Microsoft Settles Alcatel Lucent Patent Suit

A US jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent $367.4 million in damages after finding that Microsoft had violated two of its patents related to the user interface in its software.Alcatel Lucent was seeking $1.5 billion in damages related to the four patents named in the case, but the jury in US District Court in San Diego found Microsoft did not infringe on Alcatel's video decoding technology patent.The fou... Microsoft Settles Alcatel Lucent Patent Suit

Microsoft, IBM Profits Soar

Microsoft Corp's net income for its fiscal fourth-quarter rose 42 percent to 4.3 billion, or 46 cents a share. Revenue climbed 18 to 15.8 billion.For Microsoft's full fiscal year, the company's net income rose 26 to 17.7 billion, or 1.87 a share. Revenue for the year surged at 18 to 60.4 billion.Diversification of our businesses positions us well to weather the economic turmoil, said F... Microsoft, IBM Profits Soar

Microsoft Talks Partnership With AOL

After Microsoft, Corp ended its efforts to buy Yahoo, Inc, the company is now talking about alternative deals with Time Warner Inc, which owns AOL, and News Corp, parent of MySpace.However, Yahoo and Time Warner are holding their own separate talks over a potential merger of AOL with Yahoo to create a more formidable advertising and media player, but they are no closer to a deal.Yahoo shares jumpe... Microsoft Talks Partnership With AOL

Microsoft Windows Mobile to Get Music Upgrade

Microsoft Corp said it will focus on improving the music features on its Windows Mobile operating system for smart phones.One thing that Apple has leveraged on is the music scenario, and I think that is something the operators and ourselves are partnering on, just to make sure that consumers can use live music in the best way, Andy Lees, senior VP of Microsoft's Mobile Business Communication, ... Microsoft Windows Mobile to Get Music Upgrade

Microsoft IE 8 to Debut in August

Microsoft Corp said it plans to test-release, IE 8 Beta 2, a feature-complete version of its Internet Explorer 8 Web browser in August.Microsoft released a first test version of IE 8 in March, providing developers and Web designers a preview of the latest update to the world's most widely-used browser. One feature is called Activities, which lets users highlight text on a Web page and then tak... Microsoft IE 8 to Debut in August

Microsoft Changes Live Search

Microsoft Corp announced that its marketing team is working on fixing the company's search engine image to make it more competitive with Google Inc.Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division made the announcement at a search advertising conference in Seattle hosted by the parent company of news site SearchEngineLand.com.Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLan... Microsoft Changes Live Search

Windows 7 likely to become Vista clone

Microsoft Corp released details on its upcoming Windows 7 operating system which is due for launch in early 2010.Windows 7 will be an evolutionary step over the Windows Server 2008 kernel, which is based on the Windows Vista kernel.Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, stated that the the kernel, which contains both 32-bit and 64-bit ... Windows 7 likely to become Vista clone

Windows Mobile Cell Phones to Soar

Microsoft Corp said expects global unit sales of its Windows Mobile software for cellphones to grow at least 50 percent per year in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 as demand for smartphones rises rapidly.Fifty percent growth is the minimum, said Eddie Wu, the software company's managing director of OEM embedded devices Asia.Wu said Microsoft expects to sell 20 million units in its 2007/2008 fiscal ... Windows Mobile Cell Phones to Soar

Windows XP Remains Most Popular OS

Microsoft Corp reminded customers that June 30 is the last day it will permit retailers and OEMs to sell Windows XP, despite vendor offerings.Even though it has had its own problems of late, Windows XP remains the most-used version of Windows. The newest data from Web metrics vendor Net Applications Inc., for instance, pegs XP as driving 73% of the personal computers that went online last month, f... Windows XP Remains Most Popular OS

Microsoft Drops Book Search Project

Microsoft Corp. is shutting down its program that let Web users search through digital versions of books, ceding the market to Google Inc.The move will allow Microsoft to focus on other types of Internet searches, such as travel listings, Senior Vice President Satya Nadella said today in a blog posting. Spokesman Scott Trepanier declined to say how much Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft had spent on ... Microsoft Drops Book Search Project

