Gates Microsoft going independent way: related news

Gates: Microsoft going 'independent' way

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday the company isn't pursuing other deals following the withdrawal of its US$47.5 billion (euro30.7 billion) takeover bid for Yahoo.

Microsoft Downplaying Recent DNS Vulnerability

Microsoft Watch writes "Microsoft downplays a recent DNS vulnerability in all Microsoft operating systems (XP, Vista, 2000, and 2003), claims Amit Klein, the security researcher who published the original vulnerability description (PDF) earlier this month. According to Klein, the description in Microsoft's Secure Windows Initiative blog entry is misleading, contains disinformation about the DNS transaction ID algorithm, and downplays the severity of the issue. Klein refutes Microsoft's claim that there is no way to reproduce the next transaction ID, given a series of observed transaction IDs. He shows that this is possible in his paper, which Microsoft had before publishing the SWI post, as well as on the series of data provided in the SWI blog itself.

Novell's 2004 Case Against Microsoft Moves Forward

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Novell's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft for destroying the market for WordPerfect and QuattroPro can now move forward. The Supreme Court denied certiorari to Microsoft's appeal of an appeals court ruling, which is the fancy legal way of saying they ignored Microsoft's appeal and let the previous ruling stand. Novell's complaint is an interesting read, because some of this sounds quite familiar, given how Microsoft is now forcing the standardization of OOXML. Statements like, 'As Microsoft knew, a truly standard file format that was open to all ISVs would have enhanced competition in the market for word processing applications, because such a standard allows the exchange of text files between different word processing applications used by different customers,' and 'Microsoft made other inf

Microsoft Announces Expansion of Microsoft Online Services to All Businesses

From the annual Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., will announce that the company will offer Microsoft Online Services to businesses of all sizes. Microsoft also announced availability of a limited beta trial for the new services.

Microsoft to Expand Microsoft Online Services for Businesses...

Monday from the annual Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., will announce that the company will offer Microsoft Online Services to businesses of all sizes. This announcement marks a significant step for Microsoft toward expanding its software plus services strategy.

Microsoft Online Services coming for all businesses

Recently, Microsoft has been aggressively pushing its software as online services for individuals, but even more so for businesses. In late September, Microsoft announced the worldwide availability of Microsoft Online Services for businesses with more than 5,000 users. At the annual Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference, Bill Gates noted that the company will begin to offer Microsoft Online Services to any sized business in the second half of the year:

Microsoft told to pay $367M over patents

SEATTLE (AP) - A jury ordered Microsoft Corp. on Friday to pay $367.4 million to Alcatel-Lucent for infringing on two patents, a decision the software maker vowed to appeal. The U.S. District Court jury in San Diego found that handwriting recognition technology in Microsoft's Tablet PC operating system infringed on pattern recognition patents held by Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent. The jury also decided that some of Microsoft's programs, including the Outlook e-mail application and the Windows Mobile operating system, infringed on an Alcatel-Lucent patent in the way users select calendar dates from a menu. "We do not believe the jury's verdict against Microsoft on the two user interface patents is supported by the facts or the law," said Tom Burt, a deputy general counsel at Microsoft, in a statement.

Microsoft to appeal $367M patent ruling

SEATTLE (AP) - A jury on Friday ordered Microsoft Corp. to pay $367.4 million to Alcatel-Lucent for infringing on two patents, a decision the software maker vowed to appeal. The U.S. District Court jury in San Diego found that handwriting recognition technology in Microsoft's Tablet PC operating system infringed on pattern recognition patents held by Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent. The jury also decided that some of Microsoft's programs, including the Outlook e-mail application and the Windows Mobile operating system, infringed on an Alcatel-Lucent patent in the way users select calendar dates from a menu. "We do not believe the jury's verdict against Microsoft on the two user interface patents is supported by the facts or the law," said Tom Burt, a deputy general counsel at Microsoft, in a statement.

