Microsoft

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Microsoft Corp.'s planned buyout catapulted shares of Intuit Inc. by 34 percent yesterday, while Microsoft's stock fell 2.4 percent after analysts lowered earnings estimates for the personal computer software giant.L After the market closed Thursday, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft and Menlo Park, Calif.-based Intuit announced the biggest purchase ever in the booming PC software industry. Microsoft will buy Intuit in a $1.5 billion stock transaction that places Microsoft in control of the growing market for software that helps people manage their finances.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Microsoft Corp. said yesterday that it was abandoning its planned $2 billion acquisition of Intuit Inc., which would have been the largest deal ever in the software industry, because of the Justice Department's legal challenge and the possibility of protracted litigation.Scuttling the deal with Intuit, whose Quicken software is by far the most popular personal-finance computer program, will significantly slow Microsoft's entry into the world of electronic commerce and could alter the choices that consumers have among computerized financial and banking services.

SEATTLE -- Microsoft makes it look so easy.Next year, the computer software giant will publicly unveil the new version of its popular Windows program, code-named Chicago. The cash registers will open and money will start pouring in. Big money.As much as $1.3 billion within two years, says Michael Kwatinetz, a respected New York analyst.By now, the computer industry has largely accepted the notion that Chicago, which will be sold as Windows 95, will be a marketplace hit.That's amazing considering: 1)

SEATTLE -- Novell's $350 million purchase of Unix Systems Laboratories from AT&T last week may unwittingly have aided the Provo, Utah-based software company's archnemesis, Microsoft Corp., in the latter's encounter with the Federal Trade Commission.Analysts praised what they termed a gutsy move by Novell -- which dominates personal-computer networking software, with a more than 70 percent market share -- to combat the looming assault of Microsoft's Windows NT software next year."The implications in the long term are extremely positive for Novell in the sense that they are taking the Unix operating system into the desktop arena," said Cecilia Brancato at Oppenheimer.

REDMOND, Wash. -- Ending months of bitter legal wrangling, Microsoft Corp. agreed yesterday to license a key software technology from Stac Electronics and said it will spend $39.9 million to buy 4 percent of Stac's convertible preferred stock.Conceding the superiority of Stac's technology, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said it will pay Stac royalties of $1 million a month during the next 43 months. Further, Microsoft's preferred stock investment can be converted at $9 a share to 4.44 million Stac common shares, or a 15 percent stake.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft Corp. unveiled upgrades of its Excel spreadsheet program yesterday, a move analysts say could account for revenues of $200 million this year and boost the company's Windows-based marketing strategy for the '90s."

Microsoft yesterday unveiled its portable Zune music and video player and an online music store that is aimed at challenging Apple Computer's iPod player and iTunes service, which dominate the digital music field. The Zune, which can store 30 gigabytes of sound and video files, will come in a black, brown or white case with a 3-inch screen and a built-in FM tuner, which the iPod lacks. Microsoft said the product would be available in time for the holidays, but it did not release a specific date or price in its statement.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. unveiled yesterday its boldest move yet to challenge Microsoft Corp.'s flagship Office brand of business computer programs. Google is positioning its Apps Premier Edition as a low-cost alternative to Microsoft's Office, which has about 450 million users. Google's software bundle is to be sold for a $50 annual fee per user. "With Google Apps, our customers can tap into technology and innovation at a fraction of the cost of traditional installed solutions," said Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google's enterprise division.

Now that a federal judge has decided that technologys premier monopoly should be chopped into two monopoxlies, the obvious question is: Whats in it for you and me? The answer is, not much, for a while. In fact, Judge Thomas Penfield Jacksons ruling that Microsoft should be broken into separate operating system and application software companies is merely the start of an appeals process that could last two to three years. Microsoft, which set no fewer than 12 world records for arrogance during the course of its trial on antitrust charges, naturally says it will prevail in the higher courts.

A federal appeals court ordered a new jury trial yesterday to decide whether Microsoft Corp. must pay more than $520 million in damages to a Chicago inventor for patent infringement on browser technology used to call up computer "plug-ins" and applications. The ruling casts doubt on one of the largest patent-infringement awards in history and prolongs a six-year legal battle that has far-reaching implications for scores of Internet companies and millions of Web users. Inventor Michael Doyle of Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California claim that Microsoft illegally incorporated their patented technology into its Internet Explorer browser to defend its Windows empire at a critical time in the World Wide Web's development.