In the past, Microsoft used to be untouchable. Today, things seem to be shifting drastically. Microsoft still has a monopoly on the desktop computer market but it is being threatened from numerous sides.

A fair price. What does that mean? If you ask most of us, abruptly, when we’re not expecting an economics exam, we’d say that a fair price is the cost of a good, plus a little on top for profit, writes Danny O'Brien.

Yesterday I wrote about a report from ACT that brought up the issue of TCO for free software. As I pointed out there, it's old news that free software has costs; but what is more interesting is the fact that fans of the proprietary world always fail to point out the huge hidden costs of using poorly-written closed-source software. Here's a great demonstration of my point.

Thank you, Microsoft. No, really. Thank you. Ignore the spin from Mono/Novell blogs and think what Microsoft has just formally acknowledged, even implicitly. To reuse a belated response sent to some journalists (it was hard to reply while absent), the gist goes like this...

Microsoft's bid to dispel the patent fears surrounding the open source .NET clone, Mono, has met with little enthusiasm from free software advocates.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would not ship with Internet Explorer 8 within the European Union. This is to comply with EU demands following the anti-trust case some time back. On the immediate face of this seem like good news for users of other browsers - but is it?

How much will actually change?

With Linux Distros taking sides, this week's announcement that Microsoft promises not to make Necessary Claims against anyone using their patented specifications adds to the confusion. At first glance, this looks like a safe passage for Mono, but as we delve in deeper, we see that not everything is legally in the clear.

"Microsoft recently launched a campaign promoting its Internet Explorer 8 browser, making some bold claims about IE8’s capabilities." This article shows the browser comparison chart MS has created but with lots of changes added in red. Humorous!