Will Microsoft soon be charged $2.5 million a day for allegedly flouting the European Union's demand to provide documentation about Windows' inner workings? ...

While Microsoft has been working "tirelessly" to comply with the EC's terms, the company is preparing to be hit with at least some kind of fine, according to an internal email from Horacio Gutierrez, associate counsel with Microsoft's corporate and legal affairs department. The text of that email, sent by Gutierrez on June 29, to all of Microsoft's employees in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), follows:

Microsoft is laying off 214 U.S. salespeople, a day after it announced some executive shuffling across various product groups, officials confirmed on June 29.

While this isn't the first time Microsoft has cut employees, the move is somewhat uncharacteristic for the 70,000-employee company that has been adding staff by the thousands each year.

In 2004, Microsoft laid off 76 people in the Xbox unit. In 2003, the company cut more than 150 Microsoft Consulting Services employees from the payroll.

It hasn't been a good month for Microsoft's Google-fighters. So bad that one left abruptly last week, and another decided this week to switch teams.

Vic Gundotra, a general manager for platform evangelism at Microsoft and a 15-year employee, has agreed to join Google after first spending a year working on charitable endeavors, Business 2.0 has learned.

A computer user is suing Microsoft Corp. over the company's Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy tool, alleging that it violates laws against spyware.

The suit by Los Angeles resident Brian Johnson, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Seattle, seeks class-action status for claims that Microsoft didn't adequately disclose details of the tool when it was delivered to PC users through the company's Automatic Update system.

iView’s flagship product is MediaPro, a Digital Asset Management application that is available for Mac OS X and Windows. iView said on its Web site that Microsoft has many plans for iView’s technologies and product line, but those plans would not be announced right away.

... according to industry sources, Microsoft is closing in on a partnership that will see the launch of a digital music download service in the UK - but with a difference. I have been informed that Microsoft is in final discussions not only with content providers such MTV but also with a number of major British telecommunications companies. Whereas Microsoft's partnership with MTV is mainly designed to deliver brand and marketing value, a partnership with a telco could potentially secure the Microsoft a valuable additional channel of delivery.

European regulators are recommending Microsoft Corp. be fined as much as 2 million euros ($2.5 million) for each day that it failed to disclose information on Windows to competitors, said four people familiar with the draft ruling.

The European Commission in Brussels told national competition authorities last week that Microsoft hadn't provided sufficient information to competitors on the inner workings of the operating system, as required under a March 2004 ruling, said the people, who declined to be identified because the decision isn't public.

Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, today unveiled the company’s vision, technology road map and partner framework for unified communications at a strategy event in San Francisco. Microsoft Corp.’s approach to unified communications will break down today’s silos of e-mail, instant messaging, mobile and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony, and audio-, video- and webconferencing. Through software, Microsoft and its partners will put people at the center of communications through a single identity across all modes and integrate communication into people’s everyday work processes, including the widely used Microsoft® Office system and third-party software applications. ...

In support of its vision, Microsoft today announced new and enhanced unified communications technologies that will be part of the Microsoft Office system 2007 wave of products. The company will bring together its popular corporate e-mail offerings of Microsoft Exchange Server, which includes new unified messaging capabilities, Microsoft Office Outlook®, and Microsoft Speech Server, with updated versions of its real-time collaboration technologies and a set of new communications devices to form a cohesive unified communications solution. Built on a rich platform and supported by the extensive capabilities of its growing partner ecosystem, Microsoft’s unified communications offerings will deliver seamless, comprehensive and integrated communications capabilities for businesses.

Raikes was joined onstage by Anoop Gupta, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Unified Communications Group, to demonstrate key capabilities of the new and updated servers, services and devices:

• Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, a robust, flexible, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) standards-based real-time communication platform that enables presence-based VoIP call management; audio-, video- and webconferencing; and instant messaging communication within and across existing software applications, services and devices.

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 unified messaging goes beyond e-mail and today’s stand-alone voice-mail systems to deliver a unified inbox experience that includes e-mail, voice mail and faxing functionality, as well as new capabilities such as speech-based auto attendant allowing users to access their communications from any phone.

• Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, a unified communications client that works in tandem with Office Communications Server 2007 to deliver a presence-based, enterprise VoIP “softphone”; secure, enterprise-grade instant messaging that allows for intercompany federation and connectivity to public instant messaging networks such as MSN®, AOL and Yahoo!; one-to-one and multiparty video- and audioconferencing; and webconferencing. As with the previous versions, Office Communicator 2007 will be available in desktop, browser-based and Windows Mobile®-based versions.

• Microsoft Office Live Meeting, a rich conferencing service designed to help users more effectively collaborate, conduct training and deliver presentations using just a PC and an Internet connection. Improvements to Office Live Meeting include support for e-learning, enhanced audio and video capabilities including VoIP, a streamlined user interface, seamless integration with the Microsoft Office system and simpler deployment.

