In the News
Microsoft completed its investigation into the so-called Black
Screen of Death (BSOD) that was widely reported Monday and Tuesday and
has found that it's completely bogus. According to the software giant,
reports of a BSOD related to the security updates it issued in November
are inaccurate.
"The company has found [the BSOD] reports to be inaccurate, and our
comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released
[security] updates are related to the behavior described in the
reports," a Microsoft representative told me late Tuesday.
"While we were not contacted by the organization [that] originally
made these reports, we have proactively contacted them with our
findings. Our support organization is also not seeing this as an issue.
The claims do not match any known issues that have been documented in
the security bulletins or KB articles."
The BSOD reports were first reported by Prevx, a British security firm.
Prevx originally said it identified "at least 10 different
scenarios" that could trigger the BSOD conditions. But after being
consulted by Microsoft about the problem, the company issued a second
statement in which it agreed that Microsoft's November security patches
weren't to blame, as it had originally claimed.
"We apologize to Microsoft for any inconvenience [we] may have
caused," a statement from Prevx reads. "This has been a
challenging issue to identify. Users who have the black screen issue
referred to can still safely use our free fix tool to restore their
desktop icons and task bar."
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Deep
Dive into VMware vSphere
Presented by John Savill on December 10, 2009. Join us to explore the
major functionality capabilities of the vSphere virtualization platform,
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Today!
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According to web analytics firm Net Applications, Microsoft's
Internet Explorer (IE) browser lost usage share—which the company
incorrectly refers to as "market share"—in November, the
third month in a row that IE lost over 1 percentage point of share. IE
now accounts for 63.6 percent of all web browser usage—a still
dominant position but one that appears to be fading.
On the good news front, the latest IE version—IE 8—appears
to be making some headway. IE 8 accounted for 22.1 percent of all
browsers used in November, almost tied with IE 6, which is finally
losing share rapidly month-over-month. The third most-used browser is IE
7, which accounts for 16.9 percent of total web browser usage. But IE 8
isn't making up for the drop-off in overall IE usage: Although IE 8
usage rose 4.2 percentage points in the most recent quarter, IE 6 usage
dropped 3.2 percentage points while IE 7 dropped 4.2 points.
Making up the difference, of course, is the competition. Mozilla Firefox
rose 0.7 percent in November to take 24.7 percent of the market, and
Google Chrome gained 0.4 percent to hit 3.9 percent usage share. By
January, Chrome should surpass Apple's Safari, which suffered a
usage-share drop to 4.36 percent in November. The usage-share drop in
Safari matches neatly to the drop-off in market and usage share over the
past two months by Mac OS X, which has stalled in the wake of the
Windows 7 launch.
With IE continuing its long downward spiral, Microsoft is planning a new
version of the browser, IE 9, which could be released by the end of
2010. If that happens, it will mark one of the most aggressive release
schedules in IE's history. Most previous versions of IE were tied in one
way or another to a major Windows release, but IE 9 will ship as a
standalone product for existing Windows versions.
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After inadvertently revealing the date on its website,
Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed that it plans to ship the final version
of its Office 2010 productivity suite in June 2010. The suite and
corresponding server, mobile, and web-based Office 2010 solutions are
currently available to the public in beta form, and Microsoft previously
said it planned to deliver the final version by the end of the first
half of 2010.
"We are confirming that we expect Office 2010 and related products
to be generally available in June 2010," a Microsoft spokesman said
Tuesday. Some of those related products include standalone versions of
each Office application, a new version of Office Mobile for Windows
Mobile devices, the Office Web Applications, and SharePoint
2010.
Microsoft first delivered a limited-release technical preview of the
Office 2010 productivity suite last July and then an even more
limited-release version of the Office Web Applications the next month.
With the beta release, however, virtually every Office 2010 component is
available in prerelease form to the public. If you're interested in
trying out the Office 2010 Beta, please visit the Microsoft website.
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Announcements
Announcing
the Winners of Our 2009 Editors' Best and Community Choice
Awards!
Windows IT Pro's 2009 Editors' Best and Community Choice awards
recognize the products in your industry that our editors, contributors,
and readers believe are worthy of the highest recognition. The Editors
Best awards highlight those products that have most impressed our staff
over the past year, and the Community Choice awards brought you fully
into the process this year: For the first time, we completely opened up
the nomination and voting processes to the guys and gals in the
trenches. So dive in to our
results, check out all our winners, and let us know what you
think!
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