Summary: Weekly overview of news and Op-Eds

● Does Microsoft Windows Mobile Have A Future?

Name Change = Desperation Even Microsoft seems to know it is in trouble. One clear sign of a failing product line is a name change. After using Windows Mobile since the operating system's launch at the turn of the millennium, the company decided that phones running version 6.5 of the operating system will be known as Windows phones, a subtle but telling distinction.

So where will Microsoft go from here? The company has put a lot of time and money into its mobile OS. Because of its tight connection with Microsoft Office desktop applications, the operating system has had significant appeal to small and medium businesses. But that integration also carried a price in terms of ease of use and performance. And the market seems to be saying Office compatibility may no longer be enough to compete with faster, sexier, and easier-to-use smartphones running on other operating systems.

● Microsoft Desperate For Windows 7 Success

Microsoft's clout in the computing world is slipping fast. New competition is moving in from nearly every side with companies like Google and Apple starting to take chunks out of their market share, and the increased presence and continually growing quality of open source software provides pressure too. The recent economic downturn has encouraged more people and businesses to explore those other alternatives, and Microsoft is feeling the pain. These latest moves seem almost desperate to me, and right now it appears that the only thing Microsoft is reluctant to try is improving their software.

● Why Microsoft Will Continue To Fail

Microsoft has turned into a marketing and legal machine, aimed at taking down it's competitors in any under-handed way possible. I'm not naive enough to believe they're alone - I know that other big software companies use some of the same tricks. But the problem is the lack of focus on quality new products. I have been trying very hard to reserve judgement on Windows 7 until it was released. I've been fairly impressed with the release candidate I've been test driving. But a lack of anything really new, plus recent news of huge security issues already being uncovered have shaken my faith.

Microsoft is not currently a software company, and unless they find a way to re-focus on developing software that people actually want to use, their competition will continue to grow faster and take their market share until Microsoft is no longer relevant.

● CAFC Gives Microsoft Word Stay, and I HATE Vista!

Then someone pointed out to me in a comment that it was on PACER, just indexed under the filing date of Microsoft’s request for the stay rather than the date it was granted, which is ridiculous enough, but then things took a much weirder turn for me. I HATE VISTA!!!!!

Like virtually everyone that owns a Vista machine, my primary computer, which is a laptop I carry with me everywhere in my travels, has seen its better days. This particular machine is the ripe old age of 6 months old, and as near as I can tell its better days were those days prior to the loading of Vista, which as far as I can tell is a computer virus! Nothing operates properly on a Vista machine, not even Internet Explorer. Oddly enough, Mozilla Firefox is more stable on a Vista machine than IE, go figure.

● Security experts warn of possible worm hitting Vista

A group of top security analysts and researchers say the latest Windows security hole, for which there is no patch, leaves hundreds of millions of Windows Vista PCs wide open for infection by a Conficker-like Internet worm.

● Microsoft flaw could open PCs to Conficker-style attack

Microsoft has just raised a red flag about a recently discovered security flaw in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 PCs for which no patch yet exists. This affects all Vista PCs used in the home and workplace, and computer servers running Windows Server 2008 operating system.

● Be sure to get Microsoft Office updates

This week includes the second Tuesday of the month -- "PatchTuesday," as it's come to be known -- the day when Microsoft issues "patches" to fix the latest security and operational flaws that have been found in its products. Most prudent computer users, one way or another, access these patches through the Windows Update Web site.

● Attackers target Microsoft IIS; new SMB flaw discovered

● Microsoft Fixes Eight Security Flaws