Yahoo Board Chairman Quits

Terry Semel is stepping down as Yahoo's non-executive chairman, six months after handing over his CEO title to Jerry Yang.

Semel is leaving the board effective immediately, Yahoo announced Thursday. He will be replaced as non-executive chairman by another board member, Roy Bostock, the company said.

Semel was chairman and CEO of Yahoo for six years until he was replaced in a management shuffle last June. Yang, one of Yahoo's co-founders, was made CEO, and Semel was demoted to non-executive chairman.

As CEO, Semel helped to build Yahoo's audience from 170 million to more than 500 million users. But he was also blamed for missteps that allowed Google to build a commanding lead in online search and advertising, prompting last year's reorganization.

"With the Company moving forward under new leadership, I believe this is an appropriate time for me to step down from the board," Semel said in the statement.

He approached the board several months ago about leaving once a replacement could be found, Yahoo said.

Bostock has a long history in the advertising industry, "an area that is more important than ever to Yahoo's business and our long term success," the company said.

On Tuesday Yahoo reported that net income for its fourth quarter declined to $206 million, from $269 million a year earlier. It also announced plans to lay off about 1,000 staff.

Semel's departure from the board appears to mark the end of his tenure at Yahoo. Yang thanked him for "his many contributions to Yahoo over the years and for helping to lay a firm foundation for future success and improved financial performance."

Bostock has been a board member at Yahoo since May 2003 and was elected unanimously by the board to replace Semel. From 1990 to 2000 he was chairman and CEO of D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, and its successor advertising company The MacManus Group.

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Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Offer for Yahoo

Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for US$44.6 billion.

The offer is 62 percent above Yahoo's closing share price on Thursday.

"We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft.

"Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure," said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft.

The bid comes hours after Yahoo announced that Terry Semel was stepping down as non-executive chairman, six months after handing over his CEO title to Jerry Yang.

Semel is leaving the board effective immediately, Yahoo announced yesterday. He will be replaced as non-executive chairman by another board member, Roy Bostock, the company said.

Semel was chairman and CEO of Yahoo for six years until he was replaced in a management shuffle last June. Yang, one of Yahoo's co-founders, was made CEO, and Semel was demoted to non-executive chairman.

As CEO, Semel helped to build Yahoo's audience from 170 million to more than 500 million users. But he was also blamed for missteps that allowed Google to build a commanding lead in online search and advertising, prompting last year's reorganisation.

"With the Company moving forward under new leadership, I believe this is an appropriate time for me to step down from the board," Semel said in the statement.

He approached the board several months ago about leaving once a replacement could be found, Yahoo said.

Bostock has a long history in the advertising industry, "an area that is more important than ever to Yahoo's business and our long term success," the company said.

This week Yahoo reported that net income for its fourth quarter declined to $206 million, from $269 million a year earlier. It also announced plans to lay off about 1,000 staff.

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Microsoft Warns of New Excel Vulnerability

Attackers are exploiting a vulnerability that lies within several versions of the Excel spreadsheet program, Microsoft warned late Tuesday.

The problem in Excel allows a hacker to create a malicious Excel document that when opened can compromise a computer, Microsoft said in an advisory. The vulnerability could allow remote code to be executed on a computer, which means a user risks having their personal data exposed.

Microsoft downplayed the risk, saying only targeted attacks have been seen. But since Microsoft Excel documents are commonly used for business, vulnerabilities such as this pose a greater risk.

"Users are familiar with the document being sent to them and are likely to open it," wrote security analyst Maarten Van Horenbeeck, in a commentary on the Web site for the SANS Internet Storm Center, which monitors Internet threats.

The vulnerability is within the Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Excel 2000 and the Mac version, Microsoft Excel 2004.

Those who have installed Office Service Pack 3, which includes updates for Excel as well as other products in the office productivity suite, are not affected, Microsoft said. That service pack was released last September.

Also not affected are Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Excel 2008 for the Mac.

