Microsoft

It's March 13, 1986: Microsoft, founded more than a decade earlier and already a powerhouse in the world of personal computer software, executes an initial public stock offering that will raise $61 million for the company and leave 30-year-old co-founder Bill Gates unfathomably wealthy.

If you had the good fortune to have bought 100 shares at the $21 offering price that day and sat on the investment for 25 years, it would have mushroomed into 28,800 shares over the course of nine stock splits and be worth about three quarters of a million dollars today (excluding dividends).

Microsoft on Monday accused Taiwan electronics colossus Foxconn and US book seller Barnes & Noble of using its patented technology in e-readers running on Google-backed Android software.

Taiwan-based Inventec Corporation was also targeted in Microsoft's legal filings with the US International Trade Commission and a federal court in Washington state where the software giant has its headquarters.

Microsoft Thursday claimed credit for taking down its second big botnet, as part of its sometime-role as volunteer anti-spam, anti-malware enforcer.

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) announced that U.S. Marshals had raided hosting providers in seven U.S. cities following a Microsoft DCU operation code-named " Operation b107."

A hole has been spotted in Internet Explorer 9's do-not-track technology, and Microsoft says it's a feature not a bug.

In response to a US government call for greater protection of consumers' privacy online, Microsoft added a Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) feature to IE9. Netizens can use one or more lists to prevent certain ad networks and websites from tracking their behavior online. But when an IE9 user downloads multiple TPLs and a site's blocked on one list but allowed on another, IE9 will allow the site, letting it to track the user's activities.

The week of March 21 kicks off in earnest the annual Microsoft annual cycle of tradeshows — and the commencement of the first of many coming mentions of a word I predict we’ll hear a lot in 2011: Hybrid.

I’m not talking about Microsoft employees’ Priuses (Prii?) here. Instead, I’m talking about Microsoft’s cloud-strategy push, which I’m predicting will be long on mentions of hybrid public/private clouds.

Microsoft's new Web browser, Internet Explorer 9, was downloaded over 2 million times since its release on Monday evening, according to a blog post on the Exploring IE Blog.

The post goes on to note that the rate equates to 27 downloads every second. The adoption of its new browser bodes well for Microsoft, as Google's Chrome has effectively been digging into its market share after years of Mozilla's Firefox doing the same.

When Microsoft first introduced Internet Explorer 9 at PDC in November 2009, it didn't show much. A few benchmarks, some talk about the technologies that the browser would use, and a little information about the direction that development would take. But it was a significant event nonetheless.

Microsoft Corp is not planning any more versions of its unpopular Zune digital media player, but is to continue offering music and video using the same software online, through its Xbox game console and on its Windows phones.

The decision not to further develop the handheld device effectively ends Microsoft's 4-1/2-year bid to unseat Apple Inc's iPod, which revolutionized the portable music market in 2001.

Microsoft has warned that hackers are targeting a zero-day flaw that affects all Windows operating systems.

The flaw, which was first highlighted by Microsoft in an advisory in January, allows an attacker to inject a client-side script into the response to a request made by Internet Explorer. The script could allow a hacker to compromise the user — by performing actions online that appear to have originated from the user; by stealing information from the user; or by otherwise trying to fool them.

A new image has been leaked, presumably by a Microsoft employee, showing what we have seen in previous weeks already. There is nothing new in this particular set of screenshots, except an interesting wallpaper that has had me thinking.

We saw a few months ago once slides were leaked on some of the upcoming features of Windows 8, including the possibility of Windows accounts becoming connected to the cloud. It is increasingly likely that Windows Live IDs will hold the key to porting around your Windows account from computer to computer.