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Weekend Reading: Feb. 10th Edition–Xbox 360 Stays No. 1 in the U.S., Pink Flamingos Help Microsoft Employees Raise $100M for Nonprofits, plus Safer Internet Day & the Kinect Star Wars Bundle

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:00:00 GMT

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories on Xbox 360 ending 2011 as the number-one selling console in the world, a record breaking year for Microsoft’s Employee Giving Campaign, Safer Internet Day and a super-duper cool slideshow on a slew of new thin Windows 7 laptops.

Xbox 360 maintains lead in U.S. console market in January. Kicking off 2012, Xbox 360 continues to lead the console market, turning in another month as the best-selling console in the U.S. Just last week, Xbox 360 was revealed as the number-one selling console worldwide in 2011, according to publicly disclosed financial data from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Read this Thursday post on The Official Microsoft Blog for the rest of the story. And don’t forget that on April 3, the Kinect Star Wars bundle and game will be released – Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson has more on that on his blog. Below is a screenshot of the R2D2-inspired limited edition console:

How pink flamingos helped Microsoft employees raise $100 million for nonprofits. If you had visited one of Microsoft’s locations in the United States during October you might have found an employee’s office filled with pink flamingos. For a small sum donated to a nonprofit of their choice — and matched by Microsoft — an employee can have their co-worker’s office “flocked” with plastic pink flamingos. It’s one of hundreds of creative fundraising activities that make up our employee giving campaign at Microsoft. The 2011 campaign was our largest year of employee giving since the program began in 1983, with $100.5 million donated and matched for community organizations and nonprofits. For the complete story, read this Wednesday post from Brad Smith, executive vice president of Legal & Corporate Affairs, on Microsoft on the Issues, as well as this post on the Microsoft Citizenship Blog and this feature story on the Microsoft News Center.

New fashion-forward PC models strut their stuff. Each year, designers, buyers, supermodels, celebrities and paparazzi from around the world converge for the annual Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week.This year, thin is in for the technology world, as manufacturers are producing more stylish, fashion-forward PCs that are light in the chassis and offer a range of unique color options. For a dash of bling, consumers can add hip new tech accessories such as Microsoft designer mice and laptop bags for the chic and trendy techie. If you’re into technology and fashion, you’ll want to see what we’re talking about, so whenever you’re ready, turn down the lights, turn up the music and check out this feature story and slide show on the Microsoft News Center for the rest of the story. Below is a screenshot of the Acer Aspire S:

Safer Internet Day. Each February, the world recognizes Safer Internet Day (SID), an event dedicated to promoting responsible use of the Internet and mobile technology, particularly among youth. Organized by Brussels-based Insafe and co-founded by the European Union, Feb. 7 marked the ninth installment of SID. This year’s theme, "Connecting Generations and Educating Each Other,” once again found Microsoft playing an active role. For the rest of this story, read this Tuesday post on Microsoft on the Issues as well as this press release on the Microsoft News Center focused on a new research report that examines how people of all ages are using online communication and social networking to enhance their family relationships. Finally, don’t miss this letter on Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson from Alex Garden, general manager of Xbox LIVE, focused on the importance of security and online safety.

You love Windows Phone. The critics love Windows Phone. We love Windows Phone. The question now is: How can we convince everybody else? A few months ago we created the Suggestion Box for your feature suggestions for future versions of Windows Phone. Your passion and creativity has floored us. So now we’ve made a new place for your advertising and promotion suggestions. In other words, how would you get the word out about Windows Phone? Read this Feb. 3 post on The Windows Phone Blog for more detail.

Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. join forces to deliver the future of customer service. Microsoft and 24/7 announced on Tuesday an agreement to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service for businesses. The agreement includes Microsoft merging its interactive self-service assets (clients, people and technologies) into 24/7. The agreement also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7. Read this press release and this Tuesday post on The Official Microsoft Blog for the rest of the story.

That’s a wrap for this edition of Weekend Reading! Thanks for stopping by!

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Xbox 360 Maintains Lead in U.S. Console Market in January, Ends 2011 as No. 1 Console Worldwide

Jeffrey Meisner — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:32:00 GMT

Kicking off 2012, Xbox 360 continues to lead the console market, turning in another month as the best-selling console in the U.S.

NPD highlights from January include:

· Xbox 360 sold more than 270,000 units in January, maintaining the number-one console spot in the U.S. This marks the thirteenth straight month Xbox 360 was the top-selling console in the U.S.

· Holding a 49 percent share of current-generation console sales, total retail spend on the Xbox 360 platform in January (hardware, software and accessories) reached $301 million, the most for any console in the U.S. This marks the eleventh consecutive month Xbox 360 has held more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share.

· During the month of January, Xbox 360 held five of the top 10 U.S. console game titles, including: “Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,” “Battlefield 3,” “NBA 2K12” and “Just Dance 3.”

Last week, Xbox 360 was revealed as the number-one selling console worldwide in 2011, according to publicly disclosed financial data from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Historically, after several years in a console’s lifecycle, demand softens, but Xbox 360 continues to defy that convention. Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend the lifecycle of the console by re-imagining entertainment and delivering new technologies like Kinect for Xbox 360, a new Xbox dashboard, and new entertainment content partners in 2011. (See the chart below.)

In 2012, Xbox 360 will again launch new games, including additions to the famed “Halo” and “Fable” franchises. Xbox LIVE’s group of more than 50 entertainment partners will continue to expand with Comcast and many more launching this year. Xbox 360 will also launch entirely new ways to interact with popular television shows with groundbreaking experiences like “Kinect Sesame Street TV” and “Nat Geo TV.”

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

The Midweek Download: Feb. 8th Edition–Power Efficiency in Windows 8, Visual Studio Achievements for Windows Phone, Marketplace Expands to Five New Markets & More

Jeffrey Meisner — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

This edition of The Midweek Download has stories on power consumption in Windows 8, a new version of Visual Studio Achievements for Windows Phone devs, the expansion of the Windows Phone Marketplace to five new markets and much more.

Here’s the latest from Building Windows 8. “Minimizing the power consumption of your PC while maximizing the responsiveness and utility (making it “fast and fluid”), is a significant engineering challenge. While it starts with the work we do in Windows to provide support for the right level resource usage, this work requires developers to take resource utilization into account as they develop their apps. Power efficiency applies to all form factors and all usage scenarios—using less power is the right thing to do for everyone,” writes Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division. Read this Tuesday post on Building Windows 8 for the rest of the story.

Developers, lace up your cleats. A few weeks back, this blog reported on Visual Studio Achievements, which gives developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio a new way to highlight their skills, get recognition for the amazing work they do every day, and add some competitive fun to the development day. Looks like the Windows Phone team has followed suit with Visual Studio Achievements for Windows Phone. Next at Microsoft Blog Editor Steve Clayton has more detail in this Tuesday post. Also, don’t miss this Sunday post focused on Windows Phone 7.5 winning an Interaction Award from the Interaction Design Association.

Marketplace now open in five new markets. The Windows Phone Marketplace is now officially open for business in five new markets around the world—Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, and the Philippines. We can’t wait to see all the great new apps developers will create and publish for customers there. For more on this story, read this Feb. 3 post on The Windows Phone Developer Blog.

CSS3 3D Transforms in IE10. CSS3 features make it easier to build rich and immersive Web experiences. A recent post described how Web developers add personality to their sites with CSS3 Transitions and Animations. CSS3 3D Transforms add another dimension (literally) for developers to enhance their sites. Read this Feb. 2 post on the IEBlog for more detail on CSS3 3D.

Microsoft unveils Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile. Microsoft announced on Monday that Microsoft Dynamics CRM will release its next service update in Q2 2012. This service update will deliver the capability for customers to access the complete functionality of Microsoft Dynamics CRM on virtually any device with a new cloud-based, cross-platform, native mobile client service for Windows Phone 7, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile devices. For more on this story, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center and this Monday post on Microsoft Dynamics Blog.

Beyond brick and mortar: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for Retail launches. Retail used to mean walking into a brick-and-mortar store, browsing the goods and displays, and hearing the ding of the cash register upon checkout, but things aren’t so simple anymore. Microsoft can help. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for Retail, the new version of Microsoft’s end-to-end software solution for midsize and enterprise retailers, launched in 25 countries on Feb. 1. Want more detail? Read this feature story on the Microsoft News Center.

Windows Azure Community News Roundup. The most recent edition of the weekly roundup of the latest community-driven news, content and conversations about cloud computing and Windows Azure is now available. Read this Monday post on the Windows Azure Blog for the highlights from last week.

Beta of Windows Phone Toolkit for Amazon Web Services released. The beta release of the Windows Phone Toolkit for Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now available to developers. Built by Microsoft as an open source project, this toolkit provides developers with a speed dial that lets them quickly connect and integrate Windows Phone applications with AWS (S3, SimpleDB, and SQS Cloud Services). Read this Jan. 30 post on the Interoperability @ Microsoft Blog for more detail.

That’s a wrap for this edition of The Midweek Download! Thanks for stopping by The Official Microsoft Blog!

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Did You Hear About Our 35,500 Employee Philanthropists?

Jeffrey Meisner — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Editor’s Note: This post, co-authored by Kathleen Hogan, co-chair of the 2011 Microsoft Giving Campaign and Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Services, and S. Somasegar, co-chair of the 2011 Microsoft Giving Campaign and Corporate Vice President, Developer Division, was originally posted on the Microsoft Citizenship Blog.

We share one the best part-time jobs in the world. As co-chairs of the annual Microsoft Giving Campaign, we get the opportunity to see firsthand how our colleagues bring passion, creativity and generosity to raise much needed funds for community organizations around the globe. In 2010, we raised an outstanding $96 million. We wondered if we could go higher in 2011 and we did, knowing our employees would rise to the challenge.

In 2011 Microsoft employees across the United States raised $100.5 million, which includes corporate matching. This marks our biggest year yet, and brings the total amount of money raised by employees to $946 million since our giving program started in 1983.

