Microsoft News Tracker

Last week there were numerous reports that Microsoft’s stealth Windows Update update was preventing users that had done a repair of their Windows XP system from adding any Microsoft updates. It turns out that this was indeed an unintended side effect of the WGA change as Microsoft’s Nat Clinton describes on the Microsoft Update Product Team Blog:

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Back in August I was speculating that the desultory enterprise adoption of Vista would force Microsoft to extend the availability of Windows XP and today that was realized as Microsoft added 5 months to the XP OEM and retail availability.

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It’s slightly more than a year since Microsoft launched Live Search, and yesterday Microsoft held a press event dubbed Searchification at which a variety of enhancements were unveiled (see also the Live Search blog, the Live Search fact sheet, and Oilman’s stream of consciousness report). In a nutshell, the new, improved Live Search offers:

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Yesterday, the “Microsoft acquires Facebook” rumors were back according to the Wall Street Journal, with the twist that the unidentified sources say that Microsoft is now only asking for 5% of the hot social networking fad site, but would pay a price that would give Facebook an over $10 billion dollar valuation.

Supposedly Facebook would dearly love the public valuation and could use a little walking around money, while Microsoft would love to demonstrate some trendy credentials and perhaps permanently lock in their Facebook advertising deal.

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Tonight’s the night that Halo 3, the much hyped first person shooter and successor to the wildly popular Halo 2, launches exclusively on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the early reviews seem quite positive. Microsoft badly needs a megahit if there is to be any hope of turning a quarterly profit sometime soon in its troubled Entertainment and Devices division and Halo 3 is the only real candidate. Via Eric Savitz at Barron’s, here’s a reading of the Halo 3 financial tea leaves:

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