Microsoft

About 69.5 percent of Internet searches in the U.S. took place through Google during 2008, with search traffic increasing 8 percent over 2007, according to research firm Hitwise.

At whose expense was this growth? No surprise: Yahoo and Microsoft. Second-place Yahoo had 19.2 percent of the search volume, a drop of 11 percent from its year-earlier volume, while Microsoft accounted for 5.9 percent of the volume, a drop of 32 percent for the year, Hitwise said. Ask.com increased volume 1 percent to a share of 3.8 percent.

But looking at the story month-to-month, Microsoft … Read more

In past downturns, Microsoft has been able to trim around the edges and avoid large, widespread layoffs. But, as Steve Ballmer made clear in an interview with me last week, this is no ordinary downturn.

"The fact of the matter is, this is not a downturn, this is a bit of a reset," he said. "Those are quite different and we're trying to really suss through what we think that means for us."

For some weeks now, the company has been considering whether it would need to cut a significant number of jobs, with some … Read more

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it has released an update to the developer kit for its Windows Azure cloud-based operating system.

The company said the updated tools fix bugs and speed performance, as well as add better integration with Visual Studio and other tweaks.

Microsoft unveiled Azure and offered up the first community technology preview version of its tools at the Professional Developers Conference in October.

"Microsoft will continue to release updates to the Windows Azure SDK based on feedback from developers," the company said in a statement.

In a December interview, server and tools unit President Bob … Read more

In stark contrast to the many businesses beating a path to Washington to beg for money, Microsoft is urging caution as the government looks to spend billions on digitizing health care.

Peter Neupert, the former Drugstore.com CEO, who now heads Microsoft's health care unit, said investment is a "necessary, but not sufficient" condition for improvement and said that spending money on computer technology may not even be the right first step.

"I'm trying to transform the discussion just a little bit," he said in an interview on Wednesday. "Don't focus on … Read more

Updated 10:10 p.m., with additional comments from a source.

While it's not certain that the appointment of Carol Bartz will ensure a Yahoo-Microsoft deal happens, one thing is clear: nothing was going to happen until Yahoo picked its new chief executive.

With reports that Yahoo is going to name the former Autodesk chief to fill Jerry Yang's spot, discussion logically shifts to whether the long-anticipated Microsoft-Yahoo search deal will now come to fruition.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has repeatedly said that he remains interested in a search partnership, but noted in an interview last week that … Read more

Microsoft has started testing the next version of its Exchange e-mail and calendar software, a product that Microsoft said is designed to run from the ground up as a hosted service that can work simultaneously with more than one business.

The new version, code-named E14, is in limited private beta testing as a traditional server product with "a select number" of businesses.

But Microsoft also recognized that traditional beta testing wouldn't help it much in getting a sense of the multi-tenant support. So starting in October 2007, the company started seeking out universities and schools willing to … Read more

Look closely at the desktop when you boot up Windows 7 for the first time. That's not just any fish you see on the desktop.

It's a specific type of Siamese fighting fish, also known as a betta fish. Get it?

Although pronounced like the Greek letter beta, the fish gets its name "from ikan bettah, taken from a local dialect of Thailand," according to Wikipedia.

For the record, I'm no fish expert, but as I was re-installing Windows 7 last night, my partner, AJ, turned to me and said, "Hey, it's a … Read more

Following the beta release of Windows 7, Microsoft is sending the message to companies not to give Vista a miss, saying investments toward adopting the OS can be reused when Windows 7 is ready.

Speaking at a press demo session of Windows 7 beta, Richard Francis, general manager, Windows client BG lead, business and marketing organization, Asia-Pacific region at Microsoft, said companies are "encouraged" to upgrade to Windows Vista after predecessor XP, instead of waiting for Windows 7 to be released.

"Certainly, there will be some companies that will decide to skip Vista and wait for Windows … Read more

This weekend, I loaded fresh copies of Windows onto two PCs.

Like many people, I downloaded the Windows 7 Beta and installed it. But that wasn't the only PC task I had over the weekend.

I had an old PC I used for my early Vista testing that my partner was complaining had begun to gather dust. So, I offered the machine to a friend of mine that had only a very old PC. I gave her the option of XP or Vista and she quickly proclaimed, "Oh, XP, definitely."

And, of course, therein lies Microsoft's … Read more