Each full-time, U.S. based Microsoft employee receives an annual $12,000 benefit that matches donations, dollar-for-dollar, to eligible nonprofits. In 2011, 35,500 employees donated to support more than 18,000 community organizations across the globe. If an employee wishes to volunteer their personal time, we honor that donation, too. Employee volunteer time is matched $17/hour to their chosen organization. In 2011, employees committed 426,671 hours which raised $7.2 million for nonprofits. That brings the total number of volunteering hours to 1.7 million hours since we started tracking in 2006.

While employee giving takes place throughout the year, October is a special month for our offices across the U.S. Over 50 percent of the fundraising takes place during that time. Every year we are amazed by the creativity demonstrated by Microsoft employees. From flocking a colleague’s office with pink flamingos; to running a 5K around the Microsoft campus or virtually around the world; to bidding on a coveted reserved parking space on campus through our online auction, it’s fun to watch it all happen.

Our employees assist thousands of nonprofit organizations through their donations and volunteering. For example, Adnan Mahmud founded Jolkona, a micro-giving nonprofit that supports grassroots organizations and has over a dozen employee volunteers who committed over 2,000 hours to building the technology platform. And then there are employees like Toby Velte who volunteers at his daughter’s school via EduConnect and teaches students about careers in technology. Toby rallied a team of Microsoft parents to raise money to fund a PC lab in their school district to teach students programming via the Kodu Games Labs.

We are so proud to share these results on behalf of Microsoft employees across the US. This $100,000,000 milestone is due to the many volunteers across our organization that worked tirelessly to help make it happen. Motivating and encouraging all of us every step of the way. We want to thank them for their contribution in making 2011 the largest year of employee giving yet! It is our privilege to work alongside so many people that care so deeply and give so generously.

Kathleen Hogan

S. Somasegar

Kathleen Hogan was co-chair of the 2011 Microsoft Giving Campaign and is Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Services

As corporate vice president of Microsoft Services, Kathleen Hogan leads a global team of more than 17,000 professionals in 80 countries who are dedicated to helping businesses and individual consumers maximize the value of their investment in Microsoft technologies. Under her leadership, Microsoft Services touches customers more than 700 million times a year, helping them meet their business and personal objectives by effectively deploying and maintaining generations of existing software and services.

S. Somasegar was co-chair of the 2011 Microsoft Giving Campaign and is Corporate Vice President, Developer Division

As corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. Somasegar is responsible for engineering and marketing for developer tools and services, programming languages and runtimes designed for a broad base of software developers and development teams, including the Visual Studio and Expression families of products, .NET Framework, and Team Foundation Server. Somasegar also owns developer evangelism efforts spanning the full array of Microsoft platforms. His team also owns MSDN and TechNet online properties to enable a deep connection with the developer and IT professional audiences. In addition, Somasegar is responsible for the Server and Tools Business Global Development Centers in China, India and Israel and is the executive sponsor for the India Development Center and the Israel Research and Development Center for all of Microsoft.

A Better Way to Get Home

Jeffrey Meisner — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft announced an agreement with 24/7 Inc. which I believe will redefine what customer service looks like. We’ve come a long way towards improving everyday life using technology, but there is always more we can do. The modern consumer, and I count myself in these ranks, is evolving with the technology we use. Customer service hasn’t kept pace with our evolution. I think this announcement goes a long way toward correcting this.

By way of a personal example, I live in the Seattle area and a couple of weeks ago we were hit with a fairly heavy snow storm. I was traveling in the Silicon Valley area at the time and my flight home, like many others that day, was canceled. Around 6 a.m., the airline notified me of the cancelled flight with an e-mail, a robo-call to my cell phone and, for good measure, a text message. Each notification had the same message, “Your flight has been canceled. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Please call our 1-800 number to reschedule.”

I called the customer service number and, after a 35-minute wait, got through to a representative. Even though the airline had sent me multiple notifications, the agent had no context for my call. They didn’t know who I was or why I was calling. The first agent told me my flight wasn’t canceled. I was then transferred and I found out the flight was in fact canceled, but I had to start over to provide all my details again to get that answer.

Even though I had been sent multiple alerts, I was only given one choice and that was to call an agent. This was a poor experience for me, and not really a great thing for the airline either. All the calls overwhelmed their phone queues and each call started from scratch. It was frustrating, inefficient, and a missed opportunity for the customer (me) and the business (the airline). In short, there has got to be a better way.

Most of you reading this are likely to be technology savvy. If you’re like me, you’re surrounded by smart, connected devices and you expect to transition seamlessly between using your PCs, smartphone, tablet, entertainment console and other devices. We are increasingly able to interact with devices using natural user interfaces (NUI) including touch, voice and gestures. Chances are that you are also increasingly using a combination of these devices as you do everyday tasks such as finding local restaurants, making dinner reservations, finding movies and watching TV shows. Asking a device like your smartphone to do something is quickly becoming as natural as talking to a friend.

Why then shouldn’t we be able to use that same device just as naturally to get customer service? Why shouldn’t I be able to get the change-of-flight notification and then interact with my device to re-book my flight just as naturally as I could speak with an airline agent? And why shouldn’t I have the ability to just point and select the flight I’d like to re-book on my tablet instead of having the customer service representative read them to me? After all, the customer service representative likely had to double click the flight with a mouse on their screen. I could have done the same thing on my device and saved both myself and the airline a lot of time.

All of us are quickly coming to expect companies to communicate with us in proactive, more natural and intuitive ways, and on the devices we use in our daily lives. We should expect businesses to reach out to us when we need service, and to do so in a way that anticipates how we want to be communicated with; whether that’s through our smartphone, our PC or through our TV if we happen to be in the living room.

These consumer expectations, in turn, translate into requirements for businesses. Companies recognize the huge opportunity this presents. They know they can build loyalty by communicating with their customers in a way their customers want: across devices. In addition, they can analyze the data from these interactions and increasingly other data (such as purchase, viewing, social context) to gain insight on how to best serve their customers. The companies that take this “Big Data” approach to their customer service and use the insight they gain to become more proactive and predictive, stand to reap huge benefits in building loyalty with their customers.

There’s a pioneering company that has been helping businesses apply Big Data analytics to customer service for over a decade. That company, 24/7, uses its Predictive Experience (PX) solutions to help companies analyze their customer interactions across Web and phone channels, bringing together silos of information and enabling breakthrough predictive customer experiences.

That’s why I’m thrilled that Microsoft has entered into an agreement with 24/7 Inc. to create a next-generation cloud platform for customer service. The combined Predictive Experiences (PX) platform will combine Microsoft’s experience in NUI with 24/7’s expertise in Big Data to help companies deliver the type of natural and intuitive service consumers expect and demand of companies.

Here’s one example of the kind of customer service journey that this agreement will enable:

Just as most of us have experienced the kind of flight cancellation I described earlier, I’m sure many of you have also had an experience with your bank notifying you that your credit card has been blocked due to suspected “fishy” activity. In the near-future when you get one of these notifications, say for instance telling you that someone tried to use your account in Spain (and you are definitely not in Spain), your bank will know how to send you the notification in a way that is best suited for where you happen to be (for instance, on your smartphone if you’re on the go), and the notification will not only already include the critical details you need to evaluate whether there actually was an unauthorized charge, but will also anticipate the actions you most likely will want to take immediately.

You’ll be able to reply directly to the notification on your phone and use your voice to highlight the charges that are bogus and then take action, such as cancel your card and have a new one issued. NUI makes the process natural and Big Data makes it predictive and intuitive.

When companies bring Big Data together with NUI, they’ll have customer service magic. They’ll have an experience that will literally create new industry leaders. They will improve communication with consumers, simplify customer service, anticipate needs, and learn from every customer interaction. This is the future of customer service, from Microsoft and 24/7.

Posted by Zig Serafin
General Manager, Online Services Division, Microsoft

Update on Kelihos Botnet and New Related Malware

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:07:00 GMT

There have been some recent confusing reports regarding whether the Kelihos botnet, which Microsoft partnered with Kyrus Tech Inc. and Kaspersky Lab to take down in September 2011, has been resurrected.

Contrary to some reports, Kaspersky and Microsoft have no evidence that the botnet that was taken down in September has returned to the control of cybercriminals or is spamming again at this time. However, we have seen evidence of distribution of new malware that appears to be a slightly updated variant of the malware that built the original Kelihos botnet. This does not mean that the Kelihos botnet we took down is back in operation, but that a new version of Kelihos malware known as “Backdoor:Win32/Kelihos.B” is being used to create a new botnet. Microsoft has already made protection from this new malware variant available in the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). This kind of effort by botherders to try to rebuild a botnet from the ashes of the old is not new.

In fact, it is believed that Kelihos itself may have been built based at least in part on code from Waledac, the first botnet Microsoft took down. Malware authors often recycle previous versions of malware. The challenge for the ‘good guys’ is to stay on top of such emerging threats and continue to build protections for computer owners and strategies for further cybercrime disruption. This is why taking down a single threat has never been Microsoft’s ultimate goal in our fight against botnets, but rather to transform the fight against cybercrime by developing, testing and advancing impactful and disruptive strategies that can help the industry as a whole better fight those that attack our customers. This is a long term effort and, despite the constant evolution of cybercrime, we’ve seen strong positive progress in recent years.

Confusing media reports about the status of the botnet developed this week following a post from Kaspersky Labs that new samples of malware, built on code that is very similar to that used by Kelihos, had been detected. However, analysis of these samples and continuing observations of Kelihos-infected computers have demonstrated no known re-employment of the original Kelihos botnet by botherders. Microsoft took down the Kelihos botnet in partnership with Kyrus Tech, which served as a declarant in the legal case that made this takedown possible, and Kaspersky Lab researchers, who provided technical analysis to help dismantle the botnet.

