November 5th, 2009

Browser rivals to register official complaints about Microsoft's ballot screen proposal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:49 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Internet Explorer, Legal

Tags: Opera Software ASA, Ballot, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Corp., Web Browser, Web Browsers, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

The deadline for official comment on Microsoft’s latest rendition of the browser-ballot — the screen the company has proposed to download to PC users in order to appease antitrust regulators handling the Opera vs. Microsoft antitrust case — is next week. (It should be November 10, if the one-month comment deadline the European Commission set for itself is still in place.)

Google, Mozilla and Opera are preparing to weigh in separately with their suggestions, according to a November 4 round-up in the New York Times. These three Microsoft browser rivals still aren’t happy with the revisions Microsoft has made to its proposal. If the Commission decides their complaints have merit, more ballot testing and delays in implementation will ensue.

Mozilla execs already weighed in publicly (via a blog post) about their beefs, which include Microsoft’s suggestion that users see a screen which presents the top browser choices presented in alphabetical order by vendor (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera). Mozilla officials have said they aren’t keen on Apple’s Safari for Windows being No. 1 because it doesn’t work all that well on Windows. Mozilla officials haven’t offered publicly an alternative way to list the browsers on the ballot. I’m sure they’re trying to find some way to justify Firefox being listed first.

Opera officials aren’t keen on the Microsoft logo being at the top of the ballot, fearing undue influence on users (who already opted to buy a Windows PC, mind you). Opera’s CEO also said he wants to bar Microsoft from displaying a warning if and when users choose to download rival’s software.

There’s no word in the New York Times piece about what Google’s objections are. But I bet Google hated even getting a mention in the Times article, since that Google (like Microsoft) prefers back-room politics.

I’ve been a fan of the idea of Microsoft providing a browser ballot since the EC first floated the idea (and Microsoft opposed it vehemently). I was surprised Microsoft changed its tune and embraced the ballot, but I guess that seemed the least of all possible evils and a last stab at attempting to avoid a fine. (A fine is still a possibility; there’s no word on what the EC’s final remedy will be in the case.)

I liked the browser-ballot proposal because I’ve never bought into the idea that IE should be considered part of the operating system. Many less-savvy PC users don’t know there is more than one browser out there; they just assume IE is all there is. While many Softies and Microsoft backers have noted that Microsoft has done nothing to prevent users from choosing other browsers, the bundling of IE did make it unlikely that many PC users would know they had choices or how to get access to them.

I have to say, however, that this round of complaints by Microsoft’s rivals seem like nothing more than an attempt to keep Microsoft’s lawyers busy.

Microsoft has been losing browser share in recent years for a variety of reasons, including user security concerns (given IE is usually hackers’ primary browser target); failure to comply fully and in a timely manner with Web standards; the long lag time between browser updates from Microsoft; and problems with IE 8’s performance, especially on older operating systems and PCs. (I am basing that last reason on feedback from my readers.)

Being forced to compete for the love of users who actually understand they have a choice of browsers might do more to spur Microsoft to be innovative, timely and standards-compliant with IE than anything else would. That’s why I say bring on the browser ballot, but for users’ sakes, not for those of Microsoft’s competitors.

October 29th, 2009

Microsoft's lawyers will be busy in the next few months

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:49 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Database, Legal, Office

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Fact Discovery, Corporate Law, Business Operations, Mary Jo Foley

In the midst of all the Windows 7 hoopla last week, Microsoft released its first quarter fiscal 2010 10-Q. In that document was mention of a number of the pending lawsuits against the company that are due to see some action during Microsoft’s fiscal 2010.

(Microsoft’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.)

Some of these suits have been covered extensively by us bloggers and journalists, including the seemingly never-ending Opera antitrust case against Microsoft and the i4i suit over alleged patent infringement by Microsoft’s Office suite.

But there’s been relatively little coverage as of late about what’s going on with the Novell antitrust suit filed in 2004 against Microsoft over WordPefect. In June 2005, the trial court granted Microsoft’s motion to dismiss four of six claims of the complaint. Both parties appealed, and in October 2007, the court of appeals affirmed the decision of the trial court, and remanded the case to that court for further proceedings. Fact discovery has closed and summary judgment motions were filed in October 2009

The latest is that a hearing has been set for January 22, 2010, before Judge Motz in the Federal District Court in Baltimore, to present oral arguments on Microsoft’s motion for summary judgment, a Microsoft spokesperson told me late last week.

