May be I should have posted this a year ago. 

A report submitted by Brian Krebs in Washington Post shows that Internet Explorer was unsafe and prone to security issues 284 days in 2006. Surprisingly, Mozilla Firefox was on a security threat for just nine days in the year.

The huge difference shows that Internet Explorer still could not be regarded as reliable even though it has the largest market share of 80 percent.

The detailed report by Brian Kerbs was started in 2005. Kerbs contacted nearly all researchers who had informed about the critical flaws in products by Microsoft. He also examined the dates these security trends or anomalies were found and their submissions. It has been found that Internet fraudsters had used the security flaws in Microsoft for their own benefit all round the year.

Compiled by Brian Krebs, washingtonpost.com - January 4, 2007

The first major flaw was done by organized criminals who hacked sites and placed codes which can steal passwords using spyware on systems which use Internet Explorer. Microsoft did not take this attack serious and within few days, thousands of customers were already attacked due to this spyware. Since Microsoft was stubborn, a third-party patch was created by some security experts to fix the bug until Microsoft finally developed the fix.

Again in September, hackers used an unpatched flaw in non-Microsoft web server software and installed malicious codes in a huge number of legitimate websites. Websites affected with this malicious code can infect Windows systems if a user just opens the sites using their browser. Again Microsoft was lazy enough to become serious about this huge treat and third-party patches became the savior until Microsoft issued an official update many days later.

With many more browsers coming into the market, it is time that Microsoft realizes the importance of security and gets alerted and responds promptly than ever before.

The Microsoft-Yahoo stage show is in a hiatus and Microsoft wants to spend the money. That’s how all seems like. Microsoft has acquired Greenfield Online, the owner of ciao.com for a stunning $486 million. Ciao is a popular price comparison website on the European market.

Microsoft’s long wait and dream to buy Yahoo failed early this year and it had $47.5 billion left out which made its wallet heavy. That’s how Microsoft got into this shopping spree.

This acquisition would be a huge benefit for Microsoft as Ciao reportedly has more than 26 million unique visitors each month and has over 5 million product reviews. However, business analysts feel the money paid out is more than it is worth for.

Ever since Google captured the internet and not just dominated but also started ruling over it, Microsoft, the once big giant has been on acquisition one after another to get back its lost kingdom. But would this strategy work out?

Microsoft has been spending billions of dollars to get back its dominion over Internet search. Recent reports from comScore shows that 5.5 billion Microsoft ad views were displayed during the month of June.

The main promotion being Windows Live Search, Live search cash back program and Live Search Club games. Though Microsoft has been promoting Live Search for some years now, there is not much progress in their search users.

Recently, Microsoft had a deal with HP that all HP systems have Microsoft Live Search preinstalled in their computers. Promotional campaigns like these would attract short time visitors. However, to be successful in the longer run, Microsoft has to come up with something new and interesting.

The reports also mention that Fox Interactive Media was the top display advertisement publisher for the month of June.

The drama never seems to get over. After Carl Icahn’s stunt as a middle man between Microsoft and Yahoo, now Eric Jackson has formed the ‘Yahoo! Plan B’ investor community. Who doesn’t want to be in the limelight?

Eric Jackson, who is the founder of a hedge fund company and also an activist investor, has launched a Yahoo! Shareholder community to help share holders discuss and exchange ideas.

With the Yahoo! Annual Meeting slated to start on August 1st, it would be interesting to see the drama on stage.

• Would the Plan B or Carl Icahn win their deal?
• Would there be a full acquisition by Microsoft?
• Would Microsoft buy search alone?
• Would there ever be a deal?
• Would the board of members still be able to hold on to their seats?

Industry analysts also have brought in the question that how do shareholders think that they would still get sizable profit selling to Microsoft. What if Microsoft plays the game after the ball is in its court? Even Microsoft is not performing well with their internet applications. It’s far too worse compared to Yahoo. How do they think that Microsoft can handle Yahoo well and overtake Google?

Though there are a number of shareholders like Jackson and Icahn along industry experts offering their suggestions, there still seems to be no light in the tunnel.

Any onlooker who reads for the first time what is going on with Icahn, Microsoft and Yahoo can easily figure out that Icahn is being fed three times a day by Microsoft. The software giant is just using him for its own gain. This is a well planned puzzle that Microsoft has hosted. But are the shareholders so dumb to listen to the Mr. Nobody Icahn?

I feel Microsoft is acting similar to how America acted in the days of war. A decade back America supported Iraq against Iran. Few years after the war was over, Iraq was invaded by America itself. Wow! Doesn’t it sound similar?