Microsoft’s role in this operation was in coordinating the overall takedown, investigation and legal case, taking down the command and control (C&C) and backup domains associated with the botnet’s operations and working to make sure affected computer owners could clean the malware from their computers. Kaspersky’s role, as outlined previously by its researchers, included peer-to-peer disruption and sinkholing the botnet – a process that reroutes all botnet traffic toward Kaspersky-controlled machines, or “nodes,” and away from the network of infected machines. Kaspersky has reported no loss of control of the peer-to-peer operations and Microsoft researchers have confirmed this week that the original Kelihos C&C and backup infrastructure remains down, but it appears new botnet infrastructure may be being built with the new variant of Kelihos malware.

In terms of the scope of the threat this represents, it is worth noting that the size of the original Kelihos botnet taken down was relatively small. At the time of the takedown, the Kelihos botnet was estimated to include approximately 41,000 infected computers worldwide. Of course, botnet malware continues to spread and need cleaning over time, so the overall size of a particular botnet might fluctuate.

However, since the time of the takedown, we know MSRT alone has cleaned nearly 28,000 infected computers. Based on Kaspersky’s analysis this week, they estimate that the size of the botnet has gone down by approximately 25 percent in just the last two months. Since the time of the original takedown in September, we estimate that the botnet is less than a quarter of the size it was and now involves less than 10,000 infected computers. We have no statistics to share at this time with respect to the size of the new botnet in development, but while those numbers are likely small as well, it is a threat we will continue to monitor. We are also continuing our efforts to clean the computers that are infected with all known forms of Kelihos malware, including this new variant.

Fighting cybercrime, including botnets, requires a collaborative effort among industry, academia and the public sector, and as we learn more about the status of the Kelihos malware, we will apply those lessons to future takedowns. To date, our collaborative approach has produced key victories, including the previous takedowns of Waledac and Rustock botnets. Again, no single action or takedown will put an end to malware or cybercrime, but through continued cooperation, creativity and vigilance we can help prevent and disrupt it.

Microsoft, as ever, remains committed to following botnet cases wherever they lead us and to holding those responsible accountable for their actions. As you may have seen, Microsoft recently named a new defendant in the legal case on Kelihos and we continue to move forward with those legal proceedings. We will continue to provide updates as the ongoing Kelihos investigation unfolds.

For free tools and information to remove Kelihos or other botnet malware from your computer, go to http://support.microsoft.com/botnets. And, to stay up to date on the latest developments on the fight against cybercrime, follow the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit on Facebook and Twitter.

Posted by Richard Domingues Boscovich
Senior Attorney, Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

Weekend Reading: Feb. 3rd Edition–Don’t Miss the Kinect Super Sunday Challenge, the New Version of Skype for Windows, plus Windows Phone, Bing & MSN

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:00:00 GMT

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories on the Kinect Super Sunday Challenge, a new version of Skype for Windows, a collection of Windows Phone news bits and some alternative products for those concerned with some of the changes Google has made to its privacy policies.

Check out the Kinect for Xbox 360 Super Sunday challenge. In an effort to inspire the masses to get off the couch this Sunday, Kinect for Xbox 360, the official console sponsor of the NFL, and NFL PLAY 60 recently announced a challenge to fans and gamers across the country to help make Feb. 5, 2012, “The Most Active Super Bowl Sunday Ever.” Earlier this week, NFL PLAY 60 ambassador and Super Bowl XLIV MVP Drew Brees were joined by kids from an Indianapolis-area middle school in a press conference from the NFL’s Super Bowl media center to outline the details of the “Kinect for Xbox 360 Super Sunday Challenge.” Read this press release on the Microsoft News Center for the rest of the story.

New version of Skype for Windows now available. We released an updated version of Skype for Windows (version 5.8) Thursday with a few improvements we want to tell you about. Download the latest version of Skype for Windows and start Group Screen Sharing. Share photos with a group of friends and family or share your screen to display a presentation with up to 10 people. Group Screen Sharing is available with Skype Premium, which also includes Group video calling and live chat customer support. Read this post on The Big Blog for the rest of the story.

Kinect for Windows: Game on for commercial use. A journey was completed Wednesday, and another began, as Kinect for Windows officially became available. Little did we know that just over a year on from shipping Kinect for Xbox, we’d be inviting the commercial world to show us what’s possible with Kinect. Now, it’s here. For more detail on this story, read this post on the Next at Microsoft Blog.

Lots of Windows Phone news this week. If you’re in the market for a new smartphone, we urge you to consider Windows Phone. To see what others are saying about Windows Phone, check out these reviews from The Boston Globe, All Things D, Wired and Geekwire, among others. And don’t miss this beginner’s guide on the best way to pick a smartphone. Windows Phone also made plenty of news on the app front this past week or so too. Check out this post on the seven best Windows Phone apps for staying green, a profile on the new Vimeo app and this great story on how Windows Phone can help fight malaria.

Gone Google? Got concerns? We have alternatives. During the last week or so, there has been a fair amount of discussion about how Google is making some unpopular changes to some of its most popular products. You can see some of the concerns and worries about lack of choice and so on in these links. The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information. We take a different approach – we work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both. You can read more about some of the great products Microsoft offers on The Official Microsoft Blog, including Hotmail and Office 365 and Internet Explorer and Bing. Don’t miss ‘em.

Our favorite Bing features. This week, we’ve been encouraging people to take another look at Bing. To help folks who may not have used Bing in a while find some of our favorite features, we’ve pulled together a quick list of some cool things you can do on Bing that you won’t find other places. Check out today’s post on the Bing Search Blog, which features a short video that encapsulates some of Bing’s best features.

MSN Living launches at Living.MSN.Com. Whether you’re interested in celebrity fashion, the latest beauty trends, or budget solutions for your family, MSN Lifestyle has always been your go-to destination with great content from your favorite brands like Allure, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Good Housekeeping, GQ, Real Simple, Parenting and more. On Wednesday, MSN Lifestyle transformed into MSN Living – a completely new site that delivers a brand new visual design, fresh original content, and experiences that speak to the varied facets of your life. Read this post on The MSN Blog for the whole story.

That’s it for this edition of Weekend Reading! Enjoy the Super Bowl and see you back here on The Official Microsoft Blog next week!

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Looking for Options? Try the Dynamic Duo of IE9 and Bing

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:00:00 GMT

For the last couple of days we’ve been running a series of Microsoft advertisements in some major newspapers, focused on some key differences between some Google products and practices and some Microsoft products and services. This conversation was really spurred by some pretty unpopular changes Google has made, all designed to make you more valuable to them. We have a different view.

So to wrap up the week, we’re highlighting Internet Explorer and Bing. Great products on their own, each clearly different than what Google offers, each designed with people first.

Download Internet Explorer 9, and install an appropriate Tracking Protection List from the Internet Explorer Gallery. You can also find Tracking Protection Lists created by well-known privacy experts at http://privacyonline.org.uk/about.html. That way, you can browse the Web without simultaneously being “browsed” by others. It’s unique to IE9 in that, regardless of the privacy policy of the site you happen to be visiting, Tracking Protection helps ensure your information stays with you…not with the third parties whose content is on the websites you visit. In fact, the privacy protections in IE9 are so extensive that two of the world’s leading privacy researchers, Simon Davies and Alexander Hanff of Privacy International, said:

“IE9 Tracking Protection has huge potential and is a powerful tool for providing verifiable privacy protections for consumers. Alex and I were delighted when Microsoft decided to heavily support this area, since it has empowered independent parties like us to author rich Tracking Protection Lists—available free to consumers—that span Child Protection, Analytics and general Behavioral Profiling.”

And for a great search experience, all you have to do is click on Bing.com. Over the past two-plus years, it’s really matured into a great search engine – relevant results, experiences designed to help you do more, as opposed to searching more, and we think it’s every bit as good as any search product out there. I’d encourage you to try it for a day or a week or a month, really get to know it, and see what you think.

The overall theme we hit in our ads and here on this blog has been that while Google has one customer – its advertisers – we have many customers. Of course we have advertising customers, and we love them and are working to make sure we improve the advertising experience for you, and for them. But we think of YOU as our customer as well, customers for Office and Windows and Windows Azure and Bing and Internet Explorer and Hotmail and so on – and because we have a big view of who our customers are, we naturally make some different choices than Google does.

We think you care about this difference. And of course, all of Microsoft’s products and services, like Internet Explorer or Bing or Hotmail, are designed to put you first. And that’s a great experience, one you don’t have to “share” with Google.

We had some fun this week. But the choices you make really do impact how your personal information is treated. So, thanks for thinking it over, and I want you to know that Microsoft remains committed, as always, to designing products for you, our customers.

Posted by Frank X. Shaw
Corporate Vice President, Corporate Communications, Microsoft

Gmail and Google Apps Got You Down? Try Hotmail & Office 365

Jeffrey Meisner — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:00:00 GMT

As I mentioned on this blog yesterday, we’ve placed a series of ads in some major newspapers this week to reach out to people who are concerned or frustrated by some of Google’s recently announced changes to their products and policies. Specifically, we’re doing this to remind those folks that they have a choice when it comes to internet software and services, and we’ve got some great alternatives for them. There was some chatter about this yesterday.

As a follow up, today’s ad (and this post) focus on email. And picking an email service is an important decision, particularly if you care about your online privacy. Why? For a few simple reasons:

· Some email services, like Gmail, actually read the contents of your mail (both sent and received, even if you aren’t a Gmail user but just sending to someone who is) in order to decide what kind of ads to serve up to you. They may call it “scanning” and attempt to equate it with less invasive activities like “checking for spam” but it’s quite different. For you, and the people you send mail to, it’s not spam, it’s personal.

· Further, people tend to stay logged into their email service throughout the day. So all Internet searches you do with Google become tied to that same identity.

· Finally, whenever your Gmail account is logged in, videos you watch on YouTube get connected into that same profile. And it’s worth noting that while Google has recently claimed they “aren’t doing anything new,” it’s clear from their letter to Congress that their new policy allows them to cross-index your YouTube viewing information with your Google search behavior (something their policies explicitly prevented them from doing until these changes).