Bill Gates: "the GPL, which we disagree with"

At the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Bill Gates gave his thoughts on where the pharmaceutical industry was going, and where it should be going. However, he also slipped up a bit and criticized the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL is a widely used (including by the Linux kernel) free software license. Wired's Thomas Goetz took notes on Bill Gates' response to a question from the audience regarding whether Gates thought Microsoft should use open source software in health research:

Linux Foundation - We'd Love to Work with Microsoft

johnno writes "In an interview with the Australian site pc world Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation's executive director, talks about the desire to interoperate with Microsoft and discusses the desktop outlook for Linux. He answers questions on the kind of legal protection Linux requires, whether anything ever come of the Microsoft protest that there's Linux code that they have patented, as well as Linux penetration on desktops and breaking Microsoft's stranglehold on the market. He also discusses Microsoft's recent move to open up their documentation, and why they'd like to work with the Redmond giant — 'We'd like to have a place where developers can come and work on making Linux more effectively interoperate with Microsoft products. And we'd like to do that in the open-source way that's not tied to any specific marketing agreement, that

Microsoft Expands Business Online Services

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was to announce the expansion of Microsoft Online Services to smaller businesses at the SharePoint Conference. All businesses will be able to use Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting. Microsoft's move appears to counter Google's offerings.

Microsoft Adding Sony Blu-ray Support To Windows

Microsoft is developing software that will add native support for devices that play Sony's Blu-ray high definition movie format to the Windows operating system, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said. "We've already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like," said Ballmer, speaking at the Microsoft's Mix '08 conference. Ballmer also said that Microsoft is "going to support Blu-ray in ways that are important," according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the company's Web site.

Microsoft Appeals Patent Ruling

Microsoft has vowed to appeal a $367.4 million payment to Alcatel-Lucent after the U.S. District Court jury of San Diego found that handwriting recognition technology in Microsoft's tablet software infringed on pattern recognition patents held by Alcatel-Lucent. Additionally, it stated that some of Microsoft's programs, including the Outlook e-mail application and the Windows Mobile operating system, infringed on an Alcatel-Lucent patent in the way users select calendar dates from a menu. However, MS was found not to have infringed on a video decoding patent related to the way the Windows operating system plays DVDs.

Microsoft and Intel Give; Apple Gains; Techies Split Politically

Microsoft and Intel are giving a combined $20 million to two universities in the hope that researchers there will develop software programming techniques that take advantage of super-fast computer chips. The programming methods commonly used today don’t work as well with the most advanced chips that Intel and its competitors have in the works. It will be years before those chips hit the market, but the two tech giants are funding research at UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois in order to head off any potential problems. Many people believe that in the future, software will be accessed over the Internet and not on PCs, as most of Microsoft’s software is today. Discovering a way to develop really compelling software for super-fast computers is one way Microsoft can make sure PC software stays relevant.

Microsoft Loses Appeal of "Vista-Capable" Lawsuit

bfwebster writes "Microsoft has lost its appeal to remove class-action status for the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit that has already resulted in some embarrassing internal e-mails being released publicly. As Computerworld reports, in its appeal to the US Ninth Circuit Court, Microsoft argued (among other things) that 'continuing the lawsuit might mean new disclosures of insider e-mails, which could "jeopardize Microsoft's goodwill" and "disrupt Microsoft's relationships with its business partners."' Given what's been released so far (158-page PDF), not to mention Microsoft's history of rather frank internal e-mails, that's probably putting it mildly. There could be some interesting reading ahead."

Microsoft to Google: 'Hello, Newman'

Talk about a losing streak: First, Microsoft lost a stake in AOL to Google. Then Microsoft lost all of DoubleClick to Google. Now Microsoft may lose Yahoo to Google. In fact, even if Microsoft loses Yahoo to AOL, it still would be losing to Google, as Google owns 5% of AOL. (In December 2005, Time Warner sold that stake to Google for $1 billion. Time Warner wanted to shake the attentions of Microsoft, which also was bidding for a stake in AOL).

