Emboldened by mass adoption for its BizTalk Server 2006 middleware by Fortune 500 businesses, Microsoft said it has formed the Business Process Alliance to make it easier for smaller businesses to employ business process management (BPM) software.
BPA is a group of 10 companies whose goal is to build BPM packages for smaller companies that haven't yet jumped onto the bandwagon.
BPM software helps distributed computing systems, such as service-oriented architectures, arrange Web services so that they are seamlessly exchanged between computers.
Thursday's ruling that Microsoft owes $1.5 billion in damages for Windows' use of MP3-related patented technology prompts questions well beyond whether the software giant will take the money out of its checking or savings account.
Microsoft will undoubtedly try to have the verdict reduced or reversed. But if it stands, the court order also opens the door for Alcatel-Lucent to pursue damages from other companies that use MP3 music technology in their products.
Here is a list of some relevant questions and answers, as best they are known at this point.
update
A company called Office Live said Friday it has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Microsoft over the software giant's use of "Office Live" for its on-demand productivity tools.
Office Live, which runs sites such as Legalofficelive.com, Realtorsofficelive.com and Accountantsofficelive.com, offers free professional advice to consumers and offers customer leads to businesses. The company is seeking an injunction to prevent Microsoft from using the "Office Live" name.
The lawsuit comes at a time when Microsoft is working to get its highly touted "Live" offerings established in the market.
Microsoft is "very interested" in the Ruby programming language and also plans to expand its Expression design tools line, a Microsoft official said this week.
During an Internet chat with InfoWorld, Forest Key, Microsoft director of Web and client user experience marketing for the company's developer division, acknowledged
Ruby is on the company's radar screen. Asked if the company would accommodate the Ruby on Rails Web framework, which is based on Ruby, in Expression, Key said, "Ruby is currently more of a 'developer' concept for us."
"We are very interested in Ruby and have lots of thinking going on," but nothing to announce at this time, Key said. He advised
chatters to "stay tuned."
Key added he was not the Microsoft person to comment in detail on this subject because he did not know the companys plans.
Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent continued their legal tussle, with Microsoft taking the latest shot with its claim that Alcatel-Lucent infringed on four of its patents.
Microsoft said in a filing last week with the U.S. District Court of Delaware that Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent violated four patents dealing with computer and phone systems that monitor and run calls, messages and video communications. Microsoft claimed Alcatel was already selling products that used the technology.
The software giant wants the court to ban the further sale of products using the technology and is seeking damages for the patent violations.
Three weeks after the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft has updated the list of applications that have passed its "Certified for Windows Vista" logo program testing requirements.
Given how long Vista was in beta test, the list is not comprehensive -- only 104 total. Not too surprisingly, 24 of those are Microsoft's applications, including a one-by-one listing of the individual applications in Office 2007 as well as the individual editions of Office 2007.
On that list are products from Corel and Attachmate, as well as Nero. But most of the companies are relative unknowns in the Windows app arena. The list is also very shy of business applications, much less security or anti-virus software products.
Microsoft SQL Server junkies can look forward to more action this spring, when an R2 release of the database is expected to come out, industry sources said.
The news comes just a week after Microsoft rolled out SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2. The Redmond, Wash., software giant declined to comment on a SQL Server 2005 R2 release.
In Microsoft parlance, R2 releases roll up service pack additions to the product plus some new features. The first major R2 was for Windows Server 2003.
What exactly the feature enhancements will be for SQL Server 2005 R2 is unclear, although there will be synchronization with the "Longhorn" Windows Server beta. SQL Server 2005 SP2 added support for the new Windows Vista client and bundled the new embedded database version.
It's not every day that both the U.S. government and advocates of free and open-source software align themselves in court with Microsoft.
But a high-stakes patent case, set to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, has attracted a slew of briefs supporting the Windows maker's stance in a complex battle with AT&T over rules governing software code exported to foreign locales.
The question boils down to whether American software makers are required to pay up for infringing on U.S. patents based not only on the number of software copies they supply on their home turf, but also on copies that foreign manufacturers make abroad.
Microsoft announced Thursday it is shipping the release candidate, or RC, of a new systems management tool aimed at the mid-market.
System Center Essentials 2007 is the latest offering in Redmond's recently rebranded System Center management suite. The package aims to provide a single IT solution with a single management console for managing servers, clients, hardware, software and IT services, according to company statements.
The overall idea is to provide a unified management perspective, enabling IT customers to proactively manage their environments. System Center Essentials entered Beta 2 in mid-September.
Microsoft must pay $1.5 billion in damages to Lucent-Alcatel for infringing on patents for MP3 encoding and decoding technology,
a U.S. jury said Thursday.
Lucent-Alcatel, which was then Lucent Technologies, first filed suit in 2003 against Microsoft customers Dell and Gateway for
infringing on 15 patented technologies it said were being used in Microsoft's Windows Media Player in its Windows client OS.
Microsoft filed a countersuit in a U.S. District Court in San Diego against Lucent-Alcatel to discourage additional legal
action against its customers.