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Uh-Oh, Vista! PC Sales Levels Are Normal

Signs continue to indicate that Vista is doing little if anything to lift U.S. retail PC sales, supporting last week's Harris Interactive poll about consumer buying intentions. This morning, I spoke with Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of Industry Analysis, about retail PC sales. March data isn't ready for release, but Baker could discuss trends based on weekly sales data. "Vista hasn't been a catalyst for PC sales," he said. "Looking at the weekly data, there really isn't anything happening with sales that has anything to do with Vista." All trends are normal. "Sales are pretty typical for what they have been for the past 18 months or so," Baker continued.

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http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/ ... ormal.html

Spam, Spam, Spam

If you're feeling the spam pinch, you're not alone.

Earlier today, Symantec released its monthly report on spam (PDF). Spam levels "at the SMTP layer" were about 65 percent, with the fraud category accounting for about 3 percent and other scams for 6 percent of the total passing through the Symantec Probe Network.

Yesterday, IDC predicted that of the 97 billion e-mails sent each day in 2007, 40 billion would be spam. The research firm said this year will be the first where spam exceeds e-mail sent between people. IDC predicted that business e-mail volumes would be about 5 exabytes, or nearly double the 2005 level.

"Spam volumes are growing faster than expected due to the success of image-based spam in bypassing anti-spam filters and of e-mail sender identity spoofing in getting higher response rates," Mark Levitt, program vice president for IDC's Collaborative Computing and Enterprise Workplace research, said in a statement. "Instant messaging, joined by free and low-cost VOIP calling, will result in slower e-mail growth, especially among teens and young adults."

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http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/ ... _spam.html

Despite Fix, .ani Attacks Rise

Hackers are still tweaking and seeding exploits, though Microsoft plugged the Windows hole a week ago.

Although Microsoft patched the .ani flaw in Windows a week ago, that's not stopped attackers from boosting the number of Web sites serving exploits or tweaking exploits to make them more efficient.

"Based on past history, they'll have a pretty high success rate for quite a while," said Dan Hubbard, Websense's head of research, of attackers using .ani exploits. "That success rate goes down with time, but a patch is not the end of the story."

Past vulnerabilities that have been the target of major exploit campaigns -- notably the Windows Metafile (WMF) bug of late 2005 and early 2006 -- still account for 15 percent or more of active attacks, says Hubbard. "And that's more than a year after [the vulnerability was patched]."

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13061 ... ticle.html

Microsoft Lawyer Rebuts 'Vista Ready' Gripes

'Vista capable' information was not misleading, despite recent consumer complaints, top attorney says.

Microsoft's top lawyer said today that he is happy with the information the company provided about its Vista operating system, and its compatibility with existing PCs, ahead of the software's launch in January.

Last week, a class-action lawsuit was brought against the software maker claiming it unfairly labeled some PCs "Windows Vista Capable" when they could only run the most basic version of the operating system and not support more advanced versions that offer some of the most heavily-promoted features such as media center and advanced graphics.

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13065 ... ticle.html

Viridian Delay Foreshadows What About Longhorn Server?

Today's "Viridian" delivery reset raises questions about when Microsoft will really release Windows Server "Longhorn," with later looking more likely than sooner.

In a blog post this morning, Mike Neil, general manager of Microsoft's virtualization strategy, broke the news: "The public beta of Windows Server virtualization will ship in the second half of 2007, not in the first half as previously disclosed."

Additionally: "The final version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 now will be available in Q2, not Q1 as previously stated." Whoa, Nelly. He recommended that customers looking for the service pack to download a release candidate available later this month.

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http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/ ... erver.html

Microsoft looking into Hotmail problems

Microsoft engineers were looking into problems with Windows Live Hotmail on Thursday after users reported problems getting onto the Web site. The company was unsure of the cause or the scope of the problems, which began around 9 a.m. PDT. There was no impact on customer data, the company said.

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http://news.com.com/2061-10805_3-617559 ... g=nefd.aof

Why Google isn't the next Microsoft

Everyone seems to be piling on Google these days for being too big, too powerful. But Business 2.0's Chris Taylor makes the case for why the dominant Internet search giant will never be evil.

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http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/11/magazin ... 2007041210

Cybercrooks exploiting new Windows DNS flaw

Cybercrooks are using a yet-to-be-patched security flaw in certain Windows versions to attack computers running the operating systems, Microsoft warned late Thursday.

The attacks target Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 systems through a hole in the domain name system, or DNS, service, Microsoft said in a security advisory. The attacks happen by sending rigged data to the service, which by design is meant to help map text-based Internet addresses to numeric Internet Protocol addresses.

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http://news.com.com/Cybercrooks+exploit ... g=nefd.top

Microsoft confirms Vista OEM hack

In response to widespread chatter on blogs and forums, Microsoft has acknowledged the presence of hacks that may allow pirates to bypass the product activation security feature in its Windows Vista operating system.

According to a post by Microsoft Senior Product Manager Alex Kochis on the Windows Genuine Advantage developers' blog, Microsoft has identified two ways in which hackers have broken the product activation security feature on original equipment manufacturer PCs that come bundled with Vista. But the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant does not yet have plans to snuff out this threat.

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http://news.com.com/Microsoft+confirms+ ... g=nefd.pop

How Much Does Microsoft Make From Office 2007 and Vista?

