After several months of intense review, the European Commission has cleared Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad server DoubleClick, finding that the combined company would not substantially lessen competition in any sector of the Internet advertising economy.
"The Commission's in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other's activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment," the EC said in a statement.
Silverlight, Microsoft's cross-browser plug-in technology for rich multimedia experiences, is making the rounds as an alternative
to Adobe Systems's rival Flash platform. Early observers and users of Silverlight at the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas last
week emphasized, among other things, its accommodations for .Net software development skills.
"The thing that makes Silverlight interesting, especially [for] .Net developers is that you can use C#," said Carl Kenne,
a developer at .Net consultants Dotway in Sweden.
Sony is talking with Apple and Microsoft about offering Blu-ray Disc drives for their systems, according to Sony Electronics
US president Stan Glasgow.
Glasgow revealed that Sony has talked with both Apple and Microsoft during a recent media dinner, as reported by the Financial Times.
Blu-ray Disc is the heir apparent to the high-definition optical drive market following HD DVD maker Toshiba's decision to stop manufacturing its rival format. Toshiba made the decision after several high-profile companies turned their back
on the format, including Warner Bros., Netflix, and Wal-Mart.
Microsoft moved to adjust Xbox 360 prices in the European market, likely in an effort to both line up its cost with other regional markets while also taking into account a weakening US dollar. The changes are taking place in both the UK and markets where the Euro is the currency of choice. In the UK, the base Xbox 360, the Arcade, will fall to $159, down $20, the standard model to $199 from $49, and the Elite $259 from its original ??299 price.
In Euro markets, the new prices will be 199 euros for the Arcade, 269 euros for the Premium, and 369 euros for the Elite console: a drop of 80 euros across the board.
MILAN -- Any takeover bid for peripherals maker Logitech International by Microsoft would be "an operation without sense," Logitech's chairman was quoted as saying in an Italian newspaper on Sunday.
Shares in Switzerland-based Logitech rose in January based on speculation Microsoft would launch a takeover bid. Analysts dismissed rumors of an $8 billion takeover bid and Logitech board member Daniel Borel, the company's largest shareholder, said he had no reason to sell his stake.
Shares "only rose for a day. Anyhow, it would be an operation without sense," Logitech Chairman Guerrino De Luca told Corriere della Sera in an interview.
It's perhaps the simplest example of cloud computing there is: two gigabytes of free storage space sitting out there on Microsoft's servers to be used for file synchronization, and all for free. But there's an added feature that purports to be a benefit, that some users might not expect.Ostensibly, the new version of Windows Live FolderShare offers a convenient pocket for files you may need to access from remote locations. The surprise is, it's also a remote access system to your computers' complete file systems.
Sun and Microsoft announced two "milestones" Monday in their ongoing alliance, including the official opening of a Sun/Microsoft
Interoperability Center on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash. campus.
The center is intended to optimize use of Microsoft applications with Sun Fire x64 servers and storage. Also, the companies
are announcing availability of Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
The center will provide a setting for hands-on testing and tuning of Sun/Microsoft solutions and help joint customers achieve
performance results, Microsoft said. Customers can run key Microsoft applications on Sun x64 servers.
An animated Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer poked fun at Apple's latest hardware, defended his company's giant Yahoo acquisition bid, and promised to keep fighting Google for market share until his last breath.
And that was before he reprised the whole "Monkey Boy" thing.
Appearing on stage Thursday at the company's Mix08 Internet conference here, Ballmer sparred and joked with former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki for more than an hour on a wide range of topics related to Microsoft and the technology industry.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer couldn't avoid being trampled by the elephant in the room -- the company's bid to acquire Yahoo -- during a quirky keynote question-and-answer session at the company's MIX08 conference Thursday.
The first question out of interviewer Guy Kawasaki's mouth during the hour-long interview was "what's the deal" with Microsoft's
quest to purchase the struggling Internet and online advertising company? Kawasaki was appointed by Microsoft to grill Ballmer
at the conference.
"We've made an offer," Ballmer said.
At a big medical conference last week, Microsoft dove deeper into an maelstrom of industry health care solutions aimed at meeting the demands of government regulators, hospitals, insurance firms, and consumers. Can the team from Redmond swim the distance against competitors including IBM and Google?The challenge before database software providers today is to address the critical and lucrative market of healthcare information access for doctors and patients, in a way that fulfills the mandates of government regulations for accountability, and at the same time fulfills the requirements of government regulations for security...while staying viable for the everyday user.