So what looks on the surface like a simple choice of email provider has an iceberg-size set of implications below it. Since their announced changes provoked a backlash, Google has been trying to characterize them as “simpler,” “easier” and “more consistent.” And finally, they keep trying to assert that they haven’t made it any harder to control what gets collected about you.

Outside of the Plex, that is simply not true. Unless you want to sign out of your mail service every time you do a search, or watch a video.

Contrast that with using Hotmail or Office 365. We’re not using the contents of your mail to deliver ads, nor do we change your search results based on your email content. And because you’re not logged into Gmail, the videos you view on YouTube remain known only to you

As they did yesterday, Google is going to continue to muddy the water here by saying that they offer a variety of privacy controls, and you can use “as much or as little Google as you’d like.”

If you are willing to:

1. Endure the headache of creating and managing multiple dummy accounts

2. Use separate browsers to segregate your communications, social, and video log-ins

3. Sign in and out of your accounts throughout the day to de-couple specific activities as needed.

Or, you can simply switch to Hotmail or Office 365. That sounds a whole lot easier to me. Take a closer look and decide for yourself.

Posted by Frank X. Shaw
Corporate Vice President, Corporate Communications, Microsoft

The Midweek Download: Feb. 1st Edition–File Management in Windows 8, Two Microsoft Research Profiles, plus Windows Phone, Internet Explorer & Windows Azure

Jeffrey Meisner — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got developer stories on Windows 8, Windows Phone, Internet Explorer and Windows Azure, plus two cool Microsoft Research profiles.

New on Building Windows 8: Acting on file management feedback. Building Windows 8 previously published three blog posts that discussed the new file management experience in Windows 8: one about the new copy experience, one that detailed the design process we went through for the new conflict experience and one about the changes to Windows Explorer, including the introduction of the ribbon. Those posts prompted great discussion and the Windows team read the approximately 2,200 comments you left. This was wonderful feedback, and, along with information from other feedback channels, the team incorporated it into its design process. Read this Monday post on Building Windows 8 for the rest of the story.

And in Windows Phone developer news this week… Back in November, we announced a developer promotion for U.S. students called “Big App on Campus.” Time is running out to enter. Though we think it’s a no brainer, some of you have asked “Why should I enter?” Read this Jan. 27 post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog to find out why you should enter. Also devs, don’t miss this Tuesday post on memory profiling for application performance.

Two new profiles of big brains at Microsoft on Next. Last week, Next at Microsoft Blog Editor Steve Clayton brought you two more profiles of some of Microsoft’s brightest minds. First, there was this Jan. 26 profile on Steve Hodges, a member of Microsoft Research (MSR) focused on natural user interface (NUI) technologies and projects such as KinectFusion. Then there was this Jan. 27 profile on Donald Brinkman, “polymath, poet, gaming geek and the mastermind behind Project Epiphyte, a plan to ‘overwhelm the world with a green plague of creativity in the form of millions of epiphytes,’ Clayton writes. Don’t miss them!

Three new stories from the Internet Explorer team. The IEBlog team has been extremely busy the last week or so. Don’t miss these three posts on websites and a plug-in free Web, creating files through BlobBuilder and debugging IndexedDB applications.

Windows Azure Community News Roundup. Don’t miss the latest edition of the Windows Azure Blog’s weekly roundup of the latest community-driven news, content and conversations about cloud computing and Windows Azure.

TechStars and Microsoft BizSpark team up to offer startups $60,000 in cloud services. TechStars, recently recognized as the No. 1 startup accelerator in the world, and Microsoft Corp. are working together to help startups fast-track their businesses. TechStars today announced an enhanced relationship with Microsoft through the new BizSpark Plus program for accelerators and incubators. The enhanced program allows TechStars accelerators in Boulder, Colo.; Boston; New York; Seattle; and Texas to offer each of their startups up to $60,000 (U.S.) of Windows Azure compute and storage over a 24-month period, at no cost. For more detail on this story, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center.

Microsoft announces 20th anniversary of Microsoft Certifications. Expertise and passion for technology helped fuel the information technology revolution, changing the way people work, communicate and play. On Tuesday, as part of the 20th anniversary of Microsoft Certification celebration, Microsoft recognized the more than 7 million people globally who are certified on Microsoft technology. Want to know more? Check out this feature story on the Microsoft News Center.

That’s a wrap for this edition of The Midweek Download! Thanks for reading!

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Gone Google? Got Concerns? We Have Alternatives

Jeffrey Meisner — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:00:00 GMT

During the last week or so, there has been a fair amount of discussion about how Google is making some unpopular changes to some of its most popular products. You can see some of the concerns and worries about lack of choice and so on in these links.

When we read the coverage last week, it was clear people were honestly wrestling with the choices that had been made for them and were looking for options or alternatives.

The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information. We take a different approach – we work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both.

So, if the news about Google has you feeling frustrated, or concerned, or both, we have some great, award-winning alternatives:

Hotmail: Join the hundreds of millions of people who enjoy not worrying about the content of their private e-mails being used to serve ads.
Bing: The search engine that gives you great experiences using the whole Web.
Office 365: The award-winning online collaboration solution for businesses who don’t want their documents and mail used to benefit advertisers.
Internet Explorer: The world’s most popular browser, now with Tracking Protection, offering controls over your privacy as you browse.

And to help remind people of these alternatives, we’re placing a series of ads in some major newspapers this week.

If you haven’t tried these Microsoft products and services, give ‘em a shot. If you’ve tried them before and moved on, come on back. We’ve left the light on for you.

Posted by Frank X. Shaw
Corporate Vice President, Corporate Communications, Microsoft

Weekend Reading: Jan. 27th Edition–Bill Gates Says Youth Will Change the World & Other News from the World Economic Forum, plus the Kelihos Botnet, Hotmail, Windows Phone & Office 365

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:00:00 GMT

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got a blog post from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on opportunity for youth and other news from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as well as stories on Data Privacy Day, the Kelihos botnet, Windows Phone and Office 365. Don’t miss any of them!

Bill Gates says young people will change the world. At the World Economic Forum today, Bill Gates participated in a roundtable focused on opportunity for youth, a subject about which he is deeply passionate. To get the rest of this story, read today’s post from Bill on The Official Microsoft Blog. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith also participated in the roundtable, and you can read his thoughts on youth and the Opportunity Divide in this post on Microsoft on the Issues.

Microsoft names new defendant in Kelihos case. In an amended complaint filed earlier this week with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Microsoft alleged that Andrey N. Sabelnikov, a citizen of Russia, is responsible for the operations of the Kelihos botnet. For more detail, read this Monday post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Microsoft partners with D.C. on digital education and economic development initiative. The world is changing fast, driven by changes like globalization and the rapid adoption of new technologies. These changes present huge opportunities, but they demand new skills and capabilities, especially in the area of science and technology. To help District residents navigate these opportunities and challenges, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray on Wednesday announced a partnership with Microsoft designed to improve the region’s economic competitiveness by making technology, education and training more accessible to residents and local businesses. Read this Wednesday post on Microsoft on the Issues for more detail.

Microsoft & Data Privacy Day: Put your best digital foot forward. In observance of Data Privacy Day 2012, Microsoft is releasing new data about consumer behaviors online and is offering guidance and tips to help people better manage their online profiles and maintain a positive reputation. In an increasingly connected world, everything people do online, from responding to emails and texts to clicking the “like” and “retweet” buttons on favorite Web pages, uploading photos and making purchases online, contributes to their online reputation. Read this press release and this Tuesday post from Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch on The Official Microsoft Blog for more detail.

UL embraces Microsoft cloud productivity services. To help create a culture of stronger collaboration and communication worldwide, Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) has begun deploying Microsoft Office 365, powered by Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Lync Online, to its 50 offices worldwide, Microsoft announced Wednesday. UL, a global independent safety science company, provides solutions for safer products, processes and work environments for more than 66,000 customers. Read this press release on the Microsoft News Center for the rest of the story.

echoecho: Solving the ‘where are you?’ problem. “Where are you?” is one of the most ubiquitous phrases in text messages and phone calls. A number of location-based apps have tried to help mobile users address the question, but only Microsoft BizSpark startup echoecho has created an easy, intuitive solution that works anywhere in the world, using any leading smartphone. The mobile app helps users find their friends simply and easily, while helping protect their privacy as well as their device battery life — and without having to join yet another social network. Want the rest of the story? Read this feature story on the Microsoft News Center.

Switch from Gmail to Hotmail in 3 easy steps. Hotmail’s come a long way and we definitely think it’s worth giving Hotmail another look. We’ve started to see some folks make the move from Gmail to Hotmail, and so we want to share with you how to do this. Read this Thursday post on the Inside Windows Live Blog for some of the top reasons why people are making the move from Gmail to Hotmail. Also in Hotmail news this week, check out this Tuesday post announcing that Hotmail is now available for the Kindle Fire.

February Must Have Xbox LIVE games for Windows Phone. Earlier this week, we announced the February line up of “Must Have Xbox LIVE” games for Windows Phone, including “BulletAsylum,” “Chickens Can’t Fly,” and “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction,” among others. Check ‘em out!

That’s a wrap for this edition of Weekend Reading! Thanks for stopping by The Official Microsoft Blog!

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Young People Will Change the World

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Editor’s Note: At the 2012 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates participated in a roundtable discussion on Opportunity for Youth. It’s a subject Bill is passionate about, because solving the world’s big problems will require energy and creativity of people of all ages, and from future generations. This post also appears on Bill’s personal blog, The Gates Notes.

In my annual letter for 2012, I invited students globally to write their own annual letters about what we need to do to extend the progress the world has made in improving the lives of its poorest people over the past 50 years. I’ve received some innovative and inspiring letters, which I’ve featured on my website. All the insight and ideas these young people brought forward are amazing.

