This week at Microsoft: IE9, spam, and Metro expansion

Due to some odd intergalactic worm-tunneling, Friday is here yet again, and that means that it is time to take a stern glance back at the last seven days of Microsoft news.

For our weekly question, TNWmicrosoft wants to know what kind of MSFT news is your favorite variety. Are you are a WP7 devotee? A Windows Server fanatic? A Silverlight developer? Sound off in the comments.

Be sure and follow us on Twitter. Now, let’s get into the news:

IE9 Cometh

Microsoft’s new browser, Internet Explorer 9, has finally launched. After an extensive beta and RC period, the new web browsing application dropped on the world right on time. Sadly, Microsoft decided to throw a launch party for its release, but hosted it hours before the actual download links were live. It was a dull do.

That aside, the browser racked up over 2.3 million downloads in its first 24 hours on the market, a respectable tally. Nothing on Firefox of course, but still, not bad.

Microsoft has big plans however, with the browser set to roll out to the world on the 21st of March as part of a Windows Update. In other words, IE9 is about to go massive, and fast. We have been testing IE9 since it was released and have yet to have any problems. The tabs are still in the wrong location, but aside from that Microsoft has managed to build a usable browser for the first time in what feels like a decade.

You can download IE9 here.

No More Spam

Did you know that Microsoft has a Digital Crimes Unit? We didn’t until news broke that that group brought down one of the most fearsome botnets in the world. Infected machines were slinging up to a quarter million spam emails a day apiece.

How many computers were involved? Somewhere near one million, meaning that when the botnet, called Rustock, was stopped, it shut down the sending of around 240 billion spam notes daily. Some 95% of all spam is generated from botnets, and 41% of which was coming from Rustock.

If you can do the math, that means that Microsoft killed 39% of the world’s spam, at least for now.

Microsoft.com goes all Metro

Microsoft.com’s new homepage design was finally released to the world. Bearing the latest and greatest in MSFT design, the ‘Metro’ ethos, it greatly improved the website.

But who visits Microsoft.com, right? Well, as it turns out, it is a top 30 website in both the US and the world, so many, many people do. Go check it out.

Windows Server Updates

We mentioned Windows Server at the top of this post because, as it turns out, there are legion fans for the software line in the world. We assumed that there was as much interest in the products as they are interesting: little.

We were wrong. That in mind, here are the important new Windows Server bits from the week. Enjoy, we need coffee:

Small Business Server on sale now:

• Despite RTMing in December, Small Business Server is now on sale through most retail channels. It’s going to run you over a grand. Small Business Essentials is not yet complete.

Windows Home Server inches from completion:

• Rise and shine Home Server fans, Vail is almost done. In fact, it is set to RTM in just a few days. That means that it should be coming to market damn soon.

That is all for this week, be sure to follow us on Twitter to keep up with the news as it happens.