Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Microsoft Equipt is a subscription service that, in one easy installation, delivers security and performance with Windows Live OneCare plus Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and other essential tools to help home PC users be more protected, productive and connected.

Windows Live OneCare offers all-in-one security and PC management by combining award-winning anti-malware protection, centralized backup and PC maintenance features that take the hassle out of PC care.

Office Home and Student 2007 contains Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007 and OneNote 2007 so you can get things done and stay organized. If you purchase Microsoft Equipt, you can also extend your Office experience via Microsoft Office Live Workspace, a new service from Microsoft that makes it easy to save documents to a dedicated online Workspace and share these with your friends and classmates.

Microsoft Equipt also includes:

• Windows Live Mail
• Windows Live Messenger
• Windows Live Photo Gallery

to help you stay in touch with friends and family. With an active subscription, you’ll get updates for the latest security protection and enhancements, plus version upgrades for Office Home and Student at no additional cost. Microsoft Equipt can be installed on up to three home PCs.

Pricing and Availability
You can purchase an annual subscription of Microsoft Equipt for $69.99 (estimated retail price). You can install each subscription on up to three home PCs. Version upgrades for both Office Home and Student and OneCare, plus updated virus definitions, are automatic at no additional cost.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/office/factsheets/EquiptFS.doc

PRESS RELEASE:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jul08/07-02EquiptPR.mspx

Imagine the following scenarios:

• Your IT organization is converting physical servers to virtual machines to reduce costs, including administrative overhead. How can you regularly update offline virtual machines while minimizing administrative costs?
• Your IT organization has thousands of virtual machines stored for months at a time in a number of libraries. How do you keep the virtual machines reliably up to date?

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool helps organizations maintain virtual machines that are stored offline in a Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager library. While stored, virtual machines do not receive operating system updates. The tool provides a way to keep offline virtual machines up-to-date so that bringing a virtual machine online does not introduce vulnerabilities into the organization’s IT infrastructure.

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool combines the Windows Workflow programming model with the Windows PowerShell™ interface to bring groups of virtual machines online just long enough for them to receive updates from either System Center Configuration Manager 2007 or Windows Server Update Services. As soon as the virtual machines are up-to-date, the tool returns them to the offline state in the Virtual Machine Manager library.

This Solution Accelerator includes the following components:

• Executive Overview. Available online only on Microsoft Technet. Summary for business and technical managers that briefly explains how this Solution Accelerator can fit into an organization’s IT infrastructure management strategy.
• OfflineVMServicing_x64 and OfflineVMServicing_x86. Setup files for the tool, for 64 bit and 32 bit versions of Windows Server® 2003.
• OfflineVirtualMachineServicingToolGettingStartedGuide. Getting Started Guide, in docx and doc formats. Provides information about how the tool works, explains prerequisites for the tool, and describes how to install and configure the tool.
• Offline_VM_Servicing_Tool_Release_Notes.rtf. Notes provide information about this release, describe known issues in the tool, and include feedback instructions.
• Offline_Virtual_Machine_Servicing_Tool_Help. Help file for the tool. Provides instructions for using the tool.

DOWNLOAD: 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8408ecf5-7afe-47ec-a697-eb433027df73&DisplayLang=en

DOCUMENTATION:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231.aspx

With Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007 Professional the user now has the ability to connect data to diagrams and use data graphics to make the visualization more meaningful and impactful.

The Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager 2007 and Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007 solution for Office Visio 2007 Pro helps you visualize your key reports. Using the solutions framework which utilizes an easy to configure web server component provided for your environment you can now easily connect data from OpsManager and ConfigManager in Visio 2007 Pro.

Download the Visio add in and the web server component to connect and generate datasets to connect to your existing diagrams or auto generate your diagrams for your infrastructure monitoring needs. See your data from OpsManager and ConfigManager live in Visio diagrams today by downloading this valuable Visio Add-in free

NOTE: TWO DOWNLOADS ARE INCLUDED IN THIS ZIP FILE. Add-In Setup is the Visio Add In – and – Web Service Setup is for Windows Server. Version 1.3 Published 3/12/08. Please extract each file and select the corresponding setup.exe file. See the power of Data Visualization at work with this Visio Add-in For Visio 2007

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DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=521b3884-1eda-4b9d-8ad7-67d00fe9ce8a&DisplayLang=en

BLOG ENTRY/DESCRIPTION:
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2&aid=67

Microsoft® Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 Service Pack 1 released to the Internet today.

