Early IE9 Platform Preview results show promise

We've argued that Microsoft needs to engage more with Web developers to give a better understanding of what the company is doing with its Web browser, allow them to provide feedback throughout the development process, and more broadly get them engaged with the development process. With Internet Explorer 9's Platform Preview, Microsoft has indeed taken steps to do exactly this. Though Microsoft still isn't releasing the nightly builds that other browsers offer, the Platform Preview definitely represents progress; it provides early access to IE9's core rendering and JavaScript engines, and will be updated approximately every eight weeks.

The eight-week cycle was chosen because Redmond felt this provided the best trade-off between getting regular updates into developers' hands, ensuring that the preview releases are reasonably robust, and getting useful feedback that integrates well with Microsoft's own development processes. Each version will undergo reasonably extensive testing during the eight-week period, giving ample opportunity for bugs to be filed. For its part, the IE team has committed to investigating every single bug filed, and resolving all that it can.

Indications are that the Platform Preview has thus far been quite successful. Sources close to the matter state that some 700,000 copies of the preview have been downloaded, and that interest has been global in spite of the preview being a US English-only release. The top three bug report areas are SVG, compatibility, and then CSS, which certainly indicates that developers are taking an interest in testing the browser's new features and ensuring they work correctly. Of the hundreds of bugs filed thus far, the same source says that around 60 percent of them have been addressed by the development team.

These download numbers are substantial, and it could be make a good case in favor of this slower release strategy. The Mozilla group's weekly Status Meetings include information about the number of users of different prerelease versions of Firefox. During the lead-up to the release of Firefox 3.5, several hundred thousand people used the major betas, but the nightly releases were much less used, with perhaps 10,000-15,000 users. The Platform Preview is not anything near as usable as the Firefox betas, so 700,000 downloads is a strong showing.

Ars talked with IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch briefly about the Preview. He said that IE9 testers seemed particularly interested in the browser's performance and graphical capabilities, as these areas of the IE 9 Test Drive site had received most traffic. This is also reflected in some third-party reactions. NVIDIA recently used the IE9 Platform Preview to promote the graphical capabilities of its new Ion2 platform—capabilities that IE9 can, of course, exploit due to its extensive hardware acceleration (the same hardware acceleration that leaves Windows XP users out in the cold).

Stability vs. automation

Microsoft's approach to browser development shows a strong commitment to the ideal of a stable, versioned platform, something that developers could reliably target for consistent results. This attitude is carried through to the Platform Preview. Unlike, say, Chrome's dev channel which automatically updates about once a week, ensuring that developers always have access to an up-to-date version, the IE9 Platform Preview will require manual updating. Though this has the obvious downside that developers might forget or not notice that a new version has been released, and hence may result in testing of obsolete versions, it maintains the important (to Microsoft) notion of predictability. With Chrome, a page might work one day and be broken the next by an automatic update, a behavior that can be confusing at best. Microsoft doesn't want IE developers to face a similar experience; instead, they will have to take deliberate action to update.

On the other hand, automatic updates are, in a sense, part-and-parcel of the Web experience. Websites can change their appearance overnight, and while this can be confusing to some, it's an unavoidable fact of Internet life. The case can certainly be made that browsers should follow websites' lead and update themselves; this gives users a browser that (by and large) keeps on getting better—faster, more capable, and with new features. Though occasional regressions will happen (wherein a new version breaks something that used to work) a robust development process should make these rare.

These advantages were acknowledged by Hachamovitch, especially for the more savvy, technically aware user (that is, users who are unlikely to be fazed by new features and improvements appearing within their browser automatically). But the company still prefers to take the more conservative approach to avoid problems of users being surprised by changes.

Hachamovitch was noncommittal about what the second Platform Preview release would contain when released next month. At MIX10 we saw demonstrations of HTML5 video in a build of IE9. The version released last month, however, didn't include video support. HTML5 video is surely one of the most eagerly anticipated IE9 features. It will ship in a Preview release eventually, but we do not know when.