I saw this same level of insight and creativity today at the World Economic Forum, when I sat down with young innovators and leaders, including students who’ve received Imagine Cup grants, to discuss how we can help their peers around the world achieve their dreams. Whether young people want to start a business or a nonprofit, or they want to be the first in their family to go to college, it’s critical to make sure they have what they need to succeed.

Improving access to quality education is essential to putting students on a path to compete for good jobs or become entrepreneurs. Worldwide, we must invest more in education. In addition, access to technology and technology skills will be increasingly important elements of economic opportunity—whether you grow up in Africa or Alaska.

And finally, we need to make sure young people – no matter what their socio-economic background – have the opportunity to make their great ideas a reality, whether it’s through startup funding, connections or mentorship. The Microsoft Imagine Cup is an annual competition where students around the world are challenged to develop creative technology solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Today, I met with Imagine Cup Grants Winners from Croatia, Ecuador, Jordan and the U.S., all of whose innovative technology projects have the potential to make a tremendous impact on society. One of the Imagine Cup grant winners I met with today was Gerardo Francisco Pérez Layedra – or, as he likes to go by, Paco.

Paco and his team came up with an idea called SkillBox, an affordable solution to help children who are hearing impaired by translating all audio received from a teacher in a classroom into sign language. A wireless headset captures the sound and sends it to the computer, and SkillBox then shows the corresponding sign for the word or phrase. Yesterday, all the team had was an idea. Today, that idea can become a reality because Microsoft is giving them the resources they need to start their own business: cash, software and support, as well as connections to investors, NGO partners and business partners. I’m optimistic about the impact that they will have on helping hearing-impaired children get a great education.

Young people have the ideas, energy and creativity to make the world a better place. We should help them try.

The Midweek Download: Jan. 25th Edition–Wireless Networking in Windows 8, People Week (v3) on Next, Developer Event News, plus Internet Explorer & Windows Azure

Jeffrey Meisner — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:00:00 GMT

In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got two new stories on Windows 8, some developer event news and People Week v3 on Next at Microsoft. Don’t miss ‘em!

Two more from Building Windows 8. In this Jan. 20 post on Building Windows 8, the Windows team focuses on how it re-engineered the wireless networking stack in the next version of Windows to optimize it for both mobile broadband and Wi-Fi networks. “We’ve done a ton of work to enable mobile broadband providers to make it easy for you to use 3G and 4G connectivity along with Wi-Fi in Windows 8,” writes Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division. Also, check out this Tuesday post that looks at the details of supporting sensors in Windows 8.

Thinking about developer events. At the beginning of each year, many of us assess how we (and our developer community) might want to invest our respective time and resources for the year ahead, and we’ve devoted some of that energy in the past few months toward thinking about the various developer conferences we host. As part of that reflection, we have decided to merge MIX, our spring web conference for developers and designers, into our next major developer conference, which we will host sometime in the coming year. For the rest of this story, read this Tuesday post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

People Week v3 on Next at Microsoft. During last year, we ran two successful “People Weeks” on the Next at Microsoft Blog where we dedicate the entire week to focusing on employees at Microsoft. This time around, People Week v3 is focused on Microsoft Research (MSR). If you want to know more about the people behind MSR, read these profiles on Jennifer Tour Chayes and James Mickens, the “funniest man in Microsoft Research.”

Leading privacy advocates release new tracking protection lists for IE9. Privacy is top of mind for many people this week as we get ready to celebrate Data Privacy Day on Jan. 28. Over the next few days, you will hear quite a bit from Microsoft on this topic since we, as a company, continue to be very committed to ensuring the safety and privacy of our customers. This week two leading privacy advocates – Simon Davies and Alexander Hanff of Privacy International – are releasing three new Tracking Protection Lists for Europe, including one focused on protecting children. For more detail on this story, read this Monday post on the Exploring IE Blog. You can also find more on privacy in this Monday post on the IEBlog.

IE10 Compat Inspector. Compat Inspector is now available for IE10. Use Compat Inspector to quickly identify if Internet Explorer platform changes affect your site. Whether you're preparing for IE10 or still updating for IE9, run Compat Inspector on any page experiencing problems. Then watch for messages explaining potential issues and steps you can take to resolve them. For the rest of this story, read this Jan. 20 post on the IEBlog.

Smart grid implementation rises 25 percent in the past year. The Microsoft/OSIsoft Worldwide Utility Industry Survey 2012, released Tuesday at the DistribuTECH Conference & Exhibition, shows a 25 percent increase over last year in the number of utilities companies that have implemented smart-grid technology. The survey also shows that 28 percent of companies surveyed are in the planning phase, but 24 percent still have not started adopting any smart-grid technology. However, 63 percent of participants expect their budgets for these technologies to increase over the next two or three years. For the rest of the story, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center.

Windows Azure Community News Roundup. Don’t miss the third edition of the weekly roundup of the latest community-driven news, content and conversations about cloud computing and Windows Azure. Check out this Monday post on the Windows Azure Blog for the highlights from last week.

That’s it for this edition of The Midweek Download. Thanks for reading and see you back here for another Microsoft news roundup on Friday.

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Thinking About Developer Events

Jeffrey Meisner — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

At the beginning of each year, many of us assess how we (and our developer community) might want to invest our respective time and resources for the year ahead, and we’ve devoted some of that energy in the past few months toward thinking about the various developer conferences we host.

As part of that reflection, we have decided to merge MIX, our spring web conference for developers and designers, into our next major developer conference, which we will host sometime in the coming year. I know a number of folks were wondering about MIX, given the time of year, so we wanted to make sure there’s no ambiguity, and be very clear… there will be no MIX 2012.

For context, the idea to create MIX was conceived in the fall of 2005, literally as the PDC05 main stage was being disassembled after the final keynote. While we reflected on that PDC, there was a lot of discussion around our engagement with the web community, and how we needed a more focused effort around our upcoming plans for Internet Explorer, the roadmap for our web platform, the work we were starting on web standards (we were shipping IE6 at the time), and so on. MIX06 was held about four months later in Las Vegas, and has been there ever since. A lot of great things subsequently happened in and around MIX in the six years that followed, but there have been a couple of slow and steady trends that have brought us to this point.

Firstly, the notion that the “web community” is somehow separate and distinct from the community of developers we care about no longer makes any sense. Some had even called out the existence of a separate web event as proof that we don’t “get” the web… it’s a fair point… when we get developers together to talk about what we’re doing in the platform, the web discussion should be part and parcel to everything we talk about.

Secondly, we got a lot of feedback. Developers were confused, and asking us about which event to go to. Reporters, analysts and tech bloggers were trying to manage “event fatigue”, and asked us the same question. And something that was more behind the scenes but very relevant to the time management aspect relates to our engineering teams. If you’ve gone to a Microsoft developer event, you know that a non-trivial percentage of speakers and participants are from engineering. They take time out from shipping to prepare for and travel to these events and connect with developers, and their time is one of the most valuable resources we have in the company. We want to be more efficient with that resource, as the engineering/community interaction is what brings developers to our events.

So what happens going forward? As we look ahead to 2012 and beyond, the goal is to ensure that global Microsoft developer events are of the caliber that many of you experienced at BUILD last September, in addition to the thousands of online and local developer events we host around the world to support communities and connect directly with developers. We will share more details of our next developer event later this year. In the meantime, know that we are we are hard at work and will look forward to seeing many of you there.

Posted by Tim O’Brien
General Manager, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft

Microsoft & Data Privacy Day: Put Your Best Digital Foot Forward

Jeffrey Meisner — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Jan. 28 is Data Privacy Day. Microsoft observes it by providing guidance to help consumers more safely manage their information online. While 2012 is still new, we recommend that people make a resolution to actively monitor and safeguard their online reputation.

As technology becomes more integrated into people’s lives and the number of connected devices grows, it is important to evaluate whether your online life mirrors the reputation you want others to see.

A person’s interactions online – spanning content that you create and share online and content that others post about you – are considered part of an online profile. Different people and organizations are able to see different parts of the overall picture. As you go through your day e-mailing, texting, sharing information and photos online, making purchases and more, all these activities can contribute to the opinions others form about you.

While a lot depends on who has access to the data, every piece of personal information that exists online about you – whether posted by you or by others – has the potential to impact how you are perceived by family and friends, an employer, a mortgage lender and more. Unfortunately, many of us are unaware of the cumulative portrait created by this online data.

We are releasing data from a Microsoft-commissioned survey in five countries (the U.S., Canada, Germany, Ireland and Spain) that examined peoples’ attitudes and behaviors regarding their online profiles, and how that information impacts their reputation and the reputations of others. As part of the research, we also wanted to learn how friends, family members or other people may have influenced the participant’s online profile and reputation. The study uncovered some interesting results, which are incorporated into this infographic.

· While 91 percent of people have done something to manage their overall online profile at some point, 67 percent feel in control of their online reputation, and 44 percent of adults actively think about the long-term consequences of their online activities.

· 14 percent of people believe they have been negatively impacted by the online activities of others, even unintentionally so. Of those, 21 percent believed it led to being fired from a job, 16 percent being refused health care, 16 percent being turned down for a job, and 15 percent being turned down for a mortgage.

The survey data suggests people in different parts of the world could benefit from greater familiarity with available privacy tools and more education about how the data they share online has meaningful impact on their online profiles and reputations and those of others. To help people put their best digital foot forward, we offer a few suggestions about how to better manage online activities that may affect one’s reputation.

· Stay vigilant and conduct your own “reputation report” from time to time.

o Search all variations of your name in Bing and other popular search engines, and evaluate whether the results reflect the reputation you’d like to share with the world, including current or future employers, colleagues, friends and family members. Our research found that 37 percent of adults never do this.

o If you find information about yourself that is inaccurate or less than favorable, respectfully request that the person who posted it remove it or correct an error.