A PC user could be attacked a couple different ways. An e-mail with a malicious Excel attachment could be sent, upon which a user would have to download and open it to be exposed, Microsoft said. A hacker could also create a Web site hosting the file and try to persuade people to download it.

Microsoft did not indicate when it would issue a patch for the problem. People who think they may have been attacked can contact Microsoft and their national law enforcement agency.

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Microsoft Switches Plan, Offers Vista SP1 Public Beta

In a quick turnabout, Microsoft Corp. made the newest tweak to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) available to the public on Friday.

Just two days earlier, the new version, dubbed Windows Vista SP1 RC Refresh, had been handed out to a group of about 15,000 testers who had been working with the service pack for several months. At the time, Microsoft said the refresh was "not available for public download."

Friday, it changed its mind and posted instructions on its Web site for downloading and installing the new code using the Windows Update service.

According to the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Refresh Public Availability Program, users must uninstall Vista SP1 Release Candidate -- the earlier version offered to the general public a month ago -- before attempting to download and install the refresh.

The refresh requires the same time-consuming, multiple-reboot process used by Vista SP1 RC in December. Also, users who have uninstalled that version must wait an hour before beginning the laborious update. "The installer service needs to clean up and complete the uninstall prior to installing the RC," said instructions posted on the Web. "Failing to do this can result in installation errors when installing the RC version."

Three prerequisite updates are also required before SP1 can be installed. Windows Update feeds them to the PC prior to downloading SP1, with a reboot after each. One of the prerequisites is a patch Microsoft mistakenly sent to all Vista users' PCs last week when it meant to send it only to machines running Vista Enterprise or Vista Ultimate.

The company, which has slated Vista SP1 for final delivery this quarter, said as recently as Thursday that the update remains on track.

Microsoft Tells Details of Office 2008 for Mac

Microsoft has announced pricing and availability of its latest Mac-compatible version of its Office suite of business tools.

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is available from January 15 for £350 (US$685), including VAT, for the Standard Edition. A Home and Student Edition of Office 2008 for Mac costs $193.

Microsoft clams that Office 2008 for Mac is "more powerful and easier to use," including a simplified new user interface and new tools such as Document Elements.

Office 2008 for Mac uses the same Open XML file formats, Office Art graphics engine, and other features as the Windows-based Office 2007. There are also "hundreds" of new customizable templates and suite-wide themes.

Word 2008 features a Publishing Layout View workspace that lets users create "incredibly rich documents" such as newsletters and brochures "without a degree in design."

Excel 2008 has "vastly improved" charting capabilities to help users create and manipulate charts and graphs "easier than ever before."

PowerPoint 2008 includes SmartArt graphics that "let you bring a blank slide to life with stunning charts, maps, and diagrams at the click of a button."

Email client Entourage 2008 is "the hub of Office 2008," and features My Day to keep the user connected with schedules, tasks, and priorities in a clear, stand-alone interface. Project Center helps users keep their project details under control.

Office 2008 for Mac requires Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later, a PowerPC G4 or G5 or Intel Core duo processor, 512MB of RAM and 1.5GB free hard-disk space.

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Microsoft Trains 200,000 Teachers in India

Microsoft has trained 200,000 teachers in India on the use of computers, ahead of its original target to train 80,000 teachers in the country during the five-year period ending December this year, it said.

The company introduced the program, called project Shiksha, in 2003 with the objective of raising the computer literacy of Indian teachers and students in government-run schools. The 200,000 teachers trained so far have in turn trained about 10 million students, a spokeswoman for Microsoft India said on Monday.

The moves by Microsoft to offer free or subsidized software in India have however come in for criticism from the Free Software Foundation, which compared Microsoft's philanthropy to that of a cigarette manufacturer handing out free samples of cigarettes to students.

The communist-run state of Kerala in south India is actively promoting open-source software in schools, but most other states and the federal government are beneficiaries of Microsoft's programs.

