REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 21, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced a set of broad-reaching changes to its technology and business practices to increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors.
Specifically, Microsoft is implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across its high-volume business products: (1) ensuring open connections; (2) promoting data portability; (3) enhancing support for industry standards; and (4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.
"Ensuring open connections to Microsoft’s high-volume products. To enhance connections with third-party products, Microsoft will publish on its Web site documentation for all application programming interfaces (APIs) and communications protocols in its high-volume products that are used by other Microsoft products. Developers do not need to take a license or pay a royalty or other fee to access this information. Open access to this documentation will ensure that third-party developers can connect to Microsoft’s high-volume products just as Microsoft’s other products do. "
"Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products."
More after the jump, direct from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-21ExpandInteroperabilityPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this and explain if it means any positive news for our Windows Mobile devices. They aren't high-volume devices according to the press release, and they didn't specifically mention them, but they are opening up the APIs for Exchange Server. Will that help in making apps for our XDAs? Interesting read anyways.
Here's my take.
There are two reasons for doing this.
First, as the world business climate changes and MS grows, antitrust issues are not going away. With a high probability of a democratic presidency, you can pretty well plan on more probes into MS business practices. EU regulators have already stated that they are going to be watching this one closely. Open architecture would place MS in a better position to defend themselves.
Second, "open" increases dependency. If you are a developer and you build your tools around the "open" MS architecture, where are you going to send your customers to buy base applications? In theory this would increase the number of units sold (breadth) but not increase the number of functions provided (depth). The net impact would be a much more stable revenue base for MS and not an "all or nothing" approach. Remember, Microsoft does not do ANYTHING that they do not believe contributes to their long term viability or profitability.
Related
Location: Woodinville, WA
Divison: Consumer Products
Direct Report: TBD
Employment Type: Salaried; Exempt
Qualifications & Experience
5+ years of relevant experience in software development, information systems or equivalent technical environment; minimum 1-year experience in development utilizing Android SDK; iOS and/or WP7 a plus.
Proven experience delivering successful software, including customer-facing mobile applications, preferably game apps currently available via Google Play, Xbox LIVE and/or the App Store.
Solid understanding of in-app analytics and PII best practices.
BA/BS in Computer Science or related field preferred; Interactive Design a plus.
Skills & Traits
Passion for app development, focus on UX/UI, strong project management skills and attention to detail are required.
Proficiency in Java, Android SDK frameworks, XML, web-service technologies, emerging web standards (i.e., HTML 5), analytics tools (i.e., Omniture, Google Analytics).
Ability to plan, drive and complete projects. A thinker and a doer.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Strong problem solving abilities including an ability to influence internal stakeholders.
Ability to take initiative and demonstrate leadership.
Desire to work hard, learn fast, generate ideas and make things happen the best way in a changing environment. Willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Professional disposition/appearance, and positive attitude and outlook.
Excellent interpersonal and relationship building skills.
Interest in video games a plus.
Duties & Responsibilities
Develop mobile applications for BDA’s Consumer Products division, creating simple interactions for complex functionality.
Work with supervisor and co-workers to prioritize projects, app features and deliverable timelines for maximum business impact.
Manage requirements, documentation, testing and participate in troubleshooting efforts within a highly matrixed organization.
Work with supervisor and creative staff/contractors to drive the process of UI design, apply user tests, specify user flows/screens and direct graphical design within the framework of BDA’s consumer brands, owning the day-to-day execution in the form of design comp reviews, functional reviews with development teams, and presentations to internal stakeholders.
Serve as company-wide mobile app subject matter expert (SME).
Coordinate content delivery with BDA’s consumer packaging teams and websites, including PowerA.com and MUNITIO.com.
Participate in creative brainstorm meetings to provide input for fresh, new ideas, vision and project direction.
Develop and maintain an effective, positive working relationship with other BDA teams and individuals.
Additional marketing responsibilities as assigned by supervisor.
Occasional weekend and evening hours required.
Contact
Melissa
Only local canidates or persons willing to relcoate will be considered (no relocation fee will be paid).
i don't think this is a right section..?
Please read THIS if you would like your job advertised on xda
This is relevant to the Job Board forum
NCIT Solutions provides offshore IT, web design, software programming services for clients in the US and worldwide, with offshore prices and the best quality.
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WE DO ALL TYPES OF SOFTWARE/WEB DESIGN WORK AT THE LOWEST GUARANTEED PRICE
Liferay Portal would be the best way to create a Web-site allowing your users to sign up, collaborate, create communities and communicate, ensuring security while featuring unique functionality and design. The solution is designed to be installed on your own server as well as in the cloud.
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Being open source and simple-to-use, it is a fully-ready business solution. Liferay is written on Java which ensures high level of security and support for standard Java-portlets for enterprise portals. You can configure it the way you like to meet specific requirements of your company as well as develop your own modules and integrate with other business applications. Liferay supports Google Gadgets by default and makes it possible to work with it right from MS Office applications.
There are many Mobile application development platforms available in the market; but which one you should choose and to which platform you would give priority?
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If we discuss about today’s desktop application developers, they basically have three platforms to look over: Windows, MAC and Linux. What's more, that being said, there are often approaches to make software composed for one platform which keep running on the others. Similar to this mobile app developers also have choices to select the platform as per their prerequisite from iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry. They can also utilize cross platform tools to build up applications.
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Most customers need to convey native apps, on both iOS and Android. By focusing on both the platforms you will be, apparently, success the entire Smartphone market. Thus, assuming budget is not a restricting component, it bodes well to handle iOS and Android together. If the application is a prototype app we would like to suggest Android platform to begin with, because there is no approval process with the Android App Store; this is absolutely a major advantage to Android if you are in a competition of market.
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Before picking a Mobile Application Development Platform, get your work done. Think twice what decisions you have made. Look at how strong is the platform’s development surroundings? What number of handsets is accessible and what elements do they offer? Also check out Cloud adaptability, analytics and communication services, native, web or Hybrid, developer tools and resources Etc.
So now that these exploits for Android and iPhone are out in the wild, will developers patch them?
Would like to know everyone's thoughts.
For those who aren't up to speed on the news report today here is the press release and relevant info:
Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
"Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thoughts? Concerns?
I can't post outside links yet, but if you want the full information, you can search "wikileaks press release vault 7" on google and see the press release and search the information database and exploits. Basically exploits are out in the wild that compromise your android phone completely rendering them completely insecure and giving zero privacy.