The 10-Q also mentions “over 50 other patent infringement cases pending against Microsoft, 10 of which are set for trial in fiscal year 2010,” Among those on the list:

• A lawsuit filed by JuxtaComm Technologies against Microsoft and other defendants — including IBM, Oracle, Business Objects and others with ETL (extract, transform and load) tool vendors — in U.S. District Court in Texas. JuxtaComm claims that technologies in several Microsoft products including SQL Server, Visual Studio, Visio, and .Net Framework infringe a JuxtaComm patent relating to data integration. Trial has been scheduled for November 2009.
• A lawsuit by VirnetX in U.S. District Court in Texas in which VirnetX asserts that various Microsoft products including Windows client and server operating systems software and communications software infringe patents relating to certain secure Internet communications. Trial is scheduled for March 2010.

Microsoft’s 10-Q notes that as of September 30, 2009, Microsoft had accrued aggregate liabilities of $700 million and $400 million in other long-term liabilities fo all of the contingent cases described above. The 10-Q also points out that:

“There exists the possibility of adverse outcomes that we estimate could be up to $1.9 billion in aggregate beyond recorded amounts. The foregoing amount does not include the January 15, 2009 European Commission statement of objections, the outcome and range of which is not reasonably estimable. Were unfavorable final outcomes to occur, there exists the possibility of a material adverse impact on our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows” once the effects start to hit.

October 27th, 2009

Why is Microsoft opening up its Outlook file format now?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:02 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Development tools, Legal, Office, Office 2010/Office 14

Tags: PST File, Microsoft Corp., File Format, PST, Microsoft Outlook, E-mail, Groupware, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software

On October 26, Microsoft officials announced they were planning to open up the Outlook Personal Folders .PST file format and making it freely (and safely) licensable. What no one has said so far is why is Microsoft doing this now and who will likely benefit from the move.

The file formats are due to be published in the first half of 2010. According to Network World, the Redmondians are publishing only documentation for the .PST format for Outlook 2010, not previous versions of Outlook.

Microsoft officials are saying that the decision to post the documentation for the .PST file format came from customers and partners. When I asked today what led to the decision to open the file formats, I received back the following statement attributable to Paul Lorimer, Group Manager, Microsoft Office Interoperability:

“Data portability has become an increasing need for our customers and partners as more information is stored and shared in digital formats. Customers were specifically asking for solutions to further improve platform-independent access to email, calendar, contacts, and other data generated by Microsoft Outlook.”

I asked my followers on Twitter this morning if anyone out there was interested in using the .PST documentation for their own purposes. Not that this was a definitive or scientific survey by any means, but I got no responses — other than a few people speculating that Google or Facebook might want to take advantage of the new open format to make their wares more Outlook-compatible.

I asked a couple of analysts for their take on why Microsoft might be opening the .PST format. Rob Helm, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, sent me the following response via e-mail:

“I suspect this decision came out of the European Union interoperability investigation. That investigation was launched in Jan. 2008 and covers the Office file formats and more generally, how interoperability affects competition with high-volume Microsoft products like Office. Microsoft seems to be moving toward a settlement that would close the investigation. The competition commissioner has said she would like to wrap her investigations into Microsoft before she leaves her post, and Microsoft would be happy if she pulled it off.”

Helm said he expected some of Microsoft’s competitors might want to make use of the newly documented formats.

“The big winners (from Microsoft’s move to open .PST), will be vendors who want to compete with
Exchange or Outlook. A lot of Outlook e-mail is lying around in .PST files, and competitors will be able to pick off users more easily if they can bring that mail into their own systems. The winners might include IBM Lotus, Oracle, and Google, and Cisco (which bought PostPath, an Open Source Exchange competitor).”

Helm added that he believed Microsoft is trying to wean large customers from storing mail in .PST files or file systems “because doing that makes it hard for organizations to back up all their e-mail, enforce e-mail retention policies, and locate relevant e-mails during legal discovery.” He added that he doubted that this was the main reason Microsoft opened the format.

