Stuart J. Johnston

Microsoft hasn’t revealed yet how much its cloud services – named Azure — will cost customers and partners, but the company plans to reveal that information in the near future, an executive told financial analysts Wednesday. That disclosure came while Doug Hauger, general manager of business strategy for cloud infrastructure services, briefed attendees at the […]

Google announced Monday it has begun beta testing its new Google Sync cloud-based synchronization services meant to link users’ iPhone and Windows Mobile calendars and contacts with their Google accounts and automatically keep them in sync. Also on Monday, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced that Google Sync relies on its own Exchange ActiveSync technology, which it […]

Windows 7’s vaunted security is flawed. The good news is that, despite initial responses denying it, Microsoft announced today that it plans to deliver a comprehensive fix soon. After a week of denying that the default setting for Windows 7’s User Account Control (UAC) is too easy to compromise and could lead to malware disabling […]

Microsoft has made Windows 7’s packaging official. There will be six editions of Windows 7, which could potentially lead to the same customer confusion that erupted on the release of Windows Vista two years ago. The software giant also confirmed this week that it will offer upgrade packages for Windows XP holdouts. Many users clearly […]

You might call it a tale of three operating systems. That’s the circumstance that Microsoft, its partners, and customers find themselves in as Microsoft works to support Windows XP, promote Windows Vista, and prepare for Windows 7’s debut. First off, Microsoft announced last week that it will stop blocking automatic downloads of Windows Vista Service […]

With availability of the Windows 7 beta slated to end less than two weeks from now, the Microsoft executive in charge said Friday that the new operating system is nearing the final testing phase. That may be a strong hint that Windows 7 is on, or even ahead of, schedule. It’s not the first time […]

Using a commonly-used open source license, Microsoft on Tuesday released source code for a virtualization technology it developed that is meant to make websites safer from attack. At least, that’s the hope. The technology, named Web Sandbox, is designed to isolate the different parts of a Web page from each other via virtualization, thus enhancing […]

Microsoft officials acknowledged this week that Office 14, the next major version of its suite of productivity applications, has entered alpha testing. Also sometimes referred to as a “pre-beta,” the release is going out to a “select” group of testers, according to a brief Microsoft statement. “Microsoft has provided a select group of customers early […]

Testers who were able to successfully download and install what promises to be the largest public beta in Windows’ history – Windows 7 — have hit their share of minor snags so far, with emphasis on the “minor” part. It’s fair to say that Microsoft’s TechNet forums for Windows 7 beta testers have been busy, […]

Microsoft servers got quite a workout on Friday from potential testers as the company opened public beta testing of Windows 7 to a broad audience– so much so, in fact, that the company decided to delay the beta’s opening until it can bring more servers online. “Due to very heavy traffic we’re seeing as a […]