Microsoft Corp. welcomed the decision, announced today by the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG), to introduce a new work item for the standardization of Microsoft’s^® HD Photo file format. Formal balloting of this work item is being submitted to the JPEG national delegations for approval. Standardization of HD Photo, tentatively titled, “JPEG XR,” will ensure that camera, printer, display and software companies will be able to develop products with the confidence of a consistent scheme that ensures interoperability across their properties.

The HD Photo image-coding technology, incubated in Microsoft Research and developed by Microsoft’s Core Media Processing team, offers a host of new features and benefits focusing on the current and emerging needs of digital photography. The technology, which shipped in Windows Vista^®, is a new file format for end-to-end digital photography that offers better image fidelity, higher image-compression efficiency and flexible editing features benefiting today’s and tomorrow’s digital-imaging applications. This next-generation digital image format unlocks new potential for digital photography capture, printing and display devices as well as applications and services.

“Microsoft is very pleased that the JPEG working group is considering HD Photo as a new standard, and we are committed to working cooperatively with JPEG and its affiliated standards organizations to ensure that this file format serves the needs of the next generation of consumer and professional photographers,” said Tom Robertson, general manager of Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft. “This is an excellent example of Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar annual investment in R&D, producing a technology that represents a big step forward in multimedia innovation and tangible benefits for consumers.”

“We greatly appreciate the contribution Microsoft is making to the IT ecosystem with the development of HD Photo,” said Dr. Daniel Lee, convener of the Joint Photographic Expert Group. “We are voting on consideration of this new file format for standardization because we believe it will foster breakthrough, innovative products and services in the photography and printing industries that will have widespread value for consumers around the world.”

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MDOP, the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, is the fastest-selling-ever Volume Licensing product from Microsoft, according to the company. Since Microsoft introduced MDOP six months ago, customers have bought 2 million licenses for MDOP.

MDOP consists of a number of different tools and technologies, all of which are developed by Microsoft’s System Center team: SoftGrid application virtualization, diagnostics and recovery toolset, advanced group-policy management, an inventory-asset service and desktop error-monitoring capabilities.

If I were to guess which of these might be most enticing to customers, I’d say SoftGrid might be the biggest carrot. And if it’s not yet the crown jewel of MDOP, I’d predict it will be by the time Microsoft issues its next MDOP refresh.

(Keep in mind that the only way customers currently can get MDOP and SoftGrid is to sign up for Software Assurance, Microsoft’s annuity-maintenance licensing program. Based on early information on Microsoft’s plans for Windows 7, it sounds like the Redmondians plan to continue to offer existing and forthcoming MDOP services as carrots/sticks to get more folks to sign up for Software Assurance.)

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The latest word from Official Xbox Magazine stateside suggests that the publication could soon be offering exclusive demos and the like for a fee; offering coverdisc content to users of the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The new service will be called OXM Digital, and editor Francesca Reyes announced the offering in the mag's September edition. "Think of it as a digital digest of our mag, but with lots of exclusive interactive content, including gamer pics, themes, videos, galleries...stuff we can't do in print," she writes, adding that "exclusive demos" will also be part of OXM Digital.

It looks likely said demos will be offered via the magazine's coverdisc and to OXM Digital subscribers free for a certain period, before such content is made available to all. The package will cost 200 Microsoft points, though it is presently unclear whether the service will just be open to US gamers alone.

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Microsoft is rushing to sign up several hundred UK channel partners over the next 12 months to sell its first dedicated small business offering.

The software giant has claimed Office Live – a hosted service aimed at firms with one to 10 employees – could become almost as important to Microsoft as its flagship Windows operating system.

Office Live allows small businesses to have a professional online presence without the expense of buying a server, setting up a complicated infrastructure and hiring technical staff to maintain it. Following six months of Beta testing, Office Live is now available in the UK and currently has 14 partners signed up to the official Office Live partner programme.

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The August 2007 issue of TechNet Magazine is now available online at www.technetmagazine.com/issues/2007/08/.

This month, our experts tackle a number of exciting new solutions available in the System Center family of management products.  We begin with an overview of the forthcoming System Center Configuration Manager 2007, which builds on the legacy of Systems Management Server (SMS).  We also take a deeper dive into the Branch Distribution Point feature of Configuration Manager 2007.

We continue with a great article from David Mills about getting started with the new System Center Essentials, as well as an overview of the new Operations Manager 2007, and a walk through of the Operations Manager migration process. Last but not least, a look at the new SoftGrid application virtualization platform.

In addition, you'll find all of our regular columns including Security Watch, Windows PowerShell, Hey, Scripting Guy!, The Cable Guy, The Desktop Files, Windows Confidential with Raymond Chen, and more - all available at www.technetmagazine.com.

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Contrary to reports that indicate a high level of dissatisfaction, Microsoft claims that it is seeing record high renewal rates of its enterprise software agreements.

In a posting on a company website, Joe Matz, corporate vice president of Worldwide Licensing and Pricing, said that renewal for the company's Enterprise Agreements " exceeded the high end of our historic range of 66-75 per cent".

