General 8066 Published by Philipp Esselbach 0

Health and fitness chain Holmes Place is preparing the second stage of a company-wide roll-out of Microsoft´s Windows 2000 and Exchange servers, claiming that it has already made cost savings.

The group has linked 120 users at its two head offices in London and is waiting for BT to roll out its ADSL service before it can go live with the second phase. It plans to complete the project by the end of the year.

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General 8066 Published by Philipp Esselbach 0

Thanks to Velocitty for informing me that Microsoft has released the first Beta of DirectX 8.1. Beta testers can download the beta from Betaplace.

General 8066 Published by Philipp Esselbach 0

Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $6.46 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2001, a 14 percent increase over the $5.66 billion for the same quarter last year. Net income and diluted earnings per share were $2.45 billion and $0.44.

"Results were strong across all businesses and came in a little better than we expected. We were particularly pleased by the ongoing strong performance of Windows:registered: 2000 Professional and the accelerating demand for our .NET Enterprise Server products by business customers," said John Connors, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "Despite this quarter´s solid performance, we continue to be mindful of the current economic climate and the impact it may have on business and consumer demand."

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General 8066 Published by Philipp Esselbach 0

Microsoft is taking a big gamble with the next version of Windows, say analysts.

Making sweeping changes to Windows to combat piracy, aid industry partners and help Microsoft move to a new way of doing business could irritate anyone adopting the software.

Some believe the changes create so many obstacles that many users will be driven to alternative operating systems, such as Linux, that give them more freedom.

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General 8066 Published by Philipp Esselbach 0

Today at the RosettaNet Partner Conference in Anaheim, Calif., Microsoft Corp., one of the founding members of the RosettaNet consortium, announced the Microsoft:registered: BizTalk:tm: Server Accelerator for RosettaNet. The second accelerator for BizTalk Server 2000 that Microsoft has announced in the past two months, it will provide the software adapters and server platform needed to rapidly implement RosettaNet solutions that will integrate applications and supply chain partners and enable the orchestration of complex, collaborative business processes.

"Alleviating the integration problems of the high-tech industry´s value chain is our primary objective, and the BizTalk Server Accelerator for RosettaNet is a welcome solution in helping bring that vision to fruition," said Jennifer Hamilton, CEO of RosettaNet. "This solution demonstrates Microsoft´s continued leadership role in helping develop and drive XML-based standards such as RosettaNet and implementing solutions that will empower businesses across industries."

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General 8066 Published by Philipp Esselbach 0

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft:registered: Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server is now certified on the Windows:registered: 2000 Datacenter Server, providing Exchange customers with the highest levels of availability and scalability.

Following trends in server deployments at both large enterprises and application service providers (ASPs), customers are demanding server consolidation, and with advancements made in storage technology, they are configuring servers to hold vast amounts of data. Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server running on Windows 2000 Datacenter Server will provide customers with configuration options to maximize server uptime when system failures occur, minimizing impact to users and businesses. Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server can be installed and run on any Windows 2000 Datacenter hardware configuration, including platforms using up to 32 processors. Windows 2000 Datacenter support for Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server will be available with Exchange 2000 Service Pack 1, due to be available midcalendar year 2001.

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General 8066 Published by Philipp Esselbach 0

PCinsight has posted a review of Belkin´s USB VideoBus II capture device.

The Belkin USB VideoBus II offers several key advantages over other grabbers. It is compact, portable, lightweight, comes with a lifetime warranty, has excellent support and very good grabbing quality. Its software bundle is ideal for novice users and still useful to experienced users too. It is the perfect companion to a notebook or to any video camera owner. Leaving these details aside, for a price of only $72 (found on Pricewatch), the Belkin VideoBus II is a steal.
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