The launch of Windows Vista won't do much for PC sales this year, a research firm said Tuesday, with the new Microsoft operating system giving "at best, a limited boost" to PC units shipped during 2007.
Although Apple's climb in computer market share has been largely fuelled by its laptop lineup, other PC makers have done even better at boosting global laptop sales, according to a research firm.
Microsoft last Thursday acknowledged poor test results of its OneCare antivirus software, but promised it would do better by paying more attention to malware actually in the wild.
Microsoft's own bug hunters should cut Windows Vista some slack and rate its vulnerabilities differently because of the operating system's new, baked-in defenses, according to the developer who is often the public persona of the company's Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process.
Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end run around one of Microsoft's key antipiracy measures, according to Windows expert, Brian Livingston.
Apple Tuesday made up for Microsoft's patch sabbatical by releasing a security update that featured fixes for 45 vulnerabilities, a third of which addressed flaws first made public during a pair of bug-a-day projects in late 2006 and early this year.
An Australian MacBook user reported Monday that his Apple laptop burst into flames, apparently because of a bad battery. He said that the laptop battery had not been on last year's recall list.
Microsoft will deliver future versions of Office as software, not as a service, and as complete packages, not modules that do incremental updates, Jeff Raikes, president of the company's business group, said late last week.
Although users can tell Windows XP to ignore updates to Microsoft's antipiracy technology, Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Notifications will be offered again the next time the component is upgraded, the company said Friday.
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, was the world's richest person for the 14th consecutive year, Forbes announced yesterday as it debuted its mogul rankings for 2006.
Microsoft will skip next week's usual Patch Tuesday because it has no fixes for users, the company announced today.
Microsoft has acknowledged that a bug in its Windows Live OneCare security suite has been causing users' e-mail to vanish from Outlook and Outlook Express.
Microsoft is investigating a Windows bug that can crash PCs, requiring users to reboot. All unsaved data would be lost.
Apple's CFO yesterday Tuesday Windows Vista is no threat to Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and argued that the steep hardware requirements of Microsoft's new operating system will give Leopard an opportunity to step in and grab more market share.
Microsoft Tuesday said that reports published last month claiming that Google profited from sites pimping pirated movies and software show why copyright holders shouldn't trust the search company.