This Service Pack introduces new features and improved functionality for ISA Server 2006 Enterprise and Standard Editions. The new features focus primarily on enhanced troubleshooting mechanisms designed to help you identify and resolve ISA Server configuration issues. Also included in this package are the updates we’ve promised for so long, such as SAN certificate support.

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Service Pack 1 new and improved features

ISA Server 2006 SP1 includes the following new features:

• Configuration Change Tracking — logs all configuration changes applied to ISA Server configuration to help you backtrack through your change history.
• Web Publishing Rule Test Button — helps you verify that the rule configuration agrees with what is set at the published web server and provides specific suggestions when they disagree.
• Traffic Simulator — simulates network traffic as it would be seen by the ISA rules engine and gives you specific information about traffic processing along the way.
• Diagnostic Logging Query — an extension to the Diagnostic Logging feature provided in the Supportability Pack, this feature makes it much easier to see only the data that is relevant to the current troubleshooting effort.

ISA Server 2006 SP1 also includes such feature improvements as:

• Support for Network Load Balancing (NLB) multicast and multicast with IGMP operations (KB 938550)
• Support for certificates with multiple Subject Alternative Name (SAN) entries in published web servers
• Kerberos Constrained Delegation (KCD) authentication supports trusted-domain user accounts (KB 942637 )

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DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d2feca6d-81d7-430a-9b2d-b070a5f6ae50&DisplayLang=en

BLOG ENTRY/DESCRIPTION:
http://blogs.technet.com/isablog/archive/2008/05/23/isa-server-2006-service-pack-1-features.aspx

A new whitepaper was released this week describing how to set up, configure and troubleshoot Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) with Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering.

With Windows Server 2003 and earlier versions, organizations had to deploy multiple certification authorities (CAs) to provide redundancy in case a critical network server failed. You can still have multiple CAs operating in your Active Directory forest, but with failover clustering there is no need to deploy more than one CA to protect AD CS from unexpected failure.

This white paper explains the detailed steps that are required to set up failover clustering with Windows Server 2008 and to run AD CS on shared storage with a network hardware security module (HSM).

DOWNLOAD: 
“Configuring and Troubleshooting Certification Authority Clustering in Windows Server 2008”
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=15c75333-be26-4955-a32c-03077daf1631&DisplayLang=en

This provides a list of supported server and client guest operating systems supported within a Hyper-V virtual machine as of June 2008. Please note that this list is subject to change. For the latest public version, please see KB article 954958 here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954958/en-us.

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Supported Server Operating Systems:

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 (VMs configured with 1, 2 or 4 virtual processors)

• Windows Server 2008 Standard
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
• Windows HPC Server 2008
• Windows Web Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x86 (VMs configured with 1, 2 or 4 virtual processors)

• Windows Server 2008 Standard (x86 Edition)
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (x86 Edition)
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (x86 Edition)
• Windows Web Server 2008 (x86 Edition)
• Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V (x86 Edition)
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V (x86 Edition)
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V (x86 Edition)

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x86 (VMs configured with 1 or 2 virtual processors)

• Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x86 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x86 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter x86 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 Standard x86 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x86 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x86 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 Web Edition with Service Pack 2

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 (VMs configured with 1 or 2 virtual processors)

• Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter x64 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition with Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition with Service Pack 2

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (VMs configured with 1 virtual processor)

• Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4
• Windows 2000 Advanced Server with Service Pack 4

Linux Distributions (VMs configured with 1 virtual processor)

• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 2 x86 Edition
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 2 x64 Edition
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 1 x86 Edition
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 1 x64 Edition

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Supported Client Operating Systems:

Microsoft Windows Vista x86 (VMs configured with 1 or 2 virtual processors)

