14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, the software giant Microsoft recorded an important win in the company's history, as the US court ruled that the Redmond firm is not guilty for abroad Windows patent infringements. The case was started a long time ago when Microsoft was accused by AT&T that one of the Windows components infringes the patents granted outside the US. However, the Supreme Court ruled the software giant doesn't have to pay for the patent infringements reported outside the US. The Microsoft officials were extremely pleased with the decision and sustained it isn't important just for the Redmond company but also for the entire tech industry.
"Today's Supreme Court decision is important for the entire information technology industry, adding clarity and balance to our patent system. This decision promotes a global patent system that works. The ruling ensures that U.S. courts, like courts elsewhere, can respect the patent laws of other countries, helping promote cooperation among patent systems worldwide," Senior Vice President and General Counsel Brad Smith, started his statement. "We're also pleased that today's decision applies the patent law to software in the same way it's applied to other inventions," he added.
In the past, Microsoft had a lot of trouble with the federal authorities after its most important product, the Windows operating system, was the subject of several complaints. At that time, the European Commission imposed a huge fine for the software giant after a long and complicated antitrust case that damaged the company's image.
On Tuesday, the rumors about a possible acquisition of 24/7 Real Media were quickly spread on the Internet, bringing the software giant Microsoft again in the spotlights. 24/7 Real Media is an Internet advertising company that is able to help the Redmond firm enhance its online offering and give some powerful alternatives for the products offered by its rivals Google and Yahoo. However, a Microsoft acquisition is extremely similar with the ones made by the other two Internet giants, Google and Yahoo confirming two new names for their trademarks collection. For example, Mountain View-based company Google announced the acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, a move that made the rivals accuse the firm for unfair competition. Although numerous companies tried to buy DoubleClick, some of them demanded the US regulators to investigate the latest Google acquisition.
As I said, Yahoo had a similar move, buying Right Media for almost $680 million. The case is a little bit different as the company already owned 80 percent of the firm and now acquired the remaining part to be able to compete with the latest Google acquisition, DoubleClick.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that a new security patch will be released soon and will be especially meant to repair the recently reported DNS flaw discovered in the operating system. Most of the fixes are rated as critical and are designed for several products developed by the software giant including Windows, Office and Exchange.
"Microsoft is investigating new public reports of attack exploiting a vulnerability in the Domain Name System (DNS) Server Service in Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4, Windows XP Service Pack 2, and Windows Vista are not affected as these versions do not contain the vulnerable code," Microsoft said at the time of the report.
Even if the company was rumored to buy an online advertising company on Tuesday, this didn't stop the software giant to acquire a similar firm on Wednesday. Microsoft managed to buy ScreenTonic, a Paris-based firm that is currently one of the most important companies that are developing adverts for the online mobile market. Using the new deal, Microsoft aims to increase its presence into the mobile market and obtain considerable revenues from the handheld devices owners.
On Thursday, the Microsoft employees offered some new hot details about the upcoming Internet Explorer 8.0, the next version of its browser. According to the reports, the future release will be based just like IE 7.0 on the security features it provides and on the ease of use offered to its users. As you surely know, Internet Explorer 7 is an important part of Windows Vista, the operating system that was regarded as the most secure release of the famous Windows.
"It's clear we have a lot to do with the Web developer platform. There's work in the standardization bodies to do local storage and get better security models. Web development compatibility is really crucial for building applications and...for us to deploy browsers (but) it has to be an evolutionary step," Microsoft engineer Chris Wilson sustained at Mix 07 conference according to News.com.
On Friday, a shocking speculation assaulted the Internet sustaining that Microsoft wants to acquire Yahoo, the giant portal that is currently fighting with Google for multiple online services. The price tag? Somewhere near $50 million, the biggest investment ever made in an Interne company. However, what are the main reasons for a Yahoo acquisition? As I said, Yahoo is now fighting with Google for numerous products, the biggest competition being represented by the two search engines powered by the companies. In the recent period, Microsoft tried to promote its Live Search but it is more than difficult to compete with the search giant Google that is the leader of the category.
"That said, Microsoft would jump from about 11 percent search share to close to 40 percent, which would be in striking distance of Google. Surely, Microsoft would want to go from No. 3 to No. 2 and a whole lot closer to top-ranked Google. Caveat: There is no guarantee a Microsoft-Yahoo could successfully aggregate search share. Brand confusion, increased consolidation and other factors could as easily shift share elsewhere, with Google being one benefactor," Microsoft Watch tried to find a main goal of the acquisition.
