Microsoft Joins Twitter

Twitter has decided to expand its site to ExecTweets which is sponsored by Microsoft. It is a way to “push tweets from some of the nation’s most prominent executives to Twitter users.” Microsoft is sponsoring this for an undisclosed sum but it is a smart move for Microsoft to get involved with Twitter. Twitter is growing into a huge social network like Myspace and Facebook. Twitter decided to create this ExecTweets site so this way executive people can have their conversations filtered and they are easier to find to all twitter readers. “Microsoft is sponsoring ExecTweets as part of its "It's Everybody’s Business" campaign, seeking to "encourage conversations within the business community," according to a company spokesperson. The company claims it’s experimenting with a number of digital marketing activities over the short term.” Business thought leaders will be able to find, follow, and engage in conversations. Microsoft has continued to expand and dabble in other company’s endeavors in order to help them as well. Overall, everyone wins in the situation. Microsoft gets to spread its name as well as gain money and the company they work with gets Microsoft’s expertise as well as the quality name of Microsoft behind their product. Twitter has over 8 million users. It is only assumable that Microsoft stands to benefit from going into a deal with such a rising social networking site.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Microsoft-Now-Sponsoring-Twitter-Enterprise-Site-725461/

Microsoft Settles Xbox Dispute

Microsoft has settled its dispute over the Xbox. A company named PalTalk Holdings Inc. has accused Microsoft of two patent-infringements for the first shooter game Halo. The designs were initially created by MPath Interactive Inc. and were sold to PalTalk for less than $200,000. PalTalk was suing Microsoft for $90 million in royalties for the patents which seems a bit extreme when you see their purchase price of the patents. “The trial centered on technology for ways to control interactive applications over multiple computers.” Microsoft claimed that it took a different path when it developed the Halo game and also challenged the “validity of the patents and the $90 million that PalTalk was seeking.” In the end the two parties settled the case and PalTalk has claimed to be pleased with the outcome. The financial details were not disclosed but it cut the trail short and it was an “amicable agreement.” It was a good idea for Microsoft to settle quickly to avoid another long drawn out trial that catches the public eye. They are launching some new products shortly and there is no need to have bad media going around at that time. It is unfortunate that they have found themselves in court once again, but they made the best of a bad situation.

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/403501_msftxbox13.html

New Strategy for Microsoft

Microsoft has been working on their Azure cloud strategy which has been Amazon’s leading web service. Despite the fact that they are both going to be in the same market it sounds as if Microsoft hasn’t entered the competition mode, yet. Steven Martin, Microsoft's senior director of developer platform product management was quoted saying “We're rooting for them. We want them to be successful” when they spoke about Amazon offering Windows server as a cloud service. However, Amazon is not the only company that Microsoft will be competing against in the clod service. And even though Microsoft is not talking about competing with Amazon they were also quoted saying Microsoft's services would be "consumptive in nature" and "very competitively priced against market equivalents." It makes sense to assume that Microsoft is preparing to be a leader in the industry that Amazon is currently leading in. Microsoft expanding into new ventures is of course good for business once again. They have been staying on top of the competition and getting involved in as many software products that they can. Microsoft appears to be a smart and strategic competitor.

http://www.informationweek.com/cloud-computing/blog/archives/2009/03/microsoft_vs_am.html