With Microsoft poised to unleash its next collaboration and unified communication (UC) suite next week, rival IBM is launching a preemptive strike by promising a tight level of integration between its own UC platform and its new, free Lotus Symphony productivity suite.

The last time we wrote about Microsoft’s ‘dumping crusade’ against GNU/Linux was just under a fortnight ago. This collective item included a new incident and references to our previous writeups about Microsoft’s DreamSpark [1, 2] — essentially another attempt to further close the World Wide Web, making it more Microsoft Windows-dependent.

"...Microsoft's proposal is for web developers to opt-in to Internet Explorer 8's standards mode by adding in a new meta tag (or HTTP header) [...] Microsoft are demanding that we web standards developers favour them with time, cost and effort, while they continue to abrogate their responsibilities to their half a billion clients. [...] Microsoft on the other hand are now expecting us web developers to carry the burden of their responsibility. Instead of Microsoft abiding by the responsibility of rendering pages according to the open defined standards, Microsoft are intent on making standards-based pages second class citizens. [...] We web developers should not be paying for Microsoft's mistakes.

While Microsoft is whining that it does not make as much money as it used to (the convenient excuse is counterfeiting), GNU/Linux is actually making further progress on the desktop and Valve starts viewing GNU/Linux as a first-class citizen

So, I understand this [quote from Microsoft's web site] to mean that Microsoft pays these researchers to think and study and figure out ways to innovate in search so Microsoft can beat Google and Yahoo. Microsoft, I would guess, gets rights to the IP in some fashion. No wonder it has spent a fair amount of effort trying to get the community to drop the GPL and adopt the BSD license instead.

This is the fourth chapter in a real-time eBook writing project I launched and explained in late November. Constructive comments, corrections and suggestions are welcome. All Microsoft product names used below are registered trademarks of Microsoft.

How do you know when a country is ready to enter the legions of developed nations? When it’s ready to sue Microsoft. AFP reports that China is conducting an anti-monopoly investigation into giant Microsoft.

My Microsoft Office trial is over. I am not spending $450 just to get Outlook. Gmail and Google Calendar win this game: big time.

"I have the impression that open source to challenge it in a justice court is exactly what Microsoft desires, so we should not get into this dangerous and expensive game. Therefore, I propose another game, in which the open source is strong where Microsoft is weak."