• Windows Vista Business x86 with Service Pack 1
• Windows Vista Enterprise x86 with Service Pack 1
• Windows Vista Ultimate x86 with Service Pack 1

Microsoft Windows Vista x64 (VMs configured with 1 or 2 virtual processors)

• Windows Vista Business x64 with Service Pack 1
• Windows Vista Enterprise x64 with Service Pack 1
• Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with Service Pack 1

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x86

• Windows XP Professional x86 with Service Pack 3 (VMs configured with 1 or 2 virtual processors)
• Windows XP Professional x86 with Service Pack 2 (VMs configured with 1 virtual processor)

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 (VMs configured with 1 or 2 virtual processors)

• Windows XP Professional x64 with Service Pack 2

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Windows HPC Server 2008 x64 is supported, why not Windows HPC Server 2008 x86?
A: Windows HPC Server 2008 is released as x64 only. There isn’t a Windows HPC Server 2008 x86 Edition.

Q: Windows Server 2003 is support with Service Pack 2. What about Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1?
A: Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 is not supported within Hyper-V. Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 includes specific enhancements and fixes for performance and stability running within a virtualized environment.

Q: Windows Server 2003 Web Edition x86 is supported, why not Windows Server 2003 Web Edition x64?
A: Windows Server 2003 Web Edition was released as x86 only. There isn’t a Windows Server 2003 Web Edition x64.

Q: Windows 2000 Server x86 is supported, why not Windows 2000 Server x64?
A: Windows 2000 Server was released as x86 only. There isn’t a Windows 2000 Server x64 Edition.

Q:  If an operating system isn’t listed, does that mean the operating system doesn’t work within a Hyper-V virtual machine?
A: No. The operating systems on this list mean have been extensively tested and are supported by Microsoft CSS to run within a Hyper-V virtual machine. However, many operating are compatible and may run within Hyper-V, but aren’t officially supported. Examples include, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Fedora Linux 7, Fedora Linux 8 and CentOS 5.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, allows you to make the best use of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server worklaods as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. With Hyper-V, you can also efficiently run multiple different operating systems concurrently, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

When you’re planning a virtualization infrastructure with Hyper-V, please be sure to stay within the supported limits below. In addition, the limits discussed in this document are highly dependent on the underlying hardware server configuration.

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Operating System Requirements

Windows Server 2008 includes Hyper-V as an available role. Hyper-V is included with:

• Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (x64)
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (x64)
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (x64)

Note: That Hyper-V is an x64 Edition only technology and is not available for 32-bit (x86) or Itanium (IA64) editions.

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Hardware Requirements

• Hyper-V requires an x64 processor with Hardware-assisted virtualization. This is available in processors that include a virtualization option; specifically, Intel VT or AMD Virtualization.
• Hardware Data Execution Protection (DEP) is also required and must be enabled. Specifically, you must enable Intel XD bit (execute disable bit) or AMD NX bit (no execute bit).

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Virtual Machine Architecture Support

• Hyper-V offers support for:
• 32-bit (x86) operating systems
• 64-bit (x64) operating systems

Both 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines can run concurrently.

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Memory:

• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise/Datacenter Editions
• System/Host Physical memory support: Up to 1 TB of physical memory
• Virtual Machine memory support: Up to 64 GB of memory per virtual machine
• Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
• System/Host Physical memory: Up to 32 GB of physical memory
• Virtual machine memory support: Approximately ~31.5 GB total used for all running virtual machines

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Processors:

• Physical Processor support: Hyper-V is supported on systems with up to 16 logical processors; A logical processor can be a core or a hyper-thread. Examples include:
• Single processor/Dual core system = 2 logical processors
• Single processor/Quad core system = 4 logical processors
• Dual processor/Dual core system= 4 logical processors
• Dual processor/Quad core system=8 logical processors
• Quad processor/Dual core system= 8 logical processors
• Quad processor/Dual core, hyper-threaded systems=16 logical processors
• Quad processor/Quad core systems=16 logical processors
• Virtual Processor support: Up to 4 virtual processors per virtual machine

Note: Hyper-V may run on systems with greater than 16 logical processors; however these configurations are not supported.

