Microsoft apparently held a media roundtable Monday night after its Xbox press event, confirming that it will eventually phase out its existing models in favor of the new “slim” model.

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My colleague Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat reported:

“The new Xbox 360 with a 250-gigabyte hard drive and the smaller black design will sell for $299,” Takahashi wrote. “The older Xbox 360 Elite console with a 120-gigabyte hard drive will sell for $249. And the Xbox 360 Arcade console, which does not have a hard drive, will sell for $149. The Elite and Arcade consoles will be sold until existing
Microsoft has not said if it will release versions of the Elite or Arcade models with the new design. The latest Xbox costs $299, and will be available this week.

To date, Microsoft still has not released a price for the Xbox Kinect peripheral; Aaron Greenberg, an Xbox product manager, denied reports that the Kinect’s price had been set. Gamestop reportedly posted a Web page claiming that it would be priced at $149.

“No Kinect price announced yet, retail price estimates are purely speculative, final price & pack-in details are not yet determined,” Greenberg tweeted.

Microsoft’s own official Twitter account, however, has revealed that Kinect will go on sale on Nov. 4, backed by 16 launch titles. Microsoft will begin selling the new slim Xbox in Europe on July 16.

German antivirus test lab AV-Test.org started a new series of tests this August aimed at certifying antivirus products for use on specific operating systems. The August test used Windows 7 while a just-completed test challenged the same vendors under Windows XP SP2. A comparison of results from the two tests reveals some surprising disparities in protection.

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Researchers rated each product on protection, repair, and usability. “Protection” encompasses both static and dynamic malware detection, including zero-day attacks; while “repair” refers to the product’s ability to remediate malware infestation and remove rootkits. The “usability” assessment includes a rating of the product’s effect on system performance and any false positives. Each test used the most recent products, meaning that some products changed version between or during the tests.

Products received a rating from 0 to 6 in each of the three categories, with a total score of 12 points required for certification. Click on the link below to see comparative results from both tests.

Antivirus product ratings from AV-Test.org

Quite a few products scored significantly lower under Windows XP than they did under Windows 7. For Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 that meant the difference between achieving certification and missing that goal. The fact that many of these products upgraded to a newer version before or during the XP-based test didn’t seem to help them.

On the flip side, PC Tools scored significantly better under the Windows XP test. Trend Micro has significantly updated their protection, but both of these tests used last year’s Trend Micro suite. This product was much more successful under XP, so much so that it received certification for XP but not for Windows 7.

Kaspersky, Panda, and Norton Internet Security 2011 shared the top score in the Windows 7 test, each with a total of 16 points and no score below 5. Only Norton stayed on top in the Windows XP test. Kaspersky’s total dropped to 14 points and Panda’s to 13. F-Secure stayed totally consistent, receiving the exact same scores in both tests for a near-the-top total of 15.5 points.

It seems clear from these results that Windows XP is more vulnerable to malware attack than Windows 7 and hence more difficult to protect. PCMag’s own testing regimen for antivirus programs uses Windows XP exclusively, both because it’s more vulnerable and because the numerous virtual machines involved can be much smaller when Windows XP is the operating system. If you’re still using Windows XP, check the chart above to make sure you’ve got appropriate security protection.

Microsoft on Monday defended its Silverlight strategy, and stressed that the product is “very important and strategic” to the company.

The comments, from Bob Muglia, president of the server and tools division at Microsoft, came after an interview he did with ZDNet in which he said Microsoft’s Silverlight strategy has shifted.

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Silverlight will continue to be a cross-platform solution, “but HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform,” Muglia told ZDNet.

In a response blog post, Muglia said that his interview was accurately reported, but he acknowledged that some of his comments “surprised people and caused controversy and confusion.”

“As this certainly wasn’t my intent, I want to apologize for that,” Muglia wrote. He stressed that Silverlight is still a top priority for Microsoft and that the company is working hard on the next release. “It will continue to be cross-browser and cross-platform, and run on Windows and Mac,” he wrote.

“Silverlight is a core application development platform for Windows, and it’s the development platform for Windows Phone,” he continued. “We haven’t yet publically announced a launch date for the next release of Silverlight, but we’ll talk more about it in the coming months.”

Muglia admitted that the Silverlight strategy and focus has indeed shifted, but said “this isn’t a negative statement, but rather, it’s a comment on how the industry has changed and how we’re adapting our Silverlight strategy to take advantage of that.”

Going forward, Microsoft will focus its Silverlight development around key trends, like enterprise app development, touch input and embedded devices, HD studio-quality content, and the expansion of Internet-connected devices, Muglia said.

Silverlight 4 made its debut in April. Last week, Microsoft released some updates for that version, which included improvements to WCF RIA Services, as well as the new Portable Library project, which will make it easier to share assemblies across SL Desktop, SL Phone, WPF and .NET on the server, Muglia said.

Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled Office 365, a solution that integrates Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online in an always up-to-date cloud service.

Office 365 is being targeted to Microsoft’s sweet spot market; the SMB. In particular, to small businesses that may not have the resources (or interest) in maintaining on-premise Exchange and SharePoint environments. Microsoft’s banking on the attraction of not having to keep up with mundane, time-sucking tasks like server patching and updating as well as on what its touting as “Agile IT” -24-7 support from engineers in the cloud.

