Analysts speaking at Gartner's annual Windows conference extinguished much of the hype surrounding what they called a "remarkably confusing" marketing blitz around .NET, a broad project through which Microsoft hopes to provide tools, software, and services that will help turn the Internet into a giant network for delivering applications and services to all kinds of devices from PCs to cell phones.

Red Hat, the top seller of Linux software and services, will release in coming months a new version of its software for corporate desktop computers that follows in the mold of its high-end server version, Chief Executive Matthew Szulik said in an interview. And Sun will use Linux inside its own company on desktop computers as a part of a plan to cut real estate costs, eventually offering a Linux desktop product, McNealy said in the opening keynote address of the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.

Jonathan Schwartz, head of Sun's software organization, had already discussed Sun's desktop Linux push, but McNealy offered more details Tuesday. He said the company will use Linux desktops within its "iWork" program under which employees don't get an office of their own but instead sit down in the first available empty cubicle they encounter. Sun hopes to reduce real estate costs with iWork by moving from 0.8 employees per office to 1.8 employees per office, McNealy said.

RealNetworks on Monday unveiled a new open-source version of its streaming media technology that supports multiple file formats for audio and video, including those that use Microsoft's Windows Media technology.

The new campaign, dubbed "Helix," and first reported by The New York Times, marks one of the most ambitious moves in the company's history. RealNetworks is simultaneously releasing technology without permission that plugs in to Microsoft's competing software and is raising the hood on much of its own software technology to "open source" developers or anyone else who wants to look.

We regard "trusted computing" and all the various forms of protected-boot, closed hardware, whether adopted by industry consensus, or by legislative mandate, as in Sen. Hollings's legislation presently called "CBDTPA," as an absolute threat to the existence of free software. We regard Microsoft's interest in those subjects as plainly informed by the opportunities it presents to exclude from the consumer market its only viable competitor. There is no question that "trusted computing" has to be taken seriously as a profound threat to the free software ecology.

We point out to our friends in the hardware business, all the time, the difficulties that this presents, not just to us but to them, and we believe that within limits they have been entirely understanding of our common concerns. Accordingly, with respect to government-mandatedso-called "trusted computing" -- the pro-Disney legislation sponsored by Sen. Hollings, for example -- IBM and Hewlett-Packard have been extremely cooperative with the free software movement, and with the Free Software Foundation in particular, in making our point of view clear and understandable by government.

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I also think, however, that the question you are asking has a specific answer for your readership. Which is that we regard taking measures in the license, in the GPL, to assist free software in resisting "trusted computing" as a very important facet in drafting GPL version 3. It is one of the reasons why I expect that there will be a GPL version 3 draft for public discussion within the next several months. And it is precisely in order to consider our options with respect to "trusted computing" that I am again briefly delaying release of such a draft.

"What's happening is that Microsoft sales reps have been instructed to be on the lookout for any businesses that are migrating some of their machines to the Lindows OS," Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio told NewsFactor. "If [the sales reps] think there's a real threat of some pretty large numbers of defections to open source, they can request authorization from Microsoft higher-ups to offer steeply discounted pricing."

DiDio said that in some cases, the discounts could be as high as 50 percent.

OS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Here's the pitch for what could be your next PC: No Microsoft, no Intel -- and almost no markup.

By dropping software from Microsoft and avoiding "Intel inside," retailer Wal-Mart Stores is offering a $199 computer it says is a hot seller on its Web site, attracting novices looking for a way onto the Internet as well as high-end users wanting a second box.

The mysterious shroud surrounding Microsoft's revenues was dispelled yesterday, when the company revealed that it is losing shedloads of money on everything bar client Windows, server and Office software. In these, naturally, it's making even bigger shedloads, but it's abundantly clear who's paying the rent, and financing the assaults into new areas.

The breakdown of financials by division was published for the first time in Microsoft's Form 10-Q filing to the Securities & Exchange Commission, presumably as a side-effect of corporate America's attempt at a post-Enron clean-up. For the period ended September 30th, the two cash cows of Client (i.e. Windows) and Information Worker (Office) produced operating income of $2.48 billion on revenue of $2.89 billion, and $1.88 billion on $2.38 billion respectively.

Server Platforms performed modestly by these standards, but spectacularly by most other people's, chalking up an operating income of $519 million on revenue of $1.52 billion, but beyond that we have the basket cases

MSN lost $97 million on $531 million, CE/Mobility was out $33 million on $17 million revenues (always a good trick, this kind of stuff), and the home of Xbox, Home Entertainment, dropped $177 million on revenues of $505 million. Business Solutions, which includes Navision and Great Plains, and is a sector Microsoft hopes will contribute great things in the future, lost $68 million on $107 million.

The city of Munich said on Wednesday it would switch 14,000 computers from Microsoft's Windows operating system to rival Linux (news - web sites) in a deal estimated to be worth tens of millions of euros.

The decision is a blow to U.S. giant Microsoft, whose chief executive Steve Ballmer had personally campaigned for Microsoft's counter-offer to the city, based on Windows XP (news - web sites).

Microsoft has created two funds to discount its products against the emerging Linux software, which is eating into its most profitable business.

There is a strong case for free software (also known as open source or libre software) being deployed widely in developing countries. As argued in this note, the open source development community provides an environment of intensive interactive skills development at little explicit cost, which is particularly useful for local development of skills, especially in economically disadvantaged regions. Further, this note argues that the controversy over total costs of ownership (TCO) of free vs. proprietary software is not applicable to developing countries and other regions with low labour costs, where the TCO advantage lies with open source, and the share of licence fees in TCO is much higher than in high labour cost countries. The note concludes with a table comparing license fees for proprietary software against GDP per capita for 176 countries.