The Platform Preview program is still in its early stages, and this is the first time that Microsoft has developed its browser in this way; there may yet be refinements to the program as both the company and third parties learn the best way to work together, and there's no news yet of what will happen once IE9 moves into beta.

Thus far, at least, it looks like the scheme has been successful at getting third-party developers involved with IE9's development, which has to be good news for both sides.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Microsoft offers much-needed fix for Windows OSS development

Although Microsoft is beginning to acknowledge that the rich ecosystem of open source software can bring a lot of value to Windows users, the most popular open source software projects are largely developed on other platforms, which means that they aren't always easy to deploy on Windows. A relatively complex open source server stack can be rolled out on Linux with a few clicks, but it might take hours to get the same software installed and properly configured on Windows.

Microsoft developer Garrett Serack has identified a compelling solution to this problem. He is launching a new project to build a package management system for Windows with the aim of radically simplifying installation of popular open source software on Microsoft's platform. He calls it the Common Open Source Application Publishing Platform (CoApp).

Much like the package management systems that are a standard part of popular Linux distributions, the CoApp project will provide a delivery platform for packaged open source software libraries and applications, with support for dependency resolution and automatic updates. It could be a powerful tool for system administrators who want a WAMP stack or developers who want to port Linux applications to Windows.

Serack wants to use Microsoft's MSI format for the packages and intends to take advantage of WinSxS in order to deliver parallel binaries so that users will have access to multiple builds of the same library generated by different compilers. The project will also seek to establish some basic standards for filesystem layout so that files are put in consistent places.

He is coordinating the project with Microsoft's blessing, but the actual development effort will be community-driven—an approach that will hopefully enable CoApp to evolve in a way that best serves its users rather than being directed by Microsoft.

"The folks here at Microsoft have recognized the value in this project—and have kindly offered to let me work on it full-time. I'm running the project; Microsoft is supporting my efforts in this 100%," he wrote in a blog entry about the project on Wednesday. "The design is entirely the work of myself and the CoApp community, I don't have to vet it with anyone inside the company."

Making open source development on Windows suck less

Having ported several of my own Linux applications to Windows, I know from personal experience how insanely difficult it can be to set up a proper environment for developing open source software on Microsoft's operating system. For the last Qt application that I ported, the process of getting all of the dependencies installed took hours. I had to install CMake, find just the right version of Automoc, and compile OpenSSL from source.

My current Windows VM has a half a dozen different build systems and three separate sets of version control tools, all of which had to be installed individually. I also have two completely separate installations of MinGW and a rather heavy Cygwin setup. I need all of this crap in order to port my software to Windows, but it's a nightmare to maintain. I have to meticulously document every step of the setup process if I ever want to be able to do it again on a different Windows installation.

These headaches are enough to deter many open source software developers who would otherwise be releasing Windows versions of their applications. Spending a few hours developing on Windows often serves as a painful reminder of how much I depend on my distro's super cow powers. That is why I'm convinced that CoApp is a very good idea.

Cygwin arguably constitutes a package management system by itself, but it tends to be somewhat insular and isn't very native. Serack believes that CoApp offers an opportunity to do it the right way and close the gaps that isolate ported open source software components from the rest of the Windows ecosystem. If it's done properly, that could be very significant.

Although Linux enthusiasts tend to disdain Windows, porting Linux applications to Microsoft's operating system can open up a lot of opportunities. A Windows port can expose your application to a whole new audience, making it possible to attract new contributors. We have seen a number of prominent open source software projects benefit in that manner from Windows compatibility in the past.

A positive side effect of that phenomenon is that it introduces Windows application developers to open source frameworks and technologies. Broader adoption of cross-platform Linux-friendly software and toolkits on Windows would obviously help boost the availability of software for Linux.

