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The question of how much support Microsoft intends to give JavaScript as a Web development language became murkier yesterday, perhaps inadvertently, when a statement made by the company's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, was cited out of context by press sources. The citation by itself made it appear that Silverlight, Microsoft's new cross-platform runtime environment for Web applications, would at some point be competing with AJAX as though that technology were exclusively Google's.

Dell has joined Microsoft and Novell in their business collaboration that is designed to provide greater interoperability between Windows and SUSE Linux and give customers on both sides intellectual property assurance.

Under the agreement to be announced May 7, Dell will buy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft that it will make available to its customers.

It will also establish a services and marketing program to migrate current Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Rick Becker, senior vice president of strategic solutions for Dell's product group, told eWEEK.

People aren't talking much about RFID, which is indicative of the technology's slow growth curve. But Microsoft hopes that the second beta of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 changes all that.

Released earlier this week, BizTalk R2 represents a change in thinking about RFID, or radio frequency identification, according to Steve Sloan, Microsoft's senior product manager for BizTalk Server. Up until now, he said, RFID has had a number of stumbling blocks to wide adoption, including price, integration and usability. "Readers and tags were prohibitively expensive, and there wasn't an ecosystem of [RFID] solution providers."

Microsoft must face racketeering claims in a lawsuit filed by Best Buy Co. customers who say they were improperly charged for MSN Internet service, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a lawsuit claiming that Microsoft and Best Buy cooperated to activate MSN Internet service and charge for it without customers' knowledge.

The lawsuit, filed by Best Buy customers in California and Nevada, claims that Microsoft invested $200 million in Best Buy, which agreed to promote Microsoft's Internet service.

It would have been a monstrous deal, the biggest in Microsoft's history -- but the company's acquisition talks with Yahoo Inc. were apparently over before they began. Or at least before they were reported.

And analysts say it wouldn't have been a good idea anyway.

A wild Friday that started with reports of Microsoft in discussions to buy Yahoo Inc. concluded with word that the companies are actually contemplating something considerably more modest, such as an online advertising partnership to try to challenge market leader Google.

As the day came to a close, both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the companies once considered some sort of corporate merger or acquisition, but they are no longer exploring the possibility.

Microsoft on Monday will finally bring its completely revamped version of its popular online e-mail service out of beta and into full release.

According to sources familiar with the company's plans, Microsoft has been quietly rolling out version 1 of Windows Live Hotmail in smaller international markets such as Belgium and the Netherlands to test the new system. Monday's rollout give U.S. users and the other estimated 250 million Hotmail subscribers around the world access to the application, sources said.

Microsoft's security center has confirmed that a patch for the already exploited DNS server bug in Windows will be among the seven updates scheduled to release next Tuesday.

In a posting on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog, Program Manager Christopher Budd vouched for the patch.

"The listing of updates slated for Tuesday does include the update we've been working on," Budd said.

His comments were posted after Microsoft announced that it would be releasing seven updates next week.

Microsoft is disputing lawyer fees for the plaintiffs in class action suits against the software company in Iowa and Wisconsin. In both cases the parties agreed to a settlement that included the plaintiff's attorney fees up to a certain amount. In the Iowa case, that fee was US$75 million, said Rich Wallis, associate general counsel for Microsoft. However, in late April during a preliminary hearing on approval of the settlement, the lawyers for the plaintiffs asked for $75.5 million. "Which was kind of shocking," Wallis said. "Because they had an explicit agreement that they wouldn't ask for more.

Microsoft, perhaps stung by its failure to buy online advertising giant DoubleClick in recent months, announced that it has bought European company ScreenTonic SA, a mobile advertising company.

Paris-based ScreenTonic offers display and text advertising, as well as ad management and reporting capabilities.

"The mobile Internet is an extraordinary vehicle for brands to connect with their target audiences, because devices like cell phones enable interaction to take place virtually anywhere or anytime," Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft, said in a press release. "The acquisition of ScreenTonic will be part of our long-term strategy to deliver ad experiences that map to the environment. Together, we will be able to provide relevant ads where consumers are, when they are actively engaged and communicating."

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, is not one to take extreme views or make outlandish claims. But he is adamantly sure of one thing: a combination of software and online services is the future.

And so far, Ozzie's contention that the industry is going through a disruptive shift from software to services is bearing out.

Desktop software heavyweight Adobe Systems is increasingly introducing online services. Even Web companies like Amazon.com and eBay are building desktop services, like gadgets or applets, to complement their Web services.