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Microsoft

Zune Sales Continue to Weaken 566

Posted by Hemos from the slip-sliding-away dept.
Dak RIT writes "Market share data for the first month of Microsoft's Zune sales is now available, and appears to confirm that after the initial hype, sales have fallen off dramatically. Microsoft came in fourth for sales during the month of November with only 1.9% of the market. Apple remained unchanged at 62.2%, and SanDisk even managed to increase to 18.4% (looks like the Zune might not even be able to compete with the rest of the market, let alone the iPod). The one surprise though is that the brown Zune is apparently not only being bought, but more popular than the white model."
Media (Apple)

iTunes Sales Not 'Collapsing' After All 122

Posted by CowboyNeal from the looking-at-the-bigger-picture dept.
john82 writes "Earlier this month we had a report from Forrester, based on a random sampling of 2,000 credit card accounts, that purported to show that iTunes sales were crashing. Now comes another survey from Reston, VA-based ComScore which indicates the exact opposite. ComScore's report which is based on actual iTunes sales shows a 84% increase during the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile the author of the Forrester report, Josh Bernoff, noted in his blog yesterday that they shouldn't be pummeled just because everyone took what he wrote and ran with it."
NASA

NASA Finds Evidence of Recent Flowing Water on Mars 238

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the some-bound-to-claim-theory-is-all-wet dept.
SonicSpike writes to mention that Scientists are claiming that they have evidence of water flowing on Mars within the last five years. From the article: "Subsurface aquifers or melting ground ice were floated as possible sources of the water. One of the springs even appears at a fault line, according to Malin, just as they often do on Earth. The shortness of the gulleys, which seem to flow for but a few hundred yards, might be accounted for by a process similar to a volcano's eruption on Earth, with water instead of magma building up underground, and ice, instead of fire, characterizing the resulting flow."

Dvorak On Microsoft/Novell Deal 218

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-all-wear-party-hats dept.
zaxios writes, "John C. Dvorak has weighed in on the recent Novell-Microsoft pact. Among his insights: 'Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.' But now, 'the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually "touching" Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL.' According to Dvorak, it's only a matter of time before Linux is 'cracked' by Microsoft, meaning Microsoft figures out a way to run proprietary code on it."
User Journal

Journal Journal: More random ramblings in an Internet-enabled world. 4

Journal by MrAnnoyanceToYou
I've never held a job in a big corporation for this long. I guess it's that they don't really ask anything of me beyond presence for 40 hours a week and the ability to answer all their questions promptly and efficiently. I've been using my spare time continuing in Engineering classes (physics at the moment) and so far it's going quite well, I guess. And glassblowing.

Microsoft Gives MVP Award to Adware Pusher 120

Posted by Zonk from the look-before-you-award dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ed Bott reports that Microsoft has given an MVP (Most Valuable Professional Award) to an individual known for peddling Adware via his Messenger Plus program." From the article: "So how did a guy whose primary business involves installing adware become an MVP? That's what Christopher Boyd, a Microsoft Security MVP better known as Paperghost wants to know. Boyd isn't the only MVP who has a history with Patchou. Sandi Hardmeier, a current MVP in the Internet Explorer category who specializes in the fight against malware, has written three long, angry pages about the messy adware that 'sponsors' Patchou's product."

Hollywood Says Piracy Has Ripple Effect 309

Posted by Zonk from the truly-important-research dept.
ColinPL writes to mention a Washington Post article about a new study backed by Hollywood on intellectual piracy. The study, which they're presenting to lawmakers today, claims that piracy has a ripple effect on the economy. According to the study, lost revenues may have as much as three times the impact previously imagined. From the article: "Lawmakers and federal agencies such as the Justice and State departments have helped Hollywood battle physical piracy -- specifically, counterfeit DVDs. But now the stakes are especially high for entertainment companies as they sell more of their products online in the form of digital songs, movies and other intellectual property. Internet piracy may be tougher for lawmakers to conceptualize, entertainment companies fear."

Harvard Concludes Linux Will Remain Second Best 460

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-said-number-two dept.
watzinaneihm writes "A Harvard Study which uses formal economic modelling to determine "Will OSS ever displace traditional software from its market leadership position?" came to a (not so?) surprising result. Linux is likely to remain second best as long as Microsoft has a first mover advantage."

Microsoft to Allow Competitive Search 153

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the slowly-coming-around dept.
Aviran Mordo writes to tell us Reuters is reporting that Microsoft is announcing a voluntary policy to help guide the development of Windows in the future. The policy, which Microsoft senior vice president Brad Smith said was 'committed to creating a transparent system that allows open competition,' will start by allowing other search engines like Google to be set by default.

Microsoft COO Warns Google Away From Corp Search 315

Posted by Zonk from the get-off-my-lawn dept.
Forbes is reporting on comments made by Microsoft COO Kevin Turner, concerning the corporate search business. At a company conference in Boston, Turner referred to the enterprise search business as 'our house', and warned Google to stay out. From the article: "Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off our plate, because that is what they are intending to do ... Enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business"
User Journal

Journal Journal: Mod points and an exploding job market.

Journal by MrAnnoyanceToYou
Never, and I mean never, have I gotten four calls off of four e-mails. But I did this week. It was amazing. I'm totally down with it. That's about all I have to say on that one. Perhaps Ishall no longer be working for people I don't exactly think are brilliant after a few more months. Awesome, and stuff.

OSS Web Stacks Outperformed by .Net? 349

Posted by Zonk from the sad-penguin dept.
Gimble writes "eWeek has an article up that looks at the performance of portals using open source stacks and comparing them to their MS equivalents. The article's conclusion is that .Net outperforms the open source stacks, mainly because of its tighter integration, but also notes that running the open source stacks on Windows (WAMP) delivered strong performance." From the article: "Based on our forays into user forums for many top open-source enterprise applications, there are many IT managers attempting to run open-source products on Windows servers--attracted, no doubt, to the benefits and efficiencies of using open source without having to become Linux administrators. The results of our WAMP stack tests indicate that these folks might be on to something."

Lawsuits Fly Over Google Founders' Party Plane 238

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the everyone's-favorite-verb dept.
Mr. Soxley writes to tell us that the Boeing 767 recently purchased by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page is at the heart of what promises to be quite a legal battle. From the article: "Now the Delaware holding company that technically owns the 767, Blue City Holdings LLC, is embroiled in multiple lawsuits with an aviation designer hired to plan and oversee the massive plane's interior renovation. [...] But last October, Blue City terminated Mr. Jennings's contract, saying he wasn't doing his job properly. Mr. Jennings then filed a nearly $200,000 lien against the aircraft with the Federal Aviation Administration for payment he hadn't received. He later filed a complaint related to the matter against Blue City and Gore Design Completions Ltd., the San Antonio executive-jet outfitting firm that worked on the plane, in District Court in Bexar County, Texas."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Despising one's job. 2

Journal by MrAnnoyanceToYou
Apparently, my Head First Java book is unacceptable when I open it on the desk in front of me and work over it all day. It's not that I read it all day, just that it's sitting there. And since I have a lot of time spent waiting for crappy software to respond, I end up spending a lot of time either idle or working on Java. I prefer the latter. I had the best job I've ever had when I was twenty, screwed it up by futzing around, and now all I want is to have another like it. I despise the corp

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