Although I'm really impressed with Serack's vision, I'm a bit skeptical that a task of such magnitude and complexity can be fulfilled to an extent that would truly deliver on its potential. Such an undertaking will require considerable manpower. Ars readers who want to participate in the project or learn more can check out the CoApp page on Launchpad.

Source: Arstechnica.com

90 percent of Windows 7 flaws fixed by removing admin rights

After tabulating all the vulnerabilities published in Microsoft's 2009 Security Bulletins, it turns out 90 percent of the vulnerabilities can be mitigated by configuring users to operate without administrator rights, according to a report by BeyondTrust. As for the published Windows 7 vulnerabilities through March 2010, 57 percent are no longer applicable after removing administrator rights. By comparison, Windows 2000 is at 53 percent, Windows XP is at 62 percent, Windows Server 2003 is at 55 percent, Windows Vista is at 54 percent, and Windows Server 2008 is at 53 percent. The two biggest exploited Microsoft applications also fare well: 100 percent of Microsoft Office flaws and 94 percent of Internet Explorer flaws (and 100 percent of IE8 flaws) no longer work.

This is good news for IT departments because it means they can significantly reduce the risk of a security breach by configuring the operating system for standard users rather than administrator. Despite unpredictable and evolving attacks, companies can very easily protect themselves or at least reduce the effects of a newly discovered threat, as long as they're ok with their users not installing software or using many applications that require elevated privileges.

In total, 64 percent of all Microsoft vulnerabilities reported last year are mitigated by removing administrator rights. That number increases to 81 percent if you only consider security issues marked Critical, the highest rating Redmond gives out, and goes even higher to 87 percent if you look at just Remote Code Execution flaws. Microsoft published 74 Security Bulletins in 2009, spanning around 160 vulnerabilities (133 of those were for Microsoft operating systems). The report, linked below, has a list of all of them, which software they affect, and which ones are mitigated by removing admin rights.

Source: Arstechnica.com

ZeuApp Downloads 82 Awesome Open Source Apps

Windows: If you're setting up a new system or helping a friend to see how much great free and open source software exists, ZeuAPP is a portable installation tool for nearly a hundred applications.

ZeuAPP is essentially an installation dashboard for 82 applications. You can navigate to application types like CD Burners, P2P apps, Office apps, and more. Under each tab are applications for that category with a "Download" and "Visit Website" button which allow you to download the application and automatically launch the installer or visit the web site for more info.

ZeuAPP is freeware, portable, and Windows only. Looking for something that'll also quickly grab and install your favorite non-open source apps? Check out previously mentioned Ninite.

ZeuAPP [via Addictive Tips]

Source: Lifehacker.com

IE9, standards, and why Acid3 isn't the priority

Microsoft's development direction of Internet Explorer 9 is unambiguous: implementing HTML5 Web standards is the name of the game, with the intent of letting developers use the "same markup" to work everywhere. As IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch said at MIX10 this week, "We love HTML5 so much we actually want it to work."

Redmond is targeting real-world applications based on real-world data. For example, every single JavaScript and DOM API used by the top 7,000 websites was recorded. IE9 will deliver support for every API used by those sites.

That obviously gives rise to a chicken-and-egg situation—what about the APIs that developers can't currently use because of a lack of widespread support, but would like to? Beyond the top 7,000 data, Microsoft has a number of HTML5 usage scenarios that it's targeting. The company has not said much on what those scenarios are, but given the demonstrations of HTML5 video and SVG animation, it seems that these are clearly viewed as core technology for a future HTML5-powered Web.

This dedication to HTML5 does not, however, mean that Microsoft is going to devote considerable effort to, for example, the SunSpider benchmarks or the Acid3 test. As the browser develops, the scores in those tests will likely improve (it currently gets 55/100, a marked improvement on IE8's 20/100), but they're not the number one priority. Acid3 is a scattergun test. It's not systematic—you can implement a high proportion of a particular specification and not pass the test, or a much lower proportion but still pass—and though many of the features it tests are useful, that's probably not the case for everything, and it's certainly not testing the one hundred most useful HTML5 features or anything like that.

