Stuart J. Johnston

Microsoft (Quote) this week shipped the second preview version of SQL Server 2008, and company officials said that the product is on track for release in the second quarter of next year. Microsoft released the first community technology preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2008 on June 4 at its TechEd conference and is shooting to issue […]

Microsoft’s (Quote) new top technology visionary presented a more down to earth view of the company’s growing software-plus-services initiative last week than he has to date, but it was still a vision with only sketchy details. Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, made the presentation to analysts attending the company’s annual financial analysts meeting on its […]

Like the Terminator – just when the monster machine seems defeated, it always somehow rises again – Microsoft’s push for international standards status for its Office document formats refuses to die. Just last week, a committee charged with deciding whether or not to recommend that the U.S. vote in favor of adopting Microsoft’s Office Open […]

Microsoft (Quote) is quietly preparing to ship the first ‘release candidate,’ or RC, of the initial version of its Silverlight cross-platform media player technology, perhaps as early as the end of July. However, getting it into users’ hands and onto their computers is just the first step – third-party developers will need to write compelling […]

Microsoft (Quote) and Nortel (Quote) are celebrating their first year “together” this week –- together as in unified communications, that is. A year ago this week, the software behemoth and the telecommunications titan announced their Innovative Communications Alliance , an initiative based around the vendors’ joint vision of a unified communications architecture that enables users to access […]

REDMOND, Wash. — As Microsoft gets ready to report its fiscal 2007 earnings next week, the company’s seemingly endless building boom shows no signs of slowing, and neither does its penchant for acquiring more property. For instance, late last month, Microsoft (Quote) purchased two data centers with 250,000 square feet of raised floor space that it […]

At its Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver Wednesday, Microsoft (Quote) said September will mark the next release of its business process management server. The company also announced an early access program and pricing for its upcoming Live CRM offerings. Along with promising a firm ship date for BizTalk Server 2006 Release 2 (R2), the company […]

I remember a night in 1984 when my next door neighbor, a game developer, got one of the very first Macs from his publisher. The wow factor overwhelmed us both. We stayed up all night checking it out. It was one of those epiphanies when you suddenly saw where computing was going. It was powerful, […]

Microsoft (Quote) is shipping two new “reference applications packs” or RAPs for its Office Business Applications (OBA) initiative – one providing guidance for how to build effective plant analytics applications and the other for how to successfully create electronic forms management workflows. Both are provided as free Virtual PC virtual machines (VM) that demonstrate how […]

The electronic spreadsheet arguably was the “killer application” that kicked off the personal computer revolution. Today, the spreadsheet’s ability to crunch tons of data on the desktop makes it still one of the most popular and useful applications that people use. But such universal utility comes at a price. One serious misstep entering data with […]