Microsoft

LONDON (AFP) - Microsoft has held talks with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp over a possible plan for the software giant to pay the media company to remove its news websites from Google, a report said Monday. Full Story »

Microsoft's Surface tabletop computer team has graduated from being a pet project of founder Bill Gates to a group that stands up on its own, and contributes back into other parts of Microsoft. Full Story »

A hacker has posted attack code that could be used to break into a PC running older versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Full Story »

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer isn't talking turkey when it comes to the software giant's newest operating system. At a shareholder meeting Thursday in Bellevue, Wash., Ballmer told investors that Windows 7 sold double the number of copies in one month as its previous Windows Vista operating system. Full Story »

San Francisco - Microsoft is previewing extensions for .Net catering to asynchronous and event-based programming. Full Story »

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Microsoft Corp. is giving away nearly 24,000 vouchers to North Carolina residents who want to improve their computer skills so they can improve their lot in the work force. Full Story »

Excitable Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer actually had something to be excited about at yesterday's shareholder meeting, where he announced that Windows 7 sales are "fantastic." Full Story »

Watching Google's Chrome OS event made me realize: There is a lot in Google's OS that can benefit Microsoft--like giving it a completely new platform and one it needs. If Google is really true to its open source promises, Microsoft should join the fun. Full Story »

Microsoft has released the beta version of Office 2010, along with betas of the 2010 versions of SharePoint Server, Visio, Project and Office Web Apps for business customers. Office Mobile 2010 has also reached the beta milestone. Full Story »

Microsoft told its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles Wednesday that it's already working on the next version of Internet Explorer. In addition to demonstrating some of the progress on performance and interoperability standards in IE9, Microsoft said it intends to make more PC hardware capabilities available to web developers from within the browser. Full Story »

San Francisco - Microsoft revealed on Wednesday ambitious plans for the next version of its Silverlight browser plug-in technology for rich Internet applications, including faster startup times and software development improvements as well as more capabilities for running applications outside of a browser. Full Story »

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has been ordered by a Chinese court to stop selling versions of its Windows operating systems that include fonts designed by a local company, citing a violation of licensing agreements. Full Story »

Microsoft announced Wednesday that Asus will be producing a new Home Server, known as the TS Mini. Full Story »

Microsoft on Wednesday launched a public beta of Office Mobile 2010, coinciding with its launch of the Office 2010 beta. Full Story »

Microsoft showed Tuesday that it has its head firmly in the clouds as it announced the Windows Azure platform will be at full capacity on Jan. 1. The announcement by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles described Azure and SQL Azure as "core elements of the company's cloud-services strategy." Full Story »

With the release of the Office 2010 beta, the general public finally gets to check out how Microsoft plans to deliver on its promises for the next edition of its flagship productivity suite--namely, close integration with lightweight Web versions of core apps (Excel and PowerPoint Web are the first to debut for consumers via Windows Live, with Word and OneNote available only in the business-oriented SharePoint 2010 server beta), better multimedia support, a subtle interface refresh, and a slew of features designed to make document creation and sharing easier. But there's some news too, most notably support within Outlook for tracking feeds from social networks. Full Story »

It's entirely possible, and reasonable, that the controllerless Project Natal technology Microsoft is developing will replace a remote control on Xbox 360-powered TVs, Marc Whitten, the general manager responsible for Microsoft's Xbox Live service, told attendees at the Streaming Media West show. Full Story »

BEIJING - A Beijing court has ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling some versions of its Windows operating system in China in a licensing dispute with a local supplier. Full Story »