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Networking:

• Up to 12 virtual network adapters per virtual machine
• 8 synthetic network adapters
• 4 emulated network adapters
• Each virtual network adapter can use either a static or dynamic MAC address
• Each virtual network adapter offers integrated VLAN support and can be assigned a unique VLAN channel
• Unlimited number of virtual switches with an unlimited number of virtual machines per switch

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Physical Storage:

• Hyper-V offers flexible storage support such as:
• Direct Attach Storage (DAS): SATA, eSATA, PATA, SAS, SCSI, USB, FIrewire
• Storage Area Networks (SANs): iSCSI, Fiber Channel, SAS
• Network Attached Storage (NAS)

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Virtual Hard Disks:

• Dynamically Expanding Virtual Hard Disks:
• Default type maximum size up to 2040 GB each
• Fixed Size Virtual Hard Disks:
• Maximum size up to 2040 GB each
• Pass-through disks
• No size limitation other than what is supported by the guest operating system

Virtual Storage Controllers:

• Virtual IDE
• Each virtual machine supports up to 4 IDE devices
• One IDE device must be a virtual disk (VHD or pass-through) for boot
• Virtual SCSI
• Each virtual machine supports up to 4 virtual SCSI controllers
• Each controller supports up to 64 disks for a total of 256 virtual SCSI disks PER virtual machine.

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Virtual Storage:

• Total storage per virtual machine:
• Using virtual hard disks, each virtual machine supports 512 TB of storage per VM
• Using pass-through disks, this number is even greater depending on what is supported by the guest operating system;
• Virtual Machine Snapshots:
• Hyper-V supports up to 50 snapshots per virtual machine
• Virtual Machine Boot
• Virtual machines must boot from a virtual IDE device; however, that device can be backed by a wide array of storage options including:

1. Direct Attach Storage (DAS): SATA, eSATA, PATA, SAS, SCSI, USB, FIrewire
2. Storage Area Networks (SANs): iSCSI, Fiber Channel, SAS
3. Network Attached Storage (NAS)

IMPORTANT: Although the I/O performance of physical SCSI and IDE can differ significantly, this is not true for the virtualized SCSI and IDE devices in Hyper-V. Hyper-V IDE and SCSI storage devices both offer equally fast high I/O performance when integration services are installed in the guest operating system.

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Virtual CD/DVD:

• Maximum number of virtual CD/DVDs: By default, each virtual machine is provided one virtual CD/DVD. However, each virtual machine can support up to 3 virtual DVD drives per virtual machine (on the virtual IDE bus only) as one IDE device must be used as a virtual boot device.
• Pass-through CD-DVD:
• For security purposes, only one virtual machine can access a physical CD/DVD at a time.
• Virtual CD/DVD:
• Hyper-V supports reading virtual CD/DVD .ISO files

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Virtual Serial (COM) Ports

Each virtual machine supports up to 2 virtualized COM ports that can be used to communicate with a physical server (local or remote) via a serial named pipe.

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Virtual Floppy Drive

• Each virtual machine supports up to 1 virtual floppy drive

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Number of Virtual Machines:

• Supports up to 128 concurrent running virtual machines
• Supports up to 512 configured virtual machines

In case you hadn’t heard, we’re making a very big datacenter in Quincy, WA.  Here’s a video on some of the build out work that we’ve been doing:

Introduction to Microsoft’s Quincy Datacenter

To add to this, there was recently a very interesting article about building & maintaining datacenters in Technet.  Using our new Quincy Datacenter as the example, we discussed the many things we learned from the build experience.

Examples of data glanced from the video:

• Our Quincy datacenter consumes about 11 MW
• We have about 78,000 servers used by Live Search, and about 18,000 servers used by Hotmail.
• Datacenter utilization doubled in the last six months.

Energy Efficiency in the Microsoft Quincy Datacenter

VIDEO:  http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/7/d/87d2d871-471e-44a3-bfd0-c02d3248b8cb/Energy%20Efficiency%20in%20Datacenters-022808-Med.wmv

Here’s a key excerpt from the article:
<taken from Technet Magazine’s article by Dave Ohara>

Steve Ballmer discussed how the Datacenter Group at Microsoft is making efforts to develop sustainable datacenters and share the best practices it learns in the process.