Microsoft works with state governments to help teachers use its technology in school administrations and also to include it in their curriculum and teaching methods, she said. While the state governments provide the classrooms, Microsoft provides the hardware and software, and a team of trainers for the teachers.

Although the company has reached its training target, it's not stopping the program yet. It did not say how many more teachers and students it plans to cover under the program, though.

The company has introduced low-cost, starter editions of its Vista operating system, as well as local language versions of its Office suite to target both the academic and e-governance markets.

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Microsoft faces two new European antitrust cases

The European Commission has opened two new antitrust investigations of Microsoft's activities.

The first case is in response to a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a Brussels-based trade group of which Opera Software is a member, and concerns the interoperability of Windows with other software, the Commission said Monday.

The second investigation is looking into Microsoft's tactic of bundling software products with its Windows operating system. This follows a complaint to the Commission by Opera, a Norwegian browser developer.

Both issues featured in the Commission's landmark March 2004 antitrust decision against Microsoft, which the company unsuccessfully challenged in court.

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Opera: Next Version to Crush Internet Explorer

VS

Opera chief executive Jon S. von Tetzchner flew in from Norway for an update on the company's Web browser, including the claim that the next version could be about ten times faster than Internet Explorer.

According to von Tetzchner, Opera's is expanding into the mobile market. And, not surprisingly, the upcoming Opera 9.5 revision will be faster and more efficient, he said.

With AOL pulling the plug on Netscape Navigator come February, Opera is now the oldest Web browser still standing. It has less than 2 percent market share in the U.S. but has made strides recently, especially in the mobile arena with the rise of Web-ready smartphones and other handheld devices. According to von Tetzchner, the company's mobile Web browsing platform, Opera Mini, has 30 million users worldwide with around 100,000 new downloads a day.

Opera started working on a mobile browser in 1998, but only recently has there been hardware, such as the Apple iPhone, that has been truly able to take advantage of the software. As a result, it has gained in popularity.

"The iPhone was a great boost for us," von Tetzchner said, adding that what the iPhone does is only a subset of the functionality offered by Opera. Opera is available on 59 phones, as well as on many other devices, such as the Nintendo DS Lite.

On the desktop side, the company has been working on the next update of its Web browser, which will be Opera 9.5. The goal is to make app faster and more efficient. For example, 9.5 will introduce a cache search that will let a user hunt through the history files by keyword; an Opera Links feature will synchronize all the bookmarks among different browsers on a PC. According to von Tetzchner, Opera 9.5 will also show a significant speed boost, thanks to greatly improved Javascript optimization, among other under-the-hood improvements.

"Some tests show it will be twice as fast [as the previous version]" von Tetzchner claimed. "Some tests even show it's as much as 10 times faster than Internet Explorer."

Although the company is still working on building market share in the States, it has become a significant player in the global market. Von Tetzchner told us the browser is popular in the Nordic region and Eastern Europe. Opera has also teamed up with companies like Tata in India to provide less technologically driven populations with mobile Web browsing services. In some areas, Opera mini is the main portal to the Internet. "In Bangladesh more people are getting on the Internet with Opera mini than a PC," von Tetzchner said. "It feels good when you're helping people get online."

The company is looking to hop onto the current trend of moving more software functionality onto the Web, von Tetzchner said. The company has spent a lot of time optimizing the browser to accommodate Web-based software—for example, by working with HTML 5 to create more compact and more accessible code. Doing so will allow more intelligent Web forms, he said. Opera also offers over 1,100 widgets and gives users the ability to create their own.

The company plans to release a beta version of Opera 9.5 in the next two months. The final version should be available by this summer.

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Microsoft President Raikes Retiring, Replacement Comes From Outside

Chairman and co-founder Bill Gates isn't the only one on his way out at Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT). Business division President and long-time Microsoft employee Jeff Raikes is retiring in September, being replaced by Stephen Elop, the now former chief operating officer of Juniper Networks.

