Microsoft may take on Kindles and Nooks

Microsoft pays $300M for a Barnes & Noble app for Windows 8 and may build its own e-reader

Microsoft is investing $300 million in a Barnes & Noble spinoff that has agreed to create a free Metro style Windows 8 application so customers can shop at the spinoff's store, but Microsoft reserves the right to compete against Barnes & Noble with its own e-reader hardware presumably based on Windows 8.

As part of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that details the agreement between the two companies, Microsoft can make its own e-reader -- akin to Barnes & Noble's Nook and Amazon's Kindle -- and include an interface to the store and support any content customers buy there.

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HARDWARE: 12 available devices to test drive Windows 8

The new company, called NewCo for purposes of the filing, will create a Metro style application for x86 Windows 8 machines as well as Windows RT for ARM-based devices, including tablets.

"If Microsoft creates a reader, Microsoft may include an interface to the NewCo Store in that reader and may surface in that reader all Content purchased by customers from the NewCo Store," the filing says.

The app itself will be available free at the Windows Store, and NewCo will support it once it's installed on customers' machines. NewCo will also update the application as needed, the filing says.

The application will include other functionality, but what that is exactly is redacted from the SEC filing because Barnes & Noble requested confidential treatment.

Barnes & Noble commits to directly shift its agreements with publishers for content such as e-books and digital magazines to NewCo if possible.

The agreement also hints at more cooperation with Microsoft. "NewCo will make good faith commercially reasonable efforts to enhance the NewCo Windows App to exploit features and functionality available through Windows and its extended Microsoft ecosystem," the filing says.

It further states that the company will help Microsoft software and services interoperate with the NewCo store under specified circumstances. "NewCo will use good faith efforts to enable Microsoft Products and Services to be used with the NewCo Store and distribution system in the following scenarios, the delivery and nature of which will be subject to the Microsoft product and service strategy," the filing says. The scenarios are redacted from the filing.

The agreement has a clause to prevent Microsoft from hijacking the NewCo Store name or masking the fact that Microsoft customers are accessing it and giving the impression that it is a Microsoft store. "Microsoft will not white-label (which for the avoidance of doubt includes rebranding or presenting as Microsoft's) the NewCo Store or obscure NewCo's branding or the fact the NewCo Store is the NewCo Store, including in Microsoft Products and Services," the filing says.

The agreement calls for transferring to NewCo its e-reading assets and content, and to sell the content in a marketplace called the NewCo Store, apparently a replacement for the Barnes & Noble Store. As long as Barnes & Noble holds the majority stake in the company, Barnes & Noble will use its influence to supply digital content to the NewCo Store. The pricing of content available on the Windows application will be set by NewCo, according to the filing.

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Microsoft patches critical Windows zero-day bug that hackers are now exploiting

Fixes first security flaw in Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Microsoft today delivered six security updates to patch 11 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office and several other products, including one bug that attackers are already exploiting.

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The company also issued the first patch for Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the beta-like build Microsoft released at the end of February.

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But it was MS12-027 that got the most attention today.

"Things got a bit more interesting today," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security, "because Microsoft is reporting limited attacks in the wild."

Flaws that attackers exploit before a patch is available are called "zero-day" vulnerabilities.

The single vulnerability patched in MS12-027 is in an ActiveX control included with every 32-bit version of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010; Microsoft also called out SQL Server, Commerce Server, BizTalk Server, Visual FoxPro and Visual Basic as needing the patch.

Storms, other security experts and Microsoft, too, all identified MS12-027 as the first update users should install.

Hackers are already using the vulnerability in malformed text documents, which when opened either in Word or WordPad -- the latter is a bare bones text editor bundled with every version of Windows, including Windows 7 -- can hijack a PC, Microsoft acknowledged in a post to its Security Research & Defense (SRD) blog today.

"We list MS12-027 as our highest priority security update to deploy this month because we are aware of very limited, targeted attacks taking advantage of [the] CVE-2012-0158 vulnerability using specially-crafted Office documents," said Elia Florio, an engineer with the Microsoft Security Response Center, in the SRD blog post.

