19
February
2008
|
07:54 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Newswatch 2.19.08: MSFT to YHOO: This is war!

Forget housing woes, HP results forestall recession

[Bloomberg] ``Their guidance was much more bullish than we thought it would be, particularly with what we've seen out of Cisco,'' Pacific Crest Securities' Brent Bracelin said in an interview. ``Their outlook suggests that things aren't as bad as people thought.''

MSFT will launch proxy fight for YHOO

[NYT] The move, expected to cost about $20 million to $30 million, was Microsoft’s alternative to raising its $44.6 billion bid and is seen as a less expensive way to put pressure on Yahoo’s board. Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s original offer as undervalued.

30 years after Betamax, Sony wins a format war

[NYT] The format battle often drew yawns from analysts and consumers, however. Many believe that the new disc format will be leap-frogged quickly by Internet-based movie downloads, just as music discs have been increasingly replaced by digital files.

Judge orders WikiLeaks offline, then backs off

[ZDNet] It seems that WikiLeaks lawyers were able to convince the judge that something was amiss here, because the second order, a TRO, provides WikiLeaks an opportunity to answer (by Feb. 20) and JB to respond to that answer (by Feb. 26.) One question is whether JB lied about there being a stipulation for WikiLeaks to go offline, since WL compained so vociferously about it and the order was so quickly amended.

Supremes reject ALCU appeal in wiretap case

[AP] "It's very disturbing that the president's actions will go unremarked upon by the court," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project. "In our view, it shouldn't be left to executive branch officials alone to determine the limits."

CrackerJack to include iPod Shuffle as prize

[Macworld] At just $49, the iPod shuffle is the most affordable iPod ever,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing. “The new 2GB model lets music lovers bring even more songs everywhere they go in the impossibly small iPod shuffle.”

Will students choose free MSFT over free open source?

[InfoWeek] "We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems, and catalyze economic growth," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in a statement. (Hmm, don't they already have that?)