• Microsoft Office RoundTable™, an audio-video collaboration device with a unique 360-degree camera. When combined with Office Communications Server 2007, RoundTable delivers an immersive conferencing experience that extends the meeting environment across multiple locations. Meeting participants on site and in remote locations gain a panoramic view of everyone in the conference room as well as close-up views of individual participants as they take turns speaking.

• Microsoft Office Communicator phone experience, Communicator-based software designed to run an innovative set of new voice and video devices — including business-enabled IP desktop phones — from Polycom Inc., LG-Nortel Co. Ltd. and Thomson Telecom. This is a new ecosystem designed to run on dedicated communications devices in tandem with Office Communications Server 2007 to extend and enhance the Microsoft unified communications experience.

• PC peripheral devices, such as USB handsets, wireless USB headsets, USB webcams and PC monitors with built-in audio and video components. Devices from industry partners GN Netcom Inc., Logitech, Motorola, Plantronics Inc., Samsung and Tatung Co. will work with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 to deliver a compelling communication experience on the PC.

“To achieve the productivity revolution we believe is possible with unified communications, we need to provide deeper integration of communications modes within the processes we use every day,” Gupta said. “Ensuring all modes of communications are people-centric and presence-based will help people find and connect to the right person the first time using the most effective communication modes. Software will be the key to delivering on this promise, resulting in a more powerful end-user experience, real productivity enhancements, and compelling business value for our customers and partners.”

Building on its existing partner ecosystem, Microsoft also announced new business alliances with HP, Motorola and Siemens to deliver on its vision for unified communications. HP will provide hardware devices and systems integration services for new and enhanced products based on Microsoft’s unified communications platform. Motorola will deliver mobile devices and network hardware based on Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator Mobile. Siemens will advance the transformation of telephony, audio-, video- and webconferencing, instant messaging and e-mail into a single unified communications platform.

Killed in the Saturday afternoon crash were Jeffrey M. Harbers, 54, who had homes in Big Timber and Medina, and pilot Jason Barton, 31, of Yukon, Okla. ...

"He had an incredibly important role in creating the (Office) product line that's used by 450 million people today," Raikes said. Harbers also served as director of Microsoft applications development and as general manager of the data access business unit.

Microsoft plans in August to publicly release the privacy rules its employees have to follow when developing products.

The move, which offers a look behind the scenes at Microsoft, is meant to give the industry an example of what the software giant sees as best practices in customer privacy, said Peter Cullen, the chief privacy strategist at Microsoft.

Microsoft Corp. is eliminating 14 jobs in its Microsoft Learning division, and will instead have an outside vendor perform that work.

Not surprisingly, reactions have varied widely. But in the investment newsletter world, reactions have been positive: Microsoft's stock is more popular now among investment newsletters than it was before Gates' announcement.

And newsletter editors were already very positive about Microsoft.

As a result, Microsoft is now the single most recommended stock in the investment newsletter world. Of the nearly 200 newsletters monitored by the Hulbert Financial Digest, 16 currently recommend it.

Allegations of "predatory pricing" are beginning to swirl around Microsoft's emergence as a player in the security software space.

On the heels of the software giant's release of its Windows OneCare PC care bundle for consumers and a massive rebranding effort in the enterprise security sector, competitors are crying foul, charging that Microsoft is using its financial clout to kill competition and stifle innovation.

Alex Eckelberry, president of enterprise anti-virus vendor Sunbelt Software, went on the offensive on his company's blog, accusing Microsoft of "endangering the entire security ecosystem with ruthless, Standard Oil-style pricing."

Accusations of predatory pricing and unfair competitive practices could spur regulators in the United States and abroad to investigate Microsoft's tactics, and Eckelberry suggests that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) take a serious look at the way Redmond has priced its products way below fair market value.

Microsoft Corp. and Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works, have teamed up to release a copyright licensing tool that enables the easy addition of Creative Commons licensing information for works in popular Microsoft® Office applications. The copyright licensing tool will be available free of charge at Microsoft Office Online, and CreativeCommons.org. The tool will enable the 400 million users of Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel® and Microsoft Office PowerPoint® to select one of several Creative Commons licenses from within the specific application.

“We’re delighted to work with Creative Commons to bring fresh and collaborative thinking on copyright licensing to authors and artists of all kinds,” said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft. “We are honored that creative thinkers everywhere choose to use Microsoft tools to give shape to their ideas. We’re committed to removing barriers to the sharing of ideas across borders and cultures, and are offering this copyright tool in that spirit.”

“The goal of Creative Commons is to provide authors and artists with simple tools to mark their creative work with the freedom they intend it to carry,” said Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of Creative Commons. “We’re incredibly excited to work with Microsoft to make that ability easily available to the hundreds of millions of users of Microsoft Office.”

Microsoft Corp. said Martin Taylor, a protégé of Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer who was promoted to vice president in March to revamp marketing for the MSN Web sites and Windows Live services, has left the company.

``We've made the difficult decision to part ways with Martin Taylor but we don't comment on personnel matters,'' the company said in an e-mailed statement that didn't disclose the reason for his departure. Adam Sohn, a director in the group that reported to Taylor, declined to comment.