Microsoft announces Office 2010 prices

Comment 5th January

Later today Microsoft will announce the price of Office 2010 at the CES show in Las Vegas. But while the software giant is ready to announce the price for customers in the USA, it will take a little longer before people in the rest of the world will be told the price for the new [...]

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Windows 7 touch gestures towards iPhone

Comment 21st October

Today Microsoft finally launched the consumer versions of its Windows 7 operating system. While the software ushers in several new features like a much improved Task Bar, the most ground breaking is new support for Touch Screen devices.
Experts say it will take time before software such as office tools and consumer titles will be updated [...]

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Simple license for Hyper-V virtual desktops

News 29th September

Windows Server 2008 R2 includes changes to Microsoft license terms that enable firms to build virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) without suffering a headache over licensing.
Microsoft’s new VDI Standard Suite and VDI Premium Suite client access licenses (CALs) bundle a range of Windows technologies together into simple per-user packages. The idea is for customers to use [...]

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Windows 7 launched, Windows XP half price

News 15th September

Windows 7 has yet to appear in shops but the software can now be purchased by corporate buyers. A quirk of Windows 7 license conditions means Windows XP Professional now costs business buyers around £140 + VAT compared to a price tag of £280 for the same software last month. The new low price is [...]

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First look review: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

Reviews 29th July

Last week Microsoft released Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 to manufacture. This is the free version of Microsoft’s server virtualization engine, and the same updated software is also included in Windows Server 2008 R2, which was also released to manufacturing last week.
Firms could download and install as many copies of the free Hyper-V 2008 R2 as [...]

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Microsoft validates Linux virtualization

Comment 21st July

Microsoft’s move to add its Hyper-V driver software into the Linux kernel is not a sinister ploy to sink open source software. Rather it’s a sign of how vitally important virtualization is to the server software market place.  Few customers would take Hyper-V seriously until it runs Linux software as well as competing hypervisors.
Without this [...]

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Microsoft Live Migration Launch

Comment 7th May

Deployments of Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 are set to sky rocket following the launch of Hyper-V 2008 R2, which we expect will be announced by Microsoft next week. Last month the Redmond software giant delivered a prelease version of Hyper-V 2008 R2 to third party developers for testing, which suggests the software is nearly ready for [...]

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Microsoft struggles to keep web site running

Lab Notes 16th February

Corporate customers and software developers were unable to access Microsoft’s MSDN benefits portal for much of today. The portal provides MSDN subscribers with access to downloads of Microsoft products and license keys. Although Microsoft has not issued a statement about the problem, the problem came to light in The Hypervisor Lab when one of our [...]

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Vizioncore vRanger Pro 4 supports PowerShell

News 15th September

Virtualisation management specialist Vizioncore showed a beta version of its vRanger Pro 4 backup suite to attendees at the VMworld conference in Las Vegas today. The new software, which is due to be launched later this year, includes support for Microsoft’s PowerShell scripting language.

Scott Herold, chief architect at Vizioncore, said, “We’re very excited about extensibility [...]

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Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007

Reviews 19th August

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, launched on October 16th, enables corporate IT departments to provide telephones, instant messaging and web based conferencing to users located anywhere in the world. We don’t expect many firms to rip out their existing communications infrastructures, but organisations moving into new premises should consider OCS alongside other VoIP and traditional [...]

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