Raikes' last hurrah as business division president will be next month's launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. He's one of Microsoft's longest serving employees, having joined the company in 1981 as a product manager.

"I've had an incredible journey here at Microsoft," Raikes said in a statement. "Given the success of our business and the depth of leadership we have in place, the time is right to leave the business in the capable hands of our new generation of leaders."

Raikes looked like a potential successor for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, should he retire, having helped grow the Office brand in Microsoft's early days and, more recently, turned Microsoft's business division into a cash cow. Raikes has overseen a doubling of Microsoft business division's annual revenue, including 21 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth in the company's Server and Tools Business.

Replacing Raikes, Elop brings formidable technology experience to Microsoft. In addition to serving as Juniper's COO, Elop was president of Adobe's worldwide field operations after a stint as Macromedia's CEO.

Elop's background serves as a bit of a template for the direction Microsoft is moving. His experience with Macromedia and Adobe make him a good candidate to lead an Internet services push in product areas like Microsoft Office, while his recent job with Juniper places Elop to help Microsoft take on Cisco in the emerging field of unified communications.

At least during the transition phase from Raikes to Elop, Microsoft senior VP Bob Muglia, who heads up the company's server and tools business -- that includes products like Windows Server and Visual Studio -- will report directly to Ballmer.

Raikes is one of a few executives to announce their departure from the company this week. Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft's general manager for platform strategy, is also leaving the company, a Microsoft spokesman said Thursday. And on Wednesday, Microsoft said merger and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe would be leaving the company next month.

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Microsoft Promises Free Game After Online Woes

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it will offer a free downloadable video game to users of its Xbox online gaming service after the network was plagued with connection troubles over the holidays.

Xbox Live General Manager Mark Whitten said the problems stemmed from a "massive increase" in new users of the service over the holiday season, when sales of video game hardware and software surge.

"While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance," Whitten said in a statement.

Whitten said all Xbox Live members around the world would be able to freely download one game over the service. Games sold on Xbox Live typically cost from $5 to $20, and Whitten said Microsoft would give details of the offer in the coming weeks.

Before the holiday sales surge, Xbox Live had more than eight million members, many of whom were paying $50 a year for the premium service that lets them play online against others.

Whitten did not give details of the cause of the problems, but gaming Web sites and forums have been filled in recent days with complaints from users frustrated with the inability to sign on to the service or play online.

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Microsoft Security & Critical Releases ISO December 2007

This ISO-9660 CD image file contains all security and critical updates for Windows released on Windows Update on October, 2006. October 2006 Security and Critical Releases ISO Image does not contain security updates for any other Microsoft products.

This CD image is intended for corporate administrators who manage large multinational organizations, who need to download multiple individual language versions of each security update and who do not use an automated solution such as WSUS. Use this image to download multiple updates in all languages at the same time.

Caution: Be sure to check the individual security bulletins at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security prior to deployment of these updates to ensure that the files have not been updated at a later date.

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Serious flaw discovered in Windows Vista's Explorer

At a time where everyone is anxiously awaiting the upcoming service pack for Windows Vista (and while others flock back to Windows XP in droves), yet another flaw in the Windows Vista operating system has been discovered that can bring the Windows shell ("Windows Explorer") to its knees within 20 seconds. Even worse, this issue occurs under every day usage of the operating system if you use the Search function regularly with boolean search operators.

1. Click on Start, and then click on Documents.

2. In the Search entry box, type "NOT Shortcut" (without the quotes).

3. Click on the "Save Search" button and save the search query as "Search Test".

This has been confirmed as a flaw in Windows Vista (all editions) and Windows Vista 64-bit (all editions), and even worse, the issue still occurs on the latest release candidate for Service Pack 1. The bigger question is, will Microsoft step up to the plate and fix this issue or will they let it pass on by while they work heavily on Windows "7", ignoring the fact that Windows Vista still has flaws and inconsistancies that are seeing larger companies hold back deployment until 2009 or even skip Vista?

