MICROSOFT

Yahoo Inc extended a deadline to nominate board directors, buying the company time to pursue alternatives to Microsoft Corp's $41.7 billion offer, while also giving Yahoo room to negotiate a friendly deal with Microsoft.

Microsoft Corp, faced with Web rivals looking to poach its business customers, said on Sunday it plans to broaden the availability of its online services for e-mail and collaboration software. Last year, Microsoft started subscription-based online services to run its Exchange corporate e-mail program and SharePoint collaboration software on Microsoft's own computer systems as an alternative to customers buying their own hardware to run licensed software.

E-mail messages from Microsoft executives released this week reveal technical and marketing struggles the company faced in launching the Windows Vista operating system last year.

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it plans to cut prices of its Windows Vista operating system sold at retail outlets in a move aimed at pushing customers to switch to the newest version of Windows. The world's largest software maker said it plans to lower retail prices for Vista in 70 countries later this year in tandem with the shipment of the first major update to Vista, known as Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Google unveiled a new Web-site publishing tool for office workers late Wednesday, taking aim at rival Microsoft in the corporate tools arena.

Nintendo software titles continue to dominate video-game sales in Japan according to new data released today, while its Wii game-console outpaced rivals Sony and Microsoft.

A federal court ruled on Tuesday that Microsoft must pay a Guatemalan investor for infringing his software in its Office Suite.

Microsoft plans to launch a special test version of its latest Internet Explorer web browser, the company said Tuesday, boasting new features and better support for widely held Internet standards.

Google eased to the top rank after being rated as number one brand in the UK leading the nation's other 500 brands.

Software maker Adobe Systems launched new software to make it easier for programmers to build applications that work online and offline.

Microsoft will drop its HD-DVD external players for the Xbox360 and slash the price of its current stock after Toshiba announced last week is was giving up on the format.

Kevin Johnson, Microsoft executive, sent workers an upbeat email outlining a vision of how the company expects to combine Yahoo's resources and cultures following a successful takeover. The full-text of his internal memo is below:

Microsoft Corp will stop making video players based on the HD DVD standard for its Xbox 360 game system, a move that comes days after Toshiba Corp pulled the plug on the high definition movie technology.

Enter the e-waiter. Restaurants in Europe, the United States and Japan are testing technology to let diners order their food direct from a screen at their table instead of depending on a fellow human being to note their choice -- sometimes grumpily or erroneously.

Microsoft Corp said on Monday it would test a new way to measure the effectiveness of Internet advertising in a challenge to an industry standard that has helped the likes of Web search leader Google Inc. Microsoft's Engagement Mapping is due to begin in beta form on March 1 and departs from a standard that ties sales, leads and traffic to the last ad that a user clicked on online. Instead, it attempts to take into account all the Internet interactions that lead a consumer to buy a pro...

A Microsoft executive assured employees in his division on Friday that the software maker would keep many of Yahoo's staff in their northern California headquarters if its bid to buy the Web portal company is successful.

What Are Yahoo's Other Options Besides Microsoft?

For Yahoo Inc to avoid Microsoft Corp's bear hug, it could potentially partner with companies ranging from eBay Inc to Comcast Corp, though an alternative deal would be unlikely to match the Microsoft offer. Retailer Amazon.com Inc, iPod maker Apple Inc and phone company AT&T Inc all could argue that integrating Yahoo's services and ads would be strategically smart, and some already have Internet-advertising partnerships with Yahoo. None, however, is expected to be able to compete f...

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it would publish key software blueprints to let rival programs work better with its products and address some European antitrust concerns.

Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday it will share trade secrets to facilitate information sharing and connections with third-party products in a bid to comply with European regulators and increase compatibility of its software with that of competitors and customers.

Microsoft's open development platform, XNA Game Studio, has now hit 800,000 downloads since it was first launched 18 months ago.