Microsoft did not disclose when it first became aware of the attacks, or who reported the vulnerability to its security team.

Storms speculated that an individual or company had been attacked, uncovered the bug and notified Microsoft.

Microsoft rarely deploys a patch "out of cycle," meaning outside its usual second Tuesday of every month schedule. The last such update was shipped in December 2011, and was the first for that year.

Also affected is software written by third-party developers who have bundled the buggy ActiveX control with their code or called it. Those developers will have to provide their own updates to customers.

"Any developer that has released an ActiveX control should review the information for this security bulletin," said Jason Miller, manager of research and development at VMware. "These developers may need to release updates to their own software to ensure they are not using a vulnerable file in their ActiveX control."

Attackers can also exploit this bug using "drive-by download" attacks that automatically trigger the vulnerability when IE users browse to a malicious site, Microsoft admitted.

That means the flaw patched by MS12-027 is a double threat. "There are two attack scenarios. There's the malicious website [scenario] and then RTF documents, which are pretty common," Miller said.


Miller expects to see attackers glom onto the vulnerability once they have a chance to analyze the bug and craft their own exploits. "More and more will jump on this this month," Miller argued.

Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer at Qualys, agreed. "Now that [the advisory] is published, other malware authors will be looking at it to see what's there," Kandek said. "We're sure to see more attacks against this vulnerability."

Eight of the 11 bugs patched today -- including the one in MS12-027 -- were rated "critical" by Microsoft, its highest threat ranking. Another was pegged "important," and the remaining two were tagged as "moderate."

Microsoft identified MS12-023, a five-patch fix for IE, as the other update to roll out ASAP.

The company typically releases an IE security update in even-numbered months; on those months, security professionals usually recommend that users apply the browser update first.

Not this month.

"MS12-027 trumps the IE update this month," said Miller.

Storms also remarked on the downgrading of the IE bulletin. "When has there been a month when IE hasn't been the one to patch first?" Storms asked. "I can't remember one."

Two of the five vulnerabilities in MS12-023 were rated critical for IE9, the newest edition of Microsoft's browser that runs on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Other bulletins today applied to Windows, .NET, Microsoft's VPN (virtual private networking) tool and Office 2007 and the ancient -- and no longer sold -- Microsoft Works.

Miller pointed out that MS12-024, which patches a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of Windows, also applies to Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

Although the MS12-024 advisory does not mention Windows 8 Consumer Preview, anyone running that sneak peek will be offered the update, said Miller. Computerworld confirmed that MS12-024 was among several other non-security fixes Microsoft delivered to Windows 8 today.

According to Qualys, the bug in MS12-024 lets hackers hitch a ride inside legitimate software installation packages.

Amol Sarwate, manager of Qualys' vulnerability research lab, said the vulnerability would be very attractive to purveyors of phony antivirus software, a category often called "scareware" or "rogueware."

April's six security updates can be downloaded and installed via the Microsoft Update and Windows Update services, as well as through Windows Server Update Services.

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8 reasons why Windows 8 may not be ready for the desktop

Microsoft recently released the beta version of Windows 8, and there’s been much early praise, particularly for how well it’s designed to run on tablets and smartphones. But how does this early version work as a traditional desktop/notebook OS?

Because an obvious question is why Microsoft elected to position Windows 8 for tablets instead of refactoring Windows Phone 7 (their smartphone OS) for mobile devices, similar to how Apple has OS X and iOS platforms.

The answer is most likely that Microsoft hopes to leverage Windows, which has the commanding OS market share, to try to break into the tablet space dominated by iOS. But at what cost does this come for those of us who use Windows on a traditional desktop or notebook?

1. The familiar Start button is gone
Just prior to the launch of the Consumer Preview, Microsoft declared that the Start button would be removed from Windows 8. Literally, that’s true, but the button’s essential purpose remains. Under Desktop mode (the GUI which looks and works mostly still like the classic Windows desktop you’re familiar with), you move the pointer to the left corner of the screen, and a thumbnail of the Start Metro panel opens up. (The Start Metro panel is basically the new Start Menu for Windows 8.) So the Start button still exists, though in a “ghost” form. But when Windows 8 is used on a traditional desktop or notebook computer, we wonder if its absence in Desktop may confound the uninitiated.

