With Skype, Microsoft gains about 50 communications patents
So Microsoft has officially spent $8.5 billion on Skype and announced that the deal closed today. This is another "Hotmail" type acquisition in that it didn't seem to need the technology. All it gained was users. Or did it? With...
Microsoft grabs Android, Chrome royalties from world’s largest notebook manufacturer
In its first deal specifically naming Google Chrome devices, Microsoft today announced that Quanta Computer has joined its patent protection plan. Quanta has signed a patent agreement with Microsoft to cover Quanta’s tablets,...
Microsoft launches Firefox, Chrome attack campaign
In what has become a classic Microsoft-ism, the folks in Redmond on Tuesday launched a website to convince the world that Internet Explorer is the only true safe browser, at least in comparison to Chrome and Firefox. The site...
Patch Tuesday: IE bug could spread virus; .Net affects Mac users
There were no big surprises in this month's Patch Tuesday. Microsoft issued eight updates, two critical, to fix 23 vulnerabilities. However the two critical patches are doozies. One of them fixes all versions of Internet Explorer on...
BlackBerry outage brings down some Microsoft BPOS users
Some of Microsoft's cloud customers are being affected by BlackBerry outage going on now. The outage is affecting BlackBerry customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Research in Motion has been investigating for about the...
Microsoft lowers flags to half staff in tribute to Steve Jobs
As a tribute to Steve Jobs, Microsoft will fly its flags at all its worldwide offices at half staff for two days, reports the blog site Microsoft news. Here is a photo taken of the Microsoft UK offices.I congratulate Microsoft on...
Microsoft to fix 23 security holes in 8 patches on Tuesday
On Tuesday, Microsoft will release eight security bulletins, two rated critical and six rated important, to fix 23 vulnerabilities. These will fix holes in Internet Explorer, .NET Framework & Silverlight, Microsoft Windows,...
Steve Jobs dies
Steve Jobs died today. His failing health was widely known -- and became even more obvious when Jobs resigned his position as CEO at Apple, leaving the job to Tim Cook. But the world is saddened by the lost of one of the tech...
Virtualization saves Microsoft almost $50 million yearly
The following is a guest blog by freelance editor and self-confessed keyboard geek Marco Chiappetta. In the eat-your-own-dogfood category, Microsoft recently released a pair of documents that showcase its use of Hyper-V in its...
Hyper-V gains another open source cloud: OpenNebula 3.0
Version 3.0 of the open source cloud management platform OpenNebula has been launched and with it will come support for Hyper-V. For those keeping track, Open source cloud-computing platforms supporting Hyper-V now number two...
Fake iPhone 5 e-mail carries Windows malware
Hackers are again hoping iPhone 5 hysteria will benefit them. A fake e-mail that spoofs the "news@apple.com" address contains links to websites hosting a Windows virus. The subject line proclaims the iPhone SG 5 has been released...
Samsung to pay Microsoft royalties for Android
Microsoft has scored another giant patent licensing deal from yet another Android device maker. Samsung will pay Microsoft royalties as part of a broad-scope patent portfolio exchange, Microsoft announced today. Some say that this...
Some W8 PCs won't turn off secure boot, Red Hat warns
Last week, I alerted readers how Microsoft was requiring OEMs to implement, by default, UEFI secure boot on new Windows 8 machines. The Linux community had been worried for months that secure boot could lock Linux off PC hardware...
Windows Phone Mango update coming within two weeks
Microsoft says that Windows Phone 7.5, code-named Mango, will be rolling out to current Windows Phone 7 users within two weeks."For months, we and dozens of our partner companies have been laying the groundwork for the Windows...
Next-gen boot spec could forever lock Linux off Windows 8 PCs
Windows 8 PCs will boot super fast in part because of the next-generation booting specification known as Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The latest UEFI, released April 8, includes a secure boot protocol which will be...
Windows 8 coming in 2012? 6 reasons why this could derail Windows 7 now
Years ago, Microsoft leaked a 2012 target date for Windows Server 8. With developer versions of both the client and server operating systems out now, 2012 is still being kicked around as the target release date, sources say. At...
Windows 8, Windows Server 8, HTML5, touch PCs topics at Microsoft BUILD
Microsoft's first annual BUILD conference starts Tuesday with a live Webcast of the keynote by Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live division at 9 a.m. pacific.We'll be covering the news from BUILD here...
Why I'm ignoring my W7 warning messages and other Microsoft Patch Tuesday news
On Tuesday, Microsoft will release five updates to fix 15 vulnerabilities, none critical, as part of its routine Patch Tuesday security patches. "A welcome break from Microsoft while we deal with the growing SSL Certificate Issues,"...
Winners of System Center Opalis books and Webucator Microsoft training
We've closed the August contests and selected the winners -- but if you don't see your name on the list, guess what? We're giving away more Webucator Microsoft training and more books in September. Your chances of winning something...
Microsoft bashes VMware at VMworld, again
In what has become an annual tradition, Microsoft celebrated the start of the VMworld show in Las Vegas this week with more satirical bashing of VMware. This year Microsoft launched a Web site called VMlimited in which it likens ...
