Microsoft to free up its software codes
BY RICHARD J. DALTON JR | [email protected]
February 22, 2008
Local software developers can more easily develop products that work with Vista, Office and other Microsoft products now that the software giant will release free documentation for developers, executives said.
Microsoft, which previously released such information only under a trade-secret agreement, charging licensing fees and royalties, said yesterday it would release the information free online.
The change comes a month after the European Union launched an antitrust investigation on suspicions Microsoft blocked developers of competing software from gaining access to its products.
The European Union expressed skepticism at Microsoft's shift, saying the "announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability."
Microsoft also has been forced to open its software because of the growing open-source movement, which makes software code freely available so others easily can integrate applications with it.
Microsoft said it would immediately release 30,000 pages of documents on Windows software that runs PCs and centralized computer servers, followed by similar information on Office 2007.
Dan Galvez, managing partner of Hedgehog Development Llc, a software and technology consulting company in Holbrook, said the release is "a huge benefit."
Hedgehog recently created customized software to allow an international bank based in Manhattan to manage and share research documents using Microsoft Office.
"We weren't able to take advantage fully of Word," Galvez said. "We had to build our own functionality."
But with Microsoft's documentation, Hedgehog would have been able to use built-in tools from Microsoft Office to design the software for the bank, speeding up the development time, Galvez said.
It's like seeing "the secret recipe of grandma's homemade sauce," said Bob Venero, president and chief executive of software developer Future Tech Enterprise Inc., based in Holbrook. "They're giving those ingredients that help make Microsoft what it is." Recently, Future Tech installed software that allows health-care personnel to instantly view X-rays on PCs. But the software remains separate from Office.
With the upcoming release of the Office documentation, Future Tech would be able to seamlessly integrate the software with Office, making it easier to e-mail the X-rays via Outlook software or place it in a Word document.
"I call it 'open-source day,'" Venero said of yesterday's announcement. "I think it's a huge deal."
Newsday. 22 February 2008. Microsoft to free up its software codes . 22 February 2008 <http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/friday/business/ny-bzleft5586831feb22,0,4125204.story>.
and this means what???
It has to refer to the API's, which have always been closed
OMG!!! the end of the world is near.
Sweet! Lots in internal Windows APIs have already been discovered & documented by others like Russinovich in his famed Windows Internals books, but as far as I know no one has done the same for Office. Be a huge boon for me developing document processing software.
The European Union expressed skepticism at Microsoft's shift, saying the "announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability."
SHOW ME THE MONEY...SHOW-ME-THE-MONEY...sHOW MEEEE THE MO-NEY
"Microsoft CEO Confirms Windows Mobile 6.5
Friday, 11:00 AM by Eric M. Zeman
Speaking at an event in Australia, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned that Windows Mobile 6.5 is part of the company's roadmap toward Windows Mobile 7. The existance of a version of Windows Mobile between 6.1 and 7 had not previously been discussed openly by Microsoft. Ballmer did not provide any details about the new version of Windows Mobile and what features it would include, but he did indicate that devices will be running 6.5 starting some time in 2009."
http://www.phonescoop.com/ <~~~ A VERY informative site i wanted to share with the xda community.
"Sometime in 2009" hmmm i smell next spring
Hmm is that good news? Weren't we initially suppose to already have WM7 by then?
kilrah said:
Hmm is that good news? Weren't we initially suppose to already have WM7 by then?
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Here we go again from Micro$oft.
LOOK EVERYONE WE ARE COMING OUT WITH MS 6.5 IN THE SPRING
read: ( only because we were supposed to have wm7 completed by then , but we are so freakin behind, we figured we had to throw you a bone,)
Didn't we Tilts just go through salivating over 6.1 for most of a year, for what?, threaded texts and built in Voice Commander ?
Wa-hoo , I was so thrilled I just got around to upgrading my Tilt last weekend.
Can't wait to see what ground breaking technology 6.5 has.
Microsoft and HTC both agree on XDA-Developers "We can't live with 'em and we can't live without 'em
According to tweakers.net (dutch), a very popular and more important, trustworthy Dutch IT website.http://forum.xda-developers.com/
XDA-Developers breaches intellectual property laws regarding ROM Cooking.
However Microsoft and HTC both agree "We can't live with 'em and we can't live without 'em."
Microsoft will not send take down orders to sites such as XDA-Developers, who offer customized ROMs for windows-mobile telephone.
Some sites offering ROMs based on Windows Mobile 6.5 got take down orders last week. They, However, appeared to be hoax.
