technology – if you were living in the 1980’s. That’s because the technology used in SPOT, FM subcarrier transmission, was originally used as a last-gasp effort by the Atari 2600 to distribute games wirelessly over the radio.” (via ExtremeTech)

Windows latest Longhorn beta screenshots

I wish I wrote this article because I had the same epiphany last year after I evaluated SharePoint Team Services, in that it was ideally suited to be a Webloging tool and many Office XP users didn’t even realize they had it!

Quotes:
“The one player which seems to be fully aware of both the weblog space and SharePoint’s potential is Ray Ozzie‘s Groove Networks, which has fully embraced the SharePoint platform…”

“SharePoint is probably not going to have an impact in the short term. It’s possible that Microsoft will realize the potential of their bCentral service hosting SharePoint sites, and that the MSN team will seize the opportunity to improve the friendliness of the interface and turn it into a commercial mass-market product. The likelihood of that, however, is completly negligible. On the business side, though, Microsoft has pieces in place that put it a full year ahead of any competitor in the areas of network identity integration, document management, and project management functions. “

From an article on XML Journal: “that when the huge universe of MS Office documents becomes available for processing by any programmer with a Perl script and a bit of intelligence, all sorts of wonderful new things can be invented that you and I can’t imagine.”

Did you ever wonder what a particular service was doing and if you
needed it running? Well, this site has the answer. Very handy!

http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/services.html

It’s not likely to happen, but interesting and perhaps scary… Passport as National ID?

Funny … “The infamous Blue Screen Of Death, documented for your viewing pleasure” (thanks John)

we knew this was coming, but it’s still interesting … “Microsoft next week will deliver its Office XP Web Services Toolkit in hopes of turning the desktop into a more strategically important Web services platform.”

more quotes:
“Users can then construct Word-based or Excel-based templates that import and integrate external data and Web services.”

“Office XP would eventually play a big role in making Web services available among clients via a peer-to-peer implementation, most likely using Groove Networks’ environment.”

looks like a decent tool for locking down your workstation (not server) … “Microsoft Personal Security Advisor (MPSA) is an easy to use web application that will help you secure your Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 personal computer system."

Internet Explorer 6 was released yesterday. Download here

“Internet Explorer 6.0 includes many new and enhanced features that can simplify the daily tasks you perform while helping you to maintain the privacy of your personal information on the Web. The integrated Advanced Search bar makes it a snap to find whatever you may be looking for on the Web. The Image Toolbar feature allows you to quickly and easily save pictures, e-mail pictures, and print pictures that you find on Web pages. You can also view all your saved pictures in the My Pictures folder. When you point to pictures on Web pages, the My Pictures toolbar appears, giving you instant access to My Pictures functions. Another new Explorer bar, the Contacts bar, allows MSN Messenger Service members to use instant-messaging features from within the browser window while they surf the Web. The Media Bar offers a seamless Web media experience. It provides a simple user interface for locating and playing media within the browser window. The Media Bar has simple controls that enable you to play music, video, or mixed-media files without opening a separate window. The Media Bar also lets you control the audio volume and choose which media files or tracks to play.”

found on GeekNews and i’m guessing it’s .Net-based …

“Broadband customers of Telewest can now subscribe to a “rentware” version of Microsoft Exchange with Outlook using their cable modem PC connection. The U.K. service costs 10 pounds ($14) a month on top of their existing cable modem subscription.”

another interesting quote:
“Obviously there plans to extend the service to Microsoft Office, but we’re also looking at the possibility of offering access to financial software for small businesses across the broadband connection…”

NSA released their Windows 2000 Security Recommendation Guidese. the site includes INF security configuration templates for the security configuration editor and PDF white papers on windows security.

finally, a realistic commentary about microsoft’s new proposed SmartTags feature

anyone running IIS 5.0 should install this patch:

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS01-023: Unchecked Buffer in ISAPI Extension Could Enable Compromise of IIS 5.0 Server"

funny … “Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is not responsible for the spread of the foot and mouth virus, according to a recent report.”

From: The Register

Internet Explorer 6 Public Preview

from redherring, a somewhat antagonistic and long, but very interesting interview with bill gates in which he talks about .Net (or dot.net — not sure which is correct), xBox, AOL, Linux, and the Law Suit among other things … a few interesting bill quotes:

[.Net] “It’s designed to get rid of the idea that there is this big install taking place.”

[xbox] “If there was ever a business were no company has been the leader for two generations in a row, it’s video games.”

skeptical article about Microsoft.net … good quote: “And don’t discount startups, despite their early woes. Microsoft says it’s creating the next generation Internet, but by the time it gets there, those young’uns might be on deep space nine.”

read this on slashdot … Microsoft released a patch for Outlook that will “Protect Against Viruses” such as “ILOVEYOU and Melissa” … looks like a worthwhile update.