A major example of these efforts is the Microsoft datacenter located in Quincy, WA—the facility is powered entirely by hydroelectricity. And the facility is sizeable. If you walked around one complete building (there are currently two buildings, with more being built over time), including the space for IT, power and cooling equipment, the receiving area, and the office space, you would travel 1.3 miles.

I recently had a chance to take a tour of the Quincy datacenter, and now I get to share some of the methods used in building and operating a sustainable datacenter.

In the first installment of this column, I introduced the idea of "Putting IT on a Diet" (see http://technet.microsoft.com/magazine/cc462802). This concept, as well as other key elements of environmental sustainability, can be found in how Microsoft designs and operates its datacenters. Here is a look at eight strategies Microsoft employs to make the most out of every bit of energy the Quincy datacenter consumes.

1. Modular and Efficient
2. Phased Building
3. Find the Sweet Spot
4. Organize for Collaboration
5. Monitor and Report
6. Efficient Commissioning
7. Prepare for High Loads
8. Reduce Water Use
Wrapping Up

Read more here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc546560(TechNet.10).aspx

Powerset develops natural language search technology that helps create context around people’s search requests instead of just searching based on keywords. It actually interprets phrases for more accurate search results.

Think of how many times you’ve typed in random descriptive words into the search field of your favorite search engine simply trying to figure out & focus in on what it is that you’re looking for.

For a very basic set of examples:

1. Think of the search term “german hot dog”:  An average search engine might just look for the words “german”, “hot”, and “dog” but not understand that what I’m looking for a a “frankfurter”. 
2. Think of the search term “tall beer glass”:  Again, an average search might look for web pages with the three words in it but not really focus on the term “stein”, the real term you might be looking for.

Again, these are just very basic examples, but imagine being able to type long complex questions and having it properly interpret them to determine search results that more accurately focus on the subject that you’re searching for.

<taken from the Live Search blog>

We’re excited to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company.

Powerset will join our core Search Relevance team, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it natural language technology that nicely complements other natural language processing technologies we have in Microsoft Research.

More importantly, Powerset brings to Live Search a set of talented engineers and computational linguists in downtown San Francisco. This is a great team with a wide range of experience from other search engines and research organizations like PARC (formerly Xerox PARC).

We’re buying Powerset first and foremost because we’re impressed with the people there. Powerset CTO and cofounder Barney Pell is a visionary and incredible evangelist. When he introduced our senior engineers to some of the most senior people at Powerset — Search engineers and computational linguists like Tim Converse, Chad Walters, Scott Prevost, Lorenzo Thione, and Ron Kaplan — we came away impressed by their smarts, their experience, their passion for search, and a shared vision.

That shared vision is to take Search to the next level by adding understanding of the intent and meaning behind the words in searches and webpages.

We know today that roughly a third of searches don’t get answered on the first search and first click. Usually searchers find the information they want eventually, but that often requires multiple searches or clicks on multiple search results. Two specific problems are the most common reasons for this:

• Differences in phrasing or context between a user’s search and the way the same information is expressed on webpages. Search engines don’t understand today that "shrub" and "tree" are similar concepts. We don’t understand that "cancer" sometimes refers to a disease and sometimes refers to a horoscope and when a query or a webpage refers to which.
• Lack of clarity in the descriptions for each webpage in the search results. Sometimes a result looks relevant from its short description on the results page but turns out to be not so relevant when you visit the actual page. As a result, searchers frequently click results and then rapidly click back when they realize they aren’t what they’re looking for.

These problems exist because search engines today primarily match words in a search to words on a webpage. We can solve these problems by working to understand the intent behind each search and the concepts and meaning embedded in a webpage. Doing so, we can innovate in the quality of the search results, in the flexibility with which searchers can phrase their queries, and in the search user experience. We will use knowledge extracted from webpages to improve the result descriptions and provide new tools to help customers search better.

