Less than one week after IDC released a study sponsored by Microsoft detailing the risks of using counterfeit software, and six weeks after Microsoft released its own forensic analysis of counterfeit discs, Microsoft announced a series of criminal and civil actions taken against alleged dealers of counterfeit software around the world. Today's announcement marks the largest enforcement effort by Microsoft and the first time the company has focused its efforts worldwide to bring legal action against online dealers. The 55 legal actions include 15 in the United States, 10 in Germany, 10 in the Netherlands, five in France and five in the United Kingdom, as well as proceedings in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Korea, Mexico and Poland.

The CMA CGM Group, the world's third largest shipping company, and IBM have announced the creation of a 50-50 joint venture to provide CMA CGM with enhanced core information technology systems to support and accelerate its strong growth. IBM will provide IT expertise to the new company, CMA CGM SYSTeMS, to help accelerate CMA CGM's performance in the global shipping industry. This new company will work exclusively for CMA CGM Group.

Microsoft has released to the public Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP. This latest version of Windows Media Player offers consumers a test-drive of the breakthrough capabilities in Windows Media Player 11 for Windows Vista, including enhanced search and media management technologies, a visually driven user interface, and optimized support for portable music players.

Microsoft has announced the availability of Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, financial management software designed for early startups and home-based businesses that currently use pen and calculator or spreadsheets to run their operations. Office Accounting Express 2007 consists of desktop software available as a free download and seven integrated online services.

To be honest, my interest in AJAX-ified applications has actually waned quite a bit. Lately I've been so assaulted by overly interactive applications that I much prefer the subtle interaction best. I like it when sub-portions of the page refresh, and I get things like collapsible panels and such (all of which are available with ASP.NET AJAX) - however, 75% of the contents of ASP.NET AJAX is designed for things I don't see myself using anytime soon, such as the pure-client-side scripting model.

. Folks who buy PCs between now and March 15 with XP pre-installed will be given coupons to upgrade to the new operation system because Vista won't be out until January. The same applies to Office 2007. The terms of the coupons vary from OEM to OEM and model to model.

When a company as Java-centric as Wily Technology launches its first .NET solution, the software development world takes notice. Platform unification, where .NET Framework-based applications are re-hosted on Java EE, or vice versa, is the new normality.

InnerWorkings has signed an agreement with Microsoft to deliver its flagship product to thousands of developers through the Microsoft Developer & Platform Readiness program. The company will offer its entire catalog of Microsoft .NET Framework coding challenges and performance support services to help Microsoft customers close the skills gap for enterprise developers. InnerWorkings Developer is scaleable for geographically dispersed development teams, yet allows individual developers to receive in-depth feedback, code samples, and support.

Microsoft has announced that the Get Net Safe tour, designed to help people learn how to become more safe and secure on the Internet, will stop in Charlotte for several days. The multiple-stop tour, with events Oct. 24-26 in the Charlotte metropolitan area, will give children, teens, parents, business owners and people over 50 the opportunity to participate in unique forums about how to be better protected online.

The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund (TMSF) has presented its highest award to Microsoft in recognition of the company's sustained support of public historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and African-American students. Microsoft was honored with the Corporate Leadership Award at the fund's annual awards dinner on Oct. 23 in New York City.

In his keynote address at the RSA Conference Europe 2006, Microsoft Security Technology Unit Corporate Vice President Ben Fathi discussed the evolution of the computing ecosystem and malicious software landscape, and called on the IT security industry to team with Microsoft in investing in continued innovation to keep pace with ever-evolving threats. Fathi described Microsoft's ongoing investments to enable a trust ecosystem, pointing to security advancements in the forthcoming release of Windows Vista as an important opportunity for the industry to become more proactive in its aim to provide users with a safer computing experience.

Microsoft has announced programs to provide holiday shoppers with low-cost upgrades to Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office release with the purchase of a new Windows Vista Capable personal computer. Microsoft is working with participating computer manufacturers and system builders that plan to sell PCs loaded with Windows XP or pre-installed with 2003 Microsoft Office software to make the Express Upgrade to Windows Vista and Microsoft Office Technology Guarantee programs available to consumers and small businesses from Oct. 26, 2006, through March 15, 2007.

