Corporate stuff

When the Xbox 360 turned 5 years old this week with no known successor on the horizon, and no new imminent PlayStation or Wii either, it may well have signaled the demise of one of the video game industry's most longstanding truisms.

Since at least the mid-1980s, major console makers have generally come out with new models every five years or so. For example, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) came out in 1985, followed by the Super NES in 1991, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the GameCube in 2001, and the Wii in 2006. Sony put out the first … Read more

Motorola's ongoing legal disagreements with Microsoft thickened this morning, with Motorola's mobility unit filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission over Microsoft's use of patents in its Xbox game console.

While the complaint is currently pending, it could go on to become an investigation by the ITC.

A Microsoft representative said the company is currently reviewing Motorola's filing, and that "we remain confident in our position, and will continue to move forward with the complaints we initiated against Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and … Read more

Whenever you say "It's on like Donkey Kong," going forward, be sure to thank Nintendo.

The game company announced today that it has requested a trademark for the phrase from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Nintendo said its trademark application is "in honor" of the upcoming launch of Donkey Kong Country Returns on November 21.

As Nintendo pointed out in its announcement, "it's on like Donkey Kong" has been around since at least the early 1990s, the original Donkey Kong having launched in 1981, and has been uttered "in … Read more

It's apparently going to be a better year than expected for Activision Blizzard.

The World of Warcraft developer announced yesterday that its third-quarter revenue grew to $745 million, up from $703 million it posted during the same period in 2009.

The company also reported a $51 million profit, representing a gain over the $15 million it tallied in third quarter last year. Its adjusted earnings of 12 cents a share beat Wall Street expectations of 9 cents, according to the Associated Press.

In the first three quarters, Activision Blizzard's revenue stood at over $3 billion. Last year, it … Read more

REDMOND, Wash.--Citing a pickup in business spending, Microsoft today reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped what many had been expecting.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, Microsoft said it earned $5.41 billion in net income, or 62 cents per share, on revenue of $16.2 billion. Sales were up 25 percent from a year earlier, although the prior year results included the effects of a deferral of revenue ahead of the release of Windows 7. Without that, sales were up 13 percent and net income rose 16 percent.

"This was an exceptional quarter combining solid enterprise growth and continue strong consumer demand for Office 2010, Windows 7 and Xbox 360," CFO Peter Klein said in a statement. … Read more

Bringing change to Microsoft has been likened to getting an ocean liner to change course.

By all accounts though, the company has made several such adjustments. While the changes took time, the key ones can often be traced to a moment in time. Bill Gates' Internet Tidal Wave memo marked one such course change. The 2005 Internet Services Disruption memo, by exiting Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, was another.

That long note from Ozzie not only led to the start of Windows Live and an effort to take Office into the cloud, but also helped start what became Windows Azure … Read more

Microsoft has decided to reorganize its once highly touted Live Labs--a nearly five-year-old development effort headed by former Yahoo executive Gary Flake, who now plans to leave the company.

The company noted the changes in a posting on the Live Labs Web site, while Flake tweeted about his departure earlier today.

"After nearly five years as a lab within Microsoft, the Live Labs team is transitioning to Bing, where we'll play a more direct role in future Bing innovations," the team wrote in the post. "We're looking forward to contributing our Web UX and … Read more

Microsoft held a meeting with employees today, letting them know that the company plans to make changes to its health care plan, requiring workers to eventually start paying a portion of the insurance costs.

The software maker will continue to pay the full costs for worker health insurance for the next two years, before making workers start to contribute in 2013.

"We can confirm that Microsoft has begun to evolve its employee health care benefit," Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said in a statement. "There will be no changes for the next two years, but in 2013, employees … Read more

For a while, it seemed like Adobe and Microsoft were destined to be pure rivals. Microsoft seemed to be going after Adobe at every front, from Silverlight taking on Flash to Redmond's planned rival format to PDF.

These days, though, it seems like the two may be drawn to each other, thanks to the common enemy known as Apple.

Apparently the two companies think so too, at least according to a report today in The New York Times which says that Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer met for an hour recently with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, with Apple a … Read more