People are becoming more and more accustomed to buying and selling items online, dealing in everything from music to memorabilia.
But what about the online market for virtual swords and digital cars?
That was the basic question raised by the announcement last week that the next version of Microsoft's Xbox video-game system will feature an online marketplace. Gamers would be able to spend real money to buy extra levels, special vehicles, additional weapons and other bonus items from game developers.
Move over, digital lifestyle. Microsoft's chairman now is evangelizing how Microsoft plans to more tightly integrate its software stack to improve the future work world.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates often talks about the "digital lifestyle." But on Wednesday at the MBS (Microsoft Business Solutions) Convergence conference here, he switched gears and outlined his vision for the "digital workstyle."
Speaking of challenges, Microsoft noted this week that it's seeking sweeping reforms from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel Brad Smith said that although Microsoft has "benefited substantially as an industry and a country from patent protection ... the long-term health [of the US patent system] is threatened unless we take this opportunity to reform it." According to Microsoft, patent applications have more than tripled in the past few years as companies have started to use patents as legal hammers. The result is classic America--an overly litigious environment in which companies constantly sue each other for violating the vaguest-worded patents imaginable. For example, 30 companies are now suing Microsoft, an admittedly huge company, for patent violations. Yikes.
Thanks to a surge in demand for steel, the Internet and Scandinavian sofas, there are some new names among the very richest of the world's billionaires.
Indian steel mogul Lakshmi Mittal, Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helu and Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad of Sweden knocked several Wal-Mart heirs down a few notches on Forbes magazine's 2005 rankings of the world's billionaires.
The billionaires are richer and more numerous for the second straight year, but the No. 1 spot is unchanged -- Microsoft founder Bill Gates led the list for the 11th year in a row with a net worth of $46.5 billion, slightly less than his $46.6 billion last year.
Microsoft and Burst.com Inc. said they agreed to settle Burst's lawsuit accusing Microsoft of stealing its technology for high-speed Internet broadcasting of sound and video.
Burst, a Santa Rosa, Calif.-based software provider, accused Microsoft of patent infringement, antitrust violations and destroying e-mail evidence in the case. Burst shares rose 88 percent yesterday, by $1.59 to $3.39, in over-the-counter trading in New York.
The agreement tentatively "resolved all the issues between the two companies," said Stacy Drake, spokeswoman for Microsoft. Eric Walters, a Burst vice president, said the company "reached agreement in principle" on the lawsuit.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said he wants to make more acquisitions, and he's pushing his most senior managers to help find the right candidates.
"We are really looking hard," Gates, 49, said in an interview yesterday in San Diego. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, is taking a "bottom-up" approach to acquisitions by asking managers to look for targets, Gates said.
Gates outlined the mandate in meetings with Microsoft's seven division heads, including Jeff Raikes, 46, who leads the division that makes Office software, and Robbie Bach, 43, who runs the Xbox, home and video-games group.
The U.S. government will join select partners of Microsoft in receiving security patches as early as a month before they become generally available. The early-access program, already available to some customers, provides beta test versions of patches so customers can be prepared when vulnerabilities are publicly disclosed.
Microsoft signed a $500 million software deal with the U.S. Air Force last year, which stipulated that the Air Force will join the Security Update Validation Program and test patches before they are officially released. In turn, the military will become a beta tester for Microsoft's updates.
In the business-software market, Microsoft is in an unaccustomed spot: It's a bit player in the shadow of much larger rivals. If Gates & Co. have their way, Microsoft will become a force alongside Oracle and SAP in the multibillion-dollar business of selling human resources, financial planning and other software. The company has set lofty goals: Microsoft has said in the past that it hopes to rake in $10 billion per year in business software sales by 2010.
However, sales at the company's Business Solutions unit aren't growing as quickly as hoped. A new software platform intended to unify the company's disparate product lines won't be completed for at least three years. And there are questions about the overall demand for business software amid industry consolidation.
Microsoft plans to all but end its stint as an Internet service provider to Mac users, discontinuing its MSN for Mac OS X software, CNET News.com has learned.
The company plans to notify customers this month and discontinue the service as of May 31, a Microsoft representative said in an e-mail. Microsoft announced plans to get into the market in 2002 and began offering the service in the United States the following year.
"Beginning May 31, Microsoft will make changes and no longer support the MSN for Mac OS X Internet Software client," the representative said. A Microsoft representative declined to say how many people subscribe to MSN for the Mac, but said it is "a small number."
Microsoft executives on Thursday stepped up their calls for reform of the U.S. patent process, saying the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office too often focuses on quantity instead of quality.
Microsoft also called for a patent system that is more accessible to small investors, and executives recommended that the U.S. Congress end patent filing fees for small companies, nonprofit groups, universities and individual inventors. "The system has to work for everybody," said David Kaefer, director of Microsofts IP Licensing Program. "It's only a system that works for the largest companies."