Category: Microsoft

According to sources at AllThingsD, Microsoft is poised to make major changes to its executive team, cutting the fat from the top and reorganizing the company into four distinct parts — operating systems, applications & services, hardware, and enterprise — overseen by Steve Ballmer.

The company is holding its annual Build developer conference later this week, which coincides with a public launch of Windows 8.1, the first major update for the new operating system which was released in late October.

One virulent rumour to emerge from this department shuffle is the unification of Windows and Windows Phone into a single division, something that was seen as inevitable given the former’s dominance and the latter’s sustained obscurity. Windows Phone 8 brought a unified kernel, which made it easier to develop apps and games for both platforms at once, but the operating systems maintain separate app stores and update processes. Windows Phone also suffers from the fact that it entered a market entrenched by two dominant players, and has struggled, despite a warm reception, to gain market share, especially in North America.

Creating unified ecosystems for mobile and desktop seems to be a common theme for big tech companies at the moment, and might position Microsoft to challenge the king of the ecosystem – Apple – more effectively.

Microsoft is likely going to issue updates to its Surface RT and Pro tablets later this year, informed by the improvements made to Windows 8.1. Rumours persist of a smaller, cheaper Surface, likely in the 7- to 8-inch form factor, to better compete with the iPad mini. The Redmond-based company has recently been discounting its RT tablet, which runs an ARM-based Tegra 3 chip and is limited to apps distributed through the Windows Store, to spur lukewarm sales.

Microsoft is expected to issue a minor update Windows Phone 8 this summer with a more extensive “GDR3 overhaul coming later this year, which would bring 1080p display and quad-core chip support. Nokia will likely announce its Lumia 41MP EOS smartphone next month with the GDR2 update on board.

According to sources close to the situation, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is likely to unveil his plans to restructure the tech giant to a larger group of senior execs by July 1.

[Via]

According to Microsoft, the actions it took against the world’s biggest cyber-crime rings (the Citadel botnet) freed at least 2 million PCs infected with the virus. It is believed that the Citadel Botnet was used to steal more than $US500 million from bank accounts worldwide.

The information comes from Microsoft Digital Crime Unit’s Assistant General Counsel Richard Domingues Boscovich in an interview earlier this evening. Said Boscovich, “We definitely have liberated at least 2 million PCs globally. That is a conservative estimate. We feel confident that we really got most of the ones that we were after. It was a very, very successful disruptive action.”

The botnets, which were run from “command and control” servers at data hosting centers around the world, were used to steal from hundreds of financial institutions, according to court documents that Microsoft filed to get permission to shut down servers in the United States that were being used to run the operation.

Data center operators typically are not aware that their servers are being used to run botnets.

Among the PCs liberated, the majority were located in the US, Hong Kong, and throughout Europe. The take down process worked by severing the Citadel networks from the infected machines, with a total of 1,400 networks being successfully pulled. Those responsible for leading the networks, however, one of which is known as “Aquabox”, were not captured, and have not been identified.

Though the chief botnet organizer is still on the loose and many machines are still burdened by Citadel, Domingues Boscovich says they “feel confident that we really got most of the ones that we were after.”

[Via, Via]