It is so obvious that Steve Ballmer is using Carl Icahn to weaken Yahoo to get an at-ease best buy deal done. Even dummies can understand it. But how then do all the investors wag the tail exactly as Icahn does? May be Icahn is so clever to mesmerize the investors and could that be how a college dropout became a billionaire financier and a well-known private equity investor?

Carl Celian Ichan has a history of successful quests and deals by pressurizing or trapping the opponent. Now it’s Yahoo which he’s looking for. Microsoft could well have made a deal with him titled, “If you make it happen, then…” Icahn has now filed a definitive proxy statement nominating that a slate of nine directors should replace Yahoo’s current board members including CEO, Jerry Yang. But why? Is it just because they consider Yahoo is worth much more? Or is it because they are not happy that Yahoo, a once upon a time King is being sold out? What is wrong in that? What else did they do? Did they commit a crime?

Remember how he pressed the board for a seat in Motorola and how Icahn could make the deal with Lear Corporation. If not, you should be remembering at least how he pressured Medimmune Inc to consider takeover bids. If you do wag the tail like he does, then you should be aware.

If you are just a casual onlooker watching what’s going on in the arena, then join me to watch the game of dummies, wealthy mesmerizer, the rich giant and the once-a-king-now-a-poor-man.

Carl Icahn will never give up! How will he when the software giant Microsoft is backing him and the entire shareholders speak his language? Billionaire investor and shareholder Carl Icahn filed a definitive proxy statement today nominating slate of nine directors to replace Yahoo’s current board members including its Chief Executive Officer, Jerry Yang.

On Sunday, Icahn and Microsoft Corp. jointly proposed for a restructuring of Yahoo board and its executive ranks and the sale of the search business to Microsoft. Microsoft can not be more shameless by backing Icahn in getting the deal done at any cost.

Icahn’s slate of directors recommended to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission obviously includes a list favorable to Microsoft and Icahn. The list would obviously speak and act what Icahnsoft orders.

The slate includes Adam Dell, managing general partner, Impact Venture Partners, Mark Cuban an entrepreneur and others. The persistent and adamant Icahn stated, “We believe that now is the time to enter into a significant transaction with Microsoft,” on a letter to Yahoo shareholders. He also stated that his current best-friend Microsoft would purchase all of Yahoo or its search business if the current board is replaced with Icahn’s own personal favorites.

Yesterday Microsoft had is farewell for one of its valued employees. Well, the farewell was not for an employee who was a staff but an employee who changed the face of science and technology! Changed the lives of millions around the world! An employee called Bill Gates. The last day would have been a speech about his legacy by fellow workers and would have ended with some cakes but it was a day marking the end of an era, an era which changed the world for ever.

Bill Gates had spent 33 years of his life building the world’s largest software company. What could he have spoken when asked about his accomplishments all these years? Which ones would he highlight? May be that’s the reason Gates did the impossible and never spoke about it.

Microsoft today released Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008, a hypervisor-based virtualization technology. Microsoft claims that it has distributed nearly 1.5 million copies of Hyper-V beta version which demonstrates customers interest in virtualization.

Virtualization helps companies decrease hardware costs, power consumption costs and the complexity of managing the IT system. Virtualization also increases flexibility for the overall environment and helps maximize value of IT investments.

Microsoft’s Hypervisor Technology, commonly called Hyper-V enables customers consolidate some of their most demanding workloads.

Bill Hilf, General Manager for Platform Strategy and Windows Server Marketing at Microsoft stated, “Customers who buy Windows Server 2008 are not only getting the scalability benefits, the high performance and reliability, and all the great things that Windows Server is known for; as of today they can benefit from integrated virtualization with Hyper-V.”

Customers can now download the final version of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Hilf also added, “There have already been over 1 million evaluations of Hyper-V, and with this release IT organizations everywhere can move it from the lab to production to fully experience the benefits that Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 can bring.” To download Hyper-V, please click on the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/Hyper-V

Hyper-V would also be available as a Windows Update for customers who have already deployed Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft Corp. announced its intention to acquire Mobicomp a Portugal based mobile technology company. MobiComp built one of the first WAP-enabled ticketing systems for cinema-goers in early 2001 and is acclaimed for its innovative mobile data protection and sharing services.

Corporate Vice President, Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft, Todd Peters explained that “People expect their phones to deliver the best experiences from PCs and the Web right to their pockets. Investing in the right solutions from companies like MobiComp will extend the capabilities of Windows Mobile and Windows Live to help us provide the most innovative and seamless way to stay connected.”

