Microsoft News Tracker

(Via Bink.nu) Adam Cohen of Dow Jones has the story from Davos:

Microsoft Corp. is developing on an online payment system that will be cheaper than credit card transactions, making it possible for companies to charge small fees for Web-based content and services they now offer for free.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told a breakfast meeting here at the World Economic Forum that he reviewed a plan to enter the online payments business during his “think week,” a twice-yearly ritual where he usually isolates himself in a backwoods cabin to study new ideas.
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Gates described a system that would undercut credit card fees, making it profitable for an online newspaper to charge small fees for individual articles, for example.

“If you want to charge somebody $0.10 or $1 a month, that will just be a click…you won’t have to manage some funny thing or pay some big credit charge, where half of it goes to the clearing,” Gates said.

What Mr. Gates describes is a micropayments system rather like Microsoft Points which started out as the popular “currency” of the Xbox Live Marketplace, but since has spread to the Zune Marketplace and general merchandise. Heck, maybe it is Microsoft Points. In any case, the report will give the folks at eBay’s PayPal and Google Checkout something to think about.