More fundamentally, there are different degrees of "supporting a standard." Some demonstrations of the highly desirable and widely demanded CSS round borders helped explain this. The IE9 Platform Preview and WebKit both purport to support CSS3's rounded borders, and the Gecko engine (in Firefox) has an extension to provide rounded borders (the extension is nonstandard, but implemented in such a way as to not interfere with standard features). Rounded borders are something that developers are particularly keen on, since without CSS support, they have to be approximated with images, which is much less flexible (you can't easily change the colour or thickness of a border if it's done with images, for example). So in terms of desirability, they rank pretty high.

Unfortunately, they don't look consistent. At all:



These are two browsers that both support a feature. But they look completely different. This has two interpretations: either one or both of the browsers is wrong, or the specification is lousy (such that both browsers are doing what the specification says, even though it's surely not what any developer would want). In general, this kind of discrepancy isn't something that a test like Acid3 will reveal. It needs systematic, thorough suites of tests that verify each individual part of the specification, and ensure that the different parts of the specifications work together.

In developing these tests, sometimes errors in the specification will be revealed. But it's also likely that errors in implementations will be revealed, even implementations that are widely perceived to "support" feature X or Y. Acid3 can't show just how much of the HTML5 standards a browser supports. It can't even tell you very much about which parts of the standards aren't supported. To do these things requires much more thorough testing.

It's for this reason that Microsoft is continuing the work it did for Internet Explorer 8. With IE8, Microsoft developed, and delivered to W3C, a huge library of CSS 2.1 tests. Systematic testing was the only way to ensure that the browser truly lived up to the demands of the specifications. So for IE9, the company is developing a new raft of tests, the first batch of which have already been submitted to W3C. Microsoft doesn't want IE9 to have the same kind of test results as other browsers presently do; a feature isn't done until all the tests pass.

A case could be made that these other browsers are perceived as more compliant than they really are; while there are certain browsers that excel in certain areas (Opera's SVG support has long been extensive), other browsers also have considerable gaps. Sure, not as big as the gaps that IE8 presently has, but substantial nonetheless. All vendors clearly have plenty of work to do before the "same markup" goal really becomes reality.

Scoring well on the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark is similarly not an explicit target for IE9. SunSpider is useful, and tests JavaScript performance in many ways, but just as real web pages aren't written like the Acid3 test, real web applications aren't written like SunSpider. Real applications do things like optimize their design so that the basic page loads quickly, and then complex activities happen asynchronously in the background. SunSpider doesn't really test this style of development, and yet this is how real applications actually work.

This doesn't make SunSpider bad, but it explains why it's not a priority. It would be a mistake to optimize specifically for SunSpider, as SunSpider is not representative of real-world usage. Developers should optimize for reality, not for specific microbenchmarks.

Microsoft wants its HTML5 support to be stable and robust. This means that Internet Explorer 9 is unlikely to support every single part of the various specifications that make up HTML5; some parts are presently too much of a moving target to be viable. Other parts may be stable, but not relevant to the scenarios that the company is using to guide its development effort. But what the company will deliver will be thorough in a way that isn't necessarily the case with other browsers. Clearly the company has an up-hill struggle if its browser is to be perceived as highly conformant with Web standards. But it's certainly heading in the right direction.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Windows Phone 7 Series in the Enterprise: not all good news

Microsoft has been quite explicit on the matter: Windows Phone 7 Series is being designed first and foremost for the consumer market. The result is the emphasis on a strong, consistent, effective user interface, possibly at the expense of functionality; Microsoft wants to have this thing out in time for the "holiday season" this year, so there's a limited window for further development, at least for the initial release.

