items tagged with Microsoft

A customer satisfaction survey across Asia Pacific, the US and Europe has savaged all of the top three major vendors in the ERP space, but singles out Microsoft  among all vendors as having the least integration expertise in manufacturing-centric ERP environments.

Our innocent little story on the Victorian Government’s public transport directions system developed for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games has apparently caused a few feathers to ruffle over the ownership of the intellectual property.

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When the Government of Australia’s second largest state Victoria signed an $80 million, four-year contract with Microsoft in May 2002, advocates of open source software and other critics cried foul. Today that contract has just about expired, the Victorian Government has a new CIO, the NSW Government has opened its doors to Linux and the question arises as to how much longer  Victoria can justify committing to long-term Microsoft lock-ins without considering alternatives.

Microsoft this week demonstrated its Directions Plus application for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, in a development that delivers a wireless online public transport directions system to Victoria, while the software vendor gets to keep the intellectual property.

While computer games enthusiasts get in line for 23 March release of Xbox 360 in Australia, dozens of the machines will already be available for the use of athletes staying in the Commonwealth Games village in Melbourne more than one week earlier.

It has always been delivery of the Queen's message that heralds the beginning of the Commonwealth Games, in a ritual reminiscent of the much more spectacular Olympic Games torch lighting ceremony. Now, however, we are told to get set for the Bill Gates message of support at launch of the Official M2006 Commonwealth Games website.

Software kingpin Microsoft has unveiled the product lineup of its upcoming Windows Vista operating system, scheduling its release for the second half of 2006. The announcement appears to signal an attempt by Microsoft to move users to a new platform, which is incompatible with previous versions.

Proprietary software champion Microsoft has reneged on an agreement to send its star Linux strategist to Sydney for the inaugural LinuxWorld Australia expo and conference next month. Not that Bill Hilf was likely to say anything that the market didn’t already know in his presentation.

If we imagine two baseball teams – the Windows Windjammers and the Linux Lumberjacks – the Windjammers are the longstanding pennant holders and the Lumberjacks are the struggling up and comers. Judging by my experiences last weekend, things may very well stay that way for the foreseeable future unless the Lumberjacks make a serious effort to get their act together.

Security vendor Symantec has identified new vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows which it describes as critical, including a potentially dangerous one on Windows Media Player.

About six months ago, after a chat with some local Linux evangelists, I decided to take the bold step (at least for me it was bold) to download a copy of Open Office.org 2.0. As a long standing user of successive versions of the less than brilliant but workable Microsoft Office package, I wanted to see if it was true that you really can get a professional quality and compatible office productivity package for free.

Microsoft, with local distributor NewLease, is embarking on a capital city road show to sell the hosted email message to more Australian service providers.


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