Some Vista users say they're getting the Ultimate shaft | Beyond Binary - CNET News
"Now, that frustration has turned to anger after Microsoft offered its pre-order program for Windows 7.Through July 11, Microsoft is offering a steep discount for those moving to cheaper versions of Windows 7, but nothing for those who want to stay on Ultimate. Under the terms of Microsoft's discount pre-order program, users can buy an upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional at roughly half the list price, but the Ultimate version is offered at the full $219 price."
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IE 8 Get the facts campaign gets it wrong « rand($thoughts);
"If Microsoft wants me and others like me, to take IE 8 seriously, I expect them to treat our intelligence with some respect. Anything less, and after a while, we’ll have been taught to discount their bold claims."
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Jochen Friedrich's Open Blog: Excellent example for the threat to the openness of the internet
"You are certainly not paranoid if you have such worries. Microsoft Australia now gives an example for what is possible and done by offering the chance to get $10,000 by finding information on some website - WHICH CAN ONLY BE VIEWED USING INTERNET EXPLORER 8 !!"
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An Antic Disposition: ODF Lies and Whispers
"So what is one to do? You obviously can't trust Wikipedia whatsoever in this area. This is unfortunate, since I am a big fan of Wikipedia. I want it to succeed. But since the day when Microsoft decided they needed to pay people to "improve" the ODF and OOXML articles, these articles have been a cesspool of FUD, spin and outright lies, seemingly manufactured for Microsoft's re-use in their whisper campaign."
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Microsoft to plug holes in Windows, IE, Word, Office and Excel | Security - CNET News
"Affected products include Windows 2000, XP, XP Professional edition, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, 2007 Office and Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008 for the Mac. Other affected software includes Office Excel Viewer, Office Word Viewer, Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats, Works 8.5 and 9.0 and Office SharePoint Server."
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Russia launches antitrust probe of Microsoft | Technology | Reuters
"Russia's state anti-monopoly service launched a probe of Microsoft Corp over cutbacks in supplies of the Windows XP operating system in Russia, it said on Thursday."
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Google to slip SVG into Internet Explorer • The Register
"Microsoft might be hesitating on Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) in Internet Explorer 8, but Google's pressing on. The search giant's engineers are building a JavaScript library to render static and dynamic SVG in Microsoft's browser. Google promised that the library, a Javascript shim, will simply drop into IE."
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RO: Proprietary licence deal draws ire open source proponents — Open Source Observatory
"The Romanian government announced its renewal of a framework software licence with Microsoft in the middle of May. The framework licence deal is worth 100 million euro in software licences to be used by government agencies between 2010 and 2012. Romania will also pay the software giant another 58 million euro this fall, as the final payment for the 2004 - 2009 framework licence agreement that expired last month."
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Red Hat Sues Swiss Government Over $39M Microsoft Contract - Business Center - PC World
"Red Hat has filed suit with the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, asking it to cancel a contract for desktop software and services that a government agency awarded to Microsoft without calling for competitive bids, the company said."
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Swiss government rethinking Microsoft no-bid contract? - InternetNews:The Blog - Sean Michael Kerner
"According to Swiss newspaper Neue Zuericher Zeitung, the Swiss government might be reconsidering its no-bid contract deal with Microsoft which has been opposed by a consortium of 18 open source vendors."
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Microsoft gets out of the way of Bing | The Open Road - CNET News
"Microsoft has a great brand, but it also has a brand that carries a lot of baggage with it, baggage that its search service (or "decision engine," as it describes Bing) really doesn't need. One of the great failings of Microsoft's past search efforts is that Microsoft tried to tie them into the larger Microsoft experience which, it turned out, wasn't helpful. Microsoft's brand is tied up in the desktop. Search is all about the Web."
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Ex-Microsoftie: Free Software Will Kill Redmond - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
"Keith Curtis, author and former Microsoft programmer, makes no bones about his view that open source puts the software giant's wares to shame. In this interview, he discusses what's wrong with Microsoft programming, what's behind all those bugs, and what's shaping his former employer's grim future."
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Red Hat News | Red Hat Challenges Microsoft Lock-in and Seeks Open Competition in Switzerland
"The three-year contract, worth 14 million Swiss Francs per year, was awarded by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics (BBL) to Microsoft for standardized workstations, including applications, maintenance, and support. There was no public bidding process. The Swiss agency justified this no-bid procedure on the ground that there was no sufficient alternative to the Microsoft products."
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Microsoft patents means of limiting software | Beyond Binary - CNET News
"Microsoft on Tuesday was granted a patent for a way of limiting access to certain features of an operating system depending on whether a user has paid for those features."
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Open Invention Network seeks prior art to burn FAT patents - Ars Technica
"Alongside efforts to invalidate the patents, some Linux supporters are also using this as an opportunity to encourage the technology industry to abandon Microsoft's filesystem. Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin says that FAT is easy to replace and that the Linux Foundation is available to coordinate a technical effort to assist with the removal of FAT from products."
more fromarstechnica.com
OIN spearheads review of Microsoft FAT patents | Open Source | ZDNet.com
"OIN announced today that three patents in the lawsuit — including those the deal with the creation of long and short file names — have been named for prior art review on the Post-Issue Peer-to-Patent website linked to the Linux Defenders portal. The Peer-to-Patent is an initiative by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that opens the patent examination process to public participation, according to Linux Defenders."
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'Linux Defenders' aim at Microsoft patents | Beyond Binary - CNET News
"A Linux advocacy group on Tuesday said it is publicly seeking invention data that could help overturn three Microsoft patents that the software maker has charged are infringed by some implementations of the Linux kernel."
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Microsoft Vine – Request an invitation
"The Microsoft Vine Beta connects you to the people and places you care about most, when it matters. Stay in touch with family and friends, be informed when someone needs help. Get involved to create great communities. Use alerts, reports and your personal dashboard to stay in touch, informed and involved."
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Microsoft: Sorry, you can't use these vouchers to learn Linux - TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News Source
"Microsoft and Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire this morning held a news conference in downtown Seattle to announce the company's donation of 30,000 vouchers for people in the state to learn new computer skills, positioning themselves for better jobs. As a point of clarification, officials were asked whether the vouchers would be good for learning non-Microsoft programs, too. For the record, that would be a big no."
more fromwww.techflash.com
What Price Cool? Mac vs. PC - Columns by PC Magazine
"Microsoft is irked by Apple, that's all. I would be, too. But again, the company is taking its eye off the Linux ball. Linux is cool too, in a more nerdy, geeky way. And in some ways you could almost rewrite the whole report and substitute Microsoft for Apple and Linux for Microsoft. A few tweaks here and there and you've made a convincing argument that Redmond is full of boneheads."
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