GameStop Drops Zune

GameStop said during an earnings call on Friday it will discontinue sales of the Microsoft Zune digital media player citing reasons that the device just wasn't selling enough.The move is unlikely to affect GameStop, whose sales come almost completely from video games but it puts up another hurdle in Microsoft's attempt to grow Zune sales. We have decided to exit the Zune category because i... GameStop Drops Zune

Microsoft Adopts ODF Format

With the US software giant embroiled in an antitrust standoff with Europe's top antitrust watchdog, the company said on Wednesday that Office would support the competing Open Document Format (ODF) from the first half of 2009.In a short reaction, the commission said that it had taken note of the announcement and would welcome any step that Microsoft took towards genuine interoperability, more c... Microsoft Adopts ODF Format

Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7 Released

The Microsoft Mac Business Unit (Mac BU) announced on Tuesday that they have released Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7, with new features for both the corporate service and personal service that delivers audio and video for the first time.The messenger services now has support for the Mac OS X Bonjour technology, which allows users to detect other Messenger for Mac users that are on the same local ne... Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7 Released

Windows XP SP3 Delayed Citing RMS Issues

Microsoft Corp. has delayed Service Pack 3 for Windows XP citing compatibility issues between the software and its point-of-sale application for small and medium sized businesses.Microsoft last week said it had finished work on Windows XP SP3 and it would be available for download on Tuesday.However, the company found incompatibilities in an application called Microsoft Dynamics RMS, which is mana... Windows XP SP3 Delayed Citing RMS Issues

Microsoft IIS Under SQL Injection Cyber Attack

According to Panda Security, the number of infected IIS servers reached 282,000, and security firm F-Secure said the number has risen to 500,000 less than a day later.A flood of SQL injection attacks on Microsoft Internet Information Servers are leaving Web pages with malicious iFrames in them, and Panda Security is urging network managers to make sure their Web pages haven't been infected. Mi... Microsoft IIS Under SQL Injection Cyber Attack

Microsoft Yahoo Showdown Next Week

Microsoft's CFO, Chris Liddell, said on Thursday that the software giant may consider launching a hostile bid for Internet giant Yahoo as early as next week. Yahoo's management has unrealistic expectations of its value, Mr Liddell said. We have been clear that speed is of the essence to make sense, he added. Microsoft will provide an update on its plans for Yahoo next week. The statement w... Microsoft Yahoo Showdown Next Week

Windows XP May Get Further Extension

Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer offered a glimmer of hope on Thursday to fans of the company's Windows XP operating system, saying the company may reconsider its decision to stop selling it soon.However, Ballmer was adamant that most people who buy PCs today buy them with XP's successor, Vista.That's the statistical truth, he Ballmer said. If customer feedback varies, we can always w... Windows XP May Get Further Extension

Windows Vista SP1 Deployed Automatically

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that they have begun to deliver Windows Vista Service Pack 1 via an automatic update.Windows Vista SP1 will be automatically downloaded and installed on machines who have Windows Update.Starting first will be important patches, hotfixes, and other updates which will be sent via automatic updates.From there, Microsoft will begin to automatically distribute Vista Ser... Windows Vista SP1 Deployed Automatically

Microsoft Live Mesh Synchronizes Devices

Microsoft Corp. has just launched a new service called Live Mesh that lets you organize and synchronize phones, computers, files and folders so that all your key information can be available on your different desktops. If it sounds like Apple's iSync or the Plaxo service for Windows, you're right. Except Mesh, says Microsoft, will be much more.The service idea is to get all your devices --... Microsoft Live Mesh Synchronizes Devices

Microsoft Study Unveils Web Attacks Rising

Microsoft Corp. published a report on Monday which shows that criminal on-line behavior has shifted from traditional Trojan download programs to Web attacks.According to Jimmy Kuo, principal architect with Microsoft's Malware Protection Center, the company saw the number of Trojan download programs it removed from Windows machines jump by 300 percent. Executables are often being stripped compl... Microsoft Study Unveils Web Attacks Rising