5 O’Clock Roundup: Bartz would’ve taken Microsoft buyout, Peter Kafka trumps Yoko Ono
New Yahoo CEO Bartz says she would have accepted Microsoft’s 2008 offer to buy the company – “Do you think I’m stupid?” Carol Bartz blurted out in that sassy way bored journalists love on CBNC’s Squawk Box Thursday. Now that Yahoo has rebuffed Microsoft and installed Bartz, her plan is to build out Yahoo’s content products rather than try to beat Google at search.
Nokia acquires obscure social network startup Plum Ventures — None of the usual… Continue Reading
Microsoft’s $358M punishment nixed by judge in Alcatel patent case
Two federal appeals court judges earlier today overturned a $358 million award of damages against Microsoft, The Seattle Times reports. The judges didn’t dispute that the calendar display in Microsoft Outlook infringes on an Alcatel-Lucent patent, but said the $358 million award lacked supporting evidence to determine the size of the damages.
Alcatel-Lucent filed multiple lawsuits in November 2006. The company claimed that Microsoft Outlook, Money and Mobile software infringed on a patent Alcatel held. Alcatel… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: Chip makers boost tech stocks, Boots get the brig, Microsoft funds open-source evangelism
Smartphone demand causes chip makers to post improved forecasts, boost share prices — Intel, Texas Instruments and RF Micro Devices are among the semiconductor companies performing better than they’d expected internally. All three companies raised their revenue and profit estimates for the third quarter, triggering upswings in their share prices. Intel’s revision was the biggest, from $8.5 billion in projected revenue to $9 billion, plus or minus $200M.
Microsoft founds and funds the CodePlex Foundation to… Continue Reading
Court of Appeals stays injunction against Microsoft Word
Three weeks ago, a U.S. District Court judge in Texas ordered Microsoft to stop selling the latest version of Microsoft Word, the world’s de facto text editor. Judge Leonard Davis declared that Word 2007 infringes on patent No. 5,787,449, which describes methods for reading .xml, .docx and .docm files. The patent is owned by i4i, a small Canadian company.
Critics of Davis’ injunction complained that Tyler, Texas, where Leonard presides, is the patent troll capital of… Continue Reading
Blue Screen of Death returns to haunt Windows 7’s public release
There’s a big bug in Windows 7’s first non-beta version, which will be available for download by some users tomorrow. The good news: It’s unlikely to bite you, and there’s no indication it loses customers’ data. But there’s potentially bad news if you have multiple disks or disk partitions. You may get a visit from Windows’ Blue Screen of Death.
Here’s how it works: Windows has a utility program called CheckDisk — CHKDSK.EXE for old-timers —… Continue Reading
Windows apps coming to Nokia’s Ovi store
Thanks to Nokia’s Windows-powered netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, the Finnish company that sells more mobile phones than its next three competitors combined will soon host Windows apps in its recently launched Ovi app store. It’s Complicated, the relationship between Microsoft and Nokia. Two weeks ago, the two companies announced a partnership to port Microsoft Office to Nokia’s Symbian operating system. But Nokia won’t be rolling out any Windows Mobile phones next week alongside HTC… Continue Reading
3 reasons the new Windows phones are doomed
I don’t hate Microsoft, honest. But the company’s mobile phone software has time and again failed to catch on as a hot consumer product. Statistics from mobile ad server AdMob say that in June, Google’s Android platform surpassed Windows Mobile in percentage of phones in use.
The latest revision of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform, due October 6, will include gear from HP, HTC, LG, Samsung and Toshiba. Buyers will have a blessedly wide choice of carriers:… Continue Reading
Roundup: Android sales slump, Chinese piracy boom, book publishers still hate the Internet
Here’s the latest action:
Top Android app developer spills his sad, sad sales stats – Matt Hall has some of the top-selling apps on Google’s Android Market. For that, his company has earned a pathetic $62.39 average daily revenue. Matt’s list of Android Market failings that he thinks have washed away sales opportunities:
“No screenshots (Totally insane. No idea why.)
“325 character application description maximum (Why do I get 4.208 × 10-8 of my free GMail storage to… Continue Reading
Yahoo SearchMonkey keeps chugging as Bing looms
Since last month’s announcement that Microsoft’s Bing search engine will be powering Yahoo search, it’s unclear how exactly Yahoo’s search technology will transform, especially since the switch won’t happen until the technical details get worked out and federal regulatory agencies approve the deal. But despite the uncertainty, Yahoo’s search team soldiers on, announcing small improvements. Case in point: Yahoo just launched new features for SearchMonkey, its program for websites to provide richer search results.
Previously, SearchMonkey… Continue Reading
Emerging trends in the future of technology
While the plethora of tech companies might make some entrepreneurs fear that the field is closed to them, Steve Ballmer says the field is still wide open. In an entrepreneur thought leader lecture given at Stanford University earlier this year, the Microsoft CEO said the dynamic nature of tech means the players are always changing – and there are a lot of areas, such as human-computer interaction, that haven’t been tapped.
