Microsoft News Tracker

Despite the title, Fortune’s David Kirkpatrick pens an interesting profile on Ray Ozzie and his role at Microsoft. I’d take it with a grain of salt since I expect a lot of the “inside details” have been passed through Microsoft’s PR filter, but it gives a flavor of the man and the issues as Microsoft perceives them which are forcing the new push for ad-supported online services. A small sample:

Ozzie remembers “vigorous disagreement” over business models based on advertising revenue, vs. those based on transaction fees or traditional licensing.

“It’s clear that in the consumer realm, online advertising is this new economic engine,” says Ozzie. “It’s not as obvious how that engine is applied in the enterprise market.”

But the companywide excitement about the potential of online advertising is palpable. MSN’s Blake Irving calculates that annual worldwide advertising spending amounts to about half-a-trillion dollars, vs. total software industry revenue of about $120 billion.

“Only 3.6 percent of that half-a-trillion today is being spent online,” he says with relish, “even though 20 percent of all media viewership - including instant messaging, et cetera - is online now. So just assume that 3.6 percent grows to match the media opportunity. We want to be part of as much of that 20 points as we can.”
…
Doing all that is even more ambitious than it sounds. For one thing, it is hugely expensive. Software was once a low-capital-cost industry, but not anymore: To deliver a Web-based product line, Microsoft must build a global network of server farms that will cost “staggering” amounts of money, says Ozzie.

Much more by following the link.

Ina Fried at CNET - Court rules for Microsoft in antitrust case:

An appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling that Microsoft can’t be sued for antitrust violations under federal law by consumers and businesses who did not buy their software directly from the company.

Microsoft has already agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle a number of class-action suits brought under state laws. Tuesday’s ruling doesn’t affect those cases, but does prevent a nationwide class-action suit under federal law from moving forward. The suit largely covered purchases of Windows made in the mid-to late-1990s, as well as application software such as Word and Excel.

The three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld rulings made in 2001 and 2004, pertaining to people who bought their Microsoft software from a retailer, a reseller or as part of a new computer purchase. The rulings held that these people could not obtain an injunction or recover damages from the software maker for antitrust violations, such as overcharging, under federal law. In general, federal law holds that only the direct purchasers of a product can sue for overcharging, though there are some exceptions.

Microsoft was “extremely pleased” as one might expect. They were likely less pleased with Mass. Court Rejects Microsoft Request as reported by Aoiffe White for the AP:

A Massachusetts court has rejected a Microsoft Corp. request to force software rival Novell Inc. to hand over European Union correspondence that Microsoft claims it needs to defend itself against antitrust charges in Europe.

According to a court order Monday, U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf said Microsoft had not shown that the EU proceedings were fundamentally unfair or would be if it did not have access to the Novell documents.

He said the European Commission had told the court it viewed Microsoft’s subpoena as a “thinly veiled attempt” to circumvent EU procedures that aimed to strike a balance between a defendant’s right to see antitrust papers and companies “who may have a well-founded fear of retaliation if they assist the Commission in such cases.”

“It is now evident that granting Microsoft the discovery it requests from Novell would interfere with the foreign tribunal, not assist it,” he wrote.

Wolf also criticized the software company for “erroneously, repeatedly” stating that the European Commission could not obtain the documents and make them available to Microsoft.

Microsoft had no comment. In March, Microsoft’s similar requests for documents from Sun and Oracle were denied - there is one remaining request still pending in New York for IBM.

The US patents published today are now online at LatestPatents.com and while I didn’t see any of the Microsoft or Google patents that struck my fancy, Yahoo received patent 7,031,939 for Systems and methods for implementing person-to-person money exchange that looks just like PayPal:

Systems and methods for effecting online financial transactions between individuals or between individuals and entities such as banks, merchants and other companies. Each user accesses a fund exchange server to establish an online account, which is used to transfer funds to and from other entities’ online accounts. To fund an online account, funds can be transferred to the online account from a credit card account or from another online account. To withdraw funds, money can be transferred to a credit card account or other bank account. Any user may initiate a send money transaction or a request payment transaction with any other entity provided that entity has an e-mail address. For a send money transaction, the user sending money (payor) enters an amount of funds to be transferred and an e-mail address of the recipient of the funds (payee). The system sends an e-mail message to the payee at the address provided indicating that the amount of funds has been “received” on the payee’s behalf. The payee must then either open an online account or identify an existing online account to complete the transaction. For a request money transaction, a user enters an amount of funds owed and an e-mail address for the recipient of the payment request (payor), and the system sends a payment request to the payor via e-mail at the provided address. If the payor accepts the payment request, the payor identifies an online account from which to transfer funds to the payee (initiator of the payment request). If the payor does not have an online account established, the payor must sign up for an online account and provide a credit card number to fund the online account. Thereafter, the amount of funds are transferred to the payee and the system sends an e-mail notification to the payee indicating that the funds have been “received” on the payee’s behalf. In both cases, to complete a transaction, the payee must direct the received funds to an online account, for example, by providing an online account number and/or other identifying information such as a password. The payor may cancel the transaction at any time until the payee directs the received funds to an online account.

eBay (the owner of PayPal) and the other companies just getting into Internet payments (e.g. Google, Microsoft) will sure have something to chew on.