Archive Posts

Microsoft is having a rough month. In addition to known vulnerabilities, including one discovered this week, Microsoft now faces vulnerabilities in IIS, along with problems found in Windows Vista and Server 2008. Moreover, vulnerabilities discovered in Office 2010 pose another challenge entirely.

Starting with the vulnerabilities in Office 2010, the security firm responsible for discovering them, VUPEN, will gladly share the deals with Microsoft, as long as they are paying customers. For now, VUPEN will only share the vulnerability and mitigation details with paying customers.

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After a disastrous Kin experience, Microsoft is doubling down on the launch of Windows Phone 7 this fall. The question is whether the same problems that plagued the Kin might also torpedo Windows Phone 7. One of those problems is something that used to help Microsoft: monopolies.

Microsoft still enjoys a near-monopolistic lock on desktop computers. That view from the top of the market-share heap has influenced the way the company thinks, the way it’s organized, and the way it does business. Many other companies may manufacture PC hardware, but the experience is defined by Microsoft. Just about every major hardware advance on the desktop has to be sanctioned and shepherded by Microsoft and supported by Windows, or it won’t succeed.

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Microsoft’s engineers and executives spent two years creating a new line of smartphones with playful names that sounded like creatures straight out of “The Cat in the Hat”  Kin One and Kin Two. Stylish designs, an emphasis.

On flashy social-networking features and an all-out marketing blitz were meant to prove that Microsoft could build the right product at the right time for the finickiest customers  gossiping youngsters with gadget skills.

But last week, less than two months after the Kins arrived in stores, Microsoft said it would kill the products. “That’s a record-breaking quick end to a product, as far as I am concerned,” said Michael Cronan.

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In yet another major defeat for Microsoft in two days, search rival Google has scooped up ITA, the travel data service used by Microsoft's Bing search engine. The move comes a day after Microsoft killed its Kin phones after just seven weeks of pathetic sales at Verizon(VZ).

But it's Google's $700 million deal for ITA Thursday that provides probably the clearest sign yet that Microsoft is totally consumed by internal battles. The distraction has left Microsoft's growth ventures outside its core computer software vulnerable and neglected.

Bing, Microsoft's revamped search effort, has been the biggest challenge yet to Google's Internet dominance. So why take the pressure off? How do you let Google get control of the industry's leading travel search engine, the very service that powers your own travel research and ticket booking site? And given that the Google-ITA deal has been openly in the works since April, how do you let them snag it for $300 million less than the $1 billion price tag originally batted about?

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News organizations are filled with stories about the iPad selling three million in three months. Most federal IT professionals don't know that Microsoft sells one copy of Windows 7 every seven seconds! That works out to 300,000 million in 2010.

Microsoft has addressed the issues with its Vista operating system and is moving into the cloud. Vince Menzione will describe how Microsoft's Azure platform will work for federal IT professionals considering both private and public clouds.

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Perhaps those rumors about iPhone going to Verizon are true. Microsoft is killing off KIN, just six weeks after putting the smartphone on sale. Microsoft launched the KIN -- its youth-oriented, consumer social networking smartphone -- in early April Today

The company answered the question I asked on May 5: "Is Microsoft KIN stud or dud?" Somebody up the corporate decision tree decided the latter -- or perhaps that KIN isn't stud enough to share Verizon with iPhone. Concurrent with KIN's sudden death -- oh, baby, we hardly knew you -- Microsoft is shifting resources and personnel to Windows Phone 7.

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The biggest corporate success stories in American history. From its humble beginnings in Bill Gates' Harvard dorm room, in only 35 years the company grew to become one of the biggest companies in the world.

The Numbers 1975: The year Microsoft was founded. The company was initially formed as the partnership Micro-soft, which operated for over five years until the firm was incorporated in 1981.Aug. 12, 1981: Microsoft releases its first personal computer running its operating system, MS-DOS 1.0.

4,000: The number of lines of code in MSDOS 1.0--Microsoft's first operating system. 50 million: The number of lines of code estimated to be in Microsoft Vista. Aug. 1, 1989: The first incarnation of Microsoft Office is released.9 cents: the March 13, 1986, Microsoft IPO price, as adjusted for stock splits.

10,000: The estimated number of Microsoft employees that became millionaires as a result of their stock ownership in the firm. 88,180: The number of employees as of April 2010.The number of countries where Microsoft has subsidiaries.

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Microsoft, which has been slow in responding to Apple’s advances, was recently taken by surprise as Apple edged past the software giant in market capitalization.

Recently, Apple emerged with a market value of roughly $222 billion compared with Microsoft’s $219 billion. Apple spearheaded into the second highest-valued American company directly behind Exxon Mobile, which was valued at $278.6 billion.

Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle says against Microsoft, Apple funded better, executed at a higher level and marketed the benefits of the product more successfully.

“Microsoft actually had what should have been a more attractive service, retailers liked them better and Microsoft had a more robust product, but Apple out executed them on marketing to an incredible level,” Enderle says. “Oh and Microsoft chose to fight Apple on Apple’s turf by bringing out a hardware device and that is always a really bad idea.”

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Bugs surfacing in recent weeks include Windows vulnerabilities that could allow bad guys to enter your computer, as well as flaws in Adobe Shockwave Player and Photoshop that could permit attackers to run malicious code and possibly commandeer your system.

The Patch Tuesday fix that Microsoft released on May 11 includes two critical updates. The first addresses a vulnerability in Outlook Express and Windows Mail that could allow remote execution (that is, attackers could do whatever they want with your PC) if you visit a malicious e-mail server. This update is rated critical for Outlook Express on all supported editions of Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003, and for Windows Mail on all supported editions of Windows Vista and Server 2008. See Microsoft's security bulletin for the full details.

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A former Microsoft executive today argued that Microsoft could easily cut 30,000 to 40,000 employees. The unnamed worker claimed that CEO Steve Ballmer organizes every division identically. While it keeps the company simple, it also creates unnecessary overhead and isn't as effective as it could be, the executive told SAI.

Many of the roles themselves are also considered duplicates, to the point where the company is often sorting out internal organizational matters rather than focusing on the products it needs. Microsoft employs more than 92,000 people, about a third of which were added since 2000. The company has said it maintains a policy of never firing good employees when avoidable and only instituted some of its first job cuts during the financial crisis last year, when it suffered rare revenue declines.