Grab a subscription to TechNet – the price just went down

Hard to believe, but MS just lowered the price on TechNet. For $199 the first year (and $149 in subsequent years) you can get full, absolutely authentic licenses to essentially all of Microsoft’s software. By becoming a member of TechNet, you can download software directly from Microsoft, use a key that you get directly from Microsoft – and you’ll automatically be signed up for beta and Release Candidate versions of new software.

The hitch? You can’t use the software in a production environment.

I just posted details on my InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.

Ballmer: Microsoft lost “thousands of man hours of innovation” on Vista

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft admits that Microsoft lost “thousands of man hours of innovation” on Windows Vista.

Read more about it on this ZDNet Blog:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/ballmer-microsoft-lost-thousands-of-man-hours-of-innovation-on-vista/8361

Microsoft loses at the Supreme Court

Got your scorecard handy? Good. You’re going to need it.

Back in 1986, three engineers working for Bell Labs at AT&T filed for a patent that covers a specific way of entering data on a computer screen. Back in the mid-80s, people usually used a keyboard to enter data. AT&T’s so-called “Day” patent describes a way of entering data into fields on the screen without using a keyboard. The computer displays information on the screen, and the user chooses the information to be placed into the data field, no typing required. Examples given in the patent application include a menu, a calculator, and an on-screen graphical keyboard.

If that sounds similar to the way you can click on a calendar to stick dates in an Outlook appointment, well, the jury and the judges agree. Microsoft claims that the patent isn’t valid because it was obvious, and anticipated.

AT&T spun off its hardware product business – christened “Lucent” – in 1996, then Alcatel bought Lucent along with its patents in 2006. That’s how a Bell Labs patent turned into a Alcatel-Lucent patent.

Here’s where it gets complicated. Back in 2002, Lucent sued Gateway and Dell, claiming multiple patent infringements. Microsoft voluntarily joined the lawsuit on Gateway and Dell’s side. The court broke up the original claim into three parts, which turned into three separate trials. In a scene reminiscent of South Park’s “Everyone vs Everyone” episode, Microsoft, Lucent and Alcatel-Lucent subsequently sued each other multiple times, each claiming the other infringed on various and sundry patents.

Microsoft lost the first of the three claims in February 2007, with the jury awarding a whopping $1.57 billion to Alcatel-Lucent, but that decision was overturned in September 2008. The second of the three claims was dismissed before it went to trial, although Alcatel-Lucent has hinted that it will appeal.

In April 2008, Alcatel-Lucent won the third of the three claims – the one that involves Outlook’s date picking interface, among others – with the jury awarding $367 million in damages. In September 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that, although the patent infringement ruling was valid, the method for calculating damages was not: a lower court would have to go back and re-assess the damages. Microsoft appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, and that’s the case MS just lost. As a result, the damages hearing will take place as scheduled, starting on December 3.

Microsoft makes $4,000,000,000 in quarterly net profit

The Washington Post puts it succinctly:

At least the Xbox division (which includes the Zune and other entertainment products and devices) is no longer losing money, reporting $165 million in operating income on revenues of $1.7 billion. The online division cannot claim the same. Revenues were up 12 percent to $566 million, but It lost $713 million in operating income. That is about $300 million more than it was losing last year. That is okay, though, the $3 billion in operating income for the Windows division is up by $788 million from last year

Hotmail social networking shreds your privacy: get over it

You might’ve noticed that I haven’t been posting much in the past few days. Now you can find out why.

Windows Secrets Newsletter just hit the stands, and the lead article (from an author you may recognize) tells a sobering tale about how Microsoft pulls information about you from previously obscure sources, mashing it, and dishing it out to people you may not know.

My wife stumbled on the problem when she logged on to Hotmail a couple of days ago. That, in itself, is an interesting story, but it’ll wait until another day.

For now, if you have a Windows Live ID (hotmail address, Life Spaces account, whatever), run over to the Windows Secrets Newsletter Top Story page and see what you need to do in order to protect your privacy. Yes, you have to take this bull by the horns. No, Microsoft doesn’t give a hoot about your personal – potentially embarrassing – information.

Microsoft loses to i4i again

Just before Christmas I talked about Microsoft losing a patent lawsuit brought on by a small company called i4i.

On May 20, a federal jury in Tyler, Texas, found Microsoft guilty of violating the i4i patent, and order Microsoft to pay i4i $200 million. Microsoft appealed. On August 11, Judge Leonard (no relation) Davis, citing Microsoft’s lawyers’ hijinx, slapped another $40 million onto the judgment for willful infringement, and cited $37 million in pre-judgment interest. Microsoft appealed, and lost its appeal yesterday.

Microsoft appealed again – actually, asked for a re-hearing – and lost again last Friday. The BBC says:

In this second appeal, the court again re-affirmed the original ruling and spelled out why that decision was made. In court documents spelling out their reasoning, the three appeal court judges said there was evidence that Microsoft knew i4i technology was patented before it turned up in Office programs.

The appeal is not the last that Microsoft can make. The court documents are now being sent to the other appeal court judges who will decide if Microsoft has grounds for a wider review of the case.

Microsoft: 60,000,000 Windows 7 licenses sold last year

… and $19,000,000,000 in revenue for the last three months of 2009.

Net income for the quarter was $6,600,000,000, up 60% over last year.

Microsoft’s financial details this quarter make my head spin. It’s hard counting all of those zeroes.

CES keynote – Ballmer’s on tap

We’re about an hour away from the Consumer Electronic Show keynote, and Steve Ballmer’s no doubt in the green room, prepping for a talk that will be heard around the world. If you’re curious and don’t have anything better to do, you can watch it live on the MS Press Room site.

Me, I’m going to clean the fish tank.

Ballmer may well pull a rabbit out of his hat. One of the best things he could do for Microsoft and for us customers is to cut through the Windows 7 licensing BS: a re-design of the Win7 product lineup to mimic the Office 2010 lineup would be most welcome. But I’m not holding my breath.

UPDATE: Not much interesting from Ballmer at CES. I’m glad I cleaned the fish tank.