The European Commission gave a guarded welcome to Microsoft's pledge on Thursday for "greater transparency" in its development and business practices.

A Seoul court ruled that the world's largest software giant Microsoft illegally used patent-covered software technology developed by a Korean professor, ending an eight-year-long legal battle between the scientist and the U.S. company.

"...Now Adobe, which controls Flash and Flash Video, is trying to change that with the introduction of DRM restrictions in version 9 of its Flash Player and version 3 of its Flash Media Server software. Instead of an ordinary web download, these programs can use a proprietary, secret Adobe protocol to talk to each other, encrypting the communication and locking out non-Adobe software players and video tools..."

Migration to the Windows Vista operating system apparently isn't generating much enthusiasm among IT personnel in the enterprise. A survey conducted in November of last year by market research firm King Research supports that notion. The study found that "90 percent of participants have concerns about the migration to Windows Vista."

I hadn't heard of Microsoft's Unlimited Potential program, but Microsoft is using it to seed the Russian and adjacent markets with subscription-based PCs that customers can use. It's a clever way for Microsoft to seed developing markets with its Vista operating system, at a compelling price.

Imagine how successful Dell's Ubuntu offering could be if just one Dell Ubuntu machine was put in retail stores. If people knew of an alternative to Windows, they would go for it! So what do you say, Dell? Why don't you try to put at least one of your Ubuntu machines offered in retail stores? Please add your support!

Wayne Kelly, leader of the open source Ruby.Net development project, announced last week that he intends to discontinue development of Ruby.Net and join up with Microsoft's IronRuby open source efforts. This might sound good on the surface, but it is a bad idea.

Now comes a new rallying cry: software wants to be free. Or, as the tech insiders say, it wants to be “zero dollar.”

A growing number of consumers are paying just that — nothing. This is the Internet’s latest phase: people using freely distributed applications, from e-mail and word processing programs to spreadsheets, games and financial management tools. They run on distant, massive and shared data centers, and users of the services pay with their attention to ads, not cash.

While such services have been emerging for years, their rapid adoption has been an important but largely overlooked driver of the $44.6 billion hostile bid that Microsoft made to take over Yahoo this week.