· Consider separating your professional and personal profiles.

o When you are job hunting, applying to a school or looking for new insurance or a loan, remember that your image online can be a determining factor for hiring managers and application reviewers. Be sure to use different e-mail addresses, screen names, referring blogs and websites for each profile, and avoid cross-referencing personal sites.

o Fifty-seven percent of adults think about taking steps to keep their work and personal profiles private. However, 17 percent said information intended to remain private had inadvertently been made public online.

o Be judicious about adding personal information to your professional profile. Only include information appropriate in a professional context.

· Adjust your privacy settings.

o In Internet browsers, social networking sites, personal blogs and other places where you maintain personal data, use privacy settings to help manage who can see your profile or photos, how people can search for you, who can comment and how to block unwanted access. According to our research, 49 percent of adults do not use privacy settings on social networking sites.

o Take advantage of Internet Explorer 9’s tracking protection, which helps block unwanted tracking by third parties. Learn more by visiting the Tracking Protection List website. You can also use Internet Explorer’s “InPrivate” browsing mode.

o Learn about your personalized advertising choices via http://choice.live.com/privacy/

o Periodically review who has access to your content. It’s OK to remove people whom you feel no longer need access.

· Think before you share.

o Think about what you post (particularly personal photos and videos), who you share the information with, and how it reflects on your reputation. Let others know what you do and do not want shared, and ask them to remove anything you don’t want disclosed.

o Our research showed that only 38 percent of adults and 39 percent of kids actively think about the long-term impact their online activities might have on someone else’s reputation.

· Be a good digital citizen.

o Always show respect for those with whom you engage directly. It reflects on both you and them, and becomes engrained in your respective online reputations.

The more proactively you manage your information online, the more opportunities you will have to ensure your online reputation makes you proud. For additional guidance, go to www.microsoft.com/security, or read this press release on the Microsoft News Center.

Posted by Brendon Lynch
Chief Privacy Officer, Microsoft

Microsoft Names New Defendant in Kelihos Case

Jeffrey Meisner — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:00:00 GMT

Since taking down the Kelihos botnet with our partners Kyrus Inc. and Kaspersky Labs in September, the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit has continued to actively investigate the case and pursue new leads with the goal of holding the perpetrators behind the botnet accountable for their actions.

In an amended complaint filed today with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Microsoft alleges that Andrey N. Sabelnikov, a citizen of Russia, is responsible for the operations of the Kelihos botnet.

Mr. Sabelnikov is not the first to be named as a defendant in this case, which has already served as the legal foundation for the successful disruption of a global botnet harming thousands of victims worldwide. In the original complaint filed in September, Microsoft alleged that Dominique Alexander Piatti, dotFREE Group SRO and John Does 1-22 owned a domain cz.cc and used cz.cc to register other subdomains such as lewgdooi.cz.cc used to operate and control the Kelihos botnet.

Our investigation showed that while some of the defendants’ subdomains may have been legitimate, many were being used for questionable purposes with links to a variety of disreputable online activities. On Oct. 26, we successfully settled with defendants Dominique Alexander Piatti and dotFREE Group, allowing us to dismiss the case against them. Today, thanks to their cooperation and new evidence, we have named a new defendant to the civil lawsuit we believe to be the operator of the Kelihos botnet.

In today’s complaint, Microsoft presented evidence to the court that Mr. Sabelnikov wrote the code for and either created, or participated in creating, the Kelihos malware. Further, the complaint alleges that he used the malware to control, operate, maintain and grow the Kelihos botnet. These allegations are based on evidence Microsoft investigators uncovered while analyzing the Kelihos malware. Microsoft also alleges that Mr. Sabelnikov registered more than 3,700 “cz.cc” subdomains from Mr. Piatti and dotFREE Group SRO, and misused those subdomains to operate and control the Kelihos botnet.

All of Microsoft’s legal filings and evidence in this case can be found at http://www.noticeofpleadings.com. Microsoft is committed to following the evidence wherever it leads us through the investigation in order to hold Kelihos’ operators accountable for their actions. We believe this is important both because of the harm caused by Kelihos and because all botnet operators should understand that there are risks and consequences for engaging in malicious activity.

We also remain committed to taking what we learn from takedown operations such as these to help better arm the ‘good guys’ in protecting people from the threat. We continue to explore ways to make the information learned from our takedowns more readily available to others who can take action to address infections in a more systematic and automated manner. Our objective is to effectively put information and tools into the hands of those that can help protect innocent computer users. We will continue to drive innovation towards this end as long as botnets continue to victimize society.

Although the Kelihos botnet remains inactive since the successful takedown in September, thousands of computers are still infected with its malware. Please visit support.microsoft.com/botnets for free information and tools to clean your computer from malicious software, and visit http://www.microsoft.com/security for more information on online safety and security.

This case is certainly not over. Look for more updates as the Kelihos investigation and Microsoft’s overall fight to disrupt botnets continue. You can also follow the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit on Facebook and Twitter.

Posted by Richard Domingues Boscovich
Senior Attorney, Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

Weekend Reading: Jan. 20th Edition–Microsoft Reports Record Second-Quarter Revenue, MSN Debuts a New Mobile Experience, plus Windows Phone, Xbox LIVE & SkyDrive

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:00:00 GMT

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories on Microsoft’s second-quarter financial report, a new mobile experience on MSN and a host of others. Don’t miss ‘em!

Microsoft reports record revenue of $20.9 billion in second quarter. On Thursday, Microsoft announced quarterly revenue of $20.89 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2011, a 5 percent increase from the prior year period. Operating income, net income, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $7.99 billion, $6.62 billion, and $0.78 per share, compared with $8.17 billion, $6.63 billion and $0.77 per share, respectively, in the prior year period. For more detail, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center.

MSN introduces streamlined mobile experience. MSN Mobile has been redesigned to keep you informed, engaged and entertained regardless of where you are. You can now check top news and entertainment stories more quickly when you’re on the go with our latest release of MSN Mobile. Scan MSN videos, photo galleries and lifestyle content, right from the MSN Mobile home page. Need an umbrella? Want a stock quote? Curious about the score of tonight’s game? Simply swipe down to see the updated modules. You can even find new apps. MSN Mobile keeps you in the know, when you’re on the go. For more detail, read this Thursday post on the MSN Blog. Check out the screenshot below of the streamlined mobile experience on MSN:

Microsoft, Northwest companies voice support for marriage equality in Washington State. On Thursday, Microsoft joined other Northwest employers Concur, Group Health, Nike, RealNetworks and Vulcan Inc. in support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples. Microsoft believes that passing this bill would be good for our business and good for the state’s economy. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith took a few moments to explain why in this post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

New apps now available for Xbox LIVE members. Building upon our catalog of live and on-demand TV shows, movies, sports and music and continuing to deliver locally relevant content to Xbox LIVE members around the globe, the following apps are now available in various regions on Xbox LIVE: Astral Media’s Disney XD (Astral Media) – Canada; Mediathek/ZDF (ZDF) – Germany and Real Sports (Maple Leaf Sports) – Canada. For the rest of this story, read this Tuesday post on Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson.

And in Windows Phone news this week… Check out the latest edition of Pinworthy, which profiles a variety of music apps for Windows Phone owners to rock out to while working out. And don’t miss this Thursday post on the Office Casual Blog focused on how to stay productive using all the features a Windows Phone when you’re not in close proximity to your PC.

SkyDrive and Office: 7 tips for full-powered collaboration in the cloud. A few months ago, we shared a few challenges that customers have with today’s personal cloud storage services. College students in particular have unique needs that today’s services do not satisfy. While we continue to improve SkyDrive to meet their needs, today’s SkyDrive can already help students work together more efficiently. To spread the word, we’re showcasing what students can do with SkyDrive and Office, and we’re sponsoring a $50K Collaboration Challenge for students at 10 universities across the U.S. who are participating in business plan competitions. For the rest of this story, read this Tuesday post on the Inside Windows Live Blog.

A turning point for education? Trends to watch in 2012. Will the year 2012 prove to be a turning point for education? There’s certainly an ever-increasing spotlight on the quality of education and an interest to help improve it from all corners of society. To read about some of the trends likely to surface in education this year, check out this Wednesday post from Anthony Salcito, vice president of worldwide education here at Microsoft on the Education Insights Blog.

Closing the loop on all those delectable devices shown at CES. Yes, yes, the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show ended last week, but we couldn’t resist the chance to show off some of the slick new devices some of our partners displayed at the exhibition. Just in case you missed it, check out this Jan. 10 post and this Jan. 11 post on the Windows Experience Blog, both of which feature short videos focused on new and innovative Windows 7 PCs. Then there’s this CES hardware recap on the Next at Microsoft Blog from editor Steve Clayton.

That’s a wrap for this edition of Weekend Reading! Drop by The Official Microsoft Blog again next week for all the latest Microsoft news.

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Marriage Equality in Washington State Would Be Good for Business

Jeffrey Meisner — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:25:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft is joining other Northwest employers Concur, Group Health, Nike, RealNetworks and Vulcan Inc. in support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples. We believe that passing this bill would be good for our business and good for the state’s economy. I wanted to take a few moments to explain why.

At Microsoft, we pride ourselves on our products and services, our brand, and our global reach. But unquestionably, our employees are our greatest asset.

To be successful, it’s critical that we have a workforce that is as diverse as our customers. Every day, the national and global economies are becoming more diverse. The lifeblood of a business is its ability to understand and connect with its customers. We’re no exception. Now more than ever, the most effective workforce is a diverse workforce.

While some of our employees literally grew up around the corner, others have come from every state and almost 150 countries around the world. They reflect virtually every background in the country and on the planet. They bring their creativity to work, and they put it to good use in developing new products and serving our customers. There simply is no substitute for their diverse backgrounds, perspectives, skills and experiences.

Inclusiveness is therefore a fundamental part of our values, and is integral to the company’s business success.

