TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Eric Wilfrid

Microsoft today named a new general manager for its Macintosh Business Unit -- the group that makes Office software for Apple computers -- and said it promoted the previous GM to an undisclosed new position inside the Entertainment & Devices Division.

Eric Wilfrid (pictured) was named general manager. The previous occupant of the position, Craig Eisler, has "been promoted to a new role," the company says. That will no doubt lead to all sorts of speculation about what Eisler will be doing, but the company is keeping it under wraps for now. Eisler was GM for about 16 months -- time enough to attend only one Macworld.

Microsoft's new cloud-computing initiative will face stiff competition from the likes of Google, Salesforce.com and Seattle-based Amazon.com, all of which have beaten the Redmond company to market with cloud-based offerings of their own. And even if Microsoft does succeed in reshaping its business in the long run, it could see thinner profit margins if its product mix shifts away from its lucrative lines of software for PCs and computer servers toward potentially less costly online versions.

Google may walk away from its proposed advertising search deal with Yahoo rather than agree to regulatory restrictions, according to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News, citing anonymous sources.  Even without the deal, Google accomplished what may have been its most important goal -- keeping Yahoo away from Microsoft. But maybe, in the end, Google simply saved Microsoft from itself.

Post updated with Allen's video message to guests.

An undisclosed medical procedure prevented Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen from accepting, in person, the Seattle King County Realtors' First Citizen award Thursday evening at a celebration honoring the billionaire philanthropist in Seattle.

Allen instead appeared in a short video message shown on the big screens at the event. Many of Allen's friends and former colleagues -- including Bill Gates -- spoke about Allen's contributions to the city, from the founding of Microsoft to the construction of the Experience Music Project to the purchase of the Seattle Seahawks.

A pilot program introduced today by Washington state uses Microsoft Research technology to search, by keyword, thousands of hours of audio from legislative hearings dating back to the 1970s. It's great news for historians and for anyone who wants to listen, over the Internet, to an elaborate discussion of salmon habitat during a 1982 House Agriculture Committee hearing.

But that won't comfort open-source software advocates and others who worry that governmental agencies already rely too heavily on Microsoft. Running the service requires the state to use Windows Server and other back-end Microsoft technologies.

Microsoft's online ad agency Razorfish is feeling the impact of the financial sector's implosion. The agency today cut 40 jobs from its New York office, amid speculation that Microsoft is looking to sell the unit.

UPDATE: A day after the New York layoffs, Razorfish is adding staff, buying a digital ad agency in Spain.

Screen shot of Glympse showing location of founder Bryan Trussel this morning

Bryan Trussel, the former head of Microsoft's casual games division, has launched a new website that lets people track the movement of their friends and family online. It locates cell phone signals with GPS technology and plots their motion on Google Maps.

New numbers from comScore Networks show a very slight month-over-month increase in Microsoft's search market share in the U.S. -- hitting 8.5 percent, compared with 8.3 percent the month before. Tiny as that is, it might seem like a small bit of good news in the Redmond company's long struggle against Google. But a longer view reveals a much different picture.

LOS ANGELES -- The redesigned Windows 7 taskbar is getting lots of attention here at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, but the enduring image of the event may be those eye-catching red shoes that Microsoft executive Amitabh Srivastava wore during the Monday morning keynote address. The shoes were a symbol of project "Red Dog," the code name for the Windows Azure cloud computing initiative led by Srivastava and Microsoft's Dave Cutler.

Here's the story behind those shoes, plus more from PDC.

LOS ANGELES -- Microsoft Research was the subject of today's keynote at the company's Professional Developers Conference, with attendees getting a broad overview of the company's research efforts. Here's a video of Microsoft researchers showing a project called SecondLight toward the end of the presentation. It's an adaptation of the company's Surface tabletop computer.

LOS ANGELES -- Today's keynoter at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference is Microsoft Research chief Rick Rashid. Some sort of secret project is expected to be unveiled.

Follow along in the live blog below.

LOS ANGELES -- As the man who took over Bill Gates' job as Microsoft's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie gets to figure out where the company will place its next big technological bets. And he has been putting lots of chips on the table this week.

In an interview at the company's Professional Developers Conference here, Ozzie answered questions about Microsoft's new Windows Azure cloud computing platform, the next version of its flagship Windows PC operating system, and its plans to offer Web-based versions of its widely used Office programs -- all of which were unveiled over the past two days.

Ozzie also discussed how he's different from Gates -- and showed, with a wry sense of humor, how he's the same.

Read on for excerpts from the interview.

LOS ANGELES -- Microsoft detailed Windows 7 in public for the first time today -- unveiling features including a redesigned taskbar, simplified home networking, performance enhancements and additional touch-screen capabilities.

But even as it touted the changes planned for the next version of its flagship PC operating system, Microsoft made it clear that it's aiming for a less dramatic -- and less problematic -- overhaul this time.

Speaking on stage at the company's Professional Developers Conference here, Windows Chief Steven Sinofksy said Microsoft has learned from Windows Vista's problems and is attempting, with Windows 7, to build on the progress it has made since Vista's release. He alluded to the Apple advertising campaign that relentlessly pokes fun at the Microsoft operating system.

"We certainly got a lot of feedback about Windows Vista" when it was released, Sinofsky said, to laughter. "We got feedback from reviews, from the press, a few bloggers here and there. Oh, and some commercials."

Read on for a roundup of the key Windows 7 features the company showed at the conference today.

LOS ANGELES – After dragging its feet for years, Microsoft says it plans to offer Web-based versions of its Office programs that let people create and edit documents inside a browser.

The surprise move, announced here this morning, is a sharp change for one of the Redmond company’s oldest and most profitable franchises. Traditional versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and other programs dominate the market, and Microsoft has been reluctant to offer functional online counterparts -- even as Google and other rivals have beaten it to the punch.

LOS ANGELES -- OK, let's try this thing again. Microsoft will be showing Windows 7 for the first time in public here this morning, and I'll be participating in a live blog with several other bloggers. Click below to access the thread, and watch for separate posts during and after the keynote about the news.