News: Outlook Ex-press? Or Look Out Ex, Press? Or Press Outlook, Ex?

By | November 24, 2011
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 From the Do Microsoft Have Any Idea What They’re Doing? Dept comes another story about Microsoft products not quite gelling with reality. ZDNet Australia last week interviewed Microsoft Office product manager Dan Leach who said that Microsoft planned to halt development of Outlook Express, the email client that comes bundled with the browser Internet Explorer. Basically Microsoft seemed to hope everybody would upgrade to the Outlook collossus.
 
Fast forward two days, and scratch all that.
 

“I sat down with the Windows team today,” ZDNet quoted Leach as saying, ”and they tell me my comments were inaccurate. Outlook Express was in sustain engineering, but customers asked for continued improvement, and we are doing that. Microsoft will continue its innovation around the email experience in Windows.”
 

Leach was either on the beach too long, or customers were upset, or Bill intervened. Whatever, I’m overjoyed I’m still going to have ‘the email experience in Windows’, whatever that is. Still, I’d rather go for Courier, Pegasus, or even the email client in Opera. None are perfect, but they’re sturdy.

News: Windows On The (Distant) Future

By | November 24, 2011
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 Reports are starting to trickle out of trouble at t’Microsoft mill. One says it looks like there won’t be a new release of Windows for “quite a while”.
 
 
A Service Pack (SP) 2 for Windows XP — a set of patches and updates to the software — is “running a year later than Microsoft had targeted”. Instead of shipping by the end of calendar 2003, SP2 is now a Q3 2004 deliverable. Microsoft didn’t announce the date slip; instead, it came to light in an article on “service pack lifecycles” published to the Microsoft Web site on Friday. And Longhorn, the codename for the next version of Windows now, after supposedly being available next year, and then 2005, has no firm release date at all. What gives?

Update: The Blaster non-Blast

By | November 24, 2011
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 Blaster turned out to be less of one, at least in terms of the Internet storm it was supposed to whip up. Still, I’ve heard of plenty of infections. IDG reports that the attack on Microsoft Corp.’s main software update Web site did not materialize Saturday, despite infecting half a million PCs, as computers infected with the W32.Blaster worm failed to find their target.
 
Turns out the worm provided the incorrect domain address for the target. So Microsoft merely delisted the windowsupdate.com domain name, and the worm, not knowing where to go, didn’t go anywhere. Doesn’t help those of you infected, but most of you seem to be cleaning yourselves up:
The number of Blaster infections is also down more than 80 percent since the worm’s peak on Monday, indicating that vulnerable computers are being cleaned and patched by their owners, IDG says.

News: The Palm (Family) Tree

By | November 24, 2011
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 In case you’re interested, Palm, Inc. is now “palmOne, Inc.” This follows the company’s spin-off this fall of PalmSource, Inc., the software/Operating System part of the business. The name “palmOne, Inc.” will encompass the sub–brands Zire(tm) and Tungsten(tm), as well as Treo, upon the completion of the planned acquisition of Handspring, Inc., also expected this fall.
 

The logo blurb: “Chosen after scores of interviews with Palm customers, partners, employees, naming consultants and industry influencers, the new name is characterised in two colours – deep red for the word “palm” and vibrant orange for “One,” reflecting the sub–brand colours for the company’s Tungsten line of solutions for mobile professionals and businesses  and its Zire line of solutions for consumers and multimedia enthusiasts, respectively.  Products will begin to bear the new brand name in 2004.

I’m not crazy about the logo and colours, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it…