s31523 writes "All of us have one time or another been completely frustrated by certain Windows usability issues, and in many cases our experiences have driven many us over to Linux, or kept us there. For anyone that has ever been frustrated, you will be happy to know you aren't the only one. After reading this leaked Microsoft memo from Bill Gates back in 2003, you will surely have more insight into why Vista is a complete disaster due to Microsoft not learning anything from their experiences from XP."

I may have missed this somewhere during my convalescence from surgery on Friday, but it looks like Microsoft, while not directly offering Windows XP for retail purchase after June 30th, has extended support for Windows XP through April, 2014. This is unprecedented in Microsoft's history, as most operating systems are sunsetted within ten years of their release. In this case, however, Microsoft has recognized that many of their corporate and business clients are not rolling over to the new Vista operating system.

theodp writes "On the eve of the company's move from Albuquerque to Seattle in 1978, a famous photo was taken (in a shopping mall no less) of the original Microsoft team, looking mighty sharp in their '70s outfits. Almost 30 years later, as Bill Gates prepares to depart from Microsoft, the group (looking older, but better) reconvened for a retake."

Michael was dragged out of bed at 8AM on Wednesday morning to talk with ABC’s Vinita Nair about the situation at Yahoo, its deal with Google, and where that leaves Microsoft. He wakes up about a minute into the interview when he starts discussing the talent drain at Yahoo and how the deal gives [...]

Yahoo and Google have confirmed that they are indeed entering into a partnership around search advertising, a story we broke earlier today. Google’s blog post on the agreement is here. —The deal is non-exclusive. Yahoo will be able to run Google ads alongside Yahoo ads or other ad providers. —The deal is expected to add [...]

Yahoo formally announced today that it is no longer in discussion with Microsoft for a deal of any sort. Both companies had renewed discussions once again exploring either an all-out acquisition or the sale of Yahoo’s search business. But Microsoft was “not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo!, even at [...]

This morning, Hitwise came out with its search market share numbers for May, 2008. In the U.S., Google was up slightly to 68.3 percent percent versus 20 percent for Yahoo and 5.9 percent for Microsoft. All the fighting over the fate of Yahoo cannot be helping matters. In the month of [...]

Barence writes "Yesterday, during a presentation for this year's Imagine Cup, Microsoft's Mark Taylor demonstrated the company's Deep Zoom technology to appreciative gasps of admiration from the computing students present. It's pretty impressive stuff, and you can try 'deep zooming' for yourself at the Hard Rock Memorabilia Site." Unfortunately the demo requires the Silverlight plugin and the story is pretty thin on technical details. I would be interested to see how they captured the image data to that level without massive pixelation.

madgreek writes "Last year I wrote of my switch from XP to Ubuntu at work. Now a year later, I am back to reflect on one year of being extremely productive at work using (almost) nothing but open source software in a Microsoft world."

Ian Lamont writes "Bill Gates, in an address to the TechEd Developers conference, talked about Microsoft's plans for hosted services, and revealed that the company is planning data centers on 'a scale that we haven't thought of before' that will apparently enable the company to offer all of its server-based products over the Internet. The talk did not include details in terms of capacity or scale. This was Gates's final publicly scheduled speech as a full-time Microsoft employee, and he acknowledged that Microsoft's success is 'due to our relationship with developers.' On July 1, he will start spending most of his time at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." After that date he will be devoting his "20% time" to Microsoft.