That said, the phone does have features aimed at the enterprise market. Obviously, there's Exchange support, with ActiveSync, providing push mail, address book sync, and all those features that we know and love. In common with Outlook 2010, Windows Phone 7 Series also seems to support multiple Exchange servers concurrently. I say "seems" because it didn't quite work when we tried, but that seemed to be due to a bad password rather than any fundamental flaw—the phone was happy to accept the configuration and created two distinct Outlook Tiles on the Start page, so it looked like it was doing the right thing.

The other big enterprise feature is Mobile Office. Microsoft showed off Mobile Excel, using it to edit and save a spreadsheet, and the new Mobile apps, in their Office hub, seem to be much more functional than the current offerings for Windows Mobile. If nothing else, the high resolution of the demo devices (800x480) made Excel much more useful.

What there won't be is much beyond that. When I asked if the devices would support, for example, policy enforcement to disable cameras (as many workplaces prohibit the use of camera phones, and with 5 MP cameras a mandatory part of Windows Phone 7 Series devices, policy-based lockouts are the only option), full device encryption, or remote wipe, the answer was nonspecific but broadly negative.

Though I would be quite surprised if, at the very least, encryption and wiping were not a part of the official release (many Exchange servers are configured to refuse to allow ActiveSync with devices that don't support these features), things extensive policy support and application management won't be a part of the initial release, with a result that the new platform may well represent a regression relative to the current Windows Mobile 6.x/System Center Configuration Manager platform, and move Windows even further from the full range of remote device management capabilities offered by BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Coupled with the continued refusal to clarify how enterprise applications might be deployed (though the company says that it will provide an answer within the next few months), this leaves Windows Phone 7 Series looking quite anaemic for enterprise users at the onset.

Microsoft believes that Exchange support plus Mobile Office will be enough to make the platform compelling to corporate customers. I'm not convinced. And while I believe that targeting consumers is the right thing from the perspective of building a phone that isn't miserable to use (unlike the current Windows Mobile platform), I don't think it needed to come at the expense of these enterprise features.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Google buys DocVerse, steps closer to Office collaboration

Google has acquired a company that allows Microsoft Office users to edit their documents collaboratively on the Web. The acquisition of DocVerse will undoubtedly allow users who are married to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to edit their documents through Google's services, thanks to a "small, nimble team of talented developers who share [Google's] vision."

Both Google and DocVerse made their announcements Friday afternoon, with each noting that transitioning to cloud document storage and collaboration has been somewhat of a challenge for Office users. "Unfortunately, today, individuals are still forced to make a choice between those two worlds," reads the DocVerse blog post. "Google’s acquisition of DocVerse represents a first step to solve these problems."

Google says that current DocVerse users will be able to continue using the service as usual, but that new signups have been closed until the company is "ready to share what's next." This is no doubt a foreshadowing of Google's plan to integrate DocVerse's capabilities into Google Docs, which allows users to collaborate simultaneously on Google-hosted word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents.

The move is just another step in Google's strategy to chip away at Microsoft's dominance in the productivity space. Of course, there are other ways for Office users to share documents online—SharePoint is a popular solution among businesses, for example—but the functionality is still quite different from what's offered through Google Docs. The DocVerse acquisition, combined with Google's recently announced file-storage capabilities, will help beef up Google Docs to the point where it will be even harder for small businesses to resist signing up for Google Apps.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Microsoft rivals push to send browser ballot on world tour

The lobbying group European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) today called on antitrust regulators worldwide to follow the European Commission and pressure Redmond into offering a browser ballot, similar to what the company began serving yesterday to European customers via Windows Update, everywhere. The ballot is offered to consumers on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