Rob Sanfilippo, another Directions on Microsoft analyst had some related observations. Sanfilippo noted that there are already a lot of third-party tools that access .PSTs and do things like repair and ennumeration through their contents, “so the format has been reverse-engineered long before being published by Microsoft.”

Sanfilippo added that .PSTs “are used most frequently for archiving purposes and Exchange Server 2010 includes a new server-based Personal Archive feature that gives users a separate mailbox to use for archiving on the server instead of using a PST.” He said this gives weight to the aforementioned idea that  Microsoft is trying to help organizations get users off PSTs and onto server storage.”

There’s nothing shameful about Microsoft opening up its Outlook formats in the hopes of appeasing antitrust regulators (if this is, indeed, why the Softies are doing this). But if this is the reason, why not say so, instead of leaving us skeptics to piece together later the real reasons behind their open promises?

Update (October 29): It took a couple of days, but Microsoft officials are now saying that the company never discussed the opening of the PST format with the European regulators. When I asked two days ago whether there was an antitrust connection, a spokesperson said that Microsoft had no comment. But today, the spokesperson said it was nothing other than customer and partner requests that led to the decision and not anything or anyone connected with the EU antitrust case.

Microsoft customers, partners and competitors out there: Do you care about the opening up of the .PST format? Why or why not?

October 19th, 2009

Ad agencies to DOJ: We like the Microsoft-Yahoo deal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 12:19 pm

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy, Google, Legal, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Advertisement, Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., U.S. Department Of Justice, Mary Jo Foley

Four big ad agencies, under the auspices of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, has issued a public letter to the U.S. department of Justice supporting the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, which the pair proposed in July.

The letter, dated October 19, is short and to the point. Here’s the full text:

“Advertising is the fuel that powers the Internet. Most websites depend on online advertising to survive – it’s what allows them to offer consumers free content and services.

“A very important form of online advertising is search advertising – the sponsored links that appear when a search engine answers a query. A healthy, competitive market for search and search advertising is crucial to the Internet’s future.

“We believe that Yahoo! and Microsoft’s proposal to combine their technologies and search platforms is good for advertisers, marketing services agencies, website publishers and consumers.

“These benefits are too important to wait for. As leading members of the advertising and marketing services industry, we urge the Department of Justice to bring its antitrust review to a speedy conclusion. This proposal enhances competition, and should be allowed to take effect as soon as possible”

The Advertising Association’s President and CEO Nancy Hill; Maurice Levy, Chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe; Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP; Michael I. Roth, Chairman and CEO, Interpubic Group of Companies; and John Wren, President and CEO, Omnicom Group all signed the note. (Microsoft recently sold its Razorfish ad subsidiary to Publicis Groupe for $530 million.)

Yahoo officials issued a statement on October 19, noting: “Yahoo welcomes the broad support this deal has received, and remains hopeful that the closing of this transaction can occur in early 2010…. In light of the fact that we’re in our quiet period ahead of earnings tomorrow, we’re not able to comment further.”

Microsoft and Yahoo announced their intention to enter into a complex partnership, via which Microsoft’s Bing engine would power a number of Yahoo’s online properties and Yahoo sales reps would sell ads for Microsoft properties. Some Yahoo employees (400 or so) are due to become Microsoft employees as part of the transaction.

The pair is hoping that by pooling their search assets they’ll creat a more formidable No. 2 online search/advertising alternative to Google. The deal is subject to regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and possibly abroad.

October 7th, 2009

Microsoft makes changes to browser ballot screen; user testing to commence

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:00 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Internet Explorer, Legal, OEMs, Resellers, System builders, Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Web Browser, Ballot Screen, Web Browsers, Microsoft Windows, Internet, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is making changes to the ballot screen that it proposed to the European Commission (EC) as a way to ensure more browser choice on Windows PCs.