Microsoft Quietly Offering Ad-Funded Version of Works

mikesd81 writes "News.com reports Microsoft has finally started offering an ad-funded version of Microsoft Works in some countries. Users who run the software see a small ad as they are writing their document or editing their spreadsheet. Although the program has the ability to update its set of ads online, today it runs mostly ads for Microsoft and a few partners, all of which ship with the product itself. Microsoft remains cagey on the details of where you can find Works SE. The company has been testing Works SE in 5 countries: The United States, France, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom. It is available only through select computer makers and Microsoft won't say which computer makers those are. However, it seems Sony is offering it in the US.

Microsoft May Shatter the Silence Today, Wall St. Journal Predicts

The Wall Street Journal thinks that Microsoft is about to break the break the deafening silence that has hung in the air since Yahoo! ignored Microsoft’s Saturday deadline to deal or be acquired by force at a lower price. The Journal thinks that Microsoft could nominate a proxy slate of directors to replace Yahoo!’s board but hold off on going directly to Yahoo!’s shareholders and say nothing about the price, a move that could let its shares recover from their 12% decline since Microsoft went public with its Yahoo! lust.

Microsoft Hyper-V Leaves Linux Out In The Cold

whitehartstag writes to mention that Microsoft has announced their new Hyper-V as feature-complete. Unfortunately the list of supported systems is disappointingly short. "No offense to SUSE Enterprise Server crowd, but only providing SUSE support in Hyper-V is a huge mistake. By not supporting Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, and BSD, Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology. More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking. That's disappointing. Sure, if you are a Microsoft only shop, Hyper-V will be an option for virtualization. But so will VMware and XenServer. But if you run a mixed shop, Hyper-V won't solve your problems alone — you'll have to also add VMware or Xen to your virtualized data center portfolio. Or just go with VMware and Xen and forego Hyper-V.

Ed Bott:: With SP1, Microsoft to ditch the Vista 'kill switch'

Tags: Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp., SP1, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

Microsoft: People In Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones (At Google)

There has been more chest-thumping over the past month among big tech companies that it is beginning to feel like a gorilla convention. Microsoft (MSFT) beating its chest over Yahoo (YHOO). Yahoo thumping right back and acting all tough to News Corp. (NWS) and Time Warner (TWX). Microsoft again going gorilla with Bill Gates saying "Google (GOOG) does not understand business needs," while a Google executive tosses a coconut right back and dumps on Microsoft SharePoint. But the law of the jungle is: beat your chest and scream from high trees, but only if you're the best and you've got the goods. Because if you don't, you'll get pounded.

Microsoft Sends Replacement (And Signed) Xbox 360 To Jilted Owner

A few weeks ago we reported on "Nathaniel", an owner of a signed Xbox 360 console that was decorated with Halo artwork and signed by members of the game's developer Bungie. His console got "cleaned" of all the artwork and signatures by a Microsoft service person when the console had to go back to be fixed for a "Red Ring of Death" issue. Last time we stated that Bungie decided to send him a boatload of Halo merchandice as compensation; now the blog site Hawky McBloggy reports that "Nathaniel" got a new Xbox 360 console fron Microsoft that not only has artwork and signatures from the Xbox 360 community team and Bungie but also a Xbox 360 faceplate with a signature from Microsoft founder Bill Gates himself, along with a signed picture of Gates and some new Xbox 360 games among others.

Yahoo!/Microsoft Execs Meet For Round Two

psychosmyth writes "Microsoft's deal to Yahoo! is apparently back on the table. Yahoo execs met again with Microsoft early this past week to re-discuss the deal that fell through earlier. 'The gathering, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, gave Microsoft its first chance to sell Yahoo on the rationale for the proposed marriage since the software maker unveiled its plans six weeks ago. Since then, Yang has been exploring different ways to ward off Microsoft. The alternatives have included possible alliances with Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc., News Corp.'s MySpace.com and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL.' Microsoft is apparently still keeping all of its options open; a hostile take-over is not out of the question."

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