Week in review: Yahoo snubs Microsoft

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Representatives of AT&T and Verizon Wireless told several media outlets that, from what they understood, all wireless carriers in North America that work with RIM were affected. The last time an outage of this magnitude occurred, in April, RIM blamed a database problem that snowballed when the backup "failover" process didn't work as planned.

In another disconnect--this one planned--Starbucks ended its Wi-Fi partnership with T-Mobile in favor of one with AT&T.

Under the earlier plan with T-Mobile, Starbucks customers needed a paid subscription to access the in-store Wi-Fi service, and T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers will continue to have access to Starbucks Wi-Fi, thanks to an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile.

But the new AT&T plan gives all customers two free hours per day, with a $3.99 fee for additional two-hour chunks of time. Monthly subscriptions will cost $19.99 and will enable access to other AT&T hot-spot locations in addition to Starbucks. AT&T broadband customers also will be able to surf at the more than 7,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S. for free.

The spotlight was also on mobile broadband gear, services, software, and strategies at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Read CNET's full coverage here.

Politicians on the line
In a setback for privacy and civil-liberties groups, the U.S. Senate voted to protect telephone and Internet companies from lawsuits alleging illegal cooperation with government spy agencies.

By a 31-to-67 vote, senators failed to approve a Democrat-sponsored amendment that would have allowed lawsuits to continue against AT&T and other telecommunication companies accused of illegal activities.

Because the broader bill being considered currently includes retroactive immunity for those companies--something that President Bush had personally requested--scores of pending legal challenges, including high-profile cases against AT&T and Verizon, are likely to disappear if the entire Congress ultimately approves it.

Republicans in the House of Representatives also scuttled an attempt to grant a temporary extension to a controversial wiretap law that did not include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

By a 191-to-229 vote, the House failed to approve a bill to extend the Protect America Act for 21 days in its current form. The law--which Republicans say is necessary to allow interception of communications--is scheduled to expire on Saturday.

The vote came hours after President Bush's call for including retroactive immunity for any companies that may have violated federal privacy laws by opening their networks to the National Security Agency. Lawsuits against companies such as AT&T are currently pending in federal court.

The debate goes back to a New York Times report in late 2005 that the president had authorized the National Security Agency to conduct wiretaps, allegedly involving Americans' conversations and Internet communications, without a court order. The news ultimately led to proposed changes to a 1978 law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

Meanwhile, Comcast, AT&T, and other network operators would be expected to refrain from "unreasonable discriminatory favoritism" of content on their pipes under a recrafted Net neutrality proposal introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. But this time around, the new bill isn't directly forcing Internet service providers to follow specific rules.

The new bill is an apparent effort to be less prescriptive than previous efforts, which failed in a Republican-dominated Congress two years ago. The modified approach is an apparent attempt to address the howls of protest from network operators, who have argued that previous Net neutrality bills in Congress amount to unnecessary Internet regulations.

Also of note
Microsoft made its leadership changes official, promoting more than a dozen executives and confirming the departure or pending departure of three top executives...Netflix announced that it would begin to phase out HD DVD rentals in favor of rival Blu-ray discs on the same day that Best Buy said it will in its stores and recommend the format over rival HD DVD. Wal-Mart followed Friday with announcement that by June, it would no longer have HD DVD titles in stock...Google released a new version of the software development kit for its open mobile platform called Android.

[WJeansonne]

Microsoft is using the Oracle Playbook

It worked for Ellison in his takeover of Siebel, PeopleSoft and others, so Microsoft will most likely follow suit. Go for it Microsoft!!

[The_Decider]

Indeed

Go for it!

Go billions into debt over a company that is a listless as MS is.

That would be great, especially when the next huge MS screwup costs them a few billion they no longer have.

Bye bye MS!

[TheSmellyMoa]

Of Course Yahoo! Told Them Off !

Yahoo! people regard MSFT as a cult of twisted, face-biting psychos. They'd rather be bought out by the Manson Family.

[JCPayne]

I've figured it out. I'm dropping the Sidekick for the Ogo....

I've figured it out. With Micro$shaft buying Danger Inc. I've put T-Mobile on notice that I'm dropping the service. I've found out that the competition is mainly the Ogo devices which are supposed to be big in Europe. My question. Has anyone got the Ogo to work in the USA yet? If the Ogo doesn't work I'm still dropping the service.

[Fil0403]

I've figured it out. I'm creating a new nickname for MS to look cool...

I've figured it out. JCPayneInTheAssHole likes to give nicknames to Microsoft because he think he looks cool when he does so.

[Fil0403]

Week in review: Yahoo rejects offer from MS, CNET says they snubbed them

I find it interesting how CNET turns a normal "rejection" into a "snub" just because one of the companies in question is the oh-so-much-loved Microsoft. I think what they really wanted to say was "Yahoo tells Microsoft to go s*ck a d*ck", but they oh-so-big professionalism doesn't let them do that. Or does it?
Either way, Microsoft will buy Yahoo! anyway if it really wants to. As it's used to be said in Computer Science for different reasons, and unfortunately to some people (CNET included seemingly) it's not a matter of "if", but a matter of "when".
Whether or not they would then have the capacity to overthrow Google from the top spot is another issue, but they certainly have the power, resources and skill to do that.