Microsoft has released a set of public Privacy Guidelines for Developing Software Products and Services, designed to help software developers build solutions and applications that address customers' privacy concerns.

Microsoft Learning launches new Microsoft Office Project 2007 Certification program to help advance project management as a profession and maximize value for its customer base of nearly 20 million Microsoft Office Project user licenses.

At the Microsoft's biotechnology Executive Forum, Microsoft announced the initiation of the BioIT Alliance's second proof of concept, called the Biomarkers Project, along with an update on the Alliance's first proof of concept, the Collaborative Molecular Environment. The BioIT Alliance is a cross-industry group working to integrate science and technology to accelerate the pace of drug discovery and realize the potential of personalized medicine.

Microsoft has announced that its Sender ID Framework specification for e-mail authentication is now available under the company's Open Specification Promise (OSP), an irrevocable promise to every individual in the world that they can make use of the covered Microsoft technology easily and for free. This is another step forward in the company's commitment to delivering interoperability by design.

Very late on Wednesday Microsoft said it had released Internet Explorer 7 for XP, its first browser update in five years, hoping it bitch slaps Firefox back into line. The two-year-old open source descendent of Netscape now claims 11.5%-12.5% of the market depending on who's tracking the numbers.

Microsoft has released to the public Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP, the latest version of the world's most popular Web browser. Customers can upgrade and browse the Web with confidence knowing that the new browser provides a greater level of security, makes everyday tasks easier, and works well with the Web sites they visit.

Capgemini Group and Microsoft have announced that they will extend their longtime alliance with a new agreement and enlist the services of the Sogeti Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Capgemini and a premier IT services provider.

ComponentOne and DiscountASP.NET have again partnered to provide ASP.NET developers with the leading suite of ASP.NET AJAX ready components for building next-generation Web interfaces. The company announced today that ComponentOne's award winning UI components, WebMenus and WebBars for ASP.NET, are now available to customers who purchase ASP.NET 2.0 hosting packages from DiscountASP.NET.

Microsoft has announced that the Get Net Safe tour, designed to help people learn how to become more safe and secure on the Internet, will stop in Philadelphia for several days. The multiple-stop tour, with events Oct. 17-19 in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, will give children, teens, parents, business owners and people over 50 the opportunity to participate in unique forums about how to be better protected online.

Santander Banespa has announced that it has selected a pair of IBM System z9 mainframes to increase its processing capacity, transaction speed and information integrity assurance. The investment amounted to approximately $21 million USD.

IBM has announced that just two months after its launch, the DB2 9 data server is rapidly gaining new customers and setting industry benchmark performance records. DB2 9?code named 'Viper'is IBM's new data server that incorporates the most significant database technology enhancements introduced to the industry in more than two decades.

IBM has unveiled details of the next-generation Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) data server-code-named 'Cheetah' IDS, a key element of IBM's Information Management portfolio, is a relational data server that delivers exceptionally fast OLTP performance, high reliability and near hands-free administration.

IBM has announced that Worldspan, a global travel technology company and the supplier of Internet-based travel offerings, has selected six new System z9 Enterprise Class (EC) mainframe servers to provide electronic data services that link approximately 700 travel suppliers around the world to millions of travelers. Worldspan's selection comes after the completion of an exhaustive review of all available options for their future capacity needs.

Microsoft has announced it has acquired privately owned Colloquis, a provider of conversational online business solutions that feature natural language-processing technology. Microsoft will offer services based on Colloquis technology to businesses with online operations, as well as incorporating the technology into its own products.

Microsoft has confirmed that it is on track to deliver Windows Vista for worldwide availability to its volume license business customers in November and worldwide general availability in January. The company also confirmed that it would be releasing Windows Vista in Europe and Korea on schedule, following what the company called 'constructive dialogue' with the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission.

IBM has announced a new version of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino designed to help businesses take advantage of advances in hardware and Internet technologies. Major portability and productivity benefits include the ability to carry email, Lotus Notes applications, and web collaboration tools on USB devices such as 'thumb drive' memory keys or iPods, plus powerful new Web extensions that speed collaboration via the Internet.

