There is a disturbing lack of resistance to Microsoft's market hegemony among anarchists and activists today. It is counter-revolutionary to design revolutionary fliers on a computer running Windows XP, displaying protest pictures on a computer running Windows XP is not a statement of protest, and using Microsoft software to coordinate anti-capitalist action is not anti-capitalist.

Microsoft has received much undeserved press about their recent release of Linux drivers for their virtualization technology under GPLv2. I say “undeserved” because I don't particularly see why Microsoft should be lauded merely for doing something that is in their own interest that they've done before.

In March, a Tweet from Powerset co-founder Barney Pell set the blogopshere a-burbling about the impending relaunch of Microsoft Live Search, and days later, screenshots of an internal beta - dubbed Kumo - rose to the surface of the web.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft rolled out what’s arguably its most important product this year: Windows Server 2008, the operating system for corporate server computers. It’s a cornerstone to a bunch of other Microsoft software, and it will be used by businesses large and small.

"Not content with running your computer, Microsoft now wants to read your mind too. The company says that it is hard to properly evaluate the way people interact with computers since questioning them at the time is distracting and asking questions later may not produce reliable answers. "Human beings are often poor reporters of their own actions," the company says.

LAST YEAR we mentioned Microsoft's "Jihad" talk (the term it uses a lot internally, even Bill Gates). The Microsoft ecosystem is said to be working very closely together and some call it "the Microsoft movement" (a term which is usually used in private conversations). Others even call it a/the "Microsoft religion", so the following new post hit a certain nerve.

"The news of Silverlight 1.0 being released allows some insight in the way that Microsoft will work with GPLv3...In simple terms, Microsoft will not work with GPLv3. That is the line that they have drawn, and their rhetoric and actions now show this to be so..."

...Microsoft must disclose its secret computer codes to enable rival companies' gadgets such as media players to work seamlessly with Windows personal computers when downloading songs and videos.

Dell is currently flogging a cheap-as-chips netbook that apparently comes loaded with that well-known Microsoft operating system, Ubuntu 8.04. Anyone dropping in on the computer maker's UK product website will be able to buy an Intel-based Inspiron Mini 10 laptop for £199 a pop.