Microsoft Technologies with Ahmed Mahdy

Microsoft is touting its free accounting application, which it debuted last October for small businesses, as a success, announcing that it has been downloaded by 1 million people in just 3 months. Office Accounting Express 2007 is Microsoft's first shot across Intuit's bow. The program is largely a basic accounting suite aimed at those who currently use pen and paper or a spreadsheet to manage their finances. Startups and eBay sellers are among the intended audience, Microsoft says. Accounting Express features and Outlook-like interface and Office integration.

"The response to the software and its suite of integrated web services has been overwhelming," a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews. "The great thing about the product is you don’t have to be an accountant to use it. In addition, Microsoft spent a lot of time studying small businesses and conducting market research to determine their needs." Although the product itself is a free download, Microsoft has bundled seven third party services, some of which are available for additional fees. These include processing payroll through ADP, accessing reports from Equifax, and sharing of books with an accountant via Office Live. For businesses needing more functionality, Microsoft has launched Office Accounting Professional 2007 — a retail package — at a cost of $149 USD. Inventory management, multicurrency invoicing, multiuser access and fixed asset management are among those featured added to the Professional version.

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Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property.

In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last Thursday, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in November 2006, "demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world." The cross-selling partnership means that Microsoft will recommend Suse Linux for customers who want an environment mix of Microsoft and open-source software. It also involves a "patent cooperation agreement," under which Microsoft and Novell agreed not to sue each other for patent infringement. In a clear threat against open source-users, Ballmer repeated his earlier assertions that open source "is not free," referring to the possibility that Microsoft may sue Linux sellers. Microsoft has suggested that the Linux operating system infringes some of its intellectual property, but it has never named the patents in question.

"I would not anticipate that we make a huge additional revenue stream from our Novell deal, but I do think it clearly establishes that open source is not free, and open source will have to respect the intellectual-property rights of others, just as any other competitor will," Ballmer said. "But I don't want to eliminate in your minds the notions of risk of pricing that comes from competition with open source. We are higher-priced, but we bring greater value," he added. Alongside the renewed threat over intellectual property, Ballmer was also bullish over winning large corporate accounts against Linux vendors. "We have done very well versus Linux on the desktop and on the server, and I am hopeful that we will build share, particularly in Web servers and high-performance clusters, from Linux in the next year," he told analysts.

Full story: c|net

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Microsoft may have dabbled at the sidelines of the mp3 player market before, but it's now jumping in feet first with the Zune. But after years of dominance, does Apple have competition for its mp3 player crown? Microsoft's Zune has a great 3in display for watching video clips. Oddly, Microsoft hasn't named a UK launch date for the Zune yet, despite it being available in the US. However, those eager to purchase will find plentiful supplies on sites such as Ebay. One thing Microsoft has got right with the Zune is the screen – it's big at 3in and fills a large proportion of the front. You have to turn the unit 90 degrees to watch video, but this means that widescreen content can be shown full screen, which looks great.

Another distinguishing feature is wireless music sharing, which allows you to beam songs to a fellow Zuner (assuming you can find one) via the built-in Wifi. Transfer is quick (around 10 seconds per track), and you can even share some DRM protected tracks. But before you get too excited this isn't Kaaza in the wild. Shared tracks can only be played three times for up to three days before expiring, which limits its use. This applies to any files sent between Zunes, regardless of whether or not the original has DRM. The interface is very reminiscent of Portable Media Center, which Microsoft released in 2004. The menu allows you to go left and right, as well as up and down. So if you're browsing the list of artists, you can just click left for albums rather than have to go up a menu level and back down again. The controls are easy enough to use, however, what looks like a wheel at the bottom of the unit is actually a four way switch.

Source: PC World

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