Microsoft News Tracker

Judge tells Microsoft to pay up in Alcatel-Lucent patent case. There won’t be any $1.5 billion checks any time soon though - just more legal maneuvering.

Microsoft Poised to Rule Entertainment, Devices World according to Robbie Bach at least. eWeek needed 3 articles to encompass his full rendition of “High Hopes“. Related: Microsoft fails to impress during Bach’s MIX07 keynote. Too bad the developers walked out, because they missed The Economist’s Andrew Rashbass who was both the life of the MIX07 party and the specter at the feast.

Only slightly more illuminating than Bach was Steve Ballmer’s interview with USA Today, but he certainly has a jones for the iPhone which led some to wonder about his math.

Pink Zune Now Available to the Rest of Us. Yep, that’ll do it.

Yahoo wins Comcast.net eyeball auction. I guess Google and Microsoft can’t win them all and it’s surprisingly a bigger deal than you might think since Comcast is the largest US ISP and their customers actually use the homepage.

Japanese Government to Embrace Linux - $10B worth of systems in 2007 and it’s $17B if you count local governments.

Microsoft to Challenge $75.5M Attorney Fee in Iowa Class-Action Lawsuit, but only the $0.5M part since they already agreed to the $75M.

Vista angst fodder

• Vista draining laptop batteries, patience. It’s all Aero’s fault.
• Dell, Intel won’t deploy Vista until SP1. Join the party.

Update 5/8: MSFTextrememakeover provides the requisite corporal punishment for the Robbie Bach interview mentioned above in Microsoft’s $6M+ (Per Year) Man.

Wolfgang Gruener has the eulogy for Origami at TG Daily in “The UMPC dies. And no one notices“:

Ok, let’s not be so dramatic. It really depends on your view if the UMPC is actually dead or alive. However, the idea of the Ultra Mobile PC as it was pitched to us in 2006, as an ultra cool and always connected companion that is with us anytime and anywhere, is gone for good. Expect the current UMPC generation to leave the general retail market very soon.

During a recent conversation with Intel, which has been one of the first companies to show UMPC concepts and unveil some prototype devices a little over a year a ago, we learned that the initial concept of the UMPC has failed. While the form factor of the UMPC won’t go away, these devices have been less appealing to the mass market than expected and have been redirected to aim at the business market, for example field technicians who use bulky Tablet PCs today. If Intel has its way, then what once was the mass market UMPC will morph into much smaller and less powerful “mobile Internet devices,” short “MID”.

So, if you have been dreaming about that cool little tablet you can bring on vacation instead of dragging that notebook bag along, continue to dream. While MIDs will be more affordable, come in a smaller package and offer more connectivity options than today’s UMPCs, they will be far less capable in terms of processing power and storage capabilities.

Everyone wanted the product that was misleadingly hyped, but it couldn’t be delivered. There’s much more by following the link including speculation as to whether smartphones actually leave any market room for the the MID.

Lots of excitement in the markets this morning as everyone’s favorite rumor came around again:

Yahoo shares rallied 15% in pre-open trading on Friday after a newspaper report that Microsoft may try to buy the Internet search firm after being beaten to other deals by Google Inc.

The source was a report in the NY Post by Peter Lauria and Zachery Kouwe:

Stung by the loss of Internet advertising firm DoubleClick to Google last month, Microsoft has intensified its pursuit of a deal with Yahoo!, asking the company to re-enter formal negotiations, The Post has learned.

While Microsoft and Yahoo! have held informal deal talks over the years, sources say the latest approach signals an urgency on Microsoft’s part that has up until now been lacking.

The new approach follows an offer Microsoft made to acquire Yahoo! a few months ago, sources said. But Yahoo! spurned the advances of the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. Wall Street sources put a roughly $50 billion price tag on Yahoo!.

“They’re getting tired of being left at the altar,” said one banking source who has recently had talks with Microsoft. “They now seem more willing to extend themselves via a transaction to get into the game.

All things are possible, but it’s hard to see how such a combination would give the duo any real boost in their battle with Google and it would provide all the delay and confusion of merging organizations and infrastructures. It’s the kind of thing large companies do because they can, but which doesn’t address the underlying problems.

Meanwhile, acquisition or no, the two companies seem to be pals as Mary Jo Foley reports that “Yahoo’s Semel to keynote Microsoft advertising powwow.” Apparently he and Microsoft’s ad czar, Joanne Bradford, are going to share the stage to discuss “The New Network.” Maybe they found one where Google doesn’t eat both their lunches?

Update: Just before the market closed, the WSJ reported that sources say that “merger discussions are no longer active.”

Update 5/5: Another source tells today’s NY Times that talks between Yahoo and Microsoft have been going on for more than a year, but while acquisition was once discussed and rejected, the negotiation now centers around a “creative partnership.”