Microsoft News Tracker

Darryl K. Taft at eWEEK:

Microsoft has announced 12 principles by which the company will guide its development of the Windows desktop platform, starting with Windows Vista and beyond.

At a New America Foundation Policy Luncheon at the National Press Club here, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s senior vice president and general counsel, outlined the principles and discussed lessons Microsoft has learned over the past 10 years based on antitrust battles, regulatory scrutiny and fierce competition in the operating system and software market in general.

Smith said the principles largely come from things Microsoft picked up in the consent decree the software giant signed in settling its landmark antitrust battle with the federal government, but that more recent developments led to the crafting of some of the other principles.

The Windows Principles: Twelve Tenets to Promote Competition initially struck me as a PR exercise since they are indeed mostly things Microsoft is obligated to do anyhow by the US antitrust settlement. However, Jupiter Research’s Joe Wilcox takes a detailed look at each of the twelve and has some perceptive observations including:

7. Internet services. This is the big one. Microsoft is committing to give people the choice as to whether or not to take Windows Live services. But Microsoft doesn’t say that it wouldn’t bundle Windows Live services with Windows Vista, just that people wouldn’t have to take them. Way I see it, coming out and saying there is a choice implies there will be some tie-in to Windows Vista. My 7-Eleven gives me the chose to take chili with my Big Bite hotdog because the condiment is offered. There would no choice if chili wasn’t available.

So this one absolutely is new, and it foreshadows much about Microsoft’s Windows Live services and also draws some boundary around the company’s behavior. The Web continues to dog Microsoft and Web 2.0 threatens the relevance of desktop software. Microsoft’s promise is fairly hefty concession, qualifying the implication of some relationship between Windows Vista and Windows Live.

More by following the link.

Brian Bergstein at the AP:

Personal computer shipments grew roughly 10 percent in the second quarter despite soft sales in Europe, two influential research firms reported Wednesday.
…
Researchers at IDC said worldwide PC shipments grew 9.7 percent. Analysts at Gartner Inc., who use slightly different measurement methods, pegged the increase at 11.0 percent.

And what is good for PC sales is good for Microsoft, although the market is clearly cooling with maturity:

Loren Loverde, director of IDC’s worldwide quarterly PC tracker, said the industry appears to be settling into a period of 10 percent annual growth rates, which remains healthy although lower than the rates closer to 15 percent seen in the past few years.

We first noticed Microsoft’s IP Ventures program last April when they sold some social networking technology to startup Wallop Inc. for a stake in the company. The admirable objective is to profit from technologies that Microsoft has developed but has no current use for, and late last night another deal was announced:

Tomorrow at the Business of Innovation conference, Microsoft Corp. will announce it has licensed technology, code-named “TouchLight,” which it developed in its Redmond, Wash., research lab, to EON Reality Inc., a leading interactive visual content-management software provider. The technology will augment EON’s visualization offerings with its cutting-edge ability for users to physically interact with 3-D visual content. Completed as part of Microsoft’s IP Ventures program, an initiative that allows companies to refine and sell early-stage technologies first developed by Microsoft, the agreement is the latest based on a shared-success business model that fosters opportunity for startup companies in California and other technology hubs around the world.
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EON Reality will incorporate the “TouchLight” interactive display technology into its existing commercial, automotive, aerospace and defense industry product lines. EON’s customers will be able to use the technology for dynamic marketing displays, product demonstrations and truly interactive training experiences. Within the next two years, EON estimates that the technology will be used in stores to facilitate advanced shopping experiences and interactive technical support with products and assemblies appearing to float in the air during interaction. EON estimates that within the next 24 to 36 months this technology could be affordable enough for desktops. Interested parties can view a demonstration of the technology at http://www.eonreality.com/video/touchlight/touchlight.wmv.

Per Ina Fried at CNET:

Microsoft is not taking an equity stake in Eon and will get licensing payments only when Eon has sales from a product using TouchLight. Other financial details were not disclosed.

And from the AP:

David Harnett, senior director of Microsoft IP Ventures, said the license is perpetual as long as certain milestones are met. Specific financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal allows Microsoft to also license the technology to others or use it in-house for other products.

Harnett said Microsoft has completed between 10 and 15 similar licensing pacts since launching a division devoted to such deals in May 2005.

The latter might be an interesting list. Here’s the original IP Ventures press release from May 2005 and the IP Ventures home page has more including an online catalog of available IP.