Redmond

In its latest move to increase Internet search traffic, Microsoft Corp. has turned to an old rival, Sun Microsystems Inc., for marketing help.

Under the terms of a deal being announced Monday, Sun will promote a Microsoft toolbar for the Internet Explorer browser to U.S.-based Web surfers as they download Sun's Java software -- which is required to view some Web sites. The toolbar has a built-in box for queries to Microsoft's Live Search and buttons that give people access to MSN content.

Microsoft is giving its Xbox customers an early Christmas gift on Nov. 19: The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant is offering Xbox 360 owners a chance to upgrade their dashboard with a conversion called the New Xbox Experience (NXE), an upgrade it is dubbing the "ultimate social-entertainment experience" with "something for everyone."

NXE gives users a new experience with a load of different features, including the creation of avatars and the ability to choose from 10,000 movies and TV shows from Netflix, some of which will be available in high definition.

A Peek in the Box

Microsoft Corp. does not have to pay $1.5 billion in damages to Alcatel-Lucent SA, a panel of federal appeals judges has ruled in what may be the last word on a long-running digital music patent lawsuit.

In February 2007, a jury in U.S. District Court in San Diego determined Microsoft infringed on two patents that cover the encoding and decoding of audio into the digital MP3 format, a popular way to convert music from CDs into files on computers and vice versa.

Yahoo Inc. is relinquishing three seats on its board of directors to activist investor Carl Icahn, ending a battle for control of the Internet company while still leaving the door open for a possible sale to Microsoft Corp.

The truce announced Monday gives Yahoo a reprieve from two months of bickering with Icahn, who had been spearheading a shareholder rebellion aimed at replacing the company's entire board in retaliation for its rejection of Microsoft's $47.5 billion takeover bid in early May.

A master carpenter would neither drive a finishing nail with a sledgehammer nor trim a tabletop with a chain saw.

Such a craftsperson needs tools that are small, versatile and cheap.

One such tool -- for writers and anybody who needs to kick out anything from a short memo or letter to a full-length report -- is AbiWord.

This free, open-source word processor is available for Windows, Macintosh and Unix computers of just about every variety.

AbiWord loads quickly on my 9-year-old, 233-megahertz Pentium II laptop and even quicker on a more recent 3-gigahertz Pentium 4 desktop.

Sony Corp. Chairman Howard Stringer believes the company doesn't need to lower the price of the PlayStation 3 video-game console in response to a possible $50 cut in the Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

A price reduction by Microsoft would be evidence the Xbox 360 is falling behind in the contest for sales, Stringer said in an interview Friday at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

An era ended Monday. The first day of Steve Ballmer's occupation of the corner office at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, WA., also marked the last day for Windows XP.

June 30 was the "end of sales" deadline for the venerable version of the Windows operating system, which Microsoft is trying to replace with Windows Vista. But in a letter to customers, Bill Veghte, a senior vice president at Microsoft, emphasized three options for customers who "need" Windows XP on new boxes.

Yahoo Inc.'s leaders defended online search leader Google Inc. as a more desirable partner than Microsoft Corp. in a letter that affirmed the Internet pioneer's commitment to a strategy that has alienated shareholders.

Yahoo embraced its planned advertising partnership with Google amid reports that it had revived talks about a possible deal with Microsoft. The report, based information from unnamed people, surfaced despite Yahoo's repeated rejection of the software maker since their tense mating dance began nearly five months ago.

Here's a hint for high school graduates or college students still majoring in indecision: Put down that guitar or book of poetry and pick up a laptop. Study computer science or engineering, and plan to move to a big city.

One of Yahoo Inc.'s disgruntled shareholders is urging Microsoft Corp. to make a more compelling case for its bid to buy the Internet pioneer's search operations -- a proposal that was trumped by an advertising deal Yahoo reached with Google Inc.

Mithras Capital, which owns 1.7 million Yahoo shares, made the plea to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in a letter sent Thursday.