Microsoft News Tracker

Yesterday’s story that Google was planning to pay Dell $1 billion to install software on the new PCs they ship hit Google’s stock:

Google shares were down 5 percent, or $19.23, to $365.87 in afternoon trading on Nasdaq. Analysts cited concerns that the Web search company was prepared to dramatically increase the cost of acquiring new customers by agreeing to pay huge upfront fees to win deals with PC makers.

Henry Blodget explains why, predicated on the deal being based on distribution of the Google Pack of miscellaneous software announced at CES06. Google could merely be overpaying, but Russell Shaw at ZDNet has another theory - Prediction- Google-powered Star Office suite for Dell:

Fellow blogger Rich Tehrani writes that for that amount of money, we should expect something “radically” new. He surmises this could be a Google-branded browser, or even a Google counterpart to Microsoft Office.

“Something software-based and something customers aren’t likely to download,” Rich writes. “The goal would be to get the customers before they get hooked on something else.”

Now, here is my take. I see a Google Branded version of Sun’s StarOffice.

More by following the link, but wouldn’t that be a game changer? It would also explain the odd Google-Sun alliance announcement last October. While it still won’t do anything immediately good for Google’s bottom line, Microsoft could find it rather more uncomfortable.

On Sunday it was Amazon. Today, it’s a startup named Turn Inc. Stephen Baker at BusinessWeek online:

I talked on Friday to Jim Barnett, former ceo of Altavista and, later, a top exec at Overture. He’s planning to launch a next-gen advertising network called Turn Inc. in the next several months. He has $10 million in venture funding, and some 16 PhDs in-house. The idea is that advanced search will target advertisements to users with a precision we’ve not yet seen. All that can be said at this point: We’ll see.

Since that kind of precision is Microsoft’s selling point for adCenter, things should be interesting.

David Lawsky at Reuters:

Microsoft accused the European Commission on Wednesday of “riding roughshod” over its defence rights, but the Commission said the firm had all it needed to argue against possible fines of 2 million euros daily.

The U.S. software giant faces a Feb. 15 deadline to respond to Commission charges that it should be fined for failing to carry out sanctions imposed in a 2004 antitrust decision.
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A Commission spokesman said the company had all the access it needed to defend itself and never bothered to raise concerns about access at the appropriate time.

Hit the link for the details, but the argument centers around information provided by the independent expert which Microsoft claimed the Commission was concealing. Microsoft says they should get to see the input or it isn’t evidence. The Commission disagrees. Microsoft also claims the Commission tainted the independent experts opinons with their own.

Update: Aoiffe White of the AP clarifies the situation considerably here:

EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said an independent hearing officer, Karen Williams, had decided that correspondence between the commission and an independent monitor were “irrelevant for Microsoft’s right of defense.”
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Williams also refused Microsoft’s request to extend — for a second time — a Feb. 15 deadline to respond to EU charges that the company has failed to obey its antitrust order by being reluctant to share data with competitors.
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Williams rejected any allegation that (independent expert - ed.) Barrett may have altered his report after contact with regulators, saying there was no “undue influence.”
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Todd said an EU decision from October — which Microsoft did not contest — made correspondence between Barrett and the commission internal and confidential.
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Microsoft was allowed to see other documents detailing contact between EU regulators and other companies involved in the case after these firms waived their right to confidentiality. Todd said Williams described these “mostly of a mundane nature.”

Today, Microsoft produced a press release which was basically a progress report on how swell things went for its Trusted Computing Initiative in 2005. Actually, it was a little more tepid than that:

Trustworthy Computing Gains Ground in 2005
Encouraged by four years of progress, Microsoft continues its efforts to build confidence in the computing ecosystem

As Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft reaches the four-year mark, a look back at 2005 provides a solid picture of sure and steady progress toward long-term success.

Microsoft’s ongoing work to bring customers a safe, private and reliable computing experience produced across-the-board results in the year past. Some of the more significant highlights include shipping the first Microsoft products to undergo – at every phase of design and development – the full Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process; releasing new source-code analysis tools designed to help third-party developers build greater security and reliability into their software, and publicly advocating federal privacy legislation in the U.S. to create uniform standards for the protection of customers’ data. Microsoft also made progress by further refining its business practices, cementing Trustworthy Computing as a philosophy and core tenet that permeates the company’s culture, its communications with customers and its software and service development strategy.

Noteworthy strides aside, Microsoft recognizes that a new year also presents an occasion for resolutions. In that spirit, the company continues to strengthen its commitment to Trustworthy Computing, not just for 2006 but as a permanent corporate tenet.

That’s all to the good, because last night they released two new security advisories ([1], [2]) and are investigating another security flaw.

I know Microsoft has to maintain that there’s good news on the security front and hopefully there is, but perhaps they could coordinate public statements a little better within the company.

Bloomberg News:

Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state, lobbied South Korean regulators not to punish Microsoft regarding antitrust rules, the head of Korea’s Fair Trade Commission said Tuesday.

Before a December antitrust ruling in South Korea, Kissinger faxed a letter to the chairman of the commission, Kang Chul Kyu, saying that punishing Microsoft would “hurt everyone,” the commission’s spokesman, Park Sang Yong, said, confirming comments Kang made at a luncheon on Tuesday.

Kang also said that after the commission ruled against Microsoft, four members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade protesting the verdict that Microsoft had breached antitrust rules, Park said.

Frankly, this is business as usual. Microsoft apparently asked for some help when the Korean antitrust case got hot in December and the Korean FTC imposed fines and mandated two separate Korean versions of Windows. Kissinger has lobbied for other companies and the US Department of Justice also weighed in on Microsoft’s behalf.

There’s more from Kim Tae-gyu at The Korea Times:

The U.S. government also came under criticism here last year when the nation dispatched multiple officials at the Department of Justice to the FTC when investigation on Microsoft was underway.

Kang added that the anti-trust agency did not bow to such all-out onslaughts and made a neutral decision.

Meanwhile, FTC spokesman Park Sang-yong said the letters cannot be regarded as pressure.

“In the United States, the lobbying culture is usual. The letters that asked to consider ripple effects of the ruling must be understand in the context. It was just a lobby, not pressure,” Park claimed.