Microsoft has improved its products and done a better job of working with its customers this year compared with previous years, at least that’s what customers perceive, according to new research.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates touted advances in development tools, Web services and other technologies Thursday during a speech to top business executives at Microsoft’s CEO Summit.

The FBI told Congress on Thursday that it has "identified over 100 significant spammers" so far and is targeting 50 of the most noxious for potential prosecution later this year.

Microsoft is releasing its Mac productivity suite in the third week of this month, following its unveiling in January during the Macworld Conference & Expo. While the standard and the student and teacher editions will be available, Microsoft has slowed the release of the professional edition of the suite.

The Justice Department will call Microsoft to the witness stand to support its claim that Oracle’s proposed, and hostile, takeover bid of PeopleSoft is bad for competition in the upper echelons of the ERP (enterprise resource planning) software industry.

Microsoft has reached out to mend relationships with other software makers as it makes its own applications more of a platform, a company exec tells a software industry conference.

For the third consecutive year, SeachWin2000.com has polled Windows professionals for their opinions on a number of Microsoft products and services.

Beijing-based Evermore Software announced on Tuesday that it has begun selling its EIOffice 2004 package in the United States, Japan and China. Also targeting the productivity market is Beaverton, Ore.-based Gobe Software, which recently began retail sales of its GoBeProductive software.

Spam control and virus protection top the list of CIOs’ and IT managers’ concerns when it comes to enterprise messaging systems. After spam and viruses, the survey found that compliance regulations, Microsoft’s pricing policies and denial of service (DoS) attacks round out the top five messaging concerns that keep CIOs up at night.

Your return on investment checklist for Exchange 2003 should reach beyond the financials and delve into the technical benefits that provide a better total return, according to one expert.