Microsoft News Tracker

Jeremy Kirk at Infoworld

After outrage from many of its own employees over its abrupt censoring of a Chinese blogger, Microsoft has formulated a new policy to deal with requests from a government that alleges posted material violates its laws.

The measures were detailed by Microsoft’s top lawyer, Brad Smith, at the Government Leaders Forum in Lisbon on Tuesday.

Smith said that Microsoft will only remove blogs when given proper legal notice, and even then, will only block access to that material within the country where it is deemed unlawful. The site will still be viewable from outside the country, he said.

The shutdown of the US hosted MSN Spaces weblog of a Chinese reporter undoubtedly prompted this action. Smith says Microsoft is developing technology for country specific blocking and I’d guess they are going to need it for more places than just China.

Update: The formal press release is now available and has more details.

Paula Rooney and Barbara Darrow interviewed Jim Allchin last week for Computer Reseller News and he had this revelation:

CRN: Is there going to be antivirus in Vista?

Allchin: No, there is not.

CRN: Why?

Allchin: It’s a complicated answer as to why not.

CRN: Was the decision based on technical concerns?

Allchin: It wasn’t technical.

OneCare, Microsoft’s antivirus (and more) product for Windows XP is in beta and prominently states that it will not be compatible with Vista when it is released, which has lead to a variety of speculation. Even its current availability as a well regarded and free beta has significance for antivirus software vendors, let alone the possibility that it might be bundled with the operating system. The likely reason for not including it in Vista is almost certainly the fear of upsetting longtime time security software partners and/or arousing the ire of antitrust authorities.

John Leyden at The Register, who spotted the relevant part of the Allchin interview, points out that the European Commission had contacted Symantec last October on this issue, although Symantec says that they did not complain to the commission, but that the commission contacted them. However, according to Symantec’s spokesman:

“We have always said, and continue to say, that we’ll continue to compete with Microsoft in the market as long as there’s a level playing field.”

Bundling an antivirus product in the operating system doesn’t seem like it would qualify.

Update: Speaking of Symantec:

Symantec expects to begin offering a new consumer security service similar to Microsoft’s Windows OneCare Live by September of this year, a company executive said Monday. Code-named “Genesis,” the service will integrate components of Symantec’s security, PC tuning, and backup software into a single service that is accessible over the Internet.

Press release:

Microsoft Corp. did not infringe on any of the patents asserted by Research Corporation Technologies (RCT) in its lawsuit against the software company, a federal court in Arizona has ruled.

According to a final ruling issued Jan. 27, 2006, by the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the court found that three of six patents asserted by RCT were “unenforceable due to the patent applicants’ inequitable conduct in withholding material information from the Patent Office with an intent to deceive the Patent Office.”

Today’s decision follows a previous ruling in April 2005 in which the same court found that all claims asserted by RCT in three other patents were invalid.

Ben Charny at eWeek says Dude, You’re Getting a Google :

Computer maker Dell said Jan. 30 it has quietly begun testing a new partnership with Internet search provider Google.

For now, some Dell laptops and desktop computers are sold with two Google Inc. search features pre-installed, a Dell spokesman said.

Dell is also putting the paces to a Google-powered Web site that appears to be a hybrid of Dell’s online store and Google’s personalized Web site.
…
By partnering with Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, Google has found a partner to help it chip away at Microsoft’s dominance of the personal computer desktop software market.

Dell and Google aren’t talking but there’s more speculation by following the link.

Phil Windley at ZDNet explains as part of his discussion of Landmines at the Patent Office:

If your company uses MS Office (and who doesn’t?) you may soon be deploying a patched version of Office so that Microsoft can get around a patent infringement suit that they lost. Seems that Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado was granted a patent in 1997 that covers some method that Access and Excel use to exchange data. Because Microsoft paid for $8.9 million for infringements between March 1997 and July 2003, any existing installations of Office 2003 can stand but new installations will need a patched version that no longer infringes.

New Office XP installations need patching too as explained at the second link.