Microsoft News Tracker

Yahoo continued the current Web ad network consolidation surge (viz Google buys DoubleClick, Microsoft acquires aQuantive) with today’s announcement of the $300 million purchase of BlueLithium which is reportedly the fifth largest Web ad network in the US and the second largest in the UK. Todd Teresi, SVP, Yahoo! Publisher Network, has more details at the Yodel Anecdotal blog.

Microsoft’s Cesar Menendez says that tomorrow the suggested retail price of Microsoft’s Zune personal media players will be cut to $199. As Menendez suggests, it’s just part of the lifecycle as new Zune models are expected shortly for the holiday shopping season and the day of Apple’s new iPod announcements is as good a time as any to reveal it. I would also observe that at many retailers (e.g. Amazon) the price is already hovering around $200.

MSN China is actually a joint venture between Microsoft and Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd. (SAIL) a firm which if not exactly government owned, is “extremely well connected.” Now via Stephen Bink comes a report that SAIL wants out of the deal:

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Microsoft had an odd press release this morning touting “Strong Global Support for Open XML as It Enters Final Phase of ISO Standards Process.” If you are trying to figure out from reading all the disjointed statistics how this weekend’s vote went on fast track approval of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an ISO/IEC standard, the only real clue is the quote from Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s general manager for Interoperability and Standards:

“This preliminary vote is a milestone for the widespread adoption of the Open XML formats around the world for the benefit of millions of customers. Given how encouraging today’s results were, we believe that the final tally in early 2008 will result in the ratification of Open XML as an ISO standard.”

Actually, Microsoft lost and lost despite the unprecedented influx of previously uninterested parties into the balloting.

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Apparently John Markoff at the NY Times is the preferred venue for Windows Live PR puffery. It’s not so much that Mr. Markoff has the exclusive on announcing that this week Microsoft will ship the rather mundane unified installer for a selection of Windows Live services that was revealed in June, it’s that the article has the “Golly Gee” tone typical of the worst flackery and overlooks the substantial problems with Microsoft’s whole Windows Live effort.

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