Microsoft News Tracker

A flurry of miscellaneous Microsoft News:

Judge backs $1.5 billion patent decision against Microsoft in the first Alcatel-Lucent case decided in late February.

Microsoft joins OpenAjax Alliance standards group as rumored back in January. See also the OpenAjax Alliance website.

Microsoft offers a new Vista discount plan for consumers:

For customers who acquired a full or upgrade version of Windows Vista from retail or pre-installed, we’ve got a pretty sweet deal.  We’re announcing the Windows Vista Additional License program, which provides the ability to install the same edition of Windows Vista on any other additional computers you may own.  The program allows customers to purchase up to 5 additional licenses for PCs they own at 10% off the suggested retail price.

Although slightly more realistic than the Family Discount Plan, it has the same basic problem - the vast majority of consumers will only acquire Vista via a new PC purchase.

Meanwhile, Vista is reportedly bad for the PC business. Wait, someone else says it’s great. Hold on a sec, maybe it’s in between.

Dell launches low-cost PC in China running either Windows XP or Linux. No Vista. Well, Microsoft will still get paid for XP.

Virtualisation causes IDC to cut server forecast. Virtualization allows customers to buy fewer, bigger servers. Both units and revenue are predicted to be down from prior forecasts. There should also be a similar effect on Microsoft’s server revenue.

House Bill Would Free Up TV Airwaves for the Microsoft mystery device.

Microsoft Disappoints Zune Users Waiting For Firmware Update, particularly since it is supposed to fix a “skipping” problem on purchased music.

Windows Live Search Italy gets owned by a truly skillful malware deployment combined with search engine optimization. Check out the screenshots too. The problem of bogus websites in search results is a problem for all search engines though, as some Microsoft researchers demonstrated.

Darryl K. Taft at eWeek:

IBM and a group of industry leaders on Feb. 1 announced an open-source initiative to promote the adoption of AJAX technology.

The new initiative, known as Open AJAX, includes such prominent supporters as BEA Systems, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, Google, IBM, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla, Novell, Openwave Systems, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend and Zimbra. The group plans to promote the use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and its use on various devices, applications, desktops or operating systems.

AJAX is a (web) client technology that enriches the user experience for shopping, working, planning, corresponding and navigating online. AJAX makes updated information available automatically without refreshing the browser, among other benefits.

Notice the presence of Google and Yahoo on the list and not surprisingly, given the open source basis, the absence of Microsoft. SYS-CON Belgium has much more including an interview with IBM’s CTO for Emerging Internet Technologies, David Boloker.

Microsoft announced it own AJAX tooling, codenamed Atlas, at PDC05 and will be featuring it at the March Mix06 conference.