A broad patent on instant messaging granted months ago to America Online has elicited no reaction from rivals Microsoft and Yahoo! even though it seems to threaten their competing instant-messaging services. The patent application was filed in 1997 by Mirabilis, the developer of the ICQ instant-messaging service. AOL bought Mirabilis a year later.
Their apparent sanguinity may be due to many things, but one is the question of whether AOL's new patent would even stand if AOL tried to enforce it. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Zephyr and other instant-messaging systems existed long before Mirabilis applied for the patent.
Spam and smut blocking, along with personalized Web experiences for users, are the big themes in tuned-up Internet access services from America Online and Microsoft. MSN, with 9 million subscribers, nips at AOL's heels with new members-only software such as Money (for online bill payments), Encarta Online for reference, and Picture It for digital photography. A welcome MSN 8 addition is an e-mail module, closely mimicking Outlook Express, that contains terrific antispam controls and preview panes. Also offered are its first-ever parental controls, which strive to keep kids safe while online. MSN 8 also has a new, highly configurable My MSN start page, while AOL 8 offers new emoticons and sound options for AIM, as well as six new but fairly similar Welcome pages.
Microsoft executives have called the open-source software Linux a cancer. They've even described the increasingly popular operating system--an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Windows--as un-American. But now they're hoping to attach a different word: costly.
Companies including Sun Microsystems and IBM are rolling out products and creating business models based on Linux. And Microsoft has seized on that development--and points out the technological expertise and labor needed to tailor Linux to companies' needs--in arguing that free isn't really free. Linux can require costly technical staff, said Rob Enderle, an analyst with Giga Information Group.
"You lose the ability to buy something and plug it in,' he said. "It takes you more time to do it. If the [Linux expert] leaves, you could be left with something that's unsupportable.'
A rumor is making the rounds this week about a possible buyout of Macromedia by software giant Microsoft. According to the rumor, Microsoft is considering the purchase in order to wrest control of Macromedia's Flash tool, which is generally used to create interactive Web sites or Web-based animations, and is seen as competition to Sun's Java. Rumor doubters point out that Macromedia also creates a bunch of other tools, such as ColdFusion MX, which either compete with Microsoft products, or have little place in Microsoft's lineup. For those who believe Macromedia's products aren't a natural fit at Microsoft, however, consider this. A current security warning from Macromedia says that every Flash player distributed before December 2002 is vulnerable to a buffer overflow exploit that hackers could use to completely take over users' systems. Sounds like a Microsoft product to me!
Microsoft plans to appeal a federal injunction handed down Monday that will force the company to include Sun Microsystem's latest version of Java in Windows. A Microsoft spokesman said the company is "disappointed" with its early review of the Court's decision. "After our initial review, we do intend to appeal this injunction and will ask the Appeals Court to hear it on an expedited basis," he said.
Green believes Sun will see a significant boost in its Web services initiatives if Microsoft is required to include an updated version of Java in Windows. The current version of Java Microsoft makes available is "five or six years old," he said. "It's missing many of the features relative to end-to-end networking."
Microsoft must include rival Sun's Java programming language in its Windows operating system, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing Sun a victory as it pursues its private antitrust case. Software developers are turning to Microsoft's .NET platform instead of gambling on Microsoft's spotty distribution of Java, Sun attorneys told Motz during the hearing. Microsoft attorneys countered that at least half the world's software developers already use Java, which was designed to run small applications independent of any particular operating system.
"Competition is not only about winning the prize; its deeper value lies in giving all those who choose to compete an opportunity to demonstrate their worth," Motz wrote. "If .NET proves itself to be a better product than Java, it should - and will - predominate in the market."
Mobile phone maker Sendo has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging the attempted theft of technical expertise and proprietary technology, adding to the intrigue surrounding its recently terminated relationship with the software giant. A Sendo spokeswoman said that the company believes "the allegations are serious and substantial," but declined to give further details. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. federal court in Texarkana, Texas, on Friday. Sendo is based in the United Kingdom, but its North American headquarters are in Dallas, and its as-yet-unreleased z100 "smart phone" is powered by OMAP technology from Texas Instruments, also based in Texas.
Adobe Systems' Acrobat Reader software has become one of those rare birds in personal computing: a de facto standard that has nothing to do with industry giant Microsoft. Now, Adobe plans to expand the Portable Document Format behind Acrobat Reader into a multipurpose business tool over the coming months. At the same time, however, Microsoft is moving ahead with plans for software that could nibble at the edge of Adobe's market.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced plans for XDocs, an extension of its Office software intended to allow workers to easily create basic online forms. Initially hailed as a potential PDF killer, it has lost much of its luster among analysts. They now mostly see XDocs as potential competition for only part of Adobe's business.
Scott Culp, the man responsible for Microsoft Corp.'s security response efforts, has left his post and moved to a new position within the company's Security Strategy Group.
As manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center, Culp has been the public face of the software giant's efforts to respond to security problems in its products and improve its image within the security community. During his five years in the MSRC, Culp played a large role in the development of Microsoft's procedure for handling vulnerabilities, dealing with security researchers and getting patches and information out to customers.
A federal judge is expected to rule Monday on the private antitrust lawsuit Sun Microsystems Inc. is fighting against Microsoft Corp. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz is expected to rule on a preliminary injunction motion Sun filed asking that the court force Microsoft to provide a Sun-compatible Java Virtual Machine (JVM) with each copy of Windows and the company's Internet Explorer browser.
Motz heard arguments on the issue for three days during the week of Dec. 1, 2002, in his courtroom at U.S. District Court in Baltimore. At the end of the hearing, Motz praised both sides for having put on strong cases and said the two legal teams had him going "back and forth" on the issue and that he had not made up his mind as of the end of the hearing.