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2. Metro UI not optimized for traditional Windows apps
In Windows 8, the Start Metro panel replaces the old Start Menu. The new UI favors touchscreen interactivity, which comes off as a bit too glossy for use on a traditional desktop/notebook.

An app or program listed on the Metro UI is a shortcut depicted as either a rectangle or square with an icon or thumbnail preview. We prefer setting most of these to squares in order to maximize the usage of screen space. Other apps in the Metro UI are widgets (like what you see on a smartphone or tablet) that show you data within its panel, such as weather information, stock quotes, or social networking notifications. So these tend to display better as rectangles.

3. Full-screen lock-in
Apps specifically designed for the Metro UI are displayed full-screen. You can’t re-size or minimize the running program -- thus, a little ironically, Windows 8 is starting to move away from the windowing GUI concept. For tablets and smart TVs, we can understand the full-screen mode requirement, which helps simplify things and ensures the user’s focus on the immediate program at hand. However, under a traditional desktop/notebook setup, this can feel constraining.

4. Two multitasking environments can get confusing
Because of the full-screen mode of the Metro UI, there’s a new multi-task switcher for jumping between two or more apps/programs. You point to the upper-left corner of the Metro Start panel, or Metro app, and a sidebar opens on the left side of the screen which shows thumbnails of all the active programs running under Metro. Click a thumbnail to jump to the program. Under a desktop/notebook setup, we don’t feel this works as an effective way to move among programs quickly, and to keep your eye on open, running programs at a glance.

Now here’s where things can get confusing: Multitasking under the “classic” Desktop mode not only works the traditional way, it and the Metro multi-task switcher work independently of one another.

5. Too much side-swiping
It looks like Microsoft in recent years has developed a fixation on designing UIs where the user has to do a lot of swiping side-to-side. The Start Metro panel in its default setting is laid out unnecessarily in a wide horizontal fashion, with an emphasis on rectangles over squares.

Using Windows 8 with a mouse or touchpad to scroll horizontally as frequently as you may need to in the Start Metro panel can become a chore on your wrists and fingers. The Windows 8 Store is especially afflicted by The Swipes -- it feels like you have to swipe through the equivalent of a couple of feet in order to go through the entire length of the store’s layout.

6. Synching questions
With the emphasis on Windows 8 serving as an OS for tablets, too, there are now a slew of syncing options in it. The next version of Windows could open a new set of privacy holes, as well as drain system resources while having to keep data across several programs in sync across your devices and with the cloud. To make things easier for the user, Microsoft may need to devise a series of syncing presets (e.g. “minimal” could be designated to sync only your web browser, email and messaging settings).

7. Game room or board room?
We understand and cannot fault Microsoft for wanting to push their services through the Start Metro panel. That said, the prominence of the Xbox brand as two Metro apps in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview strikes us as a little curious, when there is no placing given to those that are “more professional” -- for example, Office 365, Microsoft’s web app version of Office seems like it would not look out of place here. The presence of these Xbox apps seems to hint that Microsoft may be wanting to angle Windows 8 more as a casual computing platform, like for the living-room smart TV, than for the world of business, enterprise, home office.

8. Is Win 8 a desktop OS?
Or a tablet/touchscreen OS? In the desktop/notebook computer environment, Windows 8 asks the user to compromise on the various, convenient ways by which they interacted with programs on prior versions of Windows. The ultimate question: Is this primarily a desktop/notebook OS, or meant for tablets and other touchscreen devices? Microsoft wants to have it both ways by making Windows 8 pull double duty through the Start Metro UI, but the result at this point has a wishy-washy feel for the traditional desktop/notebook platform.

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Windows 8 wants developers to fall into Metro lockstep

A unified approach to applications will make things easier on users

microsoft message to apps developers: Fit into the Metro style of Windows 8 to make things easier on end users, according to two developers.

