Technology

Microsoft sells hardware such as computers, xbox, xbox 360, and the mp3 zune. Microsoft sells labtops and notebooks as well as desktop computers to consumers. The operating software systems used and sold by the company consist of windows based such as microsoft windows xp home, microsoft windows xp pro, microsfot windows vista and access. SUSE Linux is envolved with Microsoft making the company SUSE Linux's biggest reseller. Microsoft uses a bunch of different application softeware with their programs, such as anti-virus software which detects and removes viruses. They have unistaller software this you can use to remove software from your hard disk that you no longer want. Microsoft consists of applications like wordprocessors, spreadsheets, media players and database applications. The man responsible for our software and hardware is Steven Sinofsky he is the senior Vice President of the Windows engineering group. Server and Tools concentrates on licensing products, applications, tools, content, and services that are designed to make information technology professionals and developers more productive and efficient. Server and Tools offerings consist of server software licenses and client access licenses (“CAL”) for Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and other server products. We also offer developer tools, training, certification, Microsoft Press, Premier and Professional product support services, and Microsoft Consulting Services. Server products can be run on-site, in a hosted environment, or in a Web-based environment. We use multiple channels for licensing, including pre-installed OEM versions, licenses through partners, and licenses directly to end customers. We sell licenses both as one-time licenses and as multi-year volume licenses.

Data Mining and OLAP

Microsoft Corp. is using data mining techniques from Digital Resolve Inc. in its Internet browsers to guard against so-called phishing attacks, in which dubious Web sites try to harvest personal information from unknowing victims. The technology focuses heavily on the Web sites of financial companies and e-commerce sites. It looks at 39 characteristics of a site, including IP address, location, domain and the Internet service provider, said Dennis Maicon, Digital Resolve's vice president for financial services solutions. It also checks how long a particular domain is valid based on its registration information.

Many organizations analyze their business-critaical data using OLAP technology. "OLAP-based data mining provides a way to query multidimensional data sets and drill down into the data to find patterns". Microsoft Office Web Components enable Web-based OLAP reporting. This includes PivotTable and Chart components that can be embedded in a Web page and scripted by many programmers.

Data Marts

"Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 tools used for a data mart may include any of the tools used for data warehouses depending on how the data mart is designed. If the data mart is created and maintained locally and participates in the organization's data warehouse as an independent contributor, its creation and maintenance will involve all the operations of a data warehouse. If the data mart is a local access point for data distributed from a central data warehouse, only a subset of the tools may be involved."

Technology and DataBases

"The Microsoft Jet Database Engine is a database engine on which several Microsoft products were built. JET stands for Joint Engine Technology, sometimes being referred to as Microsoft JET Engine or simply Jet. Microsoft Access and Visual Basic use or have used Jet as their underlying database engine." The Jet database over teh years has become almsot synonymous with Microsoft Access. So much so that some people mistakenly call it "Access database".

Link

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Windows+Mobile/Zune/news.asp?c=12718



http://www.pcworld.com/article/163114/is_microsoft_still_trying_to_challenge_the_ipod.html

Summary

"Information technology becomes a strategic asset when it makes the entire business adaptive and ready for change by connecting people, process, and information in a way that drives results. How we measure results of investments is important because the continuous improvement of any function requires a clear way of measuring performance against goals. The strategic value of IT therefore becomes clearer when we move away from the industrial-age metrics and toward a more holistic assessment of “return on knowledge.” " Microsoft Business Insights.

E-Business

Microsoft uses two ways of e-commerce really well. Business to Business when they are trying to expand their company and business to consumer as when they are selling their products to consumers such has pc and xbox.
Online Services Business (“OSB”) consists of an online advertising platform with offerings for both publishers and advertisers, personal communications services such as email and instant messaging, online information offerings such as Live Search, and the MSN portals and channels around the world.
Microsoft adpoted search engine for their marketing mix. The five reasons for microsoft adopted this concept is that it is user driven, measurable, cost effecttive, it get results, and the messaging system that you use for it. With it being user driven this makes it easy and effective way to reach your customersat the time they are searching for your offerings. It is measurable by it enabling you to directly correlate your cost per click to sales leads. Search engines are cost effective in the sense that you can establish your pay per click budget and only pay for clicks made to your ads. The messaging on search engines are good because keywords and add messages can constantly be tested and improved. Lastly 68% of business find paid seach engines to be a success.
Microsoft has received a patent detailing a new cost structure and purchasing procedure for PCs; just pay for whatever you use, as long as you use it. To support a pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being performed. An administrator may use a similar user interface to set performance levels for each computer in a network, allowing performance and cost to be set according to a user's requirements. This system is basically like a financial cybermediary since the customer is not using any electronic checks or using a smart card for purchases.