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| | | October 26, 2003
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Sunday, October 26, 2003 |
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There's a new Office system in town
On Tuesday, Microsoft officially introduced the eleventh version of its office suite, touting it as a major product overhaul and a fully evolved business-oriented system. Among the traditional set of core applications, Outlook 2003 is the only program that has seen significant enhancements and a host of new features. Microsoft's flagship e-mail client has strong spam fighting and mail filtering capabilities built-in, plus numerous improvements to increase computer security and message handling.
Still, the key words about Office 2003 are collaboration and information sharing. As described by Bill Gates, the software giant's chairman and chief software architect, the newly launched Office System with its tightly integrated support for the Extensible Markup Language (XML), seeks to streamline information management in small businesses as well as in large enterprises.
Office's latest additions, InfoPath, a tool that enables users to create their own XML forms, and OneNote, a note-taking applications primarily aimed at students, are also going to be sold as standalone programs. To make the day, Microsoft released the newest version of its e-mail server, Exchange 2003, which contains a large number of new filtering and e-mail organization tools, working in conjunction with Outlook.
Analysts seemed to agree that significant improvements were introduced by Microsoft, but some questioned whether the software maker will be able to persuade customers to upgrade in a financially-strained global economic environment.
Reporting a quarterly net profit of $2.61 billion, Microsoft sought to disprove this argument. For the fiscal Q1 of 2004 the giant's revenue reached $8.22 billion, a growth of 6 percent compared to the same period last year. Key divisions demonstrated solid growth. MSN's advertising revenue grew by 50 percent, while the Server and Tools unit reported a 15 percent rise in earnings. Investors were, however, disappointed with worse than expected figures from new corporate clients. Although Microsoft's consumer business was healthy enough to surpass Wall Street estimates, Redmond saw uncertainty on IT spending among enterprise customers.
More from: CNET News.com 1 2 | Computerworld 1 2 | CRN | eWeek | InternetNews.com 1 2 3 | Reuters | VNUNET.com 1 2 3 4 5 | The Washington Post 1 2
Google mulls IPO
Google is reportedly exploring options to go public in the first half of 2004. According to separate reports in The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, the Internet search giant has contacted investment bankers about an initial public offering (IPO) that may occur in March 2004. Some economists are evaluating the company at about $15 billion, not far behind from dominant market players like Amazon.com and Yahoo!
Google's long-expected IPO is widely seen as the first highly-relevant public offering since the dot-com era of the late 1990's and 2000. Company executives, however, are thoroughly exploring ways to avoid the mistakes of its predecessors. According to The Financial Times, the online search powerhouse is looking to hold a massive online auctioning for its shares in early 2004, avoiding doubts about potential underwritings.
Although as a privately-held company Google does not report the figures on its balance sheet, insiders say the company is looking to reach a net profit of $100 to $200 million for the current fiscal year on revenue of $800 million.
More from: CNET News.com | ElectricNews.net | InternetNews.com | The Register | Reuters | TechNewsWorld | The Washington Post
In Other News...
 Red Hat, the largest Linux distributor, released the latest version of its operating system designed for corporate users. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 is promising to run database and other crucial software faster and provide further stability on mission-critical mainframes and other servers.
Apple Computer released an update for its iTunes Music Store, fixing a glitch that stalled the computer systems of some Windows users. The iTunes jukebox debuted last week, bringing the immensely popular online music store to a significantly larger consumer market.
Gator has forced software company PC Pitstop to stop referring to its ad serving software as 'spyware'. PC Pitstop provides programs that cleanse computer systems from similar products that come bundled with third-party free applications.
Macromedia's shares tumbled after the company lowered its guidance for the current fiscal year. Due to a slow start of sales of Studio MX 2004, Macromedia expects revenue growth of 5 to 10 percent, down from its previous forecast of 10 to 20 percent.
The U.S. Senate approved antispam legislation that outlaws deceptive electronic messages. Spammers who send misleading commercial unsolicited e-mails would face jail time and million-dollar fines. The bill would also make way for the creation of a "do not spam" registry for people who do not wish to receive junk mail.
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