Savvis Inc., a provider of Internet access, hosting and network services to businesses and federal government agencies, said Friday it sold assets related to two California data centers to Microsoft Corp. for $200 million.

Tami Reller, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Business Division at Microsoft Corp., today announced a software donation worth $150,000 for the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s leading advocate of woman-owned businesses as suppliers to corporate America. The technology donation from Microsoft will help WBENC meet the organization’s goal of expanding opportunities and eliminating barriers in the marketplace for female business owners.

Microsoft Corp. will release fiscal year 2007 fourth quarter financial results after the close of the stock market on Thursday, July 19, 2007. A live Webcast of the earnings conference call will be made available at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time on the Microsoft Investor Relations Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/msft.

Meanwhile, over in Tomorrowland, the lawyers from Burbank and the lawyers from Seattle finally agreed on a contract for the Microsoft takeover of Innoventions (remember we discussed this ages ago?). The software giant will take over the entire lower floor and remake the revolving platform lobbies into a “House of Tomorrow” exhibit, and the word is that this time Innoventions will actually showcase technology not already available at Best Buy or even Big Lots. The upstairs exhibits will all also be tweaked and updated, (Siemens was the first) and the whole thing should be worth at least a look around when it’s done.

Microsoft Corp. filed federal lawsuits against 10 small Florida computer retailers Wednesday, claiming the companies sold fake copies of Windows and Office software.

Microsoft said the retailers infringed on its trademarks and copyrights by selling counterfeit copies of Microsoft software, or computers with pirated software installed.

KDDI Corporation and Microsoft Co., Ltd. today announced that they have reached an agreement to jointly develop and provide applications using a Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model for corporate users. The companies will also create an ecosystem to provide extensive support to independent software vendor (ISV) partners and spur the development of new service-enabled applications to drive momentum for new SaaS applications. The companies will embark on joint marketing activities to cultivate the adoption of SaaS among ISVs in Japan. They will also jointly educate the corporate market on the benefits of the SaaS model.

Under the agreement, KDDI will use Microsoft® Connected Services Framework as a foundation for providing services to customers. The first SaaS application will be built on Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration, a carrier-grade platform that offers enterprise-class e-mail and document-sharing services to corporate customers. Subscription is a monthly fee-based model, covering mobile and fixed-line communications and the SaaS application. The service will create a seamless work environment by allowing corporate customers to access their data on a PC in the office or on a mobile phone when they are on the go. This initiative is a demonstration of a service-delivered solution that combines services, software and hardware to provide a seamless user experience.

Today we’re also releasing a couple of exciting new services from Windows Live into managed beta testing: Windows Live Photo Gallery beta and Windows Live Folders beta.

Windows Live Photo Gallery is an upgrade to Windows Vista’s Windows Photo Gallery, offered at no charge, and enables both Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 customers to share, edit, organize and print photos and digital home videos. The initial managed beta of Windows Live Photo Gallery beta is available today in nine markets around the world so far (including the United States (English and Spanish), China, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, and Spain), with more to come. We’re really proud of this service because it’s so easy to share photos – it’s really as easy as sending an e-mail. You can also easily publish your photos to your Windows Live Spaces.

We’re also releasing Windows Live Folders into managed beta today, which will provide customers with 500 megabytes of online storage at no charge. We see this limited managed beta in the United States right now as just a starting point for us, and we’ll begin collecting input from beta users during the testing process, which will be useful when developing future versions of the service. Like I’ve said, it’s very important to us that we give our customers multiple options for connecting to family, friends and information, and share information and other things with the people they care about the most.

We’re excited about these services and we see today’s releases as yet another important step on the path toward the next generation of Windows Live, building on top of the momentum of other interesting beta releases we’ve shared recently such as Windows Live Mail beta, Windows Live Messenger beta and Windows Live Writer beta. And this is only the beginning -- in the next couple of months you will see new releases from us that will really start to show the integrated experience I’m talking about that will truly be representative of where we’re looking to go with Windows Live. Just as one small example, soon we’ll begin to offer a single installer which will give customers the option of an all-in-one download for the full Windows Live suite of services instead of the separate installation experience you see today. It’s going to be an exciting area to watch, and there’s a lot more to come.

Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine, was told by a federal judge to go to the Justice Department to argue that Microsoft Corp. must make its new operating system more accommodating for rivals.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who oversees the settlement of the government antitrust suit against Microsoft, the world's largest software company, said she will rely on U.S. prosecutors and state attorneys general in the case to tell her if the company isn't meeting its obligations.

Today Microsoft Corp. has joined with three of the most respected companies serving small businesses — MasterCard Worldwide, FedEx Corporate Services and Bank of America Corp. — to provide a comprehensive tool for entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses. Enhancements will be made to financial management, payroll solutions and shipping to Microsoft® Startup Center, a free online guide that provides step-by-step advice and resources that small-business owners need when they start their business. The Web site’s easy-to-follow format opens the door to essential resources a startup company needs to succeed. To add to the site’s existing wealth of content, visitors will receive small-business advice from entrepreneurial experts Rich and Jeff Sloan of StartupNation. ...