Microsoft is trying to change users' expectations about applications in general by creating an environment that remains similar app to app, according to the developers, and that means complying with Metro style and tapping into features grounded in the operating system itself.

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Dictionary.com, which has written a Windows 8 application for its search service, uses the Windows 8 Search charm -- an icon -- that appears on the right side of the screen. That way users who want to make a search of the machine don't have to call up the application and execute a separate search command, says David Wygant, vice president of product and general manager of mobile at Dictionary.com.

Similarly, salespeople go to the same Search charm when they want to look for a given customer's data in a custom CRM application that has been written by Sonoma Partners for one of its clients.

Over time users will learn that the search charm is where to look for the search function when they are on a Windows 8 machine, regardless of what application they want to search with so long as all developers follow Microsoft's suggestions, Wygant says. He calls this overarching search feature "persistent search."

Dictionary.com wrote its application at Microsoft's request and it is one of the apps available for free download when users download Windows 8 Consumer Preview. It was written with input from Microsoft on how the application should look and be navigated to fit in with the overall Windows 8 user interface, Wygant says.

Microsoft is promoting a global design standard for Metro-style apps so users will feel comfortable on Windows 8 machines regardless of what application they are using and no matter whether they have used it before. Functions specific to applications should reside in an application bar across the bottom of the screen that remains hidden until a finger swipe calls it up. In the Dictionary.com application that includes a verbal pronunciation of words, favorites and pinning.

Having such features located in the same place application to application makes learning new ones faster, Wygant says.

His company's application also makes use of Live Tiles, a Windows 8 feature that places a tile -- a colored square or rectangle -- on the computer's Start screen. It is said to be live because it displays dynamic content, such as Dictionary.com's word of the day. Users touch the tile to access the full application. "Live tiles let you consume part of the application without opening up the application," he says.

The Metro style strips away the chrome from applications, chrome being a term for the graphic decorations that can clutter a screen. "Dictionary is about words, content," Wygant says. "That's appealing for us. The user double-taps on a word within a definition, and it will look up the definition of that word without additional navigation."

Microsoft approached Dictionary.com in December 2011 to produce an application for Windows 8, and the company delivered it in January, a rapid turnaround time for one of its apps, Wygant says. Microsoft loaned Dictionary.com a Windows 8 touchscreen tablet to help in the process, but the company has been using the application on an iPad via Parallels and on PCs with a mouse and keyboard.

Wyant recommends picking the right programming language for the application being written. He says a graphics-heavy or processor-intensive app would better be written in C# than Java Script. Java Script works great for apps like Dictionary.com, but he would use C3 if he were writing a game.

As for the other application developer, Sonoma Partners, its application was written for a beer maker that has decided already to turn its mobile CRM application over to Windows 8 tablets. New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colo., is a Microsoft shop and sticking with Windows for its mobile devices fits with the IT department's expertise.

The brewers had tried a generic CRM mobile app for cellphones, but the app was so unwieldy that the 100-person salesforce -- called beer rangers -- didn't use it, says Jim Steger, a principal with Sonoma Partners. A slate proved too big, but a tablet the size of an iPad is about right, he says.

After riding around with beer rangers, his team got a good idea of what they wanted the application to do and wrote it up. The rangers need to tap into sales databases, check call schedules, enter survey information and drop orders into the backend workflow system.

The application is also hooked into the device's GPS so it can advise when a beer ranger is within driving distance of a prospective customer.

New Belgium's application, called Ultimate Beer Ranger, uses the Windows 8 Share charm to post entries to Facebook accounts the rangers have set up. They don't have to actually access Facebook, just enter the post and press a tile, Steger says. The app uses the Search charm as well to search CRM data.

It's still up in the air whether custom applications like Ultimate Beer Ranger will be allowed on Windows on ARM (WOA) devices, Steger says. Microsoft has said WOA machines will be maintained via Windows Update and will support applications only from Windows Store.

But having to put custom proprietary apps in the store would stymie development, he says. He wouldn't want to post such applications where they could be reviewed by competitors. He's told Microsoft about his concerns and he expects the company to address them by the time Windows 8 and WOA tablets are available, possibly sometime early next year.

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