The company announced on October 7 details of the planned changes, and EC regulators said they’d begin testing those changes among European consumers. Here’s a screen shot of the newly modified ballot screen:

The inclusion of a ballot screen — which will be delivered to XP, Vista and Windows 7 PC users in Europe via Microsoft’s Windows Update patching mechanism — is one of the concessions Microsoft made to try to appease the European antitrust regulators in their investigation of Microsoft’s practice of bundling Internet Explorer (IE) with Windows. The investigation was the result of an antitrust suit brought against Microsoft in 2007 by Opera Software.

Microsoft revealed its initial ballot screen proposal in July of this year. On Wednesday, Microsoft officials said they’d modify this screen to make it more palatable to regulators and its competitors, a number of whom have said the proposed screen fell short of the mark. In addition to providing an initial screen that describes what a browser is and to verify a user is connected to the Internet, the second actual ballot screen under the new proposal includes several modifications. These include changes to:

• Make it so competing browsers can be downloaded from the ballot screen more quickly and easily
• Ensure equivalent placement on the Windows 7 taskbar for Internet Explorer and all other browser icons
• Add introductory information, improving the design of the ballot page about each browser to help users make more informed choices
• Alphabetize the list of browsers so that the five most popular are listed first (by vendor), followed by the next seven most popular (also alphabetically ordered), so that 12 choices are displayed in total
• Provide the browser ballot to users for five years

Microsoft officials said they are planning to use Windows Update to push the browser ballot to Windows PCs, including Windows 7 machines which go on sale on October 22, so as not to require PC makers to preload anything additional on new machines. Under Microsoft’s proposal, PC makers also will be free to bundle browsers other than IE on new machines, as well as turn off IE all together.

Microsoft officials also pledged on October 7 to do more to share interoperability information regarding Windows, Windows Server, Office, Exchange and SharePoint with other software makers. The company also said it would address security software vendors’ concerns by disclosing “certain programming interfaces addressed by Microsoft’s own security products.”

Microsoft agreed to provide Windows users a choice of browser via the so-called “ballot screen” option — something the Commission originally advocated — as part of its settlement talks with the EC.  Microsoft originally was dead-set against the ballot screen option; officials said the company would rather ship Windows 7 with no browser included at all than to ship one with a ballot screen. Microsoft scrapped plans for a browser-less Windows 7E earlier this year.

The EC still has yet to issue its final findings, remedies and fines (if any) in the Opera antitrust case.

The EC is giving interested parties a month to comment on Microsoft’s updated browser ballot proposal. What’s your two cents? Is the modified browser ballot going to help consumers make more informed choices?

September 16th, 2009

Microsoft confirms notification of EU about its Yahoo search deal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:01 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Legal, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., European Union, Corporate Law, Business Structures, Security, Business Operations, Finance, Mary Jo Foley

Just to be clear: The European Union isn’t making noise about holding up or investigating Microsoft and Yahoo’s proposed search partnership (at least not yet).

Reuters reported on September 15 that the European Union antitrust regulators are in “informal talks” with Microsoft and Yahoo regarding their search deal, via which most of Yahoo’s search would be powered by Microsoft Bing. I’ve seen a few folks jumping to conclusions about what this means — which isn’t too surprising, given the European Commission’s proclivity toward coming down hard on Microsoft around anything that it deems stifling competition.

The U.S. Department of Justice, for its part, has requested more information on the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal.

It was a bit unclear in July, when Microsoft and Yahoo unveiled their proposed search deal, whether the EU would require official notice, and, if not, how and where notice of the proposed deal would need to be filed.

A Microsoft spokesperson had this to say about the Reuters report:

“We said when the agreement was announced in late July that it would require clearance in the US and Europe to proceed, and that additionally, we would be filing for clearance in Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.”

Microsoft has notified the EU as it said it would, he added.

Update: I misused the word “notified” here without realizing the legal ramifications. Microsoft has informed the EC of the agreement and engaged in informal discussions, but has not officially “notified” them, given that Microsoft is still determining whether official “notification” is required.

September 11th, 2009

DOJ requests more info on Microsoft-Yahoo search deal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:36 am

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy, Legal, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., U.S. Department Of Justice, Business Structures, Pricing, Finance, Marketing, Mary Jo Foley

The U.S. Department of Justice is expanding its review of the pending Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership the pair unveiled this summer.