ECIS members include Adobe Systems, Corel, IBM, Nokia, Opera, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems. It was Norwegian browser maker Opera that first filed a complaint with the European Union in December 2007, accusing Microsoft of violating EU antitrust law by bundling IE with Windows. And the company isn't satisfied yet. "Opera is a member of ECIS, which supported the complaint to the European Commission because it promoted the ECIS core values of competition, interoperability and consumer choice," reads a statement in an ECIS press release today. "Microsoft agreed to change its business practices in the face of formal charges from the Commission. Consumers deserve the same unbiased browser choice on all the world's more than 1 billion personal computers." Of course, Opera doesn't rule the ECIS alone, but given that the lobbying group is mainly composed of Microsoft rivals, we doubt any of them would object to Opera's proposition.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has dismissed the ECIS' call to arms. "The issues in the Internet Explorer case have already been the subject of extensive legal action in several other countries around the world, including the United States, which have each developed their own legal solutions which are different than the browser choice screen pursued by the European Commission after years of litigation," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars.

Microsoft is not obligated to take the ballot screen outside the boundaries of the EU, but the push from ECIS could spur other consumer groups, competition agencies, and antitrust regulators to band together against the software giant. It worked in Europe, but will it work in the rest of the world?

Source: Arstechnica.com

Profile Relocator Moves Windows Profiles to a New Location

Windows: If you want to store your Windows profiles independent from your system drive and standard Windows directories to protect against loss and corruption, Profile Relocator makes short work of moving your profiles directory.

The best time to use Profile Relocator is after a fresh install of Windows when moving empty profiles poses minimal risk and the least chance of conflicts. If you're set on moving your profiles in an existing installation it is possible and Profile Relocator won't delete the old profiles in the old location so if the move causes any complications you can just switch things back.

Like with all tinkering under the hood in Windows it sounds simple enough to just move your profile directory but any number of complications can arise when it's done on an established installation. Set a system restore point before making the move and read the included documentation carefully.

Profile Relocator is freeware, Windows only, and requires Microsoft .NET 2.0+. Have an application that's handy for remodeling the guts of your Windows installation? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Profile Relocator [via Addictive Tips]

Source: Lifehacker.com

Secret Microsoft doc leaks, DMCA notice fails to contain it

It's no secret that online service providers cooperate with law enforcement agencies and will hand over personal information of various kinds when subpoenaed, subject to court order, or compelled by search warrant. What is secret has been exactly what information these companies store about their users, and what they will hand over to the authorities when required. In recent days a series of these documents have been leaked to whistle-blowing site Cryptome. The policies of (among others) Facebook, AOL, and Skype have all been posted to the site, and several more were posted last December, including those of Verizon, Sprint, and Yahoo.

While most companies have not responded to these leaks, Yahoo, back in December, and Microsoft, whose Global Criminal Compliance Handbook was posted on Saturday, both issued DMCA takedown notices to have the documents removed. In both cases, Cryptome refused to take any action. Yahoo's demand went no further, but Microsoft decided to take things to the next stage, and told Cryptome's ISP, Network Solutions, to take the site down. Network Solutions duly complied. Microsoft now has 14 business days to begin litigation, after which the site will be reinstated.

John Young, Cryptome editor, notes that only Microsoft and Yahoo have "behaved like assholes" and taken legal action to try to get the documents removed. Though the other companies are no doubt far from thrilled to have their internal documents posted, they have not seen fit to take any action as a result. Cryptome, for its part, has moved to a temporary new host, and all the documents remain available to download.

The information that Microsoft could give to law enforcement is for the most part exactly the information one would expect. They cover the full range of Microsoft's online services; Hotmail, Windows Live ID, Windows Live Messenger, Office Live, and Xbox Live to name a few. The document describes what the services are, how long they retain data, and what data they do and don't keep. For example, Windows Live Messenger's logging records the Windows Live ID activity (sign on and sign off) and contact IDs, but does not retain any data about the actual messages. Xbox Live records indicate which gamertag was playing what game and when, but no mention is made of, say, whether the messages sent between users on the system have any accessible logs, or who is playing with who.