Roundup: Craigslist adds 140 cities, Facebook cashouts continue, Google’s brand under fire from Bing
Here’s the latest action:
Craigslist city coverage gets 25 percent bigger — The destroyer of newspapers added 140 cities to its listings on Thursday, bringing the total to 690 cities. Lucknow, India and Shenzhen, China were the biggest cities added. But many small towns, including Oneonta, NY (population 13,000), also now have Craigslist directories. The New York Times gives an overview of the new cities, and reporter Brad Stone chats up the advertising director of a… Continue Reading
Microsoft taps Wolfram to make Bing geekier than Google
It’s surprising that Microsoft is working to incorporate something as wonky as Wolfram Alpha into its Bing decision engine. Neither Microsoft nor Wolfram will confirm the deal, but a blabbermouth has happily leaked it.
Why Wolfram? Because it’ll let Bing beat Google on its home turf of nerdiness. Both Microsoft and Google have done market research that proved no one expects Microsoft can build a better search engine than Google, so Microsoft has to change the… Continue Reading
Microsoft kills Entourage, brings Outlook to Macs
Mac users who want to manage their email, contacts, and calendar with Microsoft software are moving closer to even footing with their PC counterparts. Microsoft said today that in the next version of Office for Mac, its Mac-only email application Entourage will be replaced with a new piece of software, Outlook for Mac.
Entourage has always been a bit unusual — where most of the Office for Mac line-up consists of PC standbys like Word, Excel,… Continue Reading
Microsoft and Nokia confirm partnership: ‘A formidable challenge for RIM’
Microsoft and Nokia announced today that, as expected, they will be working together to bring native versions of Microsoft Office to Nokia smartphones. But this is about more than just creating a version of Office for Nokia — the companies say they are working together on the “design, development and marketing of productivity solutions for the mobile professional.”
In a conference call discussing the news, Microsoft’s Stephen Elop (pictured, right) said this is the first time… Continue Reading
Yes, really: Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word
A U.S. District Court judge in Texas has ordered Microsoft to stop selling the latest version of its Word software. And yes, that’s the same Word that’s part of Microsoft Office, a product that supposedly has 500 million users (although only half of them pay).
That news comes from The Seattle PI’s Microsoft Blog, which also notes that the decision was made in Texas’ Eastern District, which is known for being “a haven for patent litigation.”… Continue Reading
Microsoft probably bringing Office 2010 to Nokia phones
It’s looking increasingly likely that Microsoft and Nokia are about to announce a native version of Office 2010, the latest version of Microsoft’s ubiquitous productivity software, on Nokia smartphones.
In the past, Microsoft said there will be a native version of Office (i.e., one that you download and run on your phone) that runs on Windows Mobile phones, plus a version that runs in the web browsers of other smartphones like the iPhone. However, given the… Continue Reading
Microsoft defends Internet Explorer 6, says it’s all about “user choice”
There’s been increasing pressure from frustrated web developers to get users off Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 web browser, which they say is an increasing pain to support. Last week, for example, a group of startups launched a campaign called IE6 No More, where site visitors are urged to “switch to a modern browser.”
So we can all look forward to an IE6-free future in a few months, right? Not according to a blog post written by… Continue Reading
Roundup: Bartz is tougher than you, new Zunes are pretty
Cisco forecasts lower revenue for Q1, stock drops 74 points – – Barron’s reports that on Wednesday’s conference call with analysts, Cisco management “forecast fiscal Q1 revenue to decline by 15% to 17%.” It’s not bad compared to the street’s estimates, but traders punished the company with a 3.4% drop in after-hours trading.
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz wants you to know she’s tougher than you’ll ever, ever be — At Autodesk, she worked while undergoing chemotherapy… Continue Reading
Roundup: Ad market reset, Windows 7 pricing, Pogue’s voicemail crusade continues
Online advertising stops its nose-dive — Second-quarter global ad revenues, at $7.864 billion, were down 3.4 percent from a year ago. But admit it: After the past year, a 3.4 percent drop almost feels like growth. Is this a “reset” of base level from which the ad market can now grow again? TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld plots the line and explains the economist-speak. Erick, I hate to be all VentureBeat fussy, but do you have more granular… Continue Reading
Roundup: Pogue’s voicemail rage, YouTube monetization, more Techmeme bragging
New York Times gadget guru incites backlash against mobile carriers’ costly voicemail instructions — David Pogue is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore. Not that you could tell, given Pogue’s perennial good cheer and unfailing politeness. But he went on a tear today, documenting the overly-long welcome messages on American carriers’ voicemail systems. It’s no secret that these pre-recorded messages are designed to cause customers to burn extra minutes. Pogue estimates… Continue Reading