It's not just about Oracle and PeopleSoft anymore.
During Oracle's trial with the U.S Department of Justice to defend its hostile, $7.7 billion takeover bid for PeopleSoft, Oracle is expected to disclose merger talks between rivals SAP AG and Microsoft, according to a statement released today by Microsoft.
Microsoft said in its statement that it would, in this one instance, depart from its traditional "no comment" stance when it comes to any potential acquisitions. The company confirmed that late last year it approached SAP, of Walldorf, Germany, to discuss the possibility of a merger.
Last week, after 6 years of investigation, the Brazilian government cleared Microsoft of allegations that the company prevented competition in the country's software sector. The antitrust win was a rare one for the software giant, which for the past few years has found itself the subject of major anticompetitive court cases in the United States and Europe.
"It is Microsoft's priority to conduct its business in a respectful manner and in agreement with the laws and regulations of the countries it operates in," Rinaldo Zangirolami, senior attorney of Microsoft Brazil, said. "We have acted responsibly while seeking to build the best products and services we can to meet the needs of our customers. We have collaborated over the past 6 years with the Brazilian authorities, and we are very pleased with the outcome of the case."
Microsoft caused a stir in the technology world last week with news that it was awarded a patent for, among other things, starting a program "if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click."
Could it be? Could the Redmond company now make other companies pay for the ubiquitous practice of tapping a computer mouse twice to open a program on a computer screen?
Some online news sites initially portrayed it that way. "Microsoft receives patent for double-click," read one typical headline.
The company is counting on a raft of new community-building tools and technologies to help boost customer satisfaction. What more could Microsoft ask for? It has market share, cash reserves and brand recognition that most competitors could only dream of. But one prize still eludes the Redmond software giant: better customer-satisfaction ratings. To tighten its bonds with users, Microsoft is spinning new tools and initiatives designed to foster a sense of community among Windows-based IT professionals.
Computer users with itchy trigger fingers take note: The next time you open a software program with two quick clicks on a handheld computer you may be engaging in a process patented by Microsoft.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April 27 granted a patent for a "time based hardware button for application launch" in which a click of a button can start different programs if it is clicked once, twice or held down for several seconds.
The president of Microsoft Brazil fretted this week that his country's decision to adopt Linux for use in public-use computers will set back Brazil for years. "If the country closes itself off again as it did when it protected its information technology, 10 years from now we will wake up and be dominant in something insignificant," Emilio Umeoka said this week. "Irrelevance is the beginning of the end." Umeoka is referring to a decision Brazil made 20 years ago to protect its IT sector with high tariffs, a decision that cost the country dearly because it couldn't attract foreign investment during a time that should have been high growth. "I don't know if this is the best way to attract investment into the country," he said. "I know this is not the best way to create a base of development from which to export because there's no revenue from something that's free." Umeoka said that the Brazilian government's decision won't hurt Microsoft's sales in the country; he's just concerned that Brazil will miss out on yet another enormous economic opportunity.
In its continuing fight against unsolicited commercial e-mail, Microsoft plans to filter outgoing messages on its consumer mail services and is busy developing new "proofing" technologies, the software maker's chief spam fighter said Thursday. The fight is also one against the clock. Microsoft last year set a two-year goal to make spam a problem of the past. There are 19 months left, Ryan Hamlin, general manager of Microsoft's Security Technology & Strategy group, said Thursday at Inbox, a conference on e-mail here.
Microsoft's business-applications division is getting a $50 million budget boost and more direct involvement from Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, reinforcing the company's efforts in an area where it has yet to see a profit.
Microsoft Business Solutions was singled out during the company's last quarterly conference call for what Microsoft's chief financial officer called "the weakest results" among the company's seven divisions. The division makes programs used mainly by small- and medium-sized businesses, including software for financial reporting, customer-relationship management, and distribution.
Microsoft, whose Xbox game console is outsold by almost a 5-1 ratio by Sony's PlayStation 2, stopped development of its first so-called massive online game for Japan because of a lack of progress, the company said.
The company had spent almost three years developing "True Fantasy Live Online," a role-playing game that was to debut at the end of the year, Asako Miyata, a spokeswoman for Microsoft based in Tokyo, said in a statement yesterday. Massive online games can accommodate thousands of players at one time.
Company to terminate 108 employees and outsource much of its Solomon financial-software development and support to startup Plumbline Solutions.
On Thursday, Microsoft notified 177 employees working out of its Findlay, Ohio, offices that the company had decided to close its facilities there. Findlay is home to primarily to Microsoft Business Solutions' Solomon team, but also includes other members of the server and tools, field service and operations teams.