Stories by Eric Lai

The International Standards Organization (ISO) agreed Saturday to put Open XML, the document format created and championed by Microsoft, on a fast-track approval process that could see Open XML ratified as an international standard by August.

Microsoft's Open XML file format cleared a small hurdle Wednesday, after documents released by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) showed fewer countries harbouring strong objections than had been expected.

Windows Vista may yet prove to be an unstoppable juggernaut, but statistics released Thursday by a market research firm show that the new operating system hasn't even licked its nine-year old ancestor.

Windows Vista's revamped security features are posing difficulties for some IT security vendors looking to make their software work on the new operating system.

Microsoft has released a list of 800 applications it has officially verified so far to run bug-free on Windows Vista.

With Nvidia engaged in damage control after receiving numerous complaints from disgruntled gamers about the performance of its graphics processors on Windows Vista, archrival, ATI Technologies, hopes to capitalise on the situation.

Microsoft may have just released Office 2007 to consumers mere weeks ago, but the company is already working hard on the next version - internally known as Office 14 - and targeting it for release in the first half of 2009, according to information from Microsoft's own website.

Is open-source still a grassroots social movement made up of idealistic underdogs trying to revolutionize an amoral industry? Or has it become a cloak used by IT vendors large and small to disguise ruthless and self-serving behaviour?

IBM's research achievements are legendary: the hard drive; DRAM; the relational database; DES data encryption; Deep Blue, the chess-playing supercomputer, and Blue Gene, its DNA-simulating descendant; and two Nobel Prizes. It also holds the most patents of any company worldwide for the 14th straight year.

If your reaction to all of this week's hype swirling around the launch of Windows Vista is less "Wow!" and more "Whoa! Enough already!" then 2007 could be a long year.

As Microsoft gets ready to launch Windows Vista and Office 2007 to consumers, it claims a formidable new foe it lacked at its last major consumer software launch five years ago: the popular filesharing network known as BitTorrent.

James Plamondon, the former technical evangelist for Microsoft who in a 1996 speech called independent software developers "pawns," said Wednesday he now "regrets" using the metaphor.

A recent study of Independent Oracle User Group (IOUG) members found that 31 percent are managing databases larger than 1TB in size -- up from 13 percent who said that at the beginning of 2006.

Open-source systems integrator Optaros Wednesday released a guide listing and reviewing what it considers the 262 best open-source applications for companies.

Despite comments from a Microsoft executive in testimony released last week in which he called software developers "pawns," the company's success at wooing third-party software developers has long been credited as key to the success of Windows and other Microsoft platforms.