Microsoft sorry for Amy tweet

By Dan Whitworth
Newsbeat technology reporter Amy Winehouse was found dead in her Camden home on Saturday Microsoft has apologised after being accused by Amy Winehouse fans of trying to make money from her death.

It's after Xbox360's official Twitter account, tweetbox360, posted a message urging people to pay tribute to the star by using Microsoft's online store to buy her album.

It read "remember Amy Winehouse by downloading the ground-breaking 'Back to Black' over at Zune".

One response came from Simacco: "Talk about cashing in on someone's death!"

'Crass' and 'vile'

Another, from iamjovic, said: "It's very insensitive and whoever had the idea of tweeting it had no taste."

Following other replies from fans which labelled the post "crass" and "vile" Microsoft was quick to say sorry.

"Apologies to everyone if our earlier Amy Winehouse download tweet seemed purely commercially motivated.

"Far from the case we assure you."

After the initial apology Microsoft went even further to try to appease Amy's fans.

There was another post shortly after the apology tweeting: "With Amy W's passing, the world has lost a huge talent.

"Our thoughts are with Amy's family and friends at this very sad time."

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Yell rallies on Microsoft tie-up

12 July 2011 Last updated at 13:14 GMT Continue reading the main story Shares in Yell have jumped 13% after the yellow pages publisher announced a tie-up with Microsoft targeting small and medium businesses.

The deal will enable the Reading-based firm to offer "search, mobile and local advertising solutions" to its clients in the UK, US, Spain and Latin America.

Yell will also offer customers Microsoft products such as Office 365 and marketing software Dynamics CRM.

In return, the US firm will help Yell develop its cloud computing services.

"Yell Group has one of the largest dedicated sales forces partnering with small and medium sized businesses and provides customers with valuable, locally focused internet directories that see over 50 million unique visitors per month," said Thomas Hansen, Microsoft's head of small and medium businesses.

The announcement came a day after Yell unveiled its acquisition of ecommerce firm Znode.

Yell's share price has doubled in the last two weeks.

The company will hold an investor day on Thursday, and analysts say its shares have been rallying on speculation of further announcements.

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Microsoft Office put in the cloud

28 June 2011 Last updated at 12:11 GMT The web-based versions aim to make collaborative working much easier Microsoft is launching a cloud-based version of its Office software suite.

Called Office 365 the service puts the familiar e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet and collaboration programs on the web.

Microsoft said the programs will be accessible via desktops, laptops and tablets plus Microsoft, RIM, Apple and Android smartphones.

The launch is aimed squarely at Google and others who already offer web-based business software.

Cash cow

Office 365 is being formally launched on 28 June via events in New York and London. The service unshackles the well-known programs from a single PC and translates them into a web format.

Charges for the service are based on the size of the business that wants to use it Small businesses with fewer than 25 employees will pay ?4 per user per month for secure access to e-mail, calendar, documents and contacts.

Larger organisations will pay from from ?6 to ?17.75 per user, per month and get a broader range of extras including advanced archiving, unlimited storage and Microsoft's Lync messaging and communications system.

Customers using Office 365 can host the applications they are using in Microsoft's data centres, use dedicated servers in those centres or put the programs on their own hardware in their own data centres.

Office 365 takes the place of Microsoft's current web-based offering for firms known as the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. Office 365 stands separate from the web versions of Office which features cut down versions of the familiar programs.

The move to the cloud is seen as a gamble by Microsoft because much of the cash generated by Office comes from sales of software installed on desktop PCs. Switching to the web could dilute this cashflow which is responsible for about one-third of the company's revenue.

However, a web option is seen as essential in order to combat the growing threat from Google and others that are starting to poach Microsoft customers.

"Windows and Office are the two foundations of Microsoft's profitability and this is kind of messing with one of them," said Jeff Mann, a VP of research at analyst group Gartner. "It's definitely a very big bet."

Before the official launch of Office 365, Google put a post on its Enterprise Blog comparing its Apps service with Microsoft's offering.

Shan Sinha, Google Apps product manager, wrote that it was better to start with a new technology rather than add extras to an ageing one.

"Technology inevitably gets more complicated as it gets older," he wrote. "Upgrading platforms and adding features results in systems that are increasingly difficult to manage and complex to use."

In the blog post he runs through the differences between the two services, saying that Google Apps is about teams, the web and choice but by contrast Office 365 was for individuals, desktop PCs and other Microsoft-specific technology.

"You can't just take legacy, desktop software, move some of it to a data center and call it "cloud."," he said. "Apps was born for the web and we've been serving hundreds of millions of users for years."

Other online business software suites are offered by other companies including Zoho, VMware, IBM and Salesforce.com.

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Microsoft to pay $290m court fine

9 June 2011 Last updated at 23:37 GMT Microsoft had sought to lower the standard of evidence required to invalidate patent in the US The US Supreme Court has denied an appeal by Microsoft against a $290m verdict for infringing a small Canadian company's patent.

The company, i4i, sued Microsoft in 2007, saying it owned the technology behind a text manipulation tool used in Microsoft's Word application.

The technology gave Word 2003 and Word 2007 users an improved way of using a document's contents.

Lower courts had said Microsoft wilfully breached the patent.

They ordered the world's biggest software maker to pay up, and to stop selling versions of Word containing the infringing technology.

'Clear and convincing'

Microsoft claimed a judge used the wrong standard in instructing the jury that decided on the award, and said the judgement should be overturned.

It pushed for a lower standard of proof of infringement to be used instead, arguing that the level of proof usually required to overturn a patent in the US was too high.

Defendants in US patent suits are required to show that 70-80% of the "clear and convincing" evidence supports their case.

Microsoft argued that they should only need to show a "preponderance" of the evidence - more than 50% - was in its favour.

However, the Supreme Court said the "clear and convincing" standard was the correct one.

Prior to the decision, President Obama's administration had called for the court to uphold the higher standard of proof.

Microsoft said in a statement: "While the outcome is not what we had hoped for, we will continue to advocate for changes to the law that will prevent abuse of the patent system and protect inventors who hold patents representing true innovation."

Microsoft now sells versions of Word that do not contain the technology in question.

Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i, welcomed the outcome: "Microsoft tried to gut the value of patents by introducing a lower standard for invalidating patents.

"It is now 100% clear that you can only invalidate a patent based on 'clear and convincing' evidence."

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