Microsoft, Software | featured news

The topic of site support for IE6 has had a lot of discussion on the web recently as a result of a post on Digg. Why would anyone run an eight-year old browser? Should sites continue to support it?

Microsoft Corp and Nokia announced an alliance on Wednesday to bring advanced business software to smartphones in a bid to counter the dominance of Research in Motion Ltd's Blackberry device.

Microsoft Corp.'s chief operating officer says the software maker is planning to open retail stores "right next door to Apple" in the fall.

Microsoft will offer a free Web-based version of Office as it looks to compete with Internet-based software from Google and increased competition from "open source" products.

Google said it will allow users of its email and calendar to access the online services through Microsoft Office, as it tries to woo business users.

Today, Microsoft publicly unveiled its soon-to-launch search engine Bing. It will become available over the next few days, and be fully launched by June 3. On the surface, Bing has a distinct gloss. The home page features a rotation of stunning photography, for instance, which can be clicked on to produce related image search results. But the most significant changes are under the covers.

Microsoft is likely to show a new version of its Internet search engine publicly for the first time next week, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft is now letting anyone download My Phone, a mobile data backup program for Windows Mobile devices, which was released in February as an invitation-only beta.

Microsoft confirmed on Monday that it is planning to release Windows 7 this year, in time for the holiday shopping season.

XP Mode is Microsoft's solution to legacy application compatibility under Windows 7. I won't get into the details a second time, but if you're curious how it works, check out the previous post on the subject.