Microsoft Tag has been ported to the iPhone which makes it the second iPhone app that Microsoft offers (the first being Seadragon). With Microsoft Tag, the whole world can become a barcode with the cell phone acting as the bar code scanner. Users aim their camera phone at a tagged object and the app shows them data associated with the object/tag. Read more
After all the countless rumors of what Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer planned to announce during his CES keynote speech in Las Vegas last night, the speech itself might have been a bit of a letdown. On the one hand, he announced a publicly available version of a Windows 7 beta -- which is what the enterprise is most curious to investigate. Read more
Microsoft won a nice coup over rival Google by scoring a mobile search deal with Verizon. Microsoft will become the default provider of Internet search for Verizon Wireless customers, reports the Wall Street Journal. A Verizon executive spilled the beans on the agreement Wednesday at the annual Citigroup entertainment, media and telecommunications conference, the WSJ said. Read more
Here's a cool resource for PowerShell newbies (and who these days isn't at least dabbling with Microsoft's young scripting language?): the Get-Scripting podcast. The podcast is up to Episode 6 in its ongoing series on How to Learn PowerShell. Episode 6 features Ben Pearce, a premier field engineer at Microsoft whose job is to help enterprise customers make their systems more efficient. Read more
"Until the Windows Mobile team gets their act together and at the very least makes IE6 Mobile a downloadable upgrade for all existing WM6 phones, I’m switching browsers to Opera Mobile. IE has been banished from my phone," so declared Microsoft mostly fanboy and blogger Robert McLaws on his Windows Now blog today. Read more
In an interesting move, Microsoft has made a president out of Bob Muglia, the head of the company's Server and Tools Business (STB) group, reports Computerworld. The promotion makes Muglia, who joined Microsoft in 1988, only the fourth president at the company. Microsoft is more found of senior vice president titles. Read more
Chinese courts dealt out a harsh punishment to the ringleaders of what is believed to be one of the world's largest software scams. Eleven alleged ringleaders were sent to prison, the AP reports. Counterfeit software from the ring was found in 36 countries and 11 languages. It was valued at over $2 billion. Eleven defendants were given prison terms from 1 1/2 to 6 1/2 years, Microsoft announced last week. Read more
Popular microblogging site Twitter faced a double whammy security breach over the weekend. 33 Twitter accounts were hacked including prominent Twitter-ers like CNN's Rick Sanchez, Fox News, Britney Spears and Barack Obama (who has been fielding criticism lately for dropping his interest in Twitter and other social networking sites since he won the election). Twitter users were also the targets of an unrelated phishing attack. Read more
Last month, Microsoft tried a new scheme to build excitement for Xbox. It sent $150 worth of free Xbox goodies to 1,000 women across the country who agreed to throw a Xbox house party for at least 10 friends. The women used their own Xbox consoles but received a free party pack that included microwaveable popcorn, the Xbox trivia game Scene It? Read more
WIN A MICROSOFT TRAINING COURSE WORTH UP TO $2,500 FROM NEW HORIZONS Read more
Rumors continue to escalate that Microsoft will layoff thousands of employees sometime this month -- although Microsoft has denied that layoffs will occur -- at least in January. We reported that last week that analyst Brad Reback at brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co, recommended that Microsoft ax 10% of its workforce -- or about 9,000 jobs. Read more
Who can you trust when it comes to bug reporting these days? Not every firm that calls itself a security researcher. Researchers need to balance working with a vendor (particularly Microsoft) and performing the whistle-blowing function. But researchers get eager to make names for themselves and they sometimes want to skip the contact-the-vendor part and go straight to the get-credit-for-finding-a-bug part. Read more
An analyst last week advised Microsoft to cut its workforce by 10%, saying axing more than 9,000 jobs would be a healthy move for Redmond. The analyst, Brad Reback at brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co, said that such a move would result in about a 10-cent gain in earnings-per-share. Read more
Freebie tools beloved by our bloggers, and an Apple cell phone held in low regard, dominated the most-read blog posts from Microsoft Subnet in 2008. What follows is a recap.
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Not another Vista -- that's the continuous underlying message being made on the Engineering Windows 7 blog. Plus the team is emphasizing that Windows 7 will remain compatible with Vista drivers, say the blog's writers Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering G Read more
Earlier this week, Microsoft released technical documents describing how it plans to implement support of the Open Document Format (ODF) within Office 2007 Service Pack 2, expected to ship in 2009. Read more
Microsoft has this morning released an emergency out-of-band patch to fix a widely publicized zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Security experts are advising users and enterprises to install the latest IE patch immediately. Read more
Virtualization is as critical a technology for Microsoft as its operating systems. But an awful lot of fiction circulates about virtualization and Microsoft's role in the market, including Microsoft's true market share, its enmity with Red Hat, and the costs of virtualizing desktops. Read more
The Microsoft Subnet blog is the official blog of the Network World's Microsoft Subnet community, managed by editor Julie Bort. Microsoft Subnet is the independent voice of Microsoft customers and is your gateway to daily Microsoft news, blogs, opinion, books, prize giveaways and more. Visit the Microsoft Subnet index page daily, and while you are there, subscribe to the Microsoft newsletter. The newsletter includes news generated by the Microsoft Subnet community as well as other Microsoft news stories published by Network World.
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