This means it’s important to go beyond simply forbidding discrimination; we strive to actively promote diversity, equality and inclusion in our workplace. In 1993, Microsoft became the first Fortune 500 company to provide same-sex domestic partnership benefits. For almost two decades, we’ve benefited from this support and the resulting contributions of our LGBT employees.

In addition to corporate policies supporting diversity and equality, we strive to engage in a thoughtful manner in public discussions on issues that have a significant impact on our employees and our business. For example, Microsoft supported legislation in Washington State prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, as well as legislation expanding domestic partnership rights.

Our support today for Senate Bill 6239 and HB 2516, Washington’s marriage equality legislation, builds upon our previous work in this area.

As other states recognize marriage equality, Washington’s employers are at a disadvantage if we cannot offer a similar, inclusive environment to our talented employees, our top recruits and their families. Employers in the technology sector face an unprecedented national and global competition for top talent. Despite progress made in recent years with domestic partnership rights, same-sex couples in Washington still hold a different status from their neighbors. Marriage equality in Washington would put employers here on an equal footing with employers in the six other states that already recognize the committed relationships of same-sex couples – Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. This in turn will help us continue to compete for talent.

While Microsoft’s support for marriage equality is motivated by respect for our employees, we also respect the views of those who may not agree with our position. For example, we have many highly valued and highly successful employees who hold a wide range of views on this and many other issues. We’re not asking anyone to change their views to conform to the company’s position.

We also recognize that marriage has meaning as both a civil and a religious institution. Like the marriage equality bill passed last year in New York State with bipartisan and business support, this bill preserves religious freedom in Washington’s churches while ending discrimination in Washington law.

Like the New York bill, we believe Washington’s legislation should be passed into law. It will make our state and our economy stronger.

Posted by Brad Smith
General Counsel & Executive Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft

The Midweek Download: Jan. 18th Edition–Windows 8’s Next-Gen File System, the New Visual Studio Achievements Program for Devs, plus Windows Phone, Internet Explorer & Windows Azure

Jeffrey Meisner — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:00:00 GMT

In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got stories on a next-gen file system in Windows 8, the new Visual Studio Achievements program, cloud computing and highlights from the National Retail Federation’s annual conference, among others. Check ‘em out.

Building the next generation file system for Windows: ReFS. In this Monday post on Building Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, writes, “We wanted to continue our dialog about data storage by talking about the next generation file system being introduced in Windows 8. Today, NTFS is the most widely used, advanced, and feature rich file system in broad use. But when you’re reimagining Windows, as we are for Windows 8, we don’t rest on past successes, and so with Windows 8 we are also introducing a newly engineered file system. ReFS, (which stands for Resilient File System), is built on the foundations of NTFS, so it maintains crucial compatibility while at the same time it has been architected and engineered for a new generation of storage technologies and scenarios. In Windows 8, ReFS will be introduced only as part of Windows Server 8, which is the same approach we have used for each and every file system introduction.” Jump on over to Building Windows 8 to get the rest of the story.

Visual Studio Achievements program brings gamification to development. Starting today, developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio have a new way to highlight their skills, get recognition for the amazing work they do every day, and add some competitive fun to the development day. Visual Studio Achievements, a Visual Studio plug-in, enables developers to unlock badges and compete against one another for a place on a leader board based on the code they write, its level of sophistication, and the Visual Studio capabilities they use to do so. For the rest of this story, read today’s post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Microsoft brings the cloud down to Earth for enterprises. In an online broadcast Tuesday from Microsoft headquarters, Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft Server and Tools Business, laid out how Microsoft’s private cloud solution will help businesses move faster, save money and better compete in 2012. He highlighted how companies, such as Webcast participants Lufthansa Systems, T. Rowe Price and Unilever, can use Microsoft System Center 2012 to build and operate private clouds for the delivery of business applications across both private and public cloud platforms. System Center 2012 became available Tuesday in a Release Candidate as a single, integrated private cloud management solution for the first time. To get the rest of the story, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center and this Tuesday post on The Official Microsoft Blog from Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of the management and security division at Microsoft.

Highlights from the National Retail Federation’s annual conference. At the National Retail Federation’s annual conference on Monday, Microsoft announced the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for Retail, which will provide midsize and enterprise retailers with an end-to-end solution that includes cross-channel capabilities, social and mobile commerce, enriched point of sale (POS), and powerful enhancements for merchandising. Read this press release for more detail. And for more from the NRF’s annual conference, read this feature story on the Microsoft News Center focused on how Intelligent Systems help retailers operate more efficiently and open new opportunities.

Windows Phone 2011 Retrospective. Windows Phone developers, if you’re curious to see how far the platform has come in the last year, don’t miss this infographic on the Windows Phone Blog, which touches upon the number of apps in Marketplace, customer interest and developer interest, among other things.

Controlling selection with CSS user-select. IE10 Platform Preview 4 includes support for a new CSS property, -ms-user-select, which makes it easier for Web developers to control exactly what text can be selected on their websites. Selecting text on the Internet is important in many other scenarios. To get the rest of the story, read this Jan. 11 post on the IEBlog.

Windows Azure Community News Roundup. Just in cased you missed it, here is the second edition of the Windows Azure Blog’s community news roundup, featuring stories on cloud computing, security, Node.JS and other topics.

Windows 8 and the future of XAML. The Silverlight Blog kicked off a series of articles on Jan. 12 focused on Windows 8 and how XAML developers will need to adapt to the new platform. Check it out.

That’s it for this edition of The Midweek Download! Thanks for stopping by The Official Microsoft Blog!

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Visual Studio Achievements Program Brings Gamification to Development

Jeffrey Meisner — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Starting today, developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio have a new way to highlight their skills, get recognition for the amazing work they do every day, and add some competitive fun to the development day.

Visual Studio Achievements, a Visual Studio plug-in, enables developers to unlock badges and compete against one another for a place on a leader board based on the code they write, its level of sophistication, and the Visual Studio capabilities they use to do so. Developers finally have the ability to actually show their friends, colleagues, project managers, spouses and customers how good they are at what they do all day and sometimes into the night.

Visual Studio Achievements is both playful and pragmatic. Built on ideas from the developers themselves, it is intended to be a humorous community-building game as well as a path to the many, and, to some, unknown features offered in Visual Studio. This is one of several initiatives Microsoft is undertaking to recognize developers for their tireless and indispensable work.

The three dominant factors shaping development in the industry today are how developers build apps, how they make money, and how they uniquely solve hard problems with new scenarios. The development environments, as well as the tools, need to be geared around how to make it easier and more enjoyable for Microsoft developers to do these three things. When you add in the prediction that by 2015, more than 50 percent of organizations will gamify their innovation processes, Achievements is a small but important element in delivering on that commitment.

The Visual Studio Achievements plug-in analyzes a background thread each time code is compiled, as well as listens for particular events and actions from Visual Studio. When certain criteria or actions are detected, the plug-in triggers a pop-up alert and awards a new badge, which is then displayed on the public leaderboard and the developer’s Channel 9 profile.

The Channel 9 team created the Visual Studio Achievements extension after reading a post by Rudi on the While True blog and the subsequent discussion on Reddit. Rudi’s post outlined a detailed list of mock achievements and badges for Visual Studio, which spurred more than 700 comments. Developers chimed in with their own ideas for badges and achievements, and the concept took shape.

Jeff Sandquist, Senior Director of Developer Relations at Microsoft, loved the concept of bringing gamification to Visual Studio Achievements, and the idea went from a potential side project to an imperative and came to light over the course of six months.

“We talk to developers every day because their work and ideas fuel our products, projects and services,” said Sandquist. “Now there’s a fun factor as well as a healthy, competitive environment for Visual Studio developers to show off their everyday contributions that are otherwise unnoticed.”

· There are 32 achievements with six categories and corresponding badges.



Customizing Visual Studio	Don't Try This At Home	Good Housekeeping


Just For Fun	Power Coder	Unleashing Visual Studio

· Each time you earn a badge, a unique page is created with your profile picture, the badge and a description. You can tweet about achievements, share them on Facebook, and show a list of achievements on your blog using the Visual Studio Achievements Widget.

Download it today from the Visual Studio Gallery.

Posted by Karsten Januszewski
Software Development Engineer, Channel 9, Microsoft

System Center 2012: Where Public and Private Clouds Meet

Jeffrey Meisner — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:30:00 GMT

As the executive in charge of building System Center – and we have great news on that today, with the release candidate now available – one great part of my job is meeting with CIOs and CTOs, touring their datacenters and hearing about their experiences and plans. A common theme I hear in these discussions is that they have realized a great deal of value and savings through virtualization, but now they are ready to take the next step to cloud computing. Not just to save money, but to move faster and help their businesses grow with new applications and capabilities.

Something I often ask these customers about is the ratio of IT employees to servers in their datacenters. This gives me a good idea of the maturity and efficiency of the organization. It is pretty common to hear a ratio of one full time employee to 30 to 40 servers in a typical enterprise datacenter. By contrast, when we look at the Microsoft datacenters that host our cloud services (Bing, Windows Update, Hotmail, Windows Azure) we see a ratio of one employee to four or five thousand servers.

When we were defining the capabilities that would be included in the new System Center 2012 private cloud management release, our primary goal was to apply our learning from building and operating the cloud services across Microsoft, and significantly increase the efficiency of IT professionals around the world. We wanted to enable them to significantly scale the work they do and the number of servers each employee could be responsible for. That’s the kind of efficiency that public cloud computing can deliver, and CIOs want to take advantage of it.

The public cloud brings incredible efficiencies and capabilities, and in the long run public cloud computing is where the world is ultimately headed. However, most customers tell me that they will take a “hybrid IT” approach for years to come. Yes, they will be using public clouds more and more, but for a variety of reasons, customers will also want to build their own private cloud and consume cloud capacity from a number of partners.

