"I have read a lot about the problems they have with this particular software. ... We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It's not compatible with other equipment, and it's supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it's not," said Hinojosa.

Hinojosa's budget provision wouldn't eliminate these ongoing uses nor outright banish Vista from the state. It would, however, require any state agencies (save for higher education institutions) to receive formal approval from the Legislative Budget Board [to purchase Windows Vista-related software, hardware, or licenses]

[During Lehman's tenure at the USPTO] TRIPs Agreement was finalised, the DMCA passed into law and WIPOs two copyright treaties were developed. Lehman said that there was a widespread perception among Democrats that the US lowered its trade barriers in 1994 in the expectation that it would be able to switch to exporting high-tech products but, because IP protection remains poor in many countries, it hasnt been able to do this. "The bargain we thought we made in 1994 hasnt worked out as we expected," he said [and predicted IP would be sidelined by the Obama administration].

Under the Microsoft-NASA deal, the two are developing the technology and infrastructure needed to make NASA content available through Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope site. NASA Ames is also developing a suite of planetary data processing tools to convert historic and current space imagery data into a variety of formats to make them easily accessible by the public.

Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy.

An hour or so offline may be tolerable at times, but how does it feel for Microsoft to be offline for just under 24 hours? ... There are a few points worth making here: Microsoft can use beta as an excuse; Microsoft gives a bad reputation to such clouds, which may work to its advantage by reducing confidence in SaaS; Almost nobody uses Azure, so reporters neither notice nor care.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt expects PC unit sales to fall by 11 percent for calendar year 2009, down from his previous outlook of a 2 percent decline. ... PC sales dropped by 4 percent in 2001, ... this downturn will be worse ...

Holt sees netbooks comprising 13 percent of total PC units this year and 18 percent next year. Since many netbooks don't bundle Microsoft's Windows operating system, the analyst sees the average selling price of Windows through manufacturers falling by 15 percent to $56. Holt sees netbooks comprising 13 percent of total PC units this year and 18 percent next year. Since many netbooks don't bundle Microsoft's Windows operating system, the analyst sees the average selling price of Windows through manufacturers falling by 15 percent to $56. However, the Windows 7 release, expected by the December quarter, should stabilize 2010 prices as companies upgrade.

Microsoft's share of Internet searches in the U.S. fell to a 12-month low according to Comscore's report of Internet search queries for February. ... with 8.2 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, down slightly from January share of 8.5

as Microsoft readies Windows 7, the company is planning a basic version, as well as more expensive editions that are also targeted at netbooks. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said last week that he will make sure consumers can "trade up." [the limits are to push customers to pricier versions]

"I don't know that there's much room to charge more than what' been charged currently," said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Washington. "I'm pessimistic about this."

"If you look at Starter Edition, I really don't think Microsoft wants to sell that at all — it's pretty crippled," said Michael Silver, an analyst at Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc. "It's really there just so they can say they have a really low-priced offering."

Microsoft is at it again, daring the courts to choose between destroying the law and destroying Microsoft. A decade ago Microsoft realized that open source was already good enough to displace them, but the world at large did not yet know this, and Microsoft believed that with enough FUD, the world could be deceived into never knowing this. That didn't work. A decade ago, a judge faced with the question of sustaining the law or sustaining Microsoft could not risk pulling the plug on what seemed to be the most important economic and technology driver in America. Today, the world knows well that open source better, faster, cheaper, and greener. Everybody now knows that if Microsoft ceased to exist in five years, the world would adapt just fine. Indeed, many Windows to Linux migration projects are eliminating Microsoft in 12-18 months.

Whatever the arguments may be, by filing against TomTom Microsoft has effectively pulled the pin from their legal grenade and have lobbed it into the center of the open source community. ... thanks to the financial meltdown and the stories of fraud and abuse coming from the most well-polished offices on Wall Street that the world understands now, better than it has for a very long time, that sustainable success depends on success we can all share and participate in. ... to paraphrase Microsoft's own understanding of open source, "The ability of unfettered, free market competition to collect and harness the collective IQ of thousands of individuals across the entire world is simply amazing. More importantly, free market competition scales with the size of the world and succeeds much faster and much better than any top-down, controlled, monopoly efforts appear to scale or succeed."

Windows 7 is being rushed to market without adequate testing or even acknowledgement of beta user feedback. ... Microsoft isn't taking their feedback seriously, even when filed through their private beta tester feedback channels. Development team responses like "won't fix" or "by design" seem to be the the norm for even serious issues, leading many testers to conclude that the product was feature complete (i.e. no longer subject to significant modification based on tester input) long before they received their first code drop.

I feel sorry for those brave technical beta testers, many of whom have invested a good portion of their personal and professional lives helping Microsoft to assess the readiness of each new Windows version. Wake up, folks. It's all been a big lie.

Microsoft Corp.s plan to eliminate U.S. workers after lobbying for more foreigner visas is stirring resentment among lawmakers and employees. As many as 5,000 employees are being shown the door at Microsoft, which uses more H1-B guest-worker visas than any other U.S. company. Some employees and politicians say Microsoft should get rid of foreigners first.

The Senate added an amendment co-authored by Grassley to the economic stimulus bill signed this week that restricts the hiring of H1-B visa holders at more than 300 banks receiving government bailout funds.

workers on H1-B visas arent included in a law that protects green-card holders from employment discrimination ... Foreigners face severe difficulties when they are fired because their visas are tied to their employer ... transporting other family members and their possessions [back home] falls on the worker.

Ultimate Extras was among the elements Microsoft cited in the months leading up to the early-2007 release of Windows Vista Ultimate to distinguish it from lower-priced versions. ... But users blasted Microsoft for the paltry number of add-ons it released and its leisurely development pace. ... Currently, Microsoft barely mentions Extras in the online pitch for Vista Ultimate .... A company blog dedicated to Ultimate Extras, where company employees occasionally posted news of the feature, is no longer online. It was also a magnet for critics.

Microsoft Corp. will not offer "Ultimate Extras" in Windows 7, the company has confirmed, saying it abandoned the heavily criticized concept to focus on "existing features." "Our new approach to planning and building Windows doesn't have the capacity to continue to deliver features outside the regular release cycle," a company spokeswoman said...

The EFF, in its continuing effort to push back on bogus DMCA takedown notices has successfully convinced the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association to settle a lawsuit that the EFF filed on behalf of some animal rights activists. They had been attending rodeos and filming things they believed represented cruelty towards the animals — and then posting those videos on YouTube. The PRCA issued DMCA takedown notices, apparently not realizing that they don't actually own the copyright on those videos (whoever shot them does), and thus they were violating the DCMA ... It's quite common for sporting events or other events to believe they own the copyright on any photographs or video shot during the events, but hopefully settlements like this will give them a quick lesson in how copyright law works.