Microsoft and Pharos Science & Applications have unveiled a sleek new Global Positioning System (GPS) locator that will ship as part of MicrosoftStreets & Trips 2007 with GPS Locator Supplied by Pharos. The new SiRFstarIII GPS locator is more than 10 times more sensitive than the previous version. This improves the real-time navigation experience for Streets & Trips 2007 with GPS Locator customers whether they're in the city or mountains.

WebOrb for Rails, a server-side technology - installed as a Rails plug-in - enabling connectivity between Flex and Flash Remoting clients and Ruby on Rails applications, has caught the interest of many. So much so that in blogs developers are wondering why the company behind it, Midnight Coders, isn't being snapped up by Adobe for its ability to show that Flex/Flash/Apollo can support remote objects for multiple backends...including .NET.

Requirements impact every step of the development lifecycle, from design and coding to testing and deployment. Thus, the process of defining and managing requirements has become one of the most important challenges to overcome when building software. Because requirements have such an impact downstream, it's no surprise that so many studies cite inaccurate, incomplete, and mismanaged requirements as the primary reason for project failure.

.NET languages are becoming increasingly popular for driving the application logic for business-critical SOA and Web applications. In these contexts, functional errors are simply not acceptable, and reliability, security, and performance problems can have serious repercussions. Yet, few development teams have the resources to ensure that their code is free of implementation errors, let alone also worry about reliability, security, and performance. Whether or not your team has a satisfactory strategy for functional testing, you're taking several significant risks if you haven't yet implemented a comprehensive team-wide quality-management strategy:

Playing to the card the European Commission has dealt it Symantec has been accusing Microsoft to the press - without suing or filing a formal complaint but within hearing of the regulators - of abusing its monopoly by locking it out of Vista and not giving it the information it needs to build compatible products. The EC, of course, has already warned Microsoft about bundling its own security upgrades in Vista and foreclosing the market to competitors.

Over the last few years the Web has been going through another round of changes. Not only has the consumer Web sprung up with the Web 2.0 phenomenon, driven by new technologies such as AJAX and the philosophy of participation, but enterprise Web initiatives have also morphed. The information that businesses are publishing online is no longer limited to marketing collateral. Brochure-ware sites are quickly changing from static to dynamic and internal applications are being incorporated into corporate sites. As the Web touches every department from product development to finance, it has become an essential part of doing business for any organization.

SYS-CON Events (www.events.sys-con.com) announced today that the first international 'AJAXWorld(TM) Conference & Expo' (www.ajaxworldexpo.com), taking place on October 3-4, 2006, at theSanta Clara Convention Center, California, will offer AJAXWorld University - Developer Bootcamp program. The AJAX Developer Bootcamp will take placeon Monday, October 2, 2006, one day before the conference opens.

BizTalk Server provides many features that enable organizations to continuously improve their business processes, their level of customer service and their bottom line; however, most .NET developers and architects have never examined the product. This article will introduce the reader to many of BizTalk's features and discuss their benefits.

Mono 1.1.16, the third beta of version 1.2, has been released. The time span between the release of versions 1.1.15 and 1.1.16 is one of the longest in several years and the number of changes included reflects that, again System.Windows.Forms (SWF) and System.Drawing got the most attention.

This book is one of the newest self-paced training courses from Microsoft Press. It covers the 70-536 exam (.NET Framework 2.0 Application Development) which is required for both of the new Microsoft certifications, the Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) (for Web, Windows, and Distributed applications), and Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) (for Web, Windows, and Enterprise developers). It includes a DVD with a 90-day evaluation version of Visual Studio Professional Edition, a CD with a copy of this book in ebook form, sample code from the exercises in the book, and software for sample practice tests.

ComponentOne today released ComponentOne(R) Studio Enterprise(TM) 2006 v3, the world's most comprehensive component toolset for Windows, Web, and Mobile application development. This new version of ComponentOne's flagship development solution adds support for ATLAS, the latest emerging Web development technology, and delivers several new products and features focused on simplifying the design time experience and accelerating visual development.

'Ease-of-use' is one of those buzz terms that software marketeers routinely inject into their promotional copy to describe their product. The term is one of those unarguable concepts; after all, who's not in favor of ease-of-use?