“Taking action against sites such as XDA-Developers isn’t a matter of concern for Microsoft” says Maarten Sonneveld of Microsoft Netherlands against tweakers.net. “What happens there, the modifying of ROMs, is illegal. The intellectual property however is not with us. The ROMs are intellectual property of the producers of the phone or the mobile phone providers if it concerns branded telephones. We simple only deliver the OS.”
The biggest producer of Windows Mobile-phones, HTC, also says they don’t have any plans to take action against ROM sites. “What happens there isn’t allowed” says HTC Benelux-CEO Mark Moons,
“But XDA-Developers is the biggest and most active community of Windows Mobile-developers. We can’t live with ‘em and we can’t live without ‘em.”
Last week it seemed there were to come an end to tolerating Windows Mobile-communities.
A certain ‘James Young’ sent emails on behalf of Microsoft to site managers in which he stated that they were sharing illegal content, and summoned them to stop their practices; some site managers, in fact, did this.
It mostly concerned ROMs with betas of Windows Mobile 6.5, the update of Microsoft’s Mobile OS that should appear this summer
Haha nice one
Nice, but doesn't come much as a surprise. This community is the only reason Windows Mobile is still competitive. And Microsoft knows it. Besides that, why should they bother? Other than on the desktop PC, the phone hardware is quite limited without proper drivers WM won't run on phones which weren't supposed to run it in the first place. So Microsoft sold their license, HTC (or any other manufacturer) bought it and end of story. They have absolutly no disadvantage when ppl start cooking ROMs - in the contrary. I can't even begin to image using my X1 or any other WM-phone without the customization options presented here. Without them, I wouldn't have bought another WM-phone and become a WM-fan ... ;-)
Read this on tweakers.net yesterday, don't know if we should be happy about this statement.
But it seems xda-developers is going to be watched carefully by MS and HTC, probably has been already.
Until the take serious actions against this community I'm going to flash my X1 with Touch-IT ROMs as many as possible
I would say Microsoft and HTC is the winners here. The ROM cooking means more people is attracted to the platform and for me the reason I bough the X1 was this community.
Rather than moaning, HTC and Microsoft should make donations to XDADevs because this community is one of the main reasons why both of them rose to unforeseen heights.
skycamefalling said:
Rather than moaning, HTC and Microsoft should make donations to XDADevs because this community is one of the main reasons why both of them rose to unforeseen heights.
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Totally agree with u lolz
E90 Commie said:
I would say Microsoft and HTC is the winners here. The ROM cooking means more people is attracted to the platform and for me the reason I bough the X1 was this community.
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+1
i bought my htc wizard and SE x1 because of xda-developers.if they shut rom sites down i ll never buy windows mobile device that's for sure.my phone is my home so i ll decide how will i decorate my home not microsoft.cheers
Yeah i've read that also (im dutch and visit that site 3 times a day or so )
I think that htc says "MAKE NICE ROMS XDA, or else we will.....)
I'll add my 2 pennies worth...
I'm not a cook, though I sorely wish I were! However, thanks to XDA developers, I've had WM phones for the past 5 years, up until Blue Angel I *only* would have Nokia phones, but I was given the Blue Angel as a present and hated it. I then accidentally found XDA when I was going to sell the Blue Angel and was looking for a way to unlock the sim. Figuring I had nothing to lose as I hated the phone anyway, I put a new rom on and fell in love! Since then, I've had every HTC phone and just recently went to the Xperia *ONLY* because of this website. If XDA wasn't here, I would have gotten the N96 or a Blackberry.
So, for what it is worth MS and HTC if you're reading... Leave XDA alone, support it where you can, and be happy for the generosity of this community for making the product you produce better and more usable!
the only reason I got rid of my Omina and went back to a HTC made pda was because of the support and options that I can find here, good move from microsoft however I suspect microsoft as always turned a blind eye to a degree (remember the fpt problems?)
Cool. This is a pretty big community of developers.
James Joung lives here in my neighbourhood
Now I understand why he has spent the whole week laughing
Well,
if it wern't for XDA developers, when I got my Orange c500 (Back in the day) that would have been the last WM phone I bought.