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“Who better to support Exchange Server, than Microsoft?” Microsoft said during the webcast of today’s announcement.

Office 365 will be available in two editions; for small businesses and for enterprises. Office 365 for small business is targeted to organizations with fewer than 25 employees and delivers Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online plus an external Web site to subscribers. Cost will be $6 per user, per month.

Office 365 for enterprises includes the option to get Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software on a pay-as-you-go basis. Additional features include e-mail, voicemail, enterprise social networking, instant messaging, Web portals, extranets, voice and video conferencing, webconferencing and 24-7 support. Prices range from $2 to $24 per user, per month, although volume pricing will also be available, said per Chris Capossela, senior vice president in the Microsoft Office Division.

The push to deliver comprehensive cloud services is quite a leap from the rather limited Office Web Apps and Office Live offerings. Microsoft is going whole hog here and the comparisons to Google Apps Premier and other Google services will be inevitable. Even Microsoft seemed to take a thinly veiled jab at Google today. Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office Division, said “there is no learning curve” with Office 365 because it’s the “same Microsoft Office we all know and love,” obviously referring to how extensive a presence Microsoft Office has in corporate culture.

And he may be right. Microsoft is taking its most successful and most widely used offerings: Office, Exchange, and SharePoint to the cloud and turning what has always been a license-based sales model to a subscription-based one. It’s in tune with the times and yes, business customers will flock to it simply because its software with which they are familiar, no matter if it resides locally or in the cloud.

Office 365 can be serious competition for Google, provided a few givens. One, that the user experience Office 365 delivers is a rich and high-fidelity one. It can’t be “Office/Exchange/SharePoint Light”; it’s got to have the robustness of the on-prem versions of those products and it can’t be a solution that still requires users to be tethered to a desktop edition of Office for full functionality. Second, availability and support is a must. That means little to no downtimes and technicians that are available 24-7 are all part of the monthly subscriptions. Microsoft’s technical support is notoriously expensive outside of the support time that comes with purchase of a new product.

Office 365 will be available globally, next year. Beginning today, Microsoft will begin beta testing with a few thousand organizations worldwide. On the roadmap is availability in 40 countries and regions next year, integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM online, and a third edition, Office 365 for education.

The Major has spoken.
Major Nelson, the gamertag for Microsoft Xbox Live’s programming director Larry Hryb, announced “a major facelift” happening at Xbox.com today.

Chief among these is a browser-based avatar editor where you can edit and preview your avatar before purchase.

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But so far, that’s all you’ll see. According to a recent tweet from Hryb, “Xbox.com update is NOT quite done yet but you should be able to sneak in and try the new Web-based Avatar Editor.”

Other expected new features include a single interface to view messages, friend and game requests, an upgrade on Xbox Marketplace, games on Windows Phone 7, and new family settings to control what images appear on the dashboard.

Family-friendly controls may have prompted Oprah to surprise her audience members with free Xbox Kinects yesterday.

You can preview a mockup of the Xbox update on Flickr.

Microsoft announced plans for an Xbox Live revamp last month. For more details, see PCMag’s hands on with the overhauled system.

Microsoft on Tuesday took the beta tags off its latest office suite and formally unveiled Office 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010.

The product is now available at 35,000 retail stores like Best Buy or online at Amazon.com, and can also be purchased pre-loaded on a variety of PCs.

For more, see PCMag’s full review of Office 2010

“Working with major retail partners and PC makers, we’ve made dramatic changes in the way we deliver Office 2010 to give consumers more buying choice, making it easier than ever to unlock the power of Office on new and existing PCs,” Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s Business Division, said in a statement. “For the first time, people can purchase a Product Key Card at retail to activate Office 2010 preloaded on new PCs. For those who want to download Office 2010 direct from Office.com for an existing PC, the new Click-to-Run technology will have them up and running in a matter of minutes.”
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Office-Installation Options
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Added features include new video and editing options in PowerPoint, updated text effects and table formatting in Word, advanced e-mail management and calendaring options in Outlook, co-authoring options in Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote, and a Web-based option via Office Web Apps.

Microsoft released Office Web Apps on SkyDrive for users in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, and Canada last week. It is available on office.live.com, where users can view, edit, and share Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents from the browser. For more, read PCMag’s full review of Microsoft Office Web Apps.

Office 2010 is being released in 10 languages, which will eventually expand to 94.

How much will it set you back? Office Home and Student 2010 – which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote – will cost $149.99. Office Home and Business, which also includes Outlook, will retail for $279.99. Office Professional 2010, meanwhile, which also incorporates Publisher and Access, will cost $499.99.

You can opt to download the program directly to your PC, download and purchase a backup disc for $14.95, or purchase the physical software.

Microsoft released a beta version of Office 2010 in late 2009, and that program has since been downloaded more than 9 million times, the company said Tuesday. That’s more than six times the size of the 2007 Microsoft Office beta release.

“Following the great response to the Office 2010 beta and the success of Windows 7, we predict this will be the biggest consumer release of Office, ever,” Elop said.

For more information on Office 2010, see PCMag’s extensive coverage of the product: