Stuart J. Johnston

When he told business executives Thursday in Chicago that Microsoft will invest in search for the long term, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is putting his company’s money where his mouth is. Ballmer, speaking at the Executives’ Club of Chicago, told the audience that he is willing to spend between 5 percent and 10 percent of […]

Microsoft’s new effort at delivering a free anti-malware service now has an official name — and the software giant has set a date for public beta testing of the software to begin. The free service, codenamed “Morro,” is currently in internal testing within Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and will begin public beta testing in Brazil, Israel […]

Maybe it’s a case of third time’s the charm, or perhaps it’s just consumer curiosity, but Microsoft’s new Bing search engine has gained market share its second week in a row, according to net tracking firm comScore. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) officially launched its Bing search engine on June 3, and briefly surged ahead of its […]

Less than three years since it first debuted, Microsoft has all but confirmed it is weighing what to do with Soapbox, its faltering YouTube competitor. Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) site for user-generated video content appears to be one of several projects that the company is mulling whether to cut down or cut loose in the wake […]

In a move aimed at keeping sales of PCs moving while users wait for Windows 7, Microsoft is about to begin a sales promotion that lets people who buy PCs pre-installed with Windows Vista — between June 26 and October 22 when Windows 7 ships — to get a free or discounted upgrade to Windows […]

The day after Microsoft announced it will sell Windows 7 without Internet Explorer in the European Union (EU), many interested parties are tossing in their reactions, and it’s a mixed bag of opinions. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) made the announcement Thursday in a blog post on the company’s On the Issues blog. The unexpected revelation immediately […]

After three years of sluggish sales, Microsoft’s Live OneCare PC health service is about to be replaced by a free service that will focus much more tightly on security and malware protection. The free service, codenamed ‘Morro,’ is currently in internal testing within Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and will begin public beta testing “soon,” according to […]

In a move aimed at heading off further punitive action by the European Commission (EC), Microsoft has confirmed that it will distribute Windows 7 without Internet Explorer within European Union (EU) countries. The story came to light Wednesday when one of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) PC OEM partners leaked a confidential memo to that effect to […]

Microsoft quietly revealed Wednesday afternoon that it plans to cut off sales of its long-running Microsoft Money Plus product as of the end of June. “After suspending annual updates of Money Plus in 2008, Microsoft is announcing today that we will no longer offer Microsoft Money Plus for purchase after June 30, 2009” said a […]

Microsoft’s Live Search replacement, Bing, had a solid first day last week, according to one Web metrics firm. Now, a second firm says its research has found that Bing has had a solid first week. According to a statement by tracking firm comScore, in its first week, Bing increased Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) search engine market […]

Microsoft on Tuesday delivered ten security bulletins, six of them labeled “critical” — including one in Internet Explorer (IE) that affects the latest version, IE8, which just shipped in March. All told, June’s patch drop fixes a total of 31 vulnerabilities, making for a whopping amount of work for anyone who has to test and […]

Microsoft’s new search engine Bing is apparently off to a good start, even surging slightly ahead of Yahoo, if only for a day. Instead of being a groundswell for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), though, analysts said that the spike may only indicate consumers’ trying out the newest search engine on the block. For whatever reason, on […]