Since then ive had:
Orange c550
Orance c600
MDA Vario
HTC TYTN
HTC Touch Diamond
Sony Xperia X1
goes to show the value of XDA... if anything, I think Microsoft, HTC etc should jump on the band wagon and help chefs get the best out of WM, or at least, some kind of formal agreement should be attained to help protect the community
can't live without them(xda),hehe.. htc and microsoft should donate to support xda !
gtrab said:
James Joung lives here in my neighbourhood
Now I understand why he has spent the whole week laughing
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Maybe he was laughing because his CEO, told him that if he will try to touch this site, he will have to fill up for unemployment... This site have 41,159 members (ONLY ) and allmost all of us, we own between 2-4 HTC pda phones. If HTC will loose us, I guess that they will show the middle finger to Microsoft and they will stick with Android from the time on...
To be honest in that perverse way MS has BENEFITTED from 'Piracy' etc. throughout their history. Take Office for example - way back in the day Lotus and Wordperfect were the dominant market forces. MS were trying to force their way into the market wth their Office products. In the end they blew away the competition - how? Because their media had no copy protection - thus Office Workers ended up getting copies from work to put on their home PCs to carry on extra work at home. The others had copy protection.
MS turned a blind eye to this because they knew that the more people had Office, the more they would want it in their workplace - so much so that in the end how many companies use those products anymore? Now that they are the dominant force, Piracy is an issue.
It is the same with sites like XDA-Devs. The mobile phone market is huge and will get bigger even in these times. WinMo is still a small part of that market - Nokia and Symbian undoubtably have an edge here. However people are becoming more savvy about mobiles and want more from them which is where MS, RIM, and Apple come in (with an improving Symbian).
However if all the consumers had to rely on was 'Stock' ROMs and buggy WinMo (esp. when consumers will compare it to the iPhone etc.) then WinMo would have nowehere near the amount of consumers, and would die a slow death. However thanks to XDA-Devs (and sites like these) we can buy these phones confident that some super talented Cook will provide us with a ROM that will get us the full experience of these devices. Hence we will then buy the next generation, then the next etc.
MS and HTC know this - hence why they can't 'live without 'em'. No point cutting off your nose to spite your face eh?....
@itje
after reading the good news.. please bring back your Touch-IT WM 6.5 project rom.. hehe =)
damskie said:
@itje
after reading the good news.. please bring back your Touch-IT WM 6.5 project rom.. hehe =)
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He just did, and posted the new ROM for download.
[/offtopic]
Saw this on my yahoo home page. Thought I'd pass it along. This means the genius cooks here on XDA should have something official to tear up and improve!
Windows Mobile 6.5 "Launching" May 11th?
Here's a mystery for you. In a blog post dated April 6th on Microsoft's developer site, Microsoft says there's going to be a "kick-off launch presentation of Windows Mobile 6.5 on Monday, May 11th at 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm." This notice went unnoticed until today, when Engadget and Electronista picked it up, reporting it as fresh news. (It's fresh news as in, we all missed it, but it isn't fresh as in, the post seems to be two weeks old.) The launch will be part of Microsoft's TechEd 2009 conference in Los Angeles.
When I called Microsoft PR, though, they weren't quite sure what this presentation was. After all, Windows Mobile 6.5 was announced in February, and the PR guy I spoke to said that consumer availability would not be announced on May 11th. Anyway, consumer availability is up to Microsoft's device and carrier partners, not Microsoft itself.
Here's Microsoft's official statement on the event: "We're excited about TechEd as an opportunity to talk to business customers and developers about the software for the next generation of Windows phones. There will be several sessions we think will help people learn more to get their planning ideas started about the new phones coming to market in the 2H of 2009."
My best guess is that the May 11th event is the launch of the final Windows Mobile 6.5 SDK, so developers can write programs tailored to the new OS release. TechEd is a developers' conference, the SDK hasn't come out yet, and we're getting within a few months of launch. Microsoft is going to want at least a few 6.5-compatible apps in that Windows Mobile Marketplace.
WM 6.5 Already Leaked!
I havent been keeping up on the forums again until yesterday, and i too was excited to hear about WM 6.5...and to my suprise (well i guess i should have expected it) WM 6.5 has already leaked and some of our favorite cooks have already torn a tiny bit into it (cough cough ivanmmj ;D awesome ROM as always!) Just to give everyone who hasent already gotten JustcHome on their old Wing a heads up!
I found a blog that Microsoft delivers a Windows 10 upgrade to existing users at no cost. I have one question is this right decision by Microsoft...
astoria0128 said:
I found a blog that Microsoft delivers a Windows 10 upgrade to existing users at no cost. I have one question is this right decision by Microsoft...
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WHO [email protected]#%^ING CARES? MS goes the same footsteps like google wit android... gives away their os just more people start using it..and then will F#$$$ everybody and will make crappy os like android