Enterprise Agreements are Microsoft's volume licensing programme for large companies. The programme includes a mandatory subscription to the Software Assurance programme. The latter entitles customers to free upgrades for their software at a fee of 29 per cent of the original licence. A user who paid $200 for his copy of Windows Vista, for instance, will have to pay $58 each year thereafter for potential updates.

Both Forrester Research and Gartner have recently pointed to rates of customer dissatisfaction with the Software Assurance programme. Given the large delays in the release of Windows Vista, many contracts have expired without the user ever having the benefit of receiving an upgrade.

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 Microsoft Corp. is relying on green technologies in its newest data centers, including one in San Antonio where it is breaking ground on Monday.

The San Antonio building, one of several in the works at various locations, will be 500,000 square feet and contain tens of thousands of servers, said Michael Manos, senior director of data centers at Microsoft. Earlier this year, the company announced that it would build the center in San Antonio.

The first phase of the facility will be operational in July of next year, he said.

Microsoft's software plus services and Windows Live initiatives are driving these construction efforts, which will support the online services, he said. Microsoft is not alone among Internet services companies building new facilities to support hosted services. Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have also both announced development of new large data centers.

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With Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server, you can develop and deploy speech-enabled interactive voice response (IVR) applications. Speech Server combines speech technologies, Voice over IP (VoIP), and telephony capabilities into a single system and a single code base. In addition, with Speech Server tools, you can develop speech enabled self-service applications and improve your applications through tuning and data log analysis.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server is available for download from the following files:

Downloadable file name: SpeechServer.exe

This package contains the files needed to install Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server. It also contains "Release Notes for Speech Server," which you should read prior to installation.

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The Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows Server® 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 provides prerelease documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools (including C++ compilers) you need to develop applications to run on prerelease versions of Windows Server® 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 Beta2. To build and run .NET Framework applications, you must have the corresponding version of the .NET Framework installed - see System Requirements below for more details.

This SDK is compatible with the RTM release of Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Service Pack 1; including Microsoft® Visual Studio® Express Editions, which are available, free of charge. Pre-release editions of the next version of Microsoft® Visual Studio® are available from Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 Beta2 and can also be used with this SDK.

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The Supreme Court Monday asked the Indian government to explain if global IT major Microsoft's Windows Vista launch function in the backdrop of the Taj Mahal this year violated norms and laws regarding heritage monuments.

A bench headed by Justice S.B. Sinha asked the government and the Archaeological Survey of India to reply within a week, providing details of the event and identifying the government agency that granted the permission for the event.

Vijay Punjwani, a lawyer, brought the matter to the court's notice, alleging in a petition that the IT giant's Jan 30 event violated the apex court's order banning such performances within 500 metres of the boundary wall of the monument.

He said such activities were also prohibited by the Ancient Monuments Act.

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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has sold 2 million shares of Microsoft stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Gates reported that he sold the shares of common stock in Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) on July 25 for $30.39 to $31.10 per share, making the sale worth more than $62 million.

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You can add this to your ever-growing file folder stuffed with blurry photos of "products" or "internal memos." Joystiq is reporting that a source inside the hive-mind of Best Buy is claiming that the retailer has earmarked the Xbox 360 Core system for deletion in the company's computers. Apparently, this usually means that a product has been discontinued and "replenishment of the item is not expected," which seems to indicate that if the rumored $50 price cut happens, it may be taking the Core offering with it. Of course, this also might just be a piece of paper that your annoying neighbor knocked out on his dot matrix.

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Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates does not see Google Inc. becoming a successful competitor in the market for software for cellular phones, the New York Times reported on its Web site on Monday.

Gates told the Times it was unlikely that Google would be able to make inroads into Microsoft's share of the market for mobile phone software.

"How many products, of all the Google products that have been introduced, how many of them are profit-making products?" the Times quoted Gates as saying.

"They've introduced about 30 different products; they have one profit-making product. So you're now making a prediction without ever seeing the software that they're going to have the world's best phone and it's going to be free?" the paper quoted him as saying.

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Microsoft’s next version of its small-business/home productivity suite, due imminently, will be free and ad-funded.

Microsoft Works 9.0 — which will be the new product’s name, if Microsoft opts to stick with its current nomenclature — might also debut at some point as Microsoft-hosted low-end productivity service, as many have been speculating. A hosted version of Works would give Microsoft a head-to-head competitor with Google Docs & Spreadsheets and other consumer- and small-business focused services, analysts have said.

For the time being, however, the new version of Works will be ad-funded, according to Satya Nadella, the newly minted Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Search & Advertising Platform Group. Nadella told me during an interview on July 27 that Microsoft recently released the new ad-funded version of Microsoft Works.

If Works 9.0 is out, I haven’t found it yet — other than a couple download links on torrents and other sharing sites. Anyone else seen it?

(I’ve asked Microsoft for more information on the new ad-funded Works suite. No word back yet. Update:  Even though Microsoft’s own vice president discussed the product, no one will talk. The official comment, via a Microsoft spokeswoman: “We’re always looking at innovative ways to provide the best productivity tools to our customers, but have nothing to announce at this time.”)

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