Microsoft will use the IT Forum at its annual TechEd Europe conference to announce a set of milestones for IT professionals, including the first public beta of the Forefront Client Security product, which offers anti-virus and malicious software protection and removal. Bob Muglia, the senior vice president for Microsoft’s server and tools division, is giving the opening keynote at the sold-out show that is expected to draw more than 4,750 IT professionals from around the world.

Microsoft expects wireless song sharing to be the feature on its Zune portable music player that allows it to challenge Apple’s iPod, the company’s chief executive said Monday. On Tuesday, the world’s largest software maker will start selling the 30-gigabyte Zune, which allows users to beam photos and songs to one another, and it will launch an iTunes competitor called the Zune Marketplace in the United States. In a telephone interview with Reuters, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he sees the wireless technology leveling out some of Apple’s huge early-mover advantage, because the iPod does not offer that feature yet.

Microsoft will try to move up from the kids’ table at the enterprise management feast when it launches the private beta of its new Service Desk offering Nov. 14 and announces its participation in the Configuration Management Database Federation Working Group at the IT Forum, in Barcelona, Spain. The new System Center help desk offering, code-named Service Desk, will include a CMDB, signaling Microsoft’s planned entry into that emerging market, which is currently dominated by the big four enterprise management providers.

For the most part, the Vista license agreement is clearer than its predecessors, and many of the so-called restrictions in it are based on misunderstandings. Check out the other myths and realities of the Vista license in Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report.

Microsoft is open to more deals like one it just signed with Novell for open-source Linux software, but it believes that customers will continue to pay for software, its chief executive told an Indian newspaper. "We will love to put that kind of agreement in place with anyone who distributes Linux software–Red Hat, whoever else," Steve Ballmer told India’s Economic Times in an interview published Thursday.

Online fraudsters are turning their attentions away from large banks and increasingly targeting wealthy consumers as phishing schemes continue to lure large numbers of people into unknowingly sharing their private information with criminals, reports Gartner. Americans are losing fewer dollars to online phishing schemes as a whole, but Internet-savvy, affluent PC users are being hit up for more money than ever, according to the latest Gartner research.

Extentech has released ExtenXLS 5, the latest version of the powerful and scalable solution for automating Excel-compatible spreadsheets with live data from any source. This latest version incorporates dozens of new features and improvements made in direct response to customer requests. New features include improved CellBinder automations, WorkBook versioning which allows storing of diffs between workbook versions and rolling changes back and forward, and innovations such as R3S (Really Simple Spreadsheet Syndication) technology which enables users to subscribe to realtime data in calculated Cells using a flavor of RSS.

IBackup adds the brick level mailbox backup feature to their existing Exchange server backup solution. The propagation of email has made the protection of valuable email data stored in MS exchange servers a challenge for IT professionals. Ensuring that crucial information within the Microsoft Exchange Servers is properly archived is vital to maintaining business productivity.

groupSPARK, provider of Private Label Exchange Hosting, has announced Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, completely Private Labeled. Dynamics CRM is the premier Customer Relationship Management software available in today’s marketplace. Some key features include an easy to use Web-based interface and full Outlook integration. Cost and complexity of building and maintaining a Hosted Microsoft CRM solution has prevented deployment by service providers across the world. As the first Private Label Hosted Microsoft CRM solution in the marketplace, groupSPARK empowers its partners to instantly add Hosted Microsoft CRM to their suite of services to increase revenue and decrease churn.

SharePoint HQ announced the release of its first Web part bundle for SharePoint products and technologies, the SharePoint HQ Customization Pack. The SharePoint HQ Customization Pack will enable companies currently using Microsoft SharePoint the capability to greatly enhance and expand their SharePoint site portals. This is a unique product within the SharePoint community and the first Web part bundle released by SharePoint HQ. The SharePoint HQ Customization Pack provides the necessary tools for any SME SharePoint administrator to create polished corporate SharePoint portals without having to hire an outside SharePoint consultant.