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AOL to End Support for Netscape Browser

An historic name in software will effectively pass into history in February as AOL discontinues development and active support for the Netscape browser, according to an official blog.

AOL will keep delivering security patches for the current version of Netscape until Feb. 1, 2008, after which it will no longer provide active support for any version of the software, according to a Friday entry on The Netscape Blog by Tom Drapeau, lead developer for Netscape.com. The Netscape.com Web site will remain as a general-purpose portal.

Netscape was the original mass-market Web browser and helped to popularize the Internet in the mid-1990s, but it has long taken a back seat to Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Firefox itself traces its roots back to Netscape software that was made into open source. The Mozilla Foundation was founded in 2003, with support from AOL, and has released successive versions of Firefox while AOL continued to develop Netscape on top of the same platform, Drapeau wrote.

Groups within AOL have tried and failed to revive Netscape Navigator and gain market share against Internet Explorer, according to the blog entry.

"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," Drapeau wrote. "Given AOL's current business focus ... we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox," Drapeau wrote.

The Mosaic Netscape browser was posted for downloading in 1994 by Mosaic Communications, which later changed its name to Netscape Communications. That company kicked off the dot-com boom with its hugely successful initial public offering in August 1995 and was acquired by AOL in 1999. But Internet Explorer, introduced in 1995, eventually dominated the browser market. Microsoft's bundling of its browser with Windows operating systems was a key issue in antitrust lawsuits filed against it in 1997.

As of this month, Netscape had only 0.6 percent of the browser market, which was still dominated by Internet Explorer with more than 77 percent, according to Web application and analytics firm Net Applications. Firefox was gaining, however, with market share just over 16 percent.

Users will still be able to download old versions of Netscape from an archive, currently located here, though they will not be supported by AOL, Drapeau wrote.

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Microsoft Launches Microsoft Point Gifting at the Last Possible Holiday Shopping Moment

Good news procrastinators and slackasses! Have you still not bought The Orange Box or another appropriately awesome game for your best bud with an Xbox 360? No worries, just give them a shitload of Microsoft Points from the comfort of your lonely computer chair. As of yesterday, you can gift points from the Microsoft Points site, but you've gotta know their Windows Live ID—Gamer Tag transactions are on the way early next year. It's US residents only (plus the site is a little busted up in Firefox 3 so I couldn't login 'til I fired up IE). If your friend's getting a Zune for Christmas, they'll work in the Zune Marketplace too. Just take note that if you actually give someone a bundle of points for Christmas, since the program just launched yesterday, it's a red-and-green neon sign that you're a mediocre-to-crappy friend.

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Microsoft's 12 Gifts of Christmas

For holiday 2006, Microsoft offered up a big lump of coal, as in no Windows Vista. Is someone feeling guilty or what? This year, Microsoft has unloaded a bag full of gifts for the holidays. I pick the 12 best.

And, no, no, no, no, no! I won't be setting these gifts to music. Please feel free to sing through the 12 gifts, but I won't help you. That parody approach long ago became a bad joke.

So, what were Microsoft's best gifts, from 12 to one? Here's my list:

12. Connect 3.0 beta. The list begins with a little lump of coal in the Christmas stocking. Microsoft is testing a new Connect Web site. It's time for the Microsoft beta tester revolt, because the new site is butt-ugly. No thanks, Santa!

11. Windows, code name 7. OK, so you haven't deployed Vista yet and loathe the prospect of testing. No worries, Microsoft has started dropping hints about successor Windows 7. It's a gift! In a Dec. 11 blog post, Microsoft's Hilton Locke wrote: "If you are impressed by the 'touch features' in the iPhone, you'll be blown away by what's coming in Windows 7." Did you get a gift receipt for that iPhone?

