Microsoft

After directing his company to sink $240 million into a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook last year, the company's iconic leader has personally abandoned the social networking site in favor of the more business oriented LinkedIn. As a company, Microsoft ... is still working with Facebook of course; however, Gates himself has decided to set aside his profile because of the massive amounts of friend requests he was receiving; no doubt his 'FB friends' were also driving him crazy with constant invitations for mindless applications, but that's another story. The LinkedIn community seems to be very ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced surprise price cuts to its Windows Vista operating system, in some cases slashing the cost almost by half. In the United States, the price will drop from $399 to $319 for the hi-spec Ultimate edition. The standard Home ... edition price is falling from $259 to $219. The price cuts vary in other countries, and the new prices will take effect once Service Pack 1, the first major update to Vista, is released. For emerging markets such as Russia and India, Microsoft is dropping its upgrade option, by which existing Windows users can get Vista for a reduced price. They've found ... (view more)

Microsoft is going OpenSource, sort of. On Thursday, the Redmond-based company announced that it would make key components of its application programming interfaces available online; over 30, 000 pages of documentation will be available detailing ... Windows client and server protocols. Before the announcement, software developers had to pay for access to the information, but now the company is hoping this move will make it easier for third-party software makers to ensure their programs will work smoothly on Windows operating systems. (Source: news.com ) Microsoft's decision is motivated in part ... (view more)

Yahoo is expected to reject Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover bid today, believing the offer seriously undervalues the company. But analysts believe Microsoft will not give up easily, and may increase the $31-per-share offer that it proposed ... earlier. Other strategies include a direct offer to shareholders, or an attempt to overthrow Yahoo's board of directors. In the increasing war for online advertising, Microsoft is looking to purchase Yahoo to gain a competitive advantage against dominant ad provider, Google. (Source: nytimes.com ) For its part Yahoo seems willing to stave off Microsoft's ... (view more)

Microsoft researchers are working on ways to make web advertising even smarter. They want to teach computers to do a more accurate job of targeting ads, by specifying which to put into video clips, and those for more specific users. They ... demonstrated the techniques at their headquarters this week. The timing may be an intentional effort to boost their bid for Yahoo which, if successful, would make Microsoft the second biggest Internet ad seller behind Google. (Source: informationweek.com ) The demonstration included a 'dashboard' which advertisers can use to predict how well particular ... (view more)

Microsoft is hoping that its acquisition of Yahoo will help it gain ground on the advertising and search front, and adding Yahoo's 500 million users to its base. But assuming that Jerry Yang and Co. yield to the Redmond giant, will it be enough? The ... New York Times recently ran a picture depicting the Microsoft and Google as two large sharks consuming everything in their path: aQuantive, DoubleClick, and MultiMap. Then there are the smaller exclusivity agreements with prominent tech companies such as The Wall Street Journal and Facebook for Microsoft, and Google's deals with MySpace, Fox, and ... (view more)

In a move that could change the pecking order of the Internet search and advertising marketplace, Microsoft has made an unsolicited bid to purchase ailing Yahoo. In a letter sent to Yahoo's board of directors, Microsoft offered $44.6 billion in cash ... and stock for the troubled company; what's more, it has also been revealed that Microsoft explored an offer a year previous only to be rebuffed by Yahoo because of their confidence in the operational changes they were making at the time. (Source: cnn.com ) The last year, however, has been difficult for Yahoo. Their new ad delivery platform was ... (view more)

Rumor has it the first service pack update for Windows Vista will be out on 15 February. A 'service pack' is a single download produced by Microsoft to fix many different problems and add general improvements to a version of its Windows operating ... system. Microsoft have so far only confirmed that the update will be out in the current quarter (by the end of March). It's thought Microsoft may be confident about releasing Service Pack 1 early because a test version, which users download at their discretion from the company website, has proven successful. The official service pack releases ... (view more)

Microsoft is currently experimenting with one of their first "technovations" of 2008 which, if successful, could forever change the way we go about our grocery shopping. The new device is a technologically advanced console that assists customers in ... finding various items on their shopping list. The consumer can also use their cart-mounted device to scan the products as they lift them off the shelves and place them into the cart. With the push of a button, the consumer can also pay for their groceries directly on the cart itself. (Source: yahoo.com ) These new "smart" carts have been one of ... (view more)

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That seems to be the attitude of Microsoft now that Warner Bros has decided to back Sony's Blu-ray in the high definition movie format war. Although the Redmond-based company once stood firmly behind Toshiba's rival ... HD-DVD, things appear to be changing very quickly in the Pacific northwest. For those who haven't heard, Warner Bros recently dealt Blu-ray a pair of aces ('bullets') in the high stakes game for next generation's movie format. By turning its nose up at HD-DVD, Warner may have finally put the final nail in Toshiba's coffin; although the tech company ... (view more)