Microsoft News Tracker

Dawn Kawamoto reports at CNET on the upcoming Congressional fireworks related to Yahoo’s proposed search ad deal with Google:

Top legal counsel for Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft will address a Congressional hearing Tuesday, as lawmakers examine the Yahoo-Google search advertising agreement and its potential anticompetitive effects on the future of Internet advertising.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights will call Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan, and Google chief legal officer David Drummond to testify as witnesses.

Congressional hearings are mostly an opportunity for bloviating politicos to beat their chests and get their names in the Washington Post and NY Times, but it will be modestly interesting to have the parties repeat in public what they are telling the Department of Justice in private.

Microsoft was on the sidelines today as Apple launched their iPhone 3G around the world and the associated iPhone 2.0 software update, but Microsoft’s Adam Glick reminded everyone where the iPhone will be calling for numerous business users:

If you’ve not heard; Apple released iPhone 2.0 today which includes a software update to the existing iPhones in the market (yes, we mentioned it when it was announced as well).  We’re thrilled to add them to the family of Exchange ActiveSync licensees that enable all sorts of devices to connect to Exchange Server.  For those of you that manage Exchange Servers this means you may see some new devices connecting and we wanted to give you a few notes about what to expect.

Follow the link for details, but it is no surprise as it was announced back in March and it is still good business for both parties.