Microsoft issues critical patch for Windows 7, Vista users

Microsoft released four security bulletins for Patch Tuesday today, including one that fixes a critical hole related to Bluetooth in
Windows 7 and Vista and three less serious patches that plug 21 holes affecting all supported versions of Windows and Visio 2003.
The highest priority is MS11-053, which fixes a vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer by sending malicious Bluetooth wireless packets.
Jerry Bryant, group manager for security response at Microsoft, downplayed the possibility of exploitation in the wild, saying there are mitigating factors, including the fact that Bluetooth on a target device would have to be discoverable, which is not the default mode.
“So an attacker would have to be in line-of-sight of you and would have to brute force their way into discovering your (network) address, and that would be assuming you are actively advertising it for them,” he said in an interview. “There are tools out there to help an attacker do that, but they are expensive and take a long time to run. It’s a serious issue but I don’t think it will be something we see active exploits on in the near future.”
Marcus Carey, security researcher at Rapid7 noted that many people regularly rely on Bluetooth-enabled devices, or have Bluetooth set to “on” and don’t realize it. “This should concern users who have internal Bluetooth devices or people that use after-market Bluetooth headphones, mouses, keyboards, and printers through USB,” he said. “The problem with Bluetooth is that often people have their Bluetooth devices activated and are totally unaware that they are transmitting.”
Meanwhile, there were three other bulletins released, all rated “important.” One resolves 15 vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers. Another fixes five bugs in Microsoft Windows Client/Server Run-time Subsystem. And the third resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft Visio. More details on the releases is here.
Microsoft also released today a white paper, “Mitigating Software Vulnerabilities,” that has specific information IT professionals can use to enable attack-blocking technologies such as Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

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Microsoft sees smartphone prices cut in half by 2012

The head of Microsoft’s Windows Phone division believes the company and its partners can cut the costs of smartphones running the company’s mobile operating system by as much as half over the next year as a plethora of new devices hit the market.

Andy Lees, president of the Windows Phone division, told the 15,000 attendees at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles today that he expects the price of devices, before carrier discounts for long-term contracts, to hit $100 to $150 next year. Right now, they cost $200 or more, he said. And a year ago, those devices ran upwards of $400.

Microsoft’s Andy Lees at the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles.

That’s possible because chipmakers are now able to pack more and more functionality onto tiny processors that can fit into phones.
“You’re seeing a dramatic price reduction,” Lees said in a speech that was streamed online.
Lees also explained why Microsoft won’t be offering its Windows Mobile operating system to
tablet computer makers. The company believes that tablet users want many of the functions available to them when they use PCs such as the ability to connect to a network and the ability to print documents.

“We view a tablet as a sort of PC,” Lees said.
And Microsoft’s believes that tablets aren’t PC replacements, as Apple’s Steve Jobs has suggested, but rather pieces of the technical landscape that can all be used for different purposes. Microsoft wants to leverage its strength with its dominant Windows operating system in PCs to strengthen its position in mobile phones, where it’s market share is small, and slates, where Apple dominates. Lees believes Microsoft’s “unified ecosystem” will be a lure for consumers.
“We won’t have an ecosystem for PCs, and one for phones and one for tablets,” Lees said.

Microsoft’s Steve Guggenheimer, showing an unnamed Samsung mobile phone, in a speech that was streamed online

To that end, Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft corporate vice president in the original equipment manufacturer division, showed off a handful of devices that will be hitting the market in the coming months that fit into that ecosystem. He quickly showed off phones from Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE running the version of the Windows Phone operating system, codenamed Mango, due this fall. Guggenheimer also pulled a soon-to-be-released Samsung device from his pocket showing the unnamed model, he said, for the first time. He didn’t offer any other details about the device.
“It’s very thin and it’s light,” Guggenheimer said. “And that’s the theme you’re going to see as the processors get better.”

He also highlighted a few slate computers running Windows, including the Asus B121 slate and Acer W500, which both have a Trusted Platform Module chip in it that for corporate users that want added security. And he showed a slim Sony Vaio Z laptop, designed to give Apple’s MacBook Air new competition.

“You give me any thin, lightweight laptop device, we’ll take it head-to-head,” Guggenheimer said. “You’ll see a lot of innovation in thin and light.”

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Microsoft will open 75 new stores within 3 years

Microsoft plans to open 75 new Microsoft stores in the next two to three years, massive expansion of its retail outlets for a company that abandoned an earlier store strategy a decade ago.
The software giant’s chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, told the 15,000 attendees at Microsoft’s 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles that the stores have given the company tremendous insight into consumers.







“It’s helping us transition from thinking about our customers to thinking like our customers,” Turner said today in a speech that was streamed online.

Microsoft’s Kevin Turner at the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles.

A map of the locations show that many will be concentrated in the northeastern United States, California, and Florida. However, Turner said the company will begin to open stores outside the United States as well. Right now, there are 11 Microsoft stores open, all in the United States.
Of course, Microsoft is chasing Apple, which has more than 320 stores, including 86 abroad. Microsoft actually was once ahead of Apple on the retail front, opening its first retail store in 1999 at the Metreon shopping center in San Francisco. But Microsoft abandoned the effort, shutting the store a little more than two years later. After witnessing Apple’s retail success, Microsoft revived the store strategy in 2009.

Turner, the resident flame-thrower at Microsoft, spent much of his speech ridiculing rivals in a bid to motivate Microsoft’s partners. He started in early on Salesforce.com, which pioneered selling customer-relationship management software as a service, well before Microsoft ventured into the market. Now that Microsoft has a product in the market, Turner tweaked Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff.

“We now have this humongous pacifier to stick in the mouth of Marc Benioff, and it’s called Dynamics CRM Online,” Turner said.
(After I posted a link to this story on Google+, Benioff replied to Turner’s comments by linking to Wikipedia’s definition for “phallic stage.”)
Turner went after Google, too, saying with more than a bit of hyperbole that the press wrote off Office as a business when the search giant began offering Google Apps, its online productivity suite. With the launch of Office 365 two weeks ago, Microsoft’s customers now have Web functionality with products previously tied to desktops and servers.

“Office 365 is nothing but a Google butt-kicker,” Turner said. “That’s all it is.”
Then, Turner alluded to Google’s transgressions with regard to customer privacy.
“Google is a company that has a mission statement to remind themselves not to be evil,” Turner said. “We don’t scan your e-mail. We’re not snooping your Wi-Fi.”
He laid into Oracle as well, criticizing the company’s pricing and attacking the company’s executives.

“Should our customers bet on Oracle? Let’s look at the cast of characters and you make the call,” Turner said as photos of Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison, President and Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz, and President Mark Hurd flashed on monitors around the arena to the amusement of attendees. “I don’t even know what to say.”

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