The program was unveiled today and will go into effect immediately. The first of its kind, Internet Fraud Alert represents an important step forward in fighting online fraud. It will serve the much-needed purpose of enabling security researchers and investigators to more securely and systematically share information with service providers, retailers, financial institutions and government entities about incidents where compromised account credentials have been discovered. To date, when the security community uncovers compromised credentials stemming from phishing attacks, for example, there has been no simple mechanism to warn the service provider or bank about the exposed credentials.

Phishing and malicious code attacks pose a serious threat to consumer identity and account credentials. In 2009, the Anti-Phishing Working Group received more than 410,000 unique phishing e-mail reports, and recent data from the group show that the number of brands being exploited by phishers is at an all-time high.

Internet Fraud Alert will bring together a wide assortment of stakeholders, including retailers, financial institutions, service providers, technology companies, academic researchers, consumer advocates and government agencies, in the shared interest of reducing online fraud and protecting consumers. As the technology creator and sponsor, Microsoft is donating the tool to the NCFTA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to facilitating public-private partnerships between industry, law enforcement and academia on cybersecurity issues. Accuity, a leading provider of global payment routing data, has donated a solution to assist NCFTA with the vetting of trusted institutions for participation in the program to help ensure the integrity of the alerting process.

“By taming the overflow of information across systems and technologies, SharePoint enables organizations to thrive,” Ballmer said. “SharePoint 2010 is the biggest and most important release of SharePoint to date. When paired with Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 will transform efficiency by connecting workers across a single collaboration platform for business.”

During his keynote address, Ballmer talked broadly about SharePoint Server as a business collaboration platform and highlighted three key areas. One was how organizations can respond quickly to business needs with an improved developer platform that makes it easier to build rich content and collaboration applications. Another topic was the enhanced Internet site capabilities that help businesses drive revenue and retain customers on a single platform. The third was the choice and flexibility between on-premises and cloud solutions. At the event, Microsoft showcased the breadth of SharePoint Server 2010 that ranges from wikis to workflows, while Ballmer’s keynote address highlighted features and capabilities such as these:

The addition of two new SharePoint SKUs for Internet-facing sites, including an on-premises and hosted offer
“In today’s economy, controlling costs and expenses is essential,” said David Glenn, director of Enterprise Operations at Del Monte Foods Co. “However, we still have the requirement to make sure our employees, customers and partners can get the information they need to be productive, no matter where they are. SharePoint 2010 is going to allow us to do that more effectively.”

New SharePoint tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, giving developers a premier experience with the tools they know and trust
Business Connectivity Services, which allow developers to connect capabilities to line-of-business data or Web services in SharePoint Server and the Office client
Rich APIs and support for Silverlight, representational state transfer (REST) and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ), to help developers rapidly build applications on the SharePoint platform

Enterprise features in SharePoint Online such as Excel Services and InfoPath Forms Services, which make it simple to use, share, secure and manage interactive forms across an organization

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is part of the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products, which includes Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Visio 2010, that are designed to give people the best productivity experience across PCs, phones and browsers.

Availability
The public betas of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Office 2010, Project 2010 and Visio 2010 will become available in November 2009; more information is available at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9689707.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 will be available in the first half of 2010. More information about Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

This information is about pre-release software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of Go Daddy remarked, ”Go Daddy is all about doing things easily and affordabl. That’s why we’ve joined the Microsoft BizSpark program as a Hosting Partner. It’s just one more way we can provide Internet entrepreneurs a simple, cost-effective solution to their registration, hosting and SSL cert needs.”

The announcement of Go Daddy’s participation in this international program was made today during Microsoft’s keynote address at the MIX09 conference for web designers and developers in Las Vegas, Nevada.

BizSpark is a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage start-ups by providing them with three critical needs – software, support and visibility – throughout a company’s first three years in operation when these tools are the most valuable and least affordable.

GoDaddy itself was an Internet start-up just a decade ago. Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons charged ahead with his entrepreneurial ideas in the midst of the dotCOM bust. Now, Go Daddy is a world leader in Web access, with more than 6.4 million customers and 34 million domains under management.

Mr. Parsons believes the Internet will soon be seen as the saving grace of a new global economy and encourages entrepreneurs to seek out new opportunities like the BizSpark program as a way to launch their ideas in tough economic times.

As a BizSpark Hosting Partner, Go Daddy will offer BizSpark members a wide range of essential applications and services including domain registration, hosting and SSL certificates for an extremely affordable price. Go Daddy will be the first Microsoft BizSpark Hosting Partner to provide member start-ups with this combination of services. In addition, these new companies will have access to Go Daddy’s industry-best personalized customer service 24/7/365.

Dan Lewin, corporate vice president of Strategic and Emerging Business Development at Microsoft Corp. remarked, ”We are excited to have Go Daddy as a Hosting Partner for the Microsoft BizSpark program. Go Daddy’s excellence in hosting services combined with Microsoft’s software platform provides start-ups with a unique opportunity to grow their businesses.”

In the BizSpark program, a start-up can download free Microsoft software for development, test and demonstration purposes and use Microsoft software hosted ”production licenses” free of charge for up to three years. For an online start-up to participate in the BizSpark program, it must be privately owned, in business less than 3 years and grossing less than $1MM.

In the coming months, both Microsoft BizSpark and Go Daddy will detail more about how to participate in this venture on their respective Web sites.

GoDaddy is a provider of services designed to enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. GoDaddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The GoDaddy Group, Inc. has more than 34 million domain names under management. GoDaddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world’s No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also the largest paid hosting provider in the world, according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2007, The GoDaddy Group registered more than one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.