The newest version of Microsoft Office for OS X (called Office 2011) is shipping now. It sports many of the features of Office 2010 for Windows such as the "ribbon" and this is the first release that has a Macintosh version of OUTLOOK rather than the previous ENTOURAGE. Included in the Microsoft Office 2011 package are:
- Word 2011
- Excel 2011
- Powerpoint 2011
- Outlook 2011
- Communicator 2011
- Messenger 8
UofM bookstore availability has been delayed a bit (as is usual for new Microsoft products) while media is readied for the education market.
In the meantime, here's some information (FAQs, tutorials, "what's new?" videos, etc.) showing some of what the new Microsoft Office is for Macintosh is all about:
- http://www.microsoft.com/mactopia
- http://www.officeformachelp.com/outlook/faqs/
- http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/office-2011-for-mac-arrives-with-…
- http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369733,00.asp
...from:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/10/ie9-beta-not-enough-to-keep-i…
IE9 beta not enough to keep IE market share over 60% mark
By Emil Protalinski | Last updated a day ago
Data source: Net Applications
2010 will be remembered as the year when Chrome took off despite Microsoft's attempts to hold on to its shrinking browser market share. It looks like Internet Explorer's two months of market share gains were an aberration. Other trends are continuing as before: Firefox is steady between 20 and 25 percent share, Chrome is steadily moving forward, and Safari trudges onward. Opera, meanwhile, is still hanging on to the leftover scraps. Everyone but Microsoft saw at least a modest market share gain in September.
Between August and September, Internet Explorer dropped 0.75 percent, a drop bigger than the last three months. Firefox, meanwhile, went up a mere 0.03 percent. Chrome gained 0.46 percent, making it the biggest winner this month. Safari was up 0.11 percent and Opera grabbed another 0.02 percent.
IE has managed to fall back below the 60 percent mark. At 59.65 percent, this is the lowest point for the Microsoft browser. This drop comes despite the overwhelming monthly gains of IE8 and the release of theInternet Explorer 9 beta right in the middle of September. Microsoft told Ars that the beta has been downloaded 6 million times in the last two weeks. Nevertheless, this translates to a mere 0.25 percent of the whole market for those two weeks, and when looking at the whole month of August, it's only 0.10 percent. We might see more progress in October.
Unfortunately for Web developers everywhere, IE6 (15.55 percent) continues to be more popular than IE7 (10.39 percent), though this month its share declined more than its successor. IE6's share can be attributed to businesses still using customized intranet applications, and XP's much bigger installed base compared to Vista's (especially in developing countries). We expect that IE7 will drop below the 10 percent mark next month, while IE6 may finally fall under 15 percent.
Data source: Net Applications
If we take a look at the last 12 months, the stabilization of IE's share is quite obvious. Firefox seems to be in the same boat: it remains far away from what may be the unreachable 25 percent mark, having lost all the share it gained in the last year. Its market share is actually lower than it was a year ago. Chrome's progress is very noticeable in the chart above. It seemed to have found resistance at the 7 percent mark, but it almost broke through to 8 percent in September. Safari's gains are just short of 1 percentage point, while Opera's are almost insignificant.
Data source: Ars Technica
As always, things at Ars are very different. There was no place-changing this time: Firefox continues to dominate, Chrome is second, Safari is third, IE is fourth, and Opera brings up the rear. Last month, Firefox lost share, as did Opera. Meanwhile, Chrome, Safari, and IE all gained.
Further reading
Browser Market Share (marketshare.hitslink.com)
Browser Version Market Share (marketshare.hitslink.com)
.....fancy turns to lawsuits.....
