A new study says past delays in Microsoft Corp.'s products are causing some businesses to think twice about renewing the long-term service agreements that include rights to upgrade to future versions of its programs.

The HP Media Vault is a wonder of feature rich, simple file sharing. Based on Linux, it is capable of some pretty amazing feats despite it's simple, small design. It ships in sizes ranging from 500mb upwards to 1.5tb and is very easy to setup and use. But how simple is simple? A simple as sunshine on a cloudless day. But don't take my word for it. Instead, let me show you.

Hungary's state Competition Authority raided the offices of Microsoft Corp.'s local subsidiary as part of a probe into the company's relationship with large software distributors. Microsoft used sales conditions and offered software distributors incentives - described as "loyalty discounts" - so they wouldn't offer clients anything but Microsoft Office products.

"The escalating demand for field service and installation engineers with an awareness of customer service techniques reflects a continued focus by the IT sector on adding customer value, a competitive edge and identifying new business opportunities through field service operations," said Chris Short, managing director of IT recruitment firm Concept IT.

When Linspire 6.0 is released next month, it will include the fruits of the recently announced marriage between Linspire and Microsoft. Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony says he has been in talks with Microsoft for about a year and a half before reaching an agreement.

The rumors are true. Microsoft (news, site) has an official open source license that was approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) — the Ms-PL, or Microsoft Public License. Since they have licensed their latest offering ASP.NET MVC 1.0 under the Ms-PL, we thought we would take a look at the license terms. Is there an evil catch somewhere in the terms and conditions?

"...The question the appeals court was asked to answer, in its own words, was: 'We consider whether a service provider may change the terms of its service contract by merely posting a revised contract on its website.' ..."

Microsoft is going after negative coverage about its products; it eventually gets its way, too

A customer service trouble ticketing (or help desk) is an information and assistance resource that helps the resolution of computer related problems.