10. The 11-cent reward. Yesterday, Microsoft announced an 11-cent-per-share dividend for stockholders. For all those Microsoft investors pining for the good old share growth days or Google's stratospheric share price, every little bit helps. I don't get anything. For conflict-of-interest reasons, I don't invest. Say, don't spend it all at once!

9. Bill Gates' Office 2007 tutorial. Microsoft's chairman wants you to know how he uses his company's software. Sorry, I couldn't get past the dreamy description of Gates' gear: "Three large flat-screen displays ... synchronized so they work like a single very wide display." I also got a warm, fuzzy feeling about Gates' management style. He wrote, "Each year I do something called ThinkWeek where anybody in the company can submit a paper about an idea they have to change the way our company works or to pursue a new development project." Oh, yeah, and he uses Office 2007, too!

8. Vista's disabled off switch. Microsoft will finally do away with one of Vista's most loathed features (c'mon, you hate it more than Universal Account Control pop-ups). Vista will no longer disable if not activated. This could have ranked as a bigger gift, but Microsoft still requires businesses with volume-license keys to use activation servers. OK, so it's not the present you really wanted.

7. Internet Explorer 8's acid trip. IE7's first year of application-breaking mayhem has passed, and Microsoft execs are suddenly talking about its successor. Considering Microsoft has said nothing about IE8 for the first 11 months of the year, the sudden disclosure is quite the gift. Surely, everyone is so proud of how grown-up IE8 is. The browser passed Acid2.

6. Server protocols. Yesterday, Samba licensed server protocols from Microsoft, as required by the 2004 European antitrust ruling. But developers should be careful what they ask Santa for. Microsoft may benefit more from the protocol program than licensees. Is this like when I give my wife a DVD that I want to watch more than she does? Happy Christmas!

5. A ribbon for Popfly. Microsoft gave its mashup site and service a nice makeover, just in time for the holidays. The Popfly Web Creator now incorporates stylistic elements from the Office 2007 ribbon. Microsoft just wants you to feel as comfortable on the Web as when using desktop software. Santa says: "Begone with archaic browser motifs!"

4. Office 2007 and SharePoint Server service packs. Microsoft knows that you really don't need them. But socks and underwear (ah, thanks, mom) are what someone gives when they don't know what else to give or they don't care to find out what you want. Microsoft checked a box on the gift list and, poof, Service Pack 1 arrived.

3. Hyper-V. Microsoft even called the Dec. 13 Hyper-V beta a gift. Santa "developers, developers, developers" Steve Ballmer must have pushed the elves hard to get out the virtualization software in time for the holidays. Hyper-V testing is the perfect break from all that chaotic Christmas shopping. You've nothing better to do, right?

2. Search visualization. For all those developers tired of boring, text-driven searches, Microsoft has a gift. This week the company released Windows Live QuickApps code for Tafiti search visualization. What happens when Silverlight meets Live Search? Tafiti! Developers, Microsoft wants you to feel young again, like when Santa brought you that first set of Legos or building blocks.

1. Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 1. You know you need it and maybe even want it. The world runs on Windows XP. It's Microsoft's most successful operating system ever. For the zillions of people waiting on switching to Vista or never going to it, Windows XP is their computing lifeblood. SP3 is that new transfusion. Say, why not celebrate the holidays with a Windows XP tattoo? Why should the Zune tattoo guy have all the fun?

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Samsung reveals wireless 8-inch SPF-83V digiframe

The Samsung SPF-83V is a new 8 inch digital photo frame based on Microsoft technology. Photos can be viewed wirelessly from sharing sites such as Windows Live Spaces or from your PC. The Samsung SPF-83V frame also communicates with Windows Media Player and open standards such as RSS. “Our latest digital photo frames, based on cutting-edge technology from the Microsoft Research labs, are easy to use and are one of the few offerings in the marketplace that offer a ‘network’ approach to digital photo sharing.” said Christopher Franey, vice president of Commercial Sales and Marketing at Samsung Electronics America. Price and availability of the Samsung SPF-83V to be announced.

