Microsoft and MTV unveiled the new Windows Media Player 11 and offered an early look at the URGE digital music service during the kickoff keynote address for the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show. Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates was joined onstage by MTV Networks’ Music Group President Van Toffler and music superstar Justin Timberlake to preview the seamless integration of Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 and MTV Networks’ URGE. Gates and Toffler highlighted the fresh, streamlined design for Windows Media Player 11 with optimized device support and incredibly fast search capabilities that provide consumers with instant access to the entire URGE catalog of more than 2 million songs. Set to debut this year, URGE will offer a deep well of programming and editorial to guide the consumer’s digital music experience, including exclusive content from MTV Networks’ MTV, VH1, and CMT brands.

Microsoft set out to adopt a formal and rigid support lifecycle in 2002, back at a time when most analysts were expecting to see Windows Vista within a couple of years. However, delays in Windows Vista coupled with a questionable approach to "consumer" products means that 2007 will carry a few surprises unless policy changes are made. XP Professional and Home are divided into two general product categories for Microsoft, namely business and consumer products. XP Professional, as a business product, will receive mainstream support for two additional years after the release of Windows Vista. Windows XP Home is another story. As a consumer product, it suffers from two policy deficiencies. First, consumer products do not qualify for Extended Support, but instead move directly into the online support phase after Mainstream Support ends. Second, whereas business products are guaranteed Mainstream Support for two years beyond the release of the next subsequent version of a product (in this case, Windows Vista), consumer products do not get this built-in transitional period. The end result is that Windows XP Home will leave Mainstream Support and enter online support on January 1, 2007–in less than a year.

A Clinton-based Internet service provider who successfully sued Internet spammers in the past now has been awarded an $11.2 billion judgment against a Florida man for sending millions of unsolicited emails advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services. The judgment against James McCalla of Florida is the culmination of a multi-defendant lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa in 2003 by Robert W. Kramer III, owner of CIS Internet Services in Clinton. The lawsuit claimed that McCalla sent more than 280 million illegal spam email messages into CIS’ network. Kramer’s lawsuit initially named numerous defendants, many of whom were weeded out and dropped from the lawsuit over the past couple of years. Other defendants named in the lawsuit, however, including Cash Link Systems of Florida, AMP Dollar Savings of Arizona, and TEI Marketing Group of Florida were ordered in 2004 to pay judgments totaling more than $1 billion to CIS Internet Services. He claimed that under state law in effect at the time, he was entitled to $10 per illegal email.

Media coverage focuses on Microsoft’s competition with Google, but Chairman Bill Gates sees IBM and not the Web search leader as its biggest challenger. "The biggest company in the computer industry by far is IBM. They have the four times the employees that I have, way more revenues than I have. IBM has always been our biggest competitor. The press just doesn’t like to write about IBM," said Gates. IBM, which offers computer services, software and hardware, poses a challenge to Microsoft in defining how Web services will work together in the future.

Microsoft has released a beta of its .Net port to Python. IronPython 1.0 Beta 1, which was released at the end of last week, is "well integrated" with the rest of the .Net programming framework and allows all .Net libraries to be "easily" accessed by Python programmers, according to Microsoft. Microsoft’s support for Python could help the software giant attract Unix developers to the Windows platform, as it is a commonly used scripting language on the Unix platform, according to Salim Fadhley, who develops Python programs for Unix.

Microsoft has admitted to removing the blog of an outspoken Chinese journalist from its MSN Spaces site, citing its policy of adhering to local laws. The blog, written by Zhao Jing, also known as Michael Anti, was removed from MSN servers on Dec. 31, according to investigative journalist and former CNN reporter Rebecca Mackinnon. She claimed that the blog was actively removed by MSN staff rather than being blocked by Chinese authorities. A Microsoft representative told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that it blocked Anti’s MSN Space blog to help ensure that the service complied with local laws in China.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has slapped an unusually heavy fine on McAfee for inflating its revenues during the dot.com era. The SEC has stated that between 1998 and 2000 specifically, McAfee overstated its revenues by $622 million, and that for 1998 alone revenues were hiked 131 percent, or $562 million. In order to settle the embarrassing episode quickly, the company has agreed to pay a $50 million fine as punishment for the mis-statements, though it has not admitted to the charges in a formal way.

After months of touting Vista’s geekier side, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates highlighted features of the new version of Windows designed to appeal to the average consumer. During his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show here, Gates demonstrated new photo-editing tools and a revamped media player designed to improve the way that Windows tackles the most commonly used media files. Gates also showed the improved remote-control experience that will be part of the Media Center edition of Vista.

An early version of a security fix for a Windows flaw that is being used as a conduit for cyber attacks was prematurely posted online by a Microsoft employee. The fix was briefly posted on a security community Web site, Debby Fry Wilson, a director in Microsoft’s Security Response Center, said on Wednesday. Copies of the file have since been posted online elsewhere, but Microsoft recommends that customers wait for the final version in its monthly security release on Jan. 10, she said.

On Tuesday, December 27, 2005, Microsoft became aware of public reports of attacks on some customers that exploit a vulnerability in the Windows Meta File code area in the Windows platform. Upon learning of the attacks, Microsoft mobilized under its Software Security Incident Response Process to analyze the attack, assess its scope and determine the appropriate guidance for customers, as well as to engage with anti-virus partners and law enforcement. Microsoft has completed development of a security update to fix the vulnerability. The security update is now being finalized through testing to ensure quality and application compatibility. Microsoft’s goal is to release the update on Tuesday, January 10, 2006, as part of its monthly release of security bulletins on the second Tuesday of the month. The update will be released worldwide simultaneously in 23 languages for all affected versions of Windows once it passes a series of rigorous testing procedures. It will be available through Microsoft Update and Windows Update, as well as Microsoft’s Download Center and through Windows Server Update Services for enterprise customers. Customers who use Windows’ Automatic Updates feature will be delivered the fix automatically. Microsoft has been carefully monitoring the attempted exploitation of the WMF vulnerability since it became public last week, through its own forensic capabilities and through partnerships within the industry and law enforcement. Although the issue is serious and the attacks are being attempted, Microsoft’s intelligence sources indicate that the scope of the attacks is limited. In addition, attacks exploiting the WMF vulnerability are being effectively mitigated by anti-virus companies with up-to-date signatures.