Our cloud strategy and solutions match up with this. The public cloud is now what we call our “design point” for how we build software. We design and build for the requirements of the public cloud, such as scale and security, and then bring that value and efficiency to customers to deploy in their own datacenters. I do believe this is one of the things that differentiates Microsoft’s offerings from others on the market. Every single day here at Microsoft we live with the challenges and opportunities of operating some of the world’s largest cloud services. There are some learnings that truly only come through experience. We take those learnings from our cloud services and drive them into Windows Server and System Center to bring to our customers the private cloud solutions.

We are about to enter our third decade of building management solutions. It all started in the early 90’s with the first release of what is now System Center Configuration Manager. Cloud computing is the combination of great virtualization and great management capabilities. This is, by far, the most impressive release of System Center, and in combination with Windows Server, is the foundation upon which customers can build their cloud computing strategy.

With the right management, customers can transform their IT infrastructure into services the business can use to quickly and reliably deliver the all-important business applications from the cloud. After all, the reason why we deploy infrastructure is to host apps, and this is where I believe System Center really shines. We have a deep understanding of the applications that customers are running, whether those applications are running on physical servers, virtualized servers, private clouds, hosted clouds or public clouds. Customers have the flexibility to make the choice of how and where they want to run their applications, and we bring it all together for the IT professionals in an easy-to-use solution.

Today, Server and Tools President Satya Nadella and I participated in a Webcast for enterprise IT leaders about their opportunities with the Microsoft private cloud. We talked about how customers, such as Webcast participants Lufthansa Systems, T. Rowe Price and Unilever, can use System Center 2012 to build private clouds and manage their applications across both private and public clouds.

The move to the cloud is on, and management will be critical as customers progress into the new era of hybrid IT. You can watch the replay of the Webcast, including videos of those customers, and find out more here.

Posted by Brad Anderson
Corporate Vice President, Management & Security Division, Microsoft

Weekend Reading: Jan. 13th Edition–Xbox Has a Mammoth Year, a Final Look at CES, Trustworthy Computing Turns 10, plus Microsoft Research & Windows Phone

Jeffrey Meisner — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:00:00 GMT

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories on a stellar year for Xbox 360 and Kinect, a CES wrap-up, Trustworthy Computing’s 10th anniversary and more. Check ‘em out!

Xbox 360 extends win streak to 12 straight months with banner holiday sales. With a strong holiday sales period finishing a banner year, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 ended 2011 as the best-selling current-generation console in the U.S., outselling the second-place console by more than 2.7 million units, according to The NPD Group. The strong December capped an impressive year during which Xbox 360 was the fastest-growing console. It also captured 49 percent of consumer retail spending, with an industry-leading $6.7 billion in sales in the U.S. for the calendar year—more than $2.1 billion on consoles and $4.6 billion on games and accessories, NPD data shows. For more on this story, read this Thursday post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Big week for Microsoft at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show. Just in case you missed it, Microsoft made a big splash at CES this week with a number of significant announcements, including news that Kinect for Windows will be coming Feb 1., the introduction of the Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone on AT&T, a bevy of new Windows 7 devices, several new “must-have” Xbox LIVE games for Windows Phone and more. Below is an image of the Nokia Lumia 900, which has the technology press excited:

At 10-Year milestone, Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Initiative more important than ever. Ten years ago this week, during a time when security problems were threatening trust in software products, Bill Gates sent an email to all Microsoft full-time employees announcing the creation of the Trustworthy Computing (TwC) initiative. A pivotal moment in the company’s history, Gates defined the key aspects of Trustworthy Computing, stating the company must make this initiative the highest priority. For more on Trustworthy Computing’s anniversary, read this feature story (and infographic) on the Microsoft News Center. Also, don’t miss this Thursday post on The Official Microsoft Blog from Scott Charney, corporate vice president of TwC, and this Tuesday guest post on the Microsoft on the Issues Blog from security expert Rich Mogull.

Microsoft and LG sign patent agreement covering Android and Chrome OS-based devices. Microsoft and LG Electronics have signed a patent agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for LG’s tablets, mobile phones and other consumer devices running the Android or Chrome OS Platform. The contents of the agreement have not been disclosed. To get the rest of this story, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center.

Bloomberg Businessweek: Steve Ballmer Reboots. On Thursday, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Ashley Vance published this report on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and the company’s prospects for 2012. The report profiles Steve Ballmer as well as "cooler tech, more energy, higher profit." Don’t miss it!

Microsoft Research raises the bar in social-media research. Microsoft announced earlier this week that three leading researchers will be joining danah boyd and the social-media research team at Microsoft Research New England, based in Cambridge, Mass. Want the rest of the story? Check out this Thursday post on Inside Microsoft Research.

Microsoft Hardware – 30 great years and counting. In this Tuesday post, the Microsoft Hardware Blog looks back on Microsoft Hardware’s 30-year history: “A lot has changed since our humble beginnings in 1982. This was the year we began to realize that the complete PC experience should encompass so much more than a strong and efficient computer. Building on our extensive background and knowledge of PCs and computing, we paved the way for the hardware industry by delivering products that make the time you spend with your PC more efficient… and better yet, more enjoyable.”

That’s a wrap for this edition of Weekend Reading! See you back here next week!

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Xbox 360 Extends Win Streak to 12 Straight Months with Banner Holiday Sales

Jeffrey Meisner — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:46:00 GMT

With a strong holiday sales period finishing a banner year, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 ended 2011 as the best-selling current-generation console in the U.S., outselling the second-place console by more than 2.7 million units, according to The NPD Group.

The strong December capped an impressive year during which Xbox 360 was the fastest-growing console. It also captured 49 percent of consumer retail spending, with an industry-leading $6.7 billion in sales in the U.S. for the calendar year—more than $2.1 billion on consoles and $4.6 billion on games and accessories, NPD data shows.

Xbox 360 was the must-have gift this holiday season with about half of December’s retail spend on games, consoles and accessories going toward Xbox 360 products, totaling more than $1.5 billion, NPD data shows. According to internal Microsoft figures, the company has now sold more than 66 million Xbox 360 consoles and more than 18 million Kinect sensors worldwide, and has nearly 40 million Xbox LIVE members. Below is a screenshot of a bundle inspired by one of this year's most popular games, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3:

Other NPD highlights from December 2011 include:

Holding a 46 percent share of the overall current-generation console market, Xbox 360 sold more than 1.7 million units in December, solidifying the number-one console spot in the U.S. for 2011. This marks the tenth consecutive month Xbox 360 has held more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share, and twelfth straight month Xbox 360 was the top-selling console in the U.S.
Total retail spend on the Xbox 360 platform (hardware, software and accessories) reached $1.5 billion, the most for any console in the U.S.
Xbox 360 had seven of the top 10 console game titles including: “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3,” Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “Battlefield 3,” “Assassin’s Creed: Revelations,” “Just Dance 3,” “Kinect Sports Season Two” and “Dance Central 2”.
For 2011, Xbox 360 had six of the top 10 console game titles including “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3,” “Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “Gears of War 3,” “Battlefield 3,” “Madden NFL 12,” and “Call of Duty: Black Ops”.

This week at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft showed many of the ways Xbox 360 and Kinect will continue their strong momentum in 2012, including new Xbox LIVE content partners such as News Corp. In addition, Microsoft’s internal data shows:

The hours of video consumed globally on Xbox LIVE increased 140 percent from 2010 to 2011.
In December, more than 60 percent of U.S. Xbox LIVE Gold members used entertainment apps on Xbox LIVE – for an average of an hour a day each.
The number of people using entertainment apps on Xbox LIVE increased by nearly 50 percent globally from November to December.

Beyond gaming, Microsoft will soon sell a Kinect for Windows sensor designed for commercial applications, bringing Kinect to whole new audiences including the classroom, operating room and the board room. Looking forward to 2012, Microsoft expects new experiences for Xbox LIVE and new installments in the “Halo” and “Fable” franchises.

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog

Trustworthy Computing at 10: Marking a Milestone, Continuing Our Commitment

Jeffrey Meisner — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Ten years ago this week, during a time when security problems were threatening trust in software products, Chairman Bill Gates sent out a company-wide memo communicating that the company must make trustworthy computing the highest priority for the company and for the industry over the next decade.

Bill Gates’ directive set into motion a series of fundamental changes at Microsoft that changed its culture and still resonates a decade later. The most visible response was the creation of Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) to ensure that security issues were caught early during the software product development cycle, and that security was not retrofitted into products at the end of that process. The SDL became mandatory at Microsoft and then publicly available so that developers everywhere could embrace the SDL process.

While a focus on security dominated the early days of TwC, we have also raised the bar on reliability and privacy. Better instrumentation such as Windows Error Reporting has led to fewer system disruptions, increasing productivity and alleviating user frustration. Microsoft was also one of the first companies to develop layered privacy notices. We have a privacy notice that’s very short and concise and provides a good understanding of how we use data, but you can click on a link and get more details.

However, computing, society and the threats we face all continue to evolve. Attackers attack, defenders defend, and each learns about the other’s techniques and weaknesses. While Microsoft will remain vigilant in its focus on building dependable software and systems, it’s impossible to reduce vulnerabilities to zero, so we must continue to develop innovative ways to mitigate threats.

Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, today shared a memo with Microsoft employees highlighting the evolving role of computing in society and our responsibilities as an industry leader. Computing has become a major part of the fabric of modern society and in the coming years, security, privacy and reliability will become increasingly important as cloud services continue to expand. Craig’s memo notes that because threats are becoming more sophisticated and persistent, our dedication to Trustworthy Computing has never been more important.

“TwC Next,” the ensuing decade-plus of Trustworthy Computing, will focus on the PC-plus era, the new world of devices and services, and the role of governments in computing. Security, privacy and reliability strategies must evolve to remain potent. I will be releasing a paper on TwC Next in conjunction with my RSA keynote on Feb. 28 that outlines my vision for how we must adapt to this new world of devices and services. Everyone at Microsoft and the entire computing ecosystem has a role to play. To learn more about what’s planned for TwC Next, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/twc.

Posted by Scott Charney
Corporate Vice President, Trustworthy Computing, Microsoft