...from:
http://www.engadget.com/tag/lawsuit,patent
Motorola suing Apple for patent infringement
by Paul Miller Oct 6th 2010 at 4:03PM
455 Comments
Google responds to Oracle's Android patent lawsuit, we break it down
by Nilay Patel Oct 5th 2010 at 4:33PM
423 Comments
Apple loses, challenges patent verdict surrounding Cover Flow and Time Machine
by Darren Murph Oct 4th 2010 at 2:14PM
247 Comments
Microsoft files ITC complaint against Motorola over alleged Android-related patent infringement
by Chris Ziegler Oct 1st 2010 at 2:44PM
446 Comments
Apple sues HyperMac battery maker for using patented MagSafe and iPod connectors without approval
by Nilay Patel Sep 22nd 2010 at 12:48AM
302 Comments
Skyhook sues Google for business interference and patent infringement
by Thomas Ricker Sep 16th 2010 at 4:31AM
149 Comments
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen sues Apple, Google, Facebook, AOL, eBay, Netflix, Yahoo!, Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot, and YouTube over patents
by Laura June Aug 27th 2010 at 2:42PM
497 Comments
Google calls Oracle Android lawsuit 'baseless,' says Java goes 'beyond any one corporation'
by Nilay Patel Aug 13th 2010 at 4:21PM
208 Comments
Oracle sues Google over Java patent infringement in Android
by Nilay Patel Aug 12th 2010 at 9:38PM
239 Comments
NTP awakes, sues Apple, Microsoft, Google, HTC, LG, and Motorola over wireless email patents
by Nilay Patel Jul 9th 2010 at 9:53AM
104 Comments
Warner Bros. head spin: lawsuit claims studio pirated anti-piracy patent
by Ross Miller May 27th 2010 at 12:58AM
44 Comments
HTC's complaint against Apple examined
by Nilay Patel May 12th 2010 at 6:09PM
159 Comments
HTC files patent complaint against Apple, asks for ban on iPhone, iPad, and iPod
by Nilay Patel May 12th 2010 at 1:58PM
277 Comments
Nokia sues Apple again, says the iPad 3G infringes five patents
by Nilay Patel May 7th 2010 at 11:18AM
307 Comments
Nintendo escapes patent troll in appeals court -- thanks to Sony
by Sean Hollister Apr 14th 2010 at 3:13AM
64 Comments
Microsoft facing patent lawsuit over Zune Buy From FM feature
by Nilay Patel Mar 29th 2010 at 2:47PM
76 Comments
HTC responds to Apple's patent lawsuit, will 'fully defend itself'
by Nilay Patel Mar 18th 2010 at 12:01AM
171 Comments
...from:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/strange-bedfellows-eff-apac…
Strange bedfellows: EFF, Apache back Microsoft in patent dispute
By Ryan Paul | Last updated a day ago
Although building consensus position on patent reform proposals has proved difficult, practically every major stakeholder (except patent attorneys, of course) agrees that the US patent system is broken. As a result, patent problems occasionally generate unexpected alliances between disparate groups at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. In the latest example, a number of organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Apache Software Foundation, have filed an amicus brief that expresses support for Microsoft's pursuit of revised patent rules.
Microsoft is currently mired in a high-profile patent dispute with i4i, a company that develops collaborative document editing software. The XML editing capabilities in Microsoft's popular office suite are said to infringe related patents that are held by i4i. The courts have consistently sided with i4i, awarding the company $290 million in damages and threatening Microsoft with an injunction. An appeals court upheld the judgement and the US Patent Office (USPTO) has declined to invalidate the patent.
Microsoft is attempting to take the matter to the Supreme Court with the aim of arguing for a change in the rules that govern the process of invalidating patents. Present case law sets a high standard for parties that seek to get a patent thrown out, requiring them to provide "clear and convincing" evidence that the patent is invalid. Microsoft wants the Supreme Court to lower the standard so that only a "preponderance" of evidence is necessary. Such a change would make it easier to invalidate patents on the basis of prior art and other factors.
The EFF and the Apache Software Foundation support Microsoft's argument in favor of lowering the standard because they believe that the current standard is excessive and unfairly disadvantages open source software projects that don't have the resources to fight back against costly patent litigation. Adopting the "preponderance" standard would make patent invalidation consistent with other similar facets of civil law.
"FOSS projects often depend on the collective knowledge of their members and the documentation of the projects as prior art, to the extent that such documents exist," the brief says. "Much of this collective knowledge, however, arguably could not be considered as evidence under the Federal Circuit's current standard requiring alleged infringers to provide invalidity by 'clear and convincing' evidence... Thus, holders of patents that are unnecessarily virtually indestructible because of the inflated standard for proving invalidity pose a particular threat to FOSS."
In addition to discussing this specific issue and its implications, the brief attempts to show how a pattern of poor Federal Circuit rulings have distorted the patent system, including one instance where the Federal Circuit was later rebuked by the Supreme Court for "fundamental misunderstandings" of patent law when a long-standing precedent related to the obviousness standard was thrown out.
The brief contends that the standard set by the Federal Circuit for invalidating patents is similarly flawed and must be corrected. They believe that the Supreme Court should agree to hear Microsoft's case so that they can address the problem.
"In this case, the Federal Circuit has incorrectly interpreted a clear statute. This Court should grant certiorari to correct the Federal Circuit's misreading of [section 282 of the Patent Act]," the brief concludes.
Due to Microsoft's history of making threatening patent statements towards the Linux platform, there are likely some people in the open source software community who would like to see Microsoft get a black eye from i4i. Despite the past friction, the specific patent issue raised by i4i's lawsuit against Microsoft transcends that kind of partisanship and demands unified support. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear Microsoft's case and sides with the software giant, it would be benefit the entire open source software community.
...and yet, in the same moment.....
...from:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/10/microsoft-sues-motorola-citin…
Microsoft sues Motorola, citing Android patent infringement
By Emil Protalinski | Last updated a day ago
Microsoft has announced a lawsuit against Motorola, alleging that several of the mobile company's Android devices infringe on nine of its patents. The software giant is suing in US District Court in Washington, and is also bringing a complaint before the International Trade Commission (ITC). The patents are all related to key smartphone experiences that include syncing e-mails, calendars, and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications about changes in signal strength and battery power. Microsoft specifically names two Motorola devices, the Droid 2 and the Charm, but says these are just examples and not a comprehensive list.
The suit comes just as Microsoft readies the release of its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system, the successor to Windows Mobile. Motorola was once a big backer of Windows Mobile, but in recent years it hasshifted to Google's Android. Although manufacturers can use Android for free, Microsoft argues that phone makers should consider the potential patent infringement issues and the related costs of the mobile OS.
The nine patents in question in the ITC complaint include:
5,579,517: Common name space for long and short filenames
5,758,352: Common name space for long and short filenames
6,621,746: Monitoring entropic conditions of a flash memory device as an indicator for invoking erasure operations
6,826,762: Radio interface layer in a cell phone with a set of APIs having a hardware-independent proxy layer and a hardware-specific driver layer
6,909,910: Method and system for managing changes to a contact database
7,644,376: Flexible architecture for notifying applications of state changes
5,664,133: Context sensitive menu system/menu behavior
6,578,054: Method and system for supporting off-line mode of operation and synchronization using resource state information
6,370,566: Generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device
"We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market," Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing, said in a statement. "Our action today merely seeks to ensure respect for our intellectual property rights infringed by Android devices; and judging by the recent actions by Apple and Oracle, we are not alone in this respect," he added in a Microsoft on the Issues blog post.
Apple earlier this year claimed that HTC's Android (and Windows Mobile) handsets violate a number of its patents. To avoid a similar fight with Redmond, HTC paid Microsoft for patent licenses. Regardless of the outcome of the HTC vs. Apple battle-turned-war, Android incurred costs for HTC, in spite of its free licensing.
It's next to impossible to build a mobile device nowadays without extensive licensing agreements. Microsoft provides companies using Windows Mobile and Windows Phone operating systems with patent protections, while Google simply provides moral support. When Microsoft made the "Android isn't free" allegations, it was widely assumed that the software giant was referring to HTC's legal problems. With today's attack on Motorola, it's clear that Microsoft had more than just HTC on its mind.