Samsung Press Release
Samsung Licenses Microsoft Technology for Wireless Digital Photo Frame

New consumer product, available in time for the holidays, is one of the few networked offerings on the market and is result of ongoing licensing and technology collaboration between the two companies.

REDMOND, Wash. and IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Samsung Electronics America Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Corporation, today announced the release of its new 8” Digital Photo Frame SPF-83V, based on technology developed by Microsoft Research, in time for the holiday season. With this innovative addition to their photo frame lineup, customers can enjoy photos wirelessly in their home and display photos from sharing sites such as Windows Live Spaces or from personal collections on their PC.

The frame works with the Windows Live Photo Gallery, which makes sharing photos with friends and family easy. Users can organize and upload individual photos or albums from their PC to Windows Live Spaces and the photos are ready for display on the frame.

Along with the technology licensed from Microsoft Research, the Samsung frame communicates with Windows Media Player and open standards such as RSS. The product is a result of a long-standing collaboration between Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronics, including a patent cross-licensing agreement signed by the two companies in April 2007.

“Offering our customers next-generation products that bring them closer to family and friends is important to us,” said Christopher Franey, vice president of Commercial Sales and Marketing at Samsung Electronics America, Information Technology Division. “Our latest digital photo frames, based on cutting-edge technology from the Microsoft Research labs, are easy to use and are one of the few offerings in the marketplace that offer a ‘network’ approach to digital photo sharing. This is a great example of our ongoing collaboration with Microsoft, and we are confident that the resulting product will be received extremely well.”

“Working with industry leaders such as Samsung to allow them to deploy Microsoft’s innovative technologies and bring great products and services to customers more rapidly is what our intellectual property licensing efforts are all about,” said Louis Carbonneau, general manager of Intellectual Property Licensing at Microsoft. “This is just one example of how our dedication to open innovation can lead to greater collaboration between two technology industry leaders and to great products—right in time for the holidays.”

More information about the full offering of Samsung digital photo frames can be found at http://www.samsung.com/.

About Samsung Electronics America Information Technology Division
Samsung’s Information Technology Division (ITD) markets a complete line of award-winning LCD Monitor products, including professional large format LCD and Plasma displays. ITD also markets an award-winning line of color and monochrome laser printers and multifunction devices, video security systems and the family of Samsung Q1 Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers (UMPC). Samsung ITD is committed to supporting the needs of its channel partners in the professional, commercial, corporate, and SOHO markets. Based in Irvine, California, ITD is a division of Samsung Electronics America (SEA), a U.S. subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Company, Ltd. (SEC). The SEA organization oversees the North American operations of Samsung including Samsung Telecommunications America, LP, Samsung Electronics Canada, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Mexico, Inc. Please visit http://www.samsung.com/ for more information or call 1-800-SAMSUNG for more information.

About Samsung
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2006 parent company sales of US$63.4 billion and net income of US$8.5 billion. Employing approximately 138,000 people in 124 offices in 56 countries, the company consists of five main business units: Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business, Telecommunication Network Business, and Digital Appliance Business. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit http://www.samsung.com/.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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Microsoft rebrands PlaysForSure to Certified For Windows Vista, confuses world

Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM just took another step closer to the grave with the help of some rebranding. Those of you with players from SanDisk, Nokia, and Creative among others, looking for compatible music from Napster, Real Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Wal-Mart and such must now look for the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo, not PlaysForSure. Of course, Microsoft's Zune is also certified for Windows Vista, just not certified for Windows Vista so it won't play back the same protected files. Man, could DRM get any more consumer unfriendly?