What's more surprising is why Microsoft should take such a hard line against the document's posting. While the company could argue that yes, technically the information contained is all proprietary and copyrighted, the fact is, it's what any half-way competent developer would expect to log. Some companies such as Cisco have even made their documents public voluntarily, for precisely this reason: there are no exciting dirty little secrets here. It's a bit surprising in places—it has to explain to readers that Microsoft can't provide access to e-mails stored on local hard drives (something that does not speak highly of the wit of the law enforcement officers who might be making such requests)—and is both quite specific in some places (explaining how to read and interpret the logs that Windows Live ID creates) and annoyingly vague in others (when discussing Office Live Small Business and Windows Live SkyDrive)—but for the most part, the thing that is striking is how mundane it is.

About the only real value in the whole document is that it makes clear that criminals should clearly conduct their business over Windows Live Messenger—unlogged—rather than e-mail. Law enforcement can't request what Microsoft doesn't keep in the first place, after all.

The decision to take action under the DMCA is also surprising because of the counterproductive result. If Redmond had done nothing, the likelihood is that few people would have even noticed that the document had been posted. Sure, it would be "out there" on the Web, but the thing is hardly compulsive reading. By having Cryptome taken offline, the Handbook has garnered far more attention—and far more redistribution around the Web—than it ever would have if the company had left the site alone. At least Yahoo's compliance guide contained pricing information—about $30-$40 to get a copy of a Yahoo user's e-mail. Microsoft's lacks anything even that juicy.

All in all, it is a strange fight for Redmond to pick. No good can come of it—the document is out there, and probably distributed more widely than ever—and the handbook tells us only what we already knew anyway. There are surely better ways to tarnish a reputation and accumulate legal costs.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Microsoft's EU browser ballot approved, arrives March 1

After protracted legal wrangling with the EU, the Microsoft browser ballot is at last heading towards roll-out. The EU's complaint was that Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer made the browser market less competitive to the detriment of consumers. Wary of substantial fines and endless legal costs, the company eventually worked to settle with the Competition Commission last year. As part of this settlement agreement, it promised to stop prioritizing Internet Explorer. Microsoft's initial plan—to offer a version of Windows without any browser at all—was rejected. The solution agreed upon by both parties was instead to offer end-users a choice of browsers automatically.

The mechanism chosen for this was the so-called browser ballot; a selection of browsers will be shown to users, and the chosen browser will be installed and made the default. Initially using an alphabetic list, the ballot was then changed to show the browsers in a random order. With this decision made, the EU finally agreed that this would be the way forward, allowing the company to put to an end its European legal woes.

The ballot itself will be distributed to EU customers running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, via Windows Update. Installing the update will, on Windows 7, unpin the IE icon from the taskbar, and then offer a selection of browsers. The five leading browsers—Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer—will be visible on the main selection screen, along with a further seven accessible by scrolling to the right.

The ballot will be offered on a limited basis in the UK, Belgium, and France, with full roll-out beginning on March 1. It will be pushed out as an automatic update (for those who have Windows Update set to install updates automatically), so those running Windows Update in its default, recommended, configuration will see the ballot automatically. The list of browsers offered will be updated every six months, to ensure that the five most widely-used browsers continue to be prioritized.

In addition to offering the browser ballot to existing Windows users, OEMs will be able to preinstall a browser of their choosing and also uninstall IE from machines shipping with Windows 7.

Source: Arstechnica.com

EU, US approve, Microsoft + Yahoo! search partnership is go

After announcing the search deal in July 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft have finally received regulatory clearance from both the US Department of Justice and the EU. Under the agreement between the two companies, Yahoo! will use Microsoft's search platform to power its search results and paid search listings. Yahoo! will handle customer relations with high-volume advertisers for both companies. Self-service advertisers will continue to deal with Microsoft directly. A similar deal between Yahoo! and Google was abandoned after the Department of Justice threatened an antitrust lawsuit.