Working with our existing Search team and other Microsoft teams that focus on natural language, Powerset will help us address all of those problems and opportunities.

We’re looking to add even more talented engineers to the San Francisco team to accelerate our shared progress. If you’re interested in joining the team, drop us a line.

We’ll have more to say about the things we’re doing in understanding searches and webpages through natural language technology in the coming months. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming Powerset to Microsoft!

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For more information, see:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2008/07/01/powerset-joins-live-search.aspx
• http://www.powerset.com/blog/articles/2008/07/01/microsoft-to-acquire-powerset

Strictly from a comparison perspective, I thought this article from BusinessWeek entitled, “Inside Microsoft’s war against Google” was very interesting being that it’s the first time I’ve ever seen this sort of overview published.  There are some very important paragraphes that distinguish Microsoft’s advertising efforts in this article:

Inside Microsoft’s war against Google
With Yahoo off the table, Microsoft to challenge Web juggernaut alone

…Microsoft has a fighting chance on several other fronts. Perhaps most important is display advertising, the colorful banner and video ads that run at the top or along the side of Web pages. Microsoft is among the leaders in the fragmented field, while Google is a bit player. Although the display market is smaller than search, it’s expected to grow faster over the next few years because of a surge in video ads. Market research firm IDC figures that by 2012 the display market will double, to $15.1 billion; revenue from search will reach $17.6 billion.

Microsoft makes money in the display business in two ways. It sells ads on its own popular Web sites, such as MSN and Hotmail, and it acts as a broker by placing ads on other companies’ Web sites and then splitting the revenue with them. Smaller Web sites use Microsoft because they don’t have a salesforce to call on advertisers and ad agencies. And even large players like media giant Viacom have found that letting Microsoft sell some of the space on sites like Comedy Central and MTV can lead to higher revenues. "They can achieve better monetization than we can on our own," says Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman…

…Microsoft is a fearsome competitor, with nearly unlimited financial and engineering resources. It has proven its determination to take down upstarts again and again over the years, from the Web browser market to the market for mobile-phone software. "We’re very persistent," said Ballmer at a wireless conference last year, "If we don’t get it right, we’ll keep coming and coming and coming."

Plenty of advertisers would like to see Microsoft succeed, if only to blunt Google. Although they appreciate the effectiveness of Google’s search ads, they’re nervous about one company dominating the online advertising market. "Competition from an advertiser’s perspective is a really good thing," says Rob Master, director of media for North America at consumer products giant Unilever Group…

…The most provocative pitch from Lorizio and his sales team will come late this summer. It goes like this: Search advertising is vastly overrated. Today, when a Web surfer is looking for a car, he might type "Chevrolet" into Google and then click on an ad alongside the search results. Google gets all the money for that click, even though other marketing efforts, both online and off, probably helped persuade that person to conduct the search. Ideally, an advertiser would know about all the ads that a potential customer sees before he makes a purchase. "They’re trying to say that Google’s getting too much credit, and there’s probably a lot of truth to that," says Curt Hecht, chief digital officer for the media buying giant Starcom MediaVest Group.

Microsoft has been developing a technology that will give advertisers a more complete picture. It’s called Engagement Mapping, and 16 advertisers and agencies have been testing it out since February. The technology anonymously tracks cookies, those digital footprints left on PCs by Web sites, to see if a consumer saw display or video ads within a month of making that ultimate click. Then it places values on each related online ad, weighting things like videos more heavily, since they’re likely to have more impact. That way publishers and marketers have a better understanding of the effectiveness of ad campaigns and can adjust pricing accordingly. "It’s not anti-search," says Brian McAndrews, the Microsoft senior vice-president overseeing the effort. "It’s just a better way to measure."

Ben Winkler is a believer. He’s director of interactive media at the Ingenuity Media Group, part of ad firm The Martin Agency. He’s been testing the Microsoft technology for one of his clients, wireless provider Alltel. The technology, he says, shows that display ads have an impact that had never been clear before. As a result, he plans to advise clients to spend a greater share of their ad dollars on display vs. search ads. "We’re taking credit away from search to a high degree," he says…

Read the entire article here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24543408/