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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac goes gold, ships next month

Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday it has wrapped up development of Office 2008 for Mac, the first overhaul to its productivity software suite for Apple's Mac users in nearly half a decade.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said the frozen code will be released to manufacturing later this evening, ahead of the software's official launch next month at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco.
Come January 15th, Office 2008 for Mac will be available in three distinct editions ranging from an entry level $150 Home and Student Edition to a high-end $500 Special Media Edition.
However, Microsoft is currently running its "Super Suite Deal" promotion, which allows customers to purchase the current $330 Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Standard edition or the current $130 Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher edition and then receive the $500 Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition for only the cost of shipping and handling.
To take advantage of this offer, simply purchase Office 2004 for Mac Standard Edition ($330) or Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher Edition ($130) from an authorized reseller like Amazon.com by January 14th. (Your receipt must be dated between Nov. 1, 2007 and Jan. 14, 2008.) Then print and complete the Super Suite Deal Redemption Form [pdf].
Those customers who participate in the promotion and return the Super Suite Deal Redemption Form by February 14th, 2008 will receive a copy of Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition for the cost of shipping ($7.00 US, $10 CND) once it becomes available next month.
Microsoft does not appear to be requiring proof that participants who purchase Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher Edition are actually students or teachers. Therefore it appears likely that anyone can purchase the Student and Teach Edition for $130 from Amazon and then receive a copy of the $500 Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition for just the cost of shipping and handling.
Those readers interested in Office 2008 for Mac may want to check out AppleInsider's recent Road to Mac Office 2008 series, installments of which are listed below in the order they were published.

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Halo 3 Named TIME's Best Game of 2007

Magazine calls Bungie's latest gaming effort the "perfect" shooter and "graphically gorgeous."

"In one of the greatest years video gaming has ever seen, Halo 3 is the very best of the bunch," writes Lev Grossman, author of TIME's Top 10 Video Games of 2007. Grossman called Bungie's latest effort the "perfect" shooter and "graphically gorgeous."

Master Chief was so good, in fact, that he outranked The Orange Box, Rock Band, and Super Mario Galaxy -- all of which hold a greater average review score on Metacritic.

Other considerations on TIME's list include BioShock, Call of Duty 4, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Mass Effect, Ace Combat 6, and God of War 2.

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Office 2007 sp1 ready for download today

Today sp1 ships. hurray. It's not up there yet but should be later today. Also the kb articles for each patch don't seem to be live at this moment but should also appear later on today.

Looking down the list of fixes, here are some that caught my eye (read the whitepaper for the full list):

• Communicator won't let you IM a distribution list any more for security reasons
• Icons for presence have been modified so that red/green colour blind people can tell the difference between available and busy by looking at the icon rather than the text next to it
• That Excel bug with 65,534 getting shown as 100,001 is fixed
• SharePoint works on Windows Server 2008
• ASP.net AJAX supported on SharePoint for web parts
• Outlook delays with opening large psts eliminated

Here is the rest of the blurb:

What can you expect in Service Pack 1?

SP1 focuses on the issues that matter most to our customers based on direct customer feedback and error reporting tools. You can expect:

• Stability. Using data from the Dr. Watson bug-reporting system, we've fixed the top software issues for each application in the 2007 Office system. The 2007 Office system SP1 also improves the stability of server components in the 2007 Office system and delivers compatibility with Windows Server® 2008, so you can confidently plan for future upgrades.
• Performance. The 2007 Office system SP1 improves performance in applications and servers. Performance improvements can be found in Microsoft Office Excel® 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007, and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007.
• Security. By incorporating incremental advances in security and results from application testing, the 2007 Office system SP1 offers home and office users better protection against malicious software and potential threats to privacy.

For a full list of improvements in SP1, download the Service Pack 1 whitepaper.

What does SP1 mean for you?

Service Pack 1 eliminates distractions and performance issues that disrupt workflow, allowing employees to be more productive in the work that they do. SP1 is also an important milestone for deploying the 2007 Office system, making it easy to deploy the most secure and reliable version of Office to date.

How do you get it?

Initially, SP1 will be available as a free download from OfficeOnline. SP1 will be made available via Automatic Update in the next 3-6 months, and we'll issue 30 day advance notice prior to delivering SP1 via automatic update.

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