The concept, which Microsoft plans to detail next month, is built on top of the Windows XP operating system but aims to be a new kind of device, rather than a replacement for existing PCs, according to sources familiar with the effort. With a screen bigger than that of a handheld but smaller than a notebook PC screen, Origami devices won't fit in the pocket, but they'll make it into purses and even the smallest of backpacks, sources said.

BN: Who is currently working on the program? Is Microsoft directly involved in its development?

RB: Right now there is myself, Tom Jackson, and Dennis Dietrich. We all work at Microsoft full-time, but none of us work on the same Microsoft projects. Tom and I both graduated from Washington State University. Dennis is handling the German translation and is also what you could call our Localization Manager. Tom's a math genius who "knows things" and he contributes some of the more mathematically complex stuff: GIF dithering, 3D Rotate/Zoom, the math behind the new layer composition, etc. I do everything else -- the guts, the overall architecture, the installer, Web site, UI, performance, etc.

We work on the project in our spare time. You could say that it is officially an unofficial project. It's not like we have a business plan or market penetration goals.

According to an industry source who has seen the thing and calls it "very cool," Origami is one and the same with this ultraportable "lifestyle PC" we were talking about here earlier today. This source is under NDA, an honest fellow and unwilling to share more than his help connecting the dots.

But we're betting Microsoft won't classify Origami devices as MP/3 players. No "mere" iPod killers, these. Instead, we're wagering Microsoft will convince its chums in the market-research business to create a whole new category of all-in-one mobile communicators (better than Sidekicks; more comprehensive than Treos; able to leap even BlackBerries in a single bound!) which Microsoft's units will dominate from the outset.

A preliminary ruling fined Microsoft $32 million in December, as well as ordering the company to unbundled its Windows Media Player and Messenger software from the operating system. Microsoft was also mandated to link to competing software.

Two separate versions of Windows would be offered in South Korea under the ruling: one minus Media Player and Messenger, and another with links to competing software as an option.

Microsoft’s Windows Anytime Upgrade is one feature that should produce large revenue for Microsoft. All editions of Windows Vista are included on the installation disc and therefore a user upgrades by purchasing a license from a website and running the upgrade from their disc.

Windows narrowly bumped Unix in 2005 to claim the top spot in server sales for the first time, according to a new report from IDC.

Computer makers sold $17.7 billion worth of Windows servers worldwide in 2005 compared with $17.5 billion in Unix servers, IDC analyst Matthew Eastwood said of the firm's latest Server Tracker market share report. "It's the first time Unix was not top overall since before the Tracker started in 1996."

A group of Microsoft Corp.'s rivals filed a complaint with the European Commission on Wednesday, alleging its business practices threatened to deny real choice among competing software products.

The European Committee for Interoperable Systems - which includes International Business Machines Corp., Oracle Corp., RealNetworks Inc., Nokia Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. - said it was asking EU regulators to end practices that reinforced Microsoft's existing monopolies and extended its market dominance into current and future product markets.

Microsoft has been hit with yet another antitrust claim, this time from a partner that alleges that the software vendor abused its market dominance to extract exorbitant fees from OEMs, distributors and resellers for its operating system licenses.

Tangent, an OEM based in Burlingame, Calif., filed a complain Feb. 14 in U.S. District Court for Northern California, seeking an unnamed amount from the software giant, claiming the software maker has been able to overcharge for its operating system as result of Microsoft's "artificial" market dominance.

MICROSOFT has developed a Skype-style free internet voice service for mobile phones that City analysts believe could wipe billions off the market value of operators such as Vodafone.

The service is included in a mobile version of Microsoft Office Communicator due to be released this year. It will take the form of a voice-over internet protocol (VoIP) application that allows Office users to make free voice calls over wi-fi enabled phones running Windows Mobile software. It uses the internet as a virtual phone network as well as accessing e-mail, PowerPoint and other Office applications.

"Microsoft recently posted a web page designed to test the Windows Vista help system that included incomplete information about the Windows Vista product line up," a Microsoft spokesperson told me Monday morning. "This page has since been removed as it was posted prematurely and was for testing purposes only. We will share more information about the Windows Vista line up in the coming weeks."

On the line up are Windows Starter 2007; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista ultimate, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Basic N and Windows Vista Business N. The "N" releases are those which do not include Media Player.

David Cole, the senior vice president in charge of the division, told employees in an e-mail message Friday that he plans to take a one-year leave of absence from the company at the end of April, leaving it unclear if he will return to Microsoft.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez called Microsoft Corp. an example of a small company that used entrepreneurship to grow into one of the world's leading technology giants, on a tour Thursday to promote President Bush's competitiveness initiative.

WebSideStory, Inc. (Nasdaq: WSSI), a leading provider of on-demand digital marketing applications, today reported the results of a new study showing the median order conversion rate for the top four search engines. For the month of January, AOL Search generated the best conversion rate at business-to consumer e-commerce sites (6.17 percent), followed by MSN (6.03 percent), Yahoo (4.07 percent) and Google (3.83 percent), according to the WebSideStory Index, a new statistical barometer that features techno-graphic and e-commerce trends culled from the millions of users that visit web sites using the company's award-winning web analytics technology, HBX Analytics. The study includes traffic from both organic and paid keywords.

“One way to explain the difference in conversion rates is demographics,” said Ali Behnam, senior digital marketing consultant for WebSideStory. “With portals rich in content and services, AOL, MSN and Yahoo may tend to appeal toward a more buyer friendly demographic. Google, meanwhile, may appeal to more browsers – those with less of an intent to buy.”

"How is that good for Microsoft?"

"Simple. Microsoft really has nothing to gain from either format winning. Just listen to any of Gates' recent interviews and how he talks about discs as a necessary evil until the world is ready for media-free distribution. That said, Microsoft has much to gain from both formats losing. Think back to the format war between DVD-Audio and SACD. Both formats lost and it was a computer company that stepped in to become the new center of the digital music universe.

At the RSA Conference here, Verisign dispelled the notion of a rivalry with Microsoft over identity management and announced that its new VIP (Verisign Identity Protection) network—which is backed by Yahoo and eBay—will work seamlessly with InfoCard in Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.

The surprising partnership is a big boost to Microsoft's efforts to use authentication technologies to strengthen online transaction security and thwart the escalating phishing scourge.

"I didn't make the decision to leave Microsoft due to concerns about the company as a whole — Microsoft has just had a string of very successful product launches and I anticipate that it will continue to enjoy great success," he said.

"The reason I decided to leave had to do with my specific experiences working in Microsoft's Linux Lab. Although I believe that the concept behind Microsoft's Linux Lab is a good one, I wasn't able to work at my full level of technical ability and I found this frustrating," he said.