In a research note released this week, Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar put some hard estimates on Microsoft's revenue take per copy of Office 2007 and Windows Vista. There is potential profit in the number of new versions.

Goldman Sachs expects Microsoft Business Division to generate more revenue during fiscal 2007, which ends on June 30, than Windows client -- 31 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

"About 40 percent of Office revenues are from fully packaged product and volume license agreements, 40 percent are from annuity contracts, and 20 percent are from OEM sales, compared with about 5 percent, 15 percent, and 80 percent for [Windows] client revenues, respectively," Friar wrote.

That means more copies of Office are sold through volume licensing, while Windows is generally bought with new PCs. For both products, higher-end SKUs could add to revenues. The bigger upside would be for Office, at least initially.

[img width=480 height=406]http://www.microsoft-watch.com/goldrev1.jpg[/img]

[img width=479 height=405]http://www.microsoft-watch.com/goldrev2.jpg[/img]

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http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/ ... vista.html

Den här var utförligare än den svenska versionen så jag postar den här också. Läs sista raderna.

Windows XP to Be Discontinued in Early 2008

Microsoft's plan to phase out OEM shipments of Windows XP is not sitting well with some observers.

Microsoft's plan to phase out OEM shipments of Windows XP, the predecessor to the new Windows Vista platform, is not sitting well with some observers, based on Internet-driven feedback.

According to a Microsoft Life-Cycle Policy Web page, Microsoft plans to discontinue shipments of Windows XP to OEMs on January 31, 2008. The page also said retail licenses will be discontinued at that time. Editions affected include the Professional, Tablet PC, Professional x64, Home, and Media Center editions of XP.

Chatters on Silicon Valley.com cited issues with the suitability of Vista on existing machines and said they might just go to Linux instead.

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13071 ... ticle.html#

Vista beta testers face software expiration

Millions of people testing beta and release candidate (RC) versions of Windows Vista will find their test software expires on June 1 - and Microsoft is not offering much help on migrating their systems.

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http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/ind ... ewsID=8519

That's Microsoft, right? 

correct

Google to Buy DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion

Google's acquisition strengthens its status as an online advertising powerhouse.

Google has agreed to buy DoubleClick for US$3.1 billion in cash, an acquisition that strengthens Google's status as an online advertising powerhouse. DoubleClick's network of advertisers and Web publishers, as well as its technology to serve ads and manage campaigns, is expected to boost Google's ad business, specifically for display and rich media advertising, which aren't Google's specialties.

Google generates most of its revenue from search engine, pay-per-click advertising, which are text ads that link to advertisers' Web sites, but it has lagged behind Yahoo and others in banner, graphical and video ads. Google will purchase DoubleClick from private equity firm Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity and management. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13072 ... ticle.html

Deadly Virus Phone Threat Causes Pakistan Panic

Subscribers worried about rumors of deadly virus transmitted through mobile phones.

KARACHI (Reuters) - Mobile service providers in Pakistan have been inundated by calls from subscribers worried by a prank message that they could die of a deadly virus being transmitted via their phones. The rumor was so effective that some mosques in the country's biggest city, Karachi, made announcements that people were being killed by a mobile virus and they should be aware of God's wrath.

In a prank reminiscent of the plot in the hit Hollywood movie "The Ring" in which people die within a week after watching a video, the prankster warned users that a deadly virus transmitted through phones had killed 20 people. There are more than 52 million mobile users among 160 million people in Pakistan. Farah Hussain, a spokeswoman for Warid Telecom, said that their customer service centers had been inundated with panicky subscribers inquiring about the so-called virus.

The cellular operators moved to calm down subscribers and said in a joint statement: "These rumors are completely baseless. They do not make any sense in technological terms."

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13070 ... ticle.html

Farewell Breezy

Breezy is now officially at end-of-life.

Looking back through my build logs, I can see that my desktop spent 18 hours, 49 minutes, and 4 seconds on 108 builds related to the roughly 64 breezy-security updates I was involved in publishing. So far, Dapper is at 132 builds totaling 19:59:40, and Edgy is at 142 builds totaling 23:32:28. These times obviously don’t include patch hunting/development, failed builds, testing, stuff done on my laptop or the PPC machine, etc. Even if it’s a bit incomplete, I think it’s fun to be able to point to some hard numbers about CPU time spent on Breezy updates.

Thank you Breezy! You have housed my MythTV installation very nicely, but now it’s time for some long over-due upgrades.

http://planet.ubuntu.com/

New PC Gaming Standard Based on Open Source

Eli Tomlinson makes money off of the work of others. He packages up GPL-licensed Linux games, and sells them on his Web site for $19.95. But the free software wonks who made these games aren’t complaining. In fact, they’re cheering his efforts. That’s because he’s made them easier to play. Tomlinson’s contribution to the package makes GNU games more accessible to the end user. End user-focused Linux gaming, you ask? Where’s the money in that?

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http://gigagamez.com/2007/03/19/new-pc- ... en-source/

'Barcade' renaissance for old-school games

In Brooklyn's warehouse-turned-artist district of Williamsburg, young hipsters flock to Barcade to sample its roster of microbrews and mingle with the likes of Pac-Man, the Mario brothers and Frogger.

The bar runs on wind power and has its own MySpace.com profile. Its walls are lined with dozens of bulky, old-school arcade games that decades ago lured coin-clutching teens to crowded, dark rooms with deceptively addicting game play.

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http://news.com.com/Barcade+renaissance ... g=nefd.top