Marketers see online opportunity with women–who account for $5 trillion in purchasing power, according to marketing consultants Just Ask a Woman–as a fast-growing Web audience. Since 2003, the number of female unique Internet users is up 19% vs. 12% for men, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. They are now 52% of Web users, and their time spent online grew 6% to an average 58 hours a month in the past year, while time spent by men grew 1% to 67 hours.

Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft’s Platforms & Services Division, announced on March 21 during a conference call that Microsoft is now planning to roll out Windows Vista in two stages. The business, volume-licensed versions of Vista will now ship in November 2006, as many expected. But the consumer, retail versions of Vista won’t be ready until January 2007. Until March 21, Microsoft officials had said Vista would be ready to ship in time for the holiday 2006 selling season.

Microsoft recently announced the recipients of its 10th annual Pinnacle Awards for customer achievement. The winners will be honored Sunday, March 26, at an exclusive dinner during Convergence 2006, the Microsoft Business Solutions group’s annual customer conference, being held at the Dallas Convention Center. The Pinnacle Awards recognize customers that have achieved outstanding success with their Microsoft Dynamics applications.

Microsoft announced that GoDaddy.com, the world’s leading domain name registrar, is transitioning approximately 4.5 million Web domains to be hosted on the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting. Upon completion of the migration, Go Daddy will have moved all its parked domains from Linux to the Windows platform. GoDaddy.com, known for its competitively priced, service-packed product offerings and high levels of customer service, is the world’s No. 1 domain name registrar, both in terms of new registrations and domains under management.

Microsoft is designing a new handheld gaming device that can also play music and video in a potential challenge to market leaders Sony, Nintendo, and Apple Computer, according to published reports. The company has assembled a crack team of engineers from its Xbox division to work on the product, which may take a year or even two years to reach the market, the reports said. The project is being led by game executive J Allard and directed by Greg Gibson, the system designer behind Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, according to a report in Monday’s San Jose Mercury News. Microsoft reorganized its gaming and entertainment divisions to assemble the team for the project, an indication of how seriously it is about building a successful rival to Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP), the paper said.

The Redmond software vendor is already at work on the next two versions of its browser. At Mix ’06, IE brass offered some hints about when and what kinds of functionality the IE of the future will include. The company already has the next two versions of IE beyond 7.0 in the hopper. And while Microsoft execs won’t specify exactly when they will ship or detail specific new features, they are offering some indications of the company’s evolving browser thinking.

Microsoft unveiled a global initiative to crack down on cybercriminals who engage in phishing. The company will set in motion more than 100 legal actions against phishers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) by the end of June, according to a release. Phishing attacks use spam to entice Internet users to visit what appear to be legitimate e-commerce Web sites but are in fact phony sites controlled by cybercriminals. Users are encouraged to enter personal data such as passwords and bank account or credit card details, which the criminals can then exploit to commit crimes.

Sonasoft announced it will launch a new application using Microsoft SQL Server 2005, earning the company Front Runner status from Microsoft. SonaSafe for SQL Server in combination with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 helps customers to protect their data through automated disk-to-disk backup/recovery and intelligent standby capability. SQL Server 2005 is the next-generation data management and analysis software that will deliver increased scalability, availability and security to enterprise data and analytical applications while making them easier to create, deploy and manage.

Microsoft has confirmed that it plans to buy Vexcel, a maker of remote sensors, to help expand the software maker’s digital mapping efforts. In a statement on Monday, Microsoft said the pending deal will help it with its efforts "to deliver a dynamic immersive digital representation of the real world that provides the best local search and mapping experience." Vexcel makes a digital aerial camera known as the UltraCam as well as remote sensor and satellite tools. Aerial photography has become a hotbed of competition, with Google Earth and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth racing to map the globe and beyond as part of their local search services.

Admit it. You have more to do than you can possibly get done. More stuff to track than attention to track it with. We’re all this way these days. The flood of work and activities and responsibilities seems to grow by the day. How do you deal with this reality? As an Outlook user, a LOT of the stuff you need to deal with in your life probably flows in and out through Outlook. The Getting Things Done Outlook add-in (GTD add-in) enhances Outlook by adding buttons and views that make it easy to use the GTD approach with Outlook. Should you use this add-in? Read this article by Contributing Editor Bill Mann to find out.

Read this OutlookPower article.