The DOJ has requested more information from both companies, according to various reports. Microsoft isn’t commenting on the specifics of what the DOJ is requesting. But a Bloomberg story, citing “a person familiar with the matter,” said the pair are likely to be asked about their search-engine investments, ad pricing and product plans.

(I’ve asked Microsoft officials whether there are any more specifics on the DOJ investigation to share but have yet to hear back.)

Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to a complex partnership in July, via which Microsoft would provide much (but not all) of the search technology to Yahoo for use within its various online properties and Yahoo would sell the Microsoft-Yahoo search and advertising platform to advertisers. The goal of the proposed partnership is to create a more formidable No. 2 player in the search market by combining the development and sales forces of the current No. 2 (Yahoo) and distant No. 3 (Microsoft).

In July, according to comScore, Bing had 8.9 percent share of the U.S. search market and Yahoo had 19.3 percent. Google had 64.7 percent.

Microsoft is expected to be launching an update to its Bing search engine, known tentatively as “Bing 2.0″ before the end of this month — and possibly as early as next week

September 8th, 2009

Russia drops it monopoly-abuse case against Microsoft over Windows XP

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:17 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Legal, OEMs, Resellers, System builders, Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Russia, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows XP, Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows, Software, Mary Jo Foley

On September 7, the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service announced it was ceasing its anti-monopoly action it launched against Microsoft in June 2009 over the Redmondians’ phase-out plans for Windows XP.

Microsoft demonstrated to the satisfaction of FAS that XP was still available to users via four channels: On system-builder custom machines; via Microsoft’s “Get Genuine Kit”; through downgrade rights for volume-license customers; and as a pre-install via неттопах (which one Russian speaker told me was something like a “nettop,” or netbook).

As further evidence of XP’s continued availability, Microsoft officials said they sold more than 1.2 million localized copies of XP in Russia during its fiscal 2008 (which ended on June 30, 2008.)

According to a translated version of the FAS press statement, Microsoft is going a step further and will be providing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium users a free downgrade to Windows XP starting within three weeks. Free downgrades to XP will be available to Russian Vista users until the end of 2009. (Currently, downgrades are limited to volume licensees, who tend to be business users.)

“Microsoft is committed to full compliance with the laws in Russia. We are glad that FAS did not find any violation,” a Microsoft official told Reuters.

I’m sure Microsoft is wishing the European Commission would go the route of the FAS… But seemingly, no such luck. The EC still has yet to issue a final ruling in the Opera browser-bundling antitrust case against Microsoft.

September 8th, 2009

What do Linux vendors want with those former Microsoft graphics patents?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:14 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Legal, Linux, Open source

Tags: Patent, Microsoft Corp., Graphics, Graphics Patent, Journal, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a group of open-source backers is poised to purchase 22 graphics patents formerly the property of Microsoft.

The patents in question seem to include some or all of the 3D-graphics-related ones that Microsoft purchased from SGI in 2002. Microsoft sold these patents earlier this year to a third-party patent broker, Allied Security Trust (AST). The Journal reported on September 8 that AST is selling the patents to the Open Invention Network (OIN), a group of companies including IBM, Novell, Red Hat and Sony. The gist of the Journal’s story is OIN members want to buy the graphics patents to head off potential patent trolls who might be interested in acquiring them to use against open-source vendors.

I’ve asked OIN, AST and Microsoft for more information and have yet to hear back from any of them.

Update: Microsoft responded Tuesday afternoon. Spokesperson Michael Marinello sent the following statement:

“We sold 22 patents to AST in July 2009. The terms were confidential. We acquired these patents several years ago as part of a larger business agreement with SGI.

“We are constantly evaluating our patent portfolio – which recently received top ranking in the software industry — to ensure its makeup fits into the business goals of the organization. These patents were deemed to be non-core to our business and non-essential for our IP portfolio.  When an interested buyer for this technology was identified, after discussing it both internally and with the potential buyer, we felt this was the right direction to go in relating to these specific patents.”

Marinello advised me to get in touch with AST, as they own the patents now. I still have not heard back from AST or OIN. But OIN issued a press release at 4 pm ET today confirming that it purchased the 22 patents from AST, but offering no additional information or details — not even a confirmation that the patents “read on Linux.” “To date, the Trust (AST) has invested $40 million in patent purchases over its 30 months of operations,” the release said.

