Kurt Shintaku's Blog

And there you have it:  Billg announced Internet Explorer 7.0 at RSA Conference 2005 today.

More discussion about the announcement is available at the Microsoft IE Team Blog site:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/

The announcement in full (also available at the IE Team Web Blog)
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Featured Community Site Owners,

Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.

First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. This new release will build on the work we did in Windows XP SP2 and (among other things) go further to defend users from phishing as well as deceptive or malicious software.

Why? Because we listened to a lot of customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: “Yes, SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.”

I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”

Why are we talking about it today? Because our customers have asked us, with increasing urgency, what our plans are. We want to convey our intentions to our customers clearly and in a timely way.

I’ve gotten questions about the ship date. We know that feedback from customers and partners is crucial. We’re going to release a beta and listen, then refresh the beta and listen some more. We’ll ship when the product is right.

I’ve gotten other questions about support for Windows 2000. Right now, we’re actively listening to our major Windows 2000 customers about what they want and comparing that to the engineering complexity of that work. That’s all I can say on that topic.

Please know that the IE team is working hard. We’re eager to improve and better secure the web experience for the hundreds of millions of IE users around the world. We delivered on XP SP2. We are actively delivering on our part of a great 64-bit Windows client. We continue to deliver on security updates for customers who have not moved to XP SP2. We’re going to deliver on IE7.

Dean Hachamovitch

General Manager, IE Core Development Team

Gates: Consumer Anti-Spyware Tool Will Be Free 
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1765389,00.asp

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed plans to roll out anti-virus and anti-spyware products for enterprise customers, but details on pricing and release dates remain tightly under wraps.

Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates used the spotlight of the RSA Security conference to discuss Redmond’s aggressive push deliver the first version of "the ultimate mail virus protection" by the end of this year.

He also announced that a consumer version of Microsoft’s anti-spyware software will be free for genuine Windows users.

"We’ve looked hard at the nature of this problem, and made a decision that this anti-spyware capability will become something that’s available at no additional charge for Windows users—both the blocking capability, and the scanning and removal capabilities. Those are features we think should be available to protect every system," Gates said.

Microsoft on Tuesday also announced it will push out a refresh of the Internet Explorer browser by July or August, despite recent statements to the contrary. However, Version 7 will only work under Windows XP and Service Pack 2, leaving many users out in the cold. Click here to read more.

Gytis Barzdukas, director of product management in Microsoft’s security business technology unit, said the free anti-spyware tools would only be available for a "personal edition" and made it clear that an enterprise version with management capabilities will carry a price tag.

"We’re planning a refresh [of the anti-spyware beta] within the next few months. In the meantime, we’re talking to enterprise customers, asking them about the management capabilities they need. Once we figure all that out, we will release a managed version," Barzdukas said in an interview with eWEEK.com.

He declined to discuss marketing plans or address reports that anti-spyware/anti-virus/firewall products will be bundled into a security subscription service code-named "A1."

"We have trials for subscription type products all the time. A1 is just one of those things. These are usually small, limited trials," Barzdukas added.

During the keynote presentation, Gates said the anti-virus product will piggyback on enterprise-ready functionality in the recently acquired Sybari Antigen, which provides mail protection for networks that support applications such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes platforms.
"The e-mail vector continues to be the primary means of virus threat," Gates declared, nothing that 88 percent of virus incidents in corporations are coming through e-mail. "And it’s our belief that we need to beef up and really improve the scanning capabilities there," Gates said.

"We’re looking at building sort of the ultimate mail virus protection. We looked at what we’re using internally at Microsoft, that was the Sybari product. We looked at what they’d done with the multiple engines, the different layers of scanning, and really specializing in infrastructure and drawing on others for the virus engines," he added.

Gates said Sybari’s use of multiple virus scanning engines was a key feature that gives customers the best of all worlds. "You really want to take the best ideas of many people writing these scanning engines, and get those working on your behalf. You want to scan at the SMTP level as well as at the store level. Both of those are very important," he said.

Sybari has licensing deals to use virus engines offered by Norman ASA, Kaspersky Lab, Sophos Inc., Computer Associates International Inc., and VirusBusters Inc.

Barzdukas said Microsoft plans to retain those partnerships and add its own "GeCAD engine" to the mix, referring to technology the company acquired from GeCAD Software Srl., of Bucharest.

The Live Communications Server 2005 Management Pack for MOM 2005 monitors the health of computers running Live Communications Server 2005 on Windows Server 2003 and alerts IT administrators about critical health conditions that indicate degraded performance.

The management pack monitors and provides alerts for:

• Automatic notification of events indicating service outages
• Performance degradation
• Health monitoring
• Centralized management 

DOWNLOAD:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=07588595-BE4E-4F5C-83D1-15CCA2B3F721&displaylang=en

TweakMCE – Tweak MCE PowerToy for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Tweak MCE gives you access to systems settings and options not normally exposed in the Windows XP Media Center Edition user interface, including remote control settings, Skip and Replay time customizations, user interface options, and more. It also helps you to optimize Media Center Extender for plasma and non-CRT displays.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9c02f0a8-8525-4110-aaa8-36aa8aebf2af&displaylang=en

Software Updates for Dell Server Hardware Using SMS 2003 Solution Accelerator

This solution accelerator helps SMS administrators effectively and efficiently deploy software updates for Dell server hardware using Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 and the SMS 2003 Inventory Tool for Dell Updates.

Download Center: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=39747
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