For Yahoo! users, the visible difference will be that Yahoo! search results will be identical to those of Microsoft's Bing. Yahoo! will continue to offer its own content to web users to provide more than just search results. The companies believe that this partnership will enable them to better compete with the dominant Google.

Google's dominance is indeed the reason that this deal was permitted where the Yahoo!-Google deal was not; with Yahoo! having only 7.4 percent of the search market and Microsoft's Bing only 3.2 percent, the tie-up will not make the search market substantially less competitive. Bing's market share has been increasing, especially in the US, but much of this growth has occurred at Yahoo!'s expense. The ten-year deal will provide Microsoft with considerably more access to the search market, and the company will also take on some 400 Yahoo! employees.

For its part, Yahoo! will receieve the lion's share of the advertising revenue—88 percent for the first five years—as well as cash payments totaling $150 million from Microsoft to help pay for the transition to the Bing technology. Yahoo! predicts annual operating profit growth of up to $500 million as a result of the partnership.

The technical aspects of the integration are likely to start within days. Yahoo! US should be using Bing by the end of the year; a full global transition will take longer, and is not expected to be complete until early 2012.

Source: Arstechnica.com

Windows 7 eclipses Vista on Steam, 64-bit dominating 32-bit

We already know that Windows 7 is growing faster than Vista was when it was released, but how fast are gamers adopting it? Pretty darn quickly, according to January 2010 data from Steam, the leader of the digital distribution market. Last month, the percentage of users on Windows 7 eclipsed the number of users on Windows Vista. Windows XP is still leading the pack, but it is under the 50 percent mark:

It's also worth noting that Windows 7 is the first version of Windows where gamers are adopting 64-bit faster than 32-bit. In fact, there are more users on Windows 7 64-bit than any other flavor of Windows, except for Windows XP 32-bit. Overall, XP dropped 2.63 percent from the previous month, Vista dropped 2.8 percent, and Windows 7 gained 5.47 percent. At this rate, we would expect Windows 7 to take the crown before the end of the year.

Each month, Steam collects and compiles data about the hardware and software its customers are using so that game developers can ensure they are making good decisions about what technology should take priority in their support plans. If you're wondering, Intel is still beating AMD and NVIDIA is still beating ATI. To check out more details and the rest of the statistics, which are primarily hardware-based, head over to the link below.

OS Software Revenue Up 35%

U.S. retail operating systems boxed software revenue increased 35 percent in 2009, but it was not enough to lift non-games software into positive territory, according to new research from The NPD Group.

Total retail non-games software revenue fell 7 percent in 2009 to $2.4 billion. That is an improvement over the 10 percent decrease in 2008. Unit volume for 2009 dropped 6 percent and average selling price dipped 2 percent.

Operating systems was the only category to post both a revenue and unit increase over 2008. With new operating system releases from both Microsoft and Apple in the back half of the year sales traffic, volume, and interest in boxed software were at very high levels. Both OS releases posted record sales and growth figures for their initial launch periods and continued to perform strongly even after their initial entry into the market.

"2009 was a mixed bag for the packaged consumer software market," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "There is always a burst of interest when new versions of operating system are released.

"But weak results in the more stable sales categories, like tax and system utilities, drove overall revenue down. Shifting channel activities and a move to more online purchasing took a bite out of both of those segments in 2009. The outlook for 2010 is for similar sales results as the lack of any OS launches will likely be offset by the release of Office 2010."

Business software was the only other category, besides operating systems, to post a unit gain. The category grew 6 percent, due in part to ASPs dropping 15 percent. MS Office Home and Student delivered strong sales volumes during both the back-to-school and holiday periods as a result of aggressive price promotion.

The average selling price fell from $118 in the prior year to $106 in 2009. Apple's iWork 2009 also saw strong unit volume growth as average prices declined more than 15 percent on the single-user version. With these falling prices, however, category revenue took a hit posting a 10 percent decline.

Source: Webpronews.com