microsoft

It's official. Facebook decided to ignore the friend request from Google and instead clicked "OK" to one from Microsoft.

The deal, reported first in this spot earlier Wednesday, gives Microsoft a much-needed win against its Silicon Valley search rival. As noted over at Caroline McCarthy's blog, The Social, Microsoft is paying $240 million for a stake in Facebook, in a deal that values the social networking company at $15 billion. That's at the high end of what had been rumored.

Under the deal, Microsoft will also get an expanded role in Facebook's ad sales, … Read more

Updated 3:50 p.m. PDT: It's official: Microsoft will take a $240 million equity stake in Facebook during its next round of financing, valuing the company at a whopping $15 billion.

News.com's Ina Fried in her Beyond Binary blog reported earlier Wednesday that Microsoft had beaten out Google in the high-stakes bidding war for the slice of tasty Facebook cake. The final deal resulted in a 1.6 percent stake in the social-networking company, notably smaller than the 5 to 10 percent that had been talked about in recent weeks.

"We are pleased to take … Read more

Looks like every social-media-obsessed blogger's predictions have been correct: the Facebook news just won't stop flowing out of Palo Alto, Calif. And it's still coming.

On Wednesday morning, some inconvenient blogger leaks led the company to admit that it will be making a major, advertising-related announcement in New York on November 6. Then, at the CTIA Wireless conference, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz not only announced a BlackBerry-friendly version of Facebook's mobile platform, he also said that developers using the Facebook Platform are now welcome to extend their applications to the mobile realm.

Now, some dirt-digging by … Read more

After weeks of speculation, Microsoft appears to have won a battle with Google over who would get a stake in Facebook, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Microsoft and Facebook were close to a deal, according to the source. Exact details were not immediately available, but the deal is expected to include at least an ownership stake in Facebook and an expansion of Microsoft's current Facebook advertising deal, which only covers the U.S.

Google and Microsoft had both been said to be bidding hard for a deal with fast-growing … Read more

With Microsoft's announcement of the Xbox 360 Arcade, the anticipated device looks to be changing how the Xbox targets consumers.

According to a Microsoft representative, the company feels that "the timing is right to really focus and turn the spotlight on our family content and, yeah, we feel great."

Believe it or not, Microsoft has inked a deal with Warner Bros. to bring HD Looney Tunes to the Xbox Live Video Marketplace, and more games designed with children in mind will be coming down the pike with the help of this new console.

While I applaud Microsoft for making the jump to children's games and attempting to attract the all-too-evasive "nontraditional gamer," isn't it playing a game that Nintendo already knows the secret to? And if so, is Microsoft barking up the wrong tree?

It may surprise you, but the answer is simply no. Microsoft is onto something with this new focus and whether or not you are a Nintendo zealot to the end, you need to realize that Microsoft may start attracting the younger crowd more effectively than you think.… Read more

OK. Novell is a credible company. But look at the other companies with which Microsoft has consummated its patent pacts: also-rans, all of them. Today it was TurboLinux. Seriously, does anyone care if TurboLinux's one remaining user won't be sued by Microsoft?

I'm exaggerating, of course. TurboLinux has a decent share of the market in China [PDF] and throughout APAC. But that's not saying a whole lot.

Microsoft has yet to do more than rattle its rusty patent saber, and guess what? It will never do more than this, because it can't afford to commit corporate suicide. … Read more

And just when you thought there couldn't possibly be any more different trim lines for the Xbox 360, Microsoft goes and releases the worst kept secret in all of gaming, the Xbox 360 Arcade. While it's essentially just a souped-up version of the Core, the Arcade 360 does come with a few extras that may attract some uninformed buyers. Plus, the $280 price tag is awfully close to the Wii's cost of $250--so in theory, speaking in terms of price, an Xbox 360 Arcade would be the logical alternative to a Wii this holiday season.

So what does it come with? Bundled inside you'll find a wireless controller, unlike the Core's original wired offering, HDMI-out support, a 256MB memory card, and five Xbox Live Arcade games (Pac-Man Championship Edition, Uno, Luxor 2, Boom Boom Rocket, and Feeding Frenzy). All this in an effort to get consumers more familiar with Xbox Live Arcade and what it has to offer.

The price is certainly right, but here's why I don't think you should even bother with it.… Read more

Update 12:53 p.m. PDT: Congress has moved a step closer to enacting a new law regulating key aspects of how U.S. tech companies operate in countries whose governments censor or otherwise manipulate the Internet.

As expected, the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs backed a slightly amended version of the Global Online Freedom Act by a voice vote on Tuesday morning. The bill's preliminary nod is a prelude to the same House committee's plans to grill Yahoo executives early next month about a widely publicized case involving the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist.

The … Read more