microsoft

Earlier this week Microsoft announced plans to buy up popular Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, Skype. The Redmond-based software giant agreed to pay $8.5 billion in the deal, which will bring all 170 million of Skype's users under ... Microsoft control. The deal marks the biggest acquisition in Microsoft's history. (Source: go.com ) "Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a recent statement. "Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, ... (view more)

Microsoft unveiled a modest Patch Tuesday collection of fixes for its software products this month. However, at least a few of the patches address security holes that experts say could be easily exploited. On Tuesday, Microsoft's series of May ... patches addressed just three bugs, only one of which is marked "critical," the company's highest security rating. The most serious patch is labeled MS11-035 and is intended to fix a vulnerability in the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS), a component in every edition of Windows Server. Critical Update Not Automatically Deployed The way in which ... (view more)

The Department of Justice has agreed to end its legal oversight of Microsoft. It follows a 10 year period during which the Redmond-based software company had to make itself open to examination by U.S. officials. Basis: Microsoft Unfairly Promotes ... Internet Explorer The Department of Justice has agreed to officially end the oversight on May 12, 2011. The case brings to a conclusion a process that began way back in 1998, when the department filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing it of unfairly promoting its own Internet Explorer (IE) browser by including it in Windows at the expense of ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced an overhaul of the way it assess and publicizes the risk security problems pose to users of its products. The new technique will give added detail as well as highlighting the benefits of upgrading to the latest version of ... Windows. The changes will affect Microsoft's monthly security update, which includes ratings for the potential damage that could be caused by a particular security flaw if the relevant patch is not applied. As well as giving an overall idea of the range and scale of problems, the ratings are also aimed at business users for whom applying updates ... (view more)

Microsoft Security Essentials has put on a mediocre showing in a series of recent tests run by international examiners AV-Test.org. The results were deemed so poor that Microsoft actually placed 20th out of 22 antivirus products tested. MSE Strong ... at Detecting Known Variants Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 (MSE) started off the testing procedures relatively strong when required to uncover malware drawn from industry-agreed Wildlist selection, including malware variants such as the Koobface virus . In this test, Microsoft Security Essentials finished with an impressive detection rate of 100 ... (view more)

Microsoft and Research in Motion (RIM) have announced a partnership that will see the Redmond-based firm's Bing search engine used on the BlackBerry. It's a surprise move that some are speculating might indicate an even deeper relationship in the ... future between the two tech giants. The Bing announcement was made at the recent BlackBerry World trade show, when RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis shocked the crowd by introducing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Together, the two revealed that Bing will soon be found on both the BlackBerry (and its various iterations) and the newly-released RIM PlayBook ... (view more)

A new poll suggests that adoption of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system by IT (information technology) organizations is proceeding slower than expected. The survey found that just one in four companies reported having already moved to the ... operating system, while more than half said they'd not made any progress in doing so. The poll comes courtesy of Unisys Corp., a Pennsylvania-based provider of IT services and technologies. It conducted the survey of 133 firms two months ago, and found that 53 per cent of all respondents reported that they either "haven't started" moving to Windows 7 or ... (view more)

Microsoft has been accused of patent abuse by Barnes & Noble by allegedly preventing manufacturers from using Google's Android operating system (OS), a product which competes with the Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. The accusation comes ... just over a month after Microsoft filed suit against Barnes & Noble company for allegedly infringing on a number of patents with its new Nook e-reader device. Microsoft Declares 5 Ways Nook Infringes on Patent Back in March, Microsoft accused Barnes ... (view more)

The Windows XP operating system is over a decade old, and Microsoft would love nothing more than to see all XP users world-wide upgrade to Windows 7 . To reinforce that message, the Redmond firm has recently released a desktop gadget that counts ... down the seconds to the day it will officially cease support for Windows XP once and for all. Microsoft Treats Windows XP as an Addiction It appears as if the software giant is casting XP users in the same light as those suffering from an addiction and in need of help. On the Microsoft download web site, the message reads as follows: "Looking to get ... (view more)

Microsoft now has an app available for the Apple iPad based on the Bing search engine , with a few interesting features thrown in to make it unique. The iPad already comes with a built-in Safari browser that includes a search bar, but the Bing app ... makes this feature appear larger in comparison. Bing Features Exclusive to iPad With the exclusive iPad Bing app, Microsoft has added voice search to grab the attention of impartial users. (Source: cnet.com ) When conducting a search, a tile pops up on the right side of the screen acting as a tab. However, the tile features a highlight tool that ... (view more)