Microsoft

One of the things clearly worth noting about Tuesday's announcement about a $200 million investment in Facebook is the fact that it values the company at $10 billion, down a third in the 18 months since Microsoft poured $240 million into the company.

However, the fact that Facebook isn't worth $15 billion, while confirmed on Tuesday, has been pretty well understood for some time. Ever since Microsoft took its stake, there have been questions about what the social network was "really" worth.

The $200 million investment announced Tuesday came from European company Digital Sky Technologies, which now has about a 2 percent stake in the social network.

Although Microsoft may have to take a write-off at some point, the deal was never about the return on that initial investment. Rather, Microsoft saw the deal as the price of admission to get an advertising deal with the social network. At the time, Microsoft had lost several recent deals to Google, including one with MySpace that has also been criticized since for being too generous to the social network.

To land the Facebook deal, Microsoft had to win a bidding war with Google.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also noted on the conference call on Tuesday that Microsoft's investment "was part of a broader relationship."

"We feel good about the progress we've made," he said.

CNET News' Rafe Needleman contributed to this report.

Microsoft is working with Facebook to keep the persistent Koobface virus off the popular social-networking site, the companies said on Thursday.

"In working with Facebook, we were able to add detection of Koobface to our Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), which checks computers running Windows software to detect and remove viruses," Jeff Williams, a principal group program manager for the MRST, wrote in a guest post on the Facebook Blog.

The MSRT has removed Koobface nearly 200,000 times from more than 133,600 computers around the world just in the past two weeks, he wrote.

Koobface is a mass-mailing virus that arrives in Facebook users' in-boxes announcing a message like "You look funny in this new video." Clicking on the link takes recipients to a Web site where they are prompted to download a Trojan masked as an Adobe Flash update. The Trojan could allow an attacker to remotely steal a victim's Facebook password and other information or even use the computer to launch attacks on other computers.

Koobface has been around since August mostly targeting social networks, and a variant that targets only Facebook users surfaced in December. Facebook has been hit by at least one other version since then.

Details on how to protect against Koobface are on Facebook's security page.

Microsoft is roaring into CTIA. Redmond's grab bag of assorted announcements take in new Windows Live applications, the Windows Mobile application Marketplace (including word of that elusive Facebook app), and new themes featuring designs from haute fashionista (and Target chum) Isaac Mizrahi. The news gives Microsoft's mobile arm a much-needed jolt of excitement to follow up on its February announcement of the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Windows Live, Hotmail, Facebook
For more than a year, we've been wondering when Facebook and Microsoft were going to grace Windows Mobile phones with an official and native Facebook app like its free, downloadable applications for BlackBerry, iPhone, and Palm. While we weren't able to get anything out of Facebook back then, on Tuesday, Microsoft made Facebook's presence official. Microsoft's Facebook application is due in April, followed by a native MySpace application set to descend sometime "in summer."

For those who live in the moment, Microsoft has already made Windows Live for Windows Mobile available to download on platforms running version 6 of the operating system or higher. The Windows Live services suite installs mobile versions of Hotmail, Messenger, Live Contacts, Spaces, and Live Search on the phone. Those with older phones can still access Hotmail with a new beta version optimized for the Web, accessible at m.mail.live.com.

Windows Marketplace: Apps and refunds
Not to be outdone by Apple and BlackBerry, Microsoft is readying its own application storefront, dubbed Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The few details released in advance of Microsoft's Thursday keynote showcase application developers whose apps will be featured in the mobile Marketplace. EA Mobile, Gameloft, and Hands-On Mobile are well-known game makers. AP Mobile, Accuweather, and Pandora also stand out in an otherwise obscure lineup.

Also Marketplace related, Microsoft says it will let customers buy applications two ways--through a credit card, or as an add-on to the monthly cellular bill. In addition, Microsoft will let remorseful users return unwanted applications within 24 hours of purchasing, a refund service that neither Apple nor RIM has offered so far for the iTunes App Store or forthcoming BlackBerry App World.

(Credit: The new Windows Live Home page bears more than a passing resemblance to social sites like Facebook.)

Microsoft has started to roll out a series of changes, outlined in November, that give Windows Live a more social networking-like feel.

Windows Live staples such as Spaces, Events, and the home page get a new look, while Microsoft is also putting special emphasis on group, profile, and photo pages.

"Essentially we're launching 'the new face of Windows Live' on the web today," Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc said in a blog posting.

The changes, which are being rolled out over the next 24 hours, also include a bump in the limit for Microsoft's SkyDrive online storage, which now offers 25GB of storage and improved photo slide shows on the Web.

Also new is the ability to import contacts directly from Facebook to Windows Live.

Take a look and let me know what you think of the makeover. Does it make Windows Live look young and hip, or like an actress that's had one too many face-lifts?

During a trip Down Under, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has had a lot to say. This week in Sydney, Australia, he stated that he isn't interested in wooing Yahoo anymore, he doesn't understand how Google plans to profit from Android, and he has confidence in President-elect Barack Obama's leadership.

And while the expressive executive on Friday also said Microsoft "may look into" using WebKit, the open-source browser-rendering technology used by Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari browsers, he mostly rejected that idea, according to a Computerworld report. Instead, he said the two prominent Microsoft rivals--as well as social network Facebook, in which Microsoft has heavily invested--have something more worthy of mimicking: an application platform.

Despite acknowledging that WebKit's open-source nature is "interesting," Microsoft's chief executive elaborated on why he says the software giant is sticking--at least for now--with its Trident rendering engine for Internet Explorer.

"I think there will continue to be a lot of proprietary innovation by us, and other people, inside the browser itself," he said. "A company like ours needs to have (its own) rendering service. It is important that we have a browser that embraces (Internet) standards but also allows us to have innovative extensions, even before the standards bodies go there."

On serving as a liaison between developers and consumers, Ballmer seems to have a more collaborative view.

"I actually will agree that there's some good work, particularly at Facebook and also with the iPhone, where both of those companies have made it easier for developers to distribute their applications," Ballmer said, referring to Apple's iPhone SDK and App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the Facebook Platform, which provide independent developers with a way to more easily program, market, and distribute platform-specific software. (For its Ballmer-criticized mobile operating system, Google has introduced the Android Market.)

A key motive of each of these platform initiatives is attracting developer attention, and Microsoft is indeed taking note that the strategy is working. The iPhone software development kit, for example, was immediately picked up by 10,000 developers, and it gained more momentum when Apple dropped a nondisclosure policy for App Store releases.

"They've made it easier to kind of get exposure for your applications," Ballmer told a crowd of developers. "There's not much money being made, but the general concept of giving developers a way not only to get their code distributed, but to really get visibility for the code, is a good idea."

Will Microsoft develop a similar concept for Windows developers? Time will tell.

It's hardly unexpected, but Facebook has integrated Microsoft's Live Search into its site.

As part of a deal announced in July, users can now search the Web using Microsoft's search engine without leaving Facebook. Of course, as Mashable points out, there are lots of other ways to search the Internet without leaving Facebook (say, using the Google Toolbar).

Although it's garden variety search today, there are some interesting possibilities--and also some nightmarish scenarios--one can imagine down the road, when one combines search with social networking.

The real question, for now, is how much of a boost Microsoft gets from being inside Facebook. It's clearly a branding-and-awareness plum, but it's not clear how much actual search traffic and revenue will be generated.

Also, since all the searches take place inside Facebook, it's not even clear whether Microsoft will get a direct increase in search share numbers.