Formed in 2000, MobiComp is a privately funded Braga, Portugal based company which has its offices in Spain, Lisbon, Dubai, UK and Finland. The company is !SO 9001:2000 certified and received the Award for Services to Innovation from the Portuguese Republic President in 2006.

Carlos Oliveria, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MobiComp mentioned, “Like Microsoft, we’ve always believed in an open and innovative mobile platform and deep industry partnerships. We are thrilled that our work over the past eight years can now be extended by partnering with Microsoft’s world-class portfolio of mobile services.”

Is there any other name more familiar than Bill Gates? The founder of the world’s largest software company had in him the power and will to change the personal computing industry for ever.

Born in October 28, 1955 William Henry Gates III was born to a rich family with a business, law and political history. Bill Gates father was a prominent lawyer and his mother served as the board of director for First Interstate BancSystem. Bill Gates was a bright and intelligent person from childhood which prompted his parents to enroll him with the Lakeside School.

The Lakeside school had then decided to educate the students with the knowledge of computers. Computers then were too heavy and costly for schools to afford. However, the school raised funds and bought a DEC PDP-10 made by General Electric.

Bill Gates, his friend Paul Allen and other Lakeside Students fell in love with the computers. They were inseparable making the lab their home day and night. Gates and Allen spent their entire day reading articles, books and magazines related to computing and the rest on programming. This lead to problems with the Lakeside faculty and for the school. The school ran out of budget on maintaining these computers and Bill and Allen lost their interest in studies.

However, Computer Center Corporation a Seattle business offered their computer assistance to the school. This would mean more computing time and knowledge for Bill and the young comrades. They now skipped classes, rarely submitted home works and had used all of their school computer time.

Well, the story of these computer freaks or what ever you wish to call, did not end up here. Their minds now led them to hack the school security system and even alter the files which record the number of school computing time used. The nuisance was finally caught and Computer Center Corporation finally banned them from their system for several weeks.

What would these computer addicts do without computers? They formed the Lakeside Programmers Group in late 1968. Might be they had the adrenaline by birth to change the world forever. They wanted to apply their ideas in the real world and in real time situations to make life better.

What more can be good for these young comrades? The same company who threw them out had now some serious issues. Computer Center Corporation was facing issues as the system had week security and was crashing frequently. This was when they remembered the hackers and their impressive assaults on their computer. They asked Bill, Allan and the other comrades to help fix bugs and find issues with security and reliability. In return, Computer Center Corporation would provide them unlimited computer time. Well, as you would have assumed by now, this was too big a temptation to resist for the addicts. Gates remembering those early years mentions, “It was when we got free time at C-cubed (Computer Center Corporation) that we really got into computers. I mean, then I became hardcore. It was day and night”

After a few years, Computer Center Corporation had to close due to insufficient funds. After this the Bill, Allen and the group worked for University of Washington and then for Information Sciences Inc. However, work with TRW defense meant not just finding bugs but fixing them. TRW made Bill a serious programmer and made Bill and Allen think of forming their own company.

In 1974, Allen stepped on a magazine while he was on the way to meet his fellow comrade Bill Gates.  Little did they realize what he saw would change their life for ever. On the Popular Electronics magazine cover was a photo of Altair 8080 with the headline “World’s First Microcomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models.”

Allen just rushed back to Bill’s dorm with the magazine. They soon found out the maker of Altair, MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems). Gates called them up in the next couple of days stating they have developed a BASIC which can be used in Altair. Both Allen and Gates had never seen an Altair and did not even have one line of code written. That was an unadulterated lie.

Who on earth would know that they lied. MITS was eager to have a look at the code and this was the start of some serious homework for Bill, Allen and his well formed lie. But they stuck to what they promised. They had already informed that they would show what they have in a couple of months.

After days and nights of coding forgetting and forfeitting sleep and food, they could now say that the code is now real and not a lie. Bill did most of the coding and Allen worked on stimulating a PDP-10 to work like Altair. As you know, they have never seen one.

Allen now flew to MITS to show their BASIC. They had never tested in an Altair. It should work perfectly or it would be a failure shattering their dreams. Well, Allen entered the program in Altair. Hurray! It worked perfectly the very first time. Well it should, as it was coded by none other than the master, Bill Gates. MITS was impressed and got the rights to their BASIC.

Within few months, Allen convinced Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard and thus Microsoft was born. Isn’t the rest History? Surely, they dreamt what a common man would call “the impossible”.