Stuart J. Johnston

Four months following Bing’s entry into the search engine arena, the early appeal of the market’s newest combatant may be wearing off, with the gains seen by Microsoft’s self-described “decision engine” in its first days now slowing, according to Web tracking firm comScore. Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) market share of total U.S. searches grew by only […]

Despite some pundits’ arguments to the contrary, one analyst is predicting that the release of Windows 7 could trigger an upgrade bonanza after all — especially when it comes to opening the floodgates on corporate IT migration from Windows XP. In a report titled “Raising the Roof on IT Spending. (And Another Look at the […]

Microsoft released a record-setting batch of patches today, including fixes for several zero-day threats that have gone without official patches for a month or longer. As Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) promised last week in its advance notification about the patches to come today — as part of its regular “Patch Tuesday” roundup of software updates — […]

The FCC is seeking public comments on an analysis of what it would take to provide broadband, fiber-optic connections to thousands of “anchor” institutions nationwide — a number that runs as high as $10 billion. What’s so interesting, however, is that the analysis submitted on October 5, came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. […]

Microsoft has applied for a patent on a software licensing technology that could be used to bill users for the time they spend computing, just as if they were paying for minutes spent using a PC at an Internet cafe or like feeding the parking meter for their car. It could turn out to be […]

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, doesn’t speak in public as often as the guy who held the title before him, Bill Gates. But that doesn’t mean he’s anti-social — especially these days. On Thursday, Ozzie quietly announced that he’s creating a team to work on so-called “social” technologies. Called the Future Social Experiences (FUSE) […]

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will ship 13 bug patches in next week’s “Patch Tuesday” drop — eight of them rated “critical” — the company’s most severe security ranking. Of those, seven fix problems in Windows, according to Microsoft’s advance notice sent out Thursday. Tuesday also carries a rather dubious distinction: It will fix the largest number […]

Microsoft may finally see the end of the tunnel in its nearly two-year long battle with the European Commission regarding bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. At the same time, it is also close to settling complaints that it needs to provide more interoperability information for other products, including Office. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) recently submitted an […]

Two years ago, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) negotiated an out-of-court settlement with tiny startup Eolas Technologies over patent rights to embed applets and plug-ins in browsers. That came after two re-examinations of the validity of Eolas’ patent, both upheld, and a court award of $565 million against the software titan. Tuesday, after receiving a continuation patent […]

RSA said Monday it has identified a novel new way that one online gang has cooked up to put cybersleuths off the track, while they drain users’ bank accounts. The basic technique uses “money mules” — bots set up to extract money from legitimate online bank accounts that communicate with a server which controls them, […]

When Microsoft released Windows Vista nearly three years ago, it seemed only natural that the other half of the “Wintel” duopoly — Intel — would become an early adopter within a matter of months. However, Microsoft Vista was buggy, sluggish, a resource hog, and initially many hardware peripherals wouldn’t work with it due to lack […]

Microsoft said Thursday it has signed off on Windows 7’s add-on capability to provide Windows XP application compatibility and the code will be ready for download when Windows 7 ships later this month. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced the news in a post on the Windows 7 Team Blog Thursday. “We expect to make the final […]