Microsoft News Tracker

Chicago Tribune media columnist Phil Rosenthal reports that Microsoft has bought a minority share in CareerBuilder.com for an undisclosed price that according to sources amounts to 4%. CareerBuilder.com is an online job site owned by the Tribune Co., Gannett Co. and McClatchy Co. which are newspaper companies (among other things). Not unconnected:

Separately, Microsoft’s MSN and CareerBuilder said they have extended their strategic alliance, launched in 2004. That arrangement continues to make CareerBuilder the exclusive U.S. content supplier for MSN Careers at least through 2013.

CareerBuilder will pay MSN up to $443 million over the next seven years, based on the quality and quantity of the traffic MSN delivers.

MSN and CareerBuilder are also broadening their alliance to include MSN international sites, helping accelerate CareerBuilder’s overseas expansion, the companies said.

Microsoft today confirmed the popular suspicion that Katmai, the next version of SQL Server, will ship in 2008. Feature details are currently sparse, but one interesting aspect is that Microsoft is acquiring SoftArtisans Inc.’s OfficeWriter for managed report authoring in Microsoft Office with Katmai. Microsoft’s Russell Christopher suggests that “this is a huge win for folks who want to render reports to Word and/or use the lighter-weight Excel rendering extension SoftArtisans has created.”

Update: Also mentioned was Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 which is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2007.

Nate Mook at BetaNews reports that Microsoft has belatedly confirmed the demise of their Portable Media Center initiative:

Unbeknownst to many, Microsoft put the nails in its Portable Media Center coffin last year, telling licensees it would no longer develop the platform, opting instead to focus on Windows Mobile. The final word came in a public newsgroup posting Friday.

“With the re-investment of resources in media experiences on connected Windows Mobile powered devices, Portable Media Center 2.0 is the last version of our Portable Media Center software under the Windows Mobile brand. We do not plan any future Portable Media Center software upgrades or marketing activities,” wrote Microsoft’s David Bono.

Portable Media Centers first made an appearance in early 2003 under the name Media2Go. Although a number of devices and partners were shown off at the time, the platform was plagued with delays and the first PMC devices failed to hit the market until late 2004.

At which point their health was shaky because of the iPod surge.  The final demise was sealed by Microsoft’s decision last year to cut out its Portable Media Center and PlaysForSure partners and build its own incompatible portable media player, the Zune.