The original WSJ story leaves me with more than a few questions:

• Lately, Linux vendors have been steeling themselves against the possibility of Microsoft pursuing them for alleged patent violations. But in this case — since Microsoft sold these patents — who were the OIN members worried about? Which trolls were lurking?
• The Journal cites an OIN official claiming that Microsoft presented the graphics patents as being “Linux-related” when it auctioned them off earlier this year. (Microsoft did not confirm this characterization in the Journal’s story.) If the patents really are Linux-related, I’d think Microsoft would have wanted to hold onto them, to give the company a leg up against its Linux competitors, rather than sell the patents off, claiming they weren’t germane to Microsoft’s core business.
• What, exactly, do these 22 patents cover? Back in January 2002, The Register reported that Microsoft paid $63 million for SGI’s graphics patent portfolio. In July of that same year, Microsoft was rattling the patent sabers over OpenGL. Microsoft officials said they had “possible claims” on a technology called vertex programming, a technology that controls 3D effects such as lighting. A ZDNet story from that time noted that “The claims caused some consternation within the OpenGL Architectural Review Board (ARB), which governs the specification.”

Anything else about this transaction of interest to you (in case I do get to talk to any of the parties in question later today)?

September 4th, 2009

More Microsoft layoffs, a resignation and other pre-Labor Day tidbits

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:39 am

Categories: .Net Framework, App Compatibility, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Google, Legal, Office, Office 2007, Office 2010/Office 14, Windows Mobile

Tags: Kai-Fu Lee, Layoff, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Microsoft Corp., Mobile Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications, Handhelds, Wireless And Mobility

Here’s a round-up of Microsoft labor-related (and other) news on the eve of the long Labor Day weekend here in the U.S.

Microsoft is confirming it is cutting 27 more employees in Redmond and Bellevue, Wash. offices, effective November 1. No word on which teams/products those 27 are part of. Microsoft officials said at the start of this year the company planned to lay off approximately 5,000 employees between then and mid-2010. When Microsoft cut its second big round of employees in May, CEO Steve Ballmer’s stated that “with this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010.” Microsoft officials won’t say how many of these 5,000 have been cut to date; I’d think the new 27 are part of the original 5,000 and not the start of an additional round.

Kai-Fu Lee is resigning from Google. Lee is the former head of Microsoft’s Interactive Services Division and most recently President of Google China. Lee is said to be planning to disclose what he’ll be doing next on Sunday. From a story on PE Hub, it sounds like it is somehow venture-related. Microsoft sued Google over its hiring of Lee in 2005.

A Federal Court of Appeals is allowing Microsoft to continue to sell Microsoft Word, in spite of a patent-infringement case against it. Microsoft is appealing a ruling, which found the company to have infringed on a patent involving Custom XML code owned by plaintiff i4i. The appeal is set for September 23. I’ve heard Microsoft has an patch that would remove Custom XML from Word waiting in the wings and ready to be pushed to customers immediately if it loses the appeal.

Windows Mobile 7 in beta? UXEvangelist (a k a Stephen Chapman) discovered a Motorola exec’s bio on LinkedIn that mentions the existence of a Windows Mobile 7 beta. Both Chapman and I had heard that Microsoft was quite far along in its Windows Mobile 7 development and was aiming to get final code to phone makers in November this year. But there may have been a recent change in plans, via which Microsoft may deliver yet another interim release of Windows Mobile (something after 6.5) before Windows Mobile 7 shows up on new phones. If the latest rumors are true, Windows Mobile 7 is unlikely to debut before the end of 2010. Microsoft won’t discuss ship targets or plans for Windows Mobile 7.

Novell’s Miguel de Icaza is at it again. His latest project is Mono Tools for Visual Studio, which is now in a closed Beta 1 release.  “There are some common stumbling blocks that keep .NET applications from being able to run on Mono. These can be due to using parts of the .NET framework that Mono does not implement or implements differently, or reliance on native platform code like user32,” according to the new site for the tools.  The tools allow developers to scan their apps for Mono compatibility, test them on Windows and Linux and package them up to run on Linux.