Mary Jo

From Microsoft Watch: It’s a chicken and egg scenario: Would better podcatchers and RSS aggregators result in more people subscribing to that kind of content? One Microsoft employee, Marc Mercuri, believes that to be the case. To help Windows users better capture, organize and manipulate their feed data, Mercuri has built a podcatcher that he […]

The Next WGA Target — The Channel: To date, Microsoft has focused on consumers with its anti-piracy campaigns around Windows and Office. The next targets on Redmond’s radar screen: OEMs and system builders. There’s a New Office Live Sheriff in Town: Newly promoted Corporate VP Rajesh Jha has some definite opinions about how Microsoft should […]

Few Microsoft watchers would count ‘adCenter’ as important to Microsoft as Windows, Office, Visual Studio and Xbox. But much of Microsoft’s software-services future is dependent on the success of its online-advertising platform, which Microsoft plans to beef up over the next 12 to 18 months. Company officials shared with customers and other interested parties via […]

From Microsoft Watch: Microsoft is feeling its way, as it continues to evolve its online advertising platform. On August 5, Microsoft is preparing to refresh the platform with a rash of new features. Longer term, the company is working to integrate contextual advertising and its Deep Metrix analytics capabilities into upcoming adCenter releases. adCenter is […]

Windows PowerShell isn’t soup yet. But virus writers already have created a proof-of-concept worm that targets the Microsoft’s scripting shell, formerly code-named “Monad.” PowerShell is slated to debut as part of Exchange Server 2007 in late 2006 or early 2007. (Thanks to Steven Bink for the link.)

The first non-beta version of Windows Live Spaces (the blogging platform formerly known as MSN Spaces) is done. Check out the refreshed Live Spaces site here. LiveSide has posted a useful diagram that illustrates the features (gadgets, search and tagging and Friends Explorer) that will be part of Live Spaces that weren’t part of MSN […]

Microsoft better have some amazing business evangelism ideas for Windows Vista. According to newly published Jupiter Research data, about 50 percent of companies either won’t deploy Windows Vista at all or will wait at least 13 months after the system’s November corporate release to begin installation. (Thirteen months is actually a fairly short cycle, compared […]

From Microsoft Watch: It’s not only Platforms and Services Co-President Jim Allchin who will be leaving the Windows team once Windows Vista is released to manufacturing. Long-time Windows development head Brian Valentine is out, too. (Valentine is moving to some unspecified job on a different Microsoft division, company officials said.) Jon DeVaan, a Microsoft Office […]

As part of our never-ending Microsoft code-name quest, we’ve got one brand-new one (and one clarification) to add to our list. It looks like Microsoft’s designated namers on the development-tool team are continuing with their “islands” code-name theme. “Rosario” is the code name for the next version of Visual Studio Team System that will be […]

The next test release of Windows Vista, slated for late August, according to our testing tipsters, will be designated Release Candidate (RC) 1. That usually means near-final, stable, generally usable code. But in the case of Vista, will RC1 live up to its name? That’s the question Longhorn Blogger Robert McLaws is pondering. McLaws is […]