An extension of Microsoft’s Small Business Center Web site, Startup Center is a free, personalized site at http://www.startupcenter.com that is designed to help entrepreneurs effectively get their businesses up and running. With its easy-to-use format, Startup Center is designed to support those who have a solid business idea by helping them complete the tasks required for launching a new company. The site provides comprehensive advice that people can use to take action to turn a business idea into a legitimate launch. The agreements announced today complement the site’s mission by providing even more helpful small-business tools for visitors.

MasterCard Worldwide will provide Startup Center users with access to flexible cash-flow management solutions, business intelligence, and special programs and services. The MasterCard Find-a-Card tool, which enables businesses to choose the right payment card for their needs, is also available on the Startup Center to provide entrepreneurs with easy access to cash-flow management solutions. ...

As the top small-business lender in the United States, Bank of America will provide Startup Center users with a host of small-business financial and payroll management tools, small-business checking and credit card accounts, and its online health insurance platform.

Visitors to Startup Center will also have direct access to FedEx Express and FedEx Ground’s reliable shipping and time-saving tools and resources tailored to the needs of small businesses. With more than 1,400 locations, FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Centers will provide a virtual office for small businesses that offers a full range of FedEx shipping services, as well as copying, printing, signs, graphics and Internet access.

Today we opened the first ever public ‘tree-office’ in Pimlico Gardens in London. With 14% of British workers claiming that their favourite place to work would be the beach, and a further 10% who’d love to work from their park or garden, the ‘tree-office’ demonstrates that it is possible to work from anywhere.

Today at the 2007 National Educational Computing Conference, Houghton Mifflin Learning Technology (HMLT), a division of Houghton Mifflin Company, and Microsoft Corp. announced a worldwide strategic alliance designed to make it easier for pre-K–12 and higher-education students, parents, teachers and administrators to access HMLT’s award-winning educational resources. As part of the agreement, HMLT will develop its next-generation flagship Learning Village® instructional Web portal on the Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.0 and utilize Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and the Microsoft Learning Gateway. Combining the strengths of both companies, the alliance opens up opportunities for educators to integrate all of their content, applications and resources from one central source, using technology to manage and monitor their Web-content needs districtwide. ...

Learning Village delivers curricula and content in a unified, personalized and education-relevant Web environment for hundreds of thousands of K–12 teachers, students, administrators and parents, providing a central point for accessing curriculum, lesson plans, communication, collaboration, best practices, teaching and professional development. The infrastructure of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and SharePoint technologies will help HMLT connect educators and students to the best digital content and resources available while helping to reduce support costs and enhancing HMLT’s ability to deploy future solutions as software and services.

With Learning Village on the Microsoft Learning Gateway portal, students will need to log on only once to access their homework assignments. Once they’ve completed their work, they can then drop it into a “virtual backpack” for their teacher to grade. Parents are provided with the opportunity to actively participate in their children’s education, all through the same system.

Microsoft is digging for a solution to the parking crunch on its growing Redmond campus.

The software giant is excavating a giant pit for an underground parking garage with the capacity for some 5,000 vehicles.

"[A]s reported in the prior Status Report, Plaintiffs have received reports and testimony of the class action plaintiffs' expert in Comes v. Microsoft Corp., No. CL 82311 (Iowa D. Ct.), containing allegations that Microsoft has failed to disclose certain APIs as required by Section III.D of the Final Judgments. After examining these materials and meeting with the expert, Plaintiffs and the TC have concluded that, at this time, there is no evidence that Microsoft has not fully disclosed the APIs required by the Final Judgments. Plaintiffs have indicated their willingness to consider further evidence on this issue should it be provided to them in the future."

First, Microsoft will create a mechanism for end users and OEMs to select a default program to handle desktop search. ISVs will be able to register their desktop search products for this default, in the same way that ISVs can register third-party web browsers and media players as the default in Windows today.

Second, the default desktop search program will be launched whenever Windows launches a new top-level window to provide search results. This will include an existing location on the Start menu that a user can select to display additional search results in a new window. Windows Vista also includes search boxes located in the upper-right hand corner of various windows in the operating system, such as all the windows used to explore the files on the computer -- often called "Explorer" windows -- and the Control Panel. In these windows, when the user enters a query Vista will continue to display the search results using the internal Vista desktop search functionality. Microsoft has agreed, however, to add a link that, if clicked, will launch the default desktop search program and display search results from that program.

Third, Microsoft will inform ISVs, OEMs, and end users that the desktop search index in Vista is designed to run in the background and cede precedence over computing resources to any other software product, including third-party desktop search products and their respective search indices. Microsoft will emphasize that there is no technical reason why OEMs and end users cannot, if they choose to, install additional desktop search products on their system, even if those products maintain separate indices from that operated by Windows. products maintain separate indices from that operated by Windows. In addition, Microsoft will provide technical information that will enable other desktop search companies also to design their products to optimize their priorities on the computer and minimize any impact on performance.

Microsoft will deliver the required changes in Service Pack 1 of Windows Vista, which Microsoft currently anticipates will be available in beta form by the end of the year.

Microsoft almost tweaked its licensing terms for Windows Vista yet again — this time in order to ease virtualization restrictions that irked a number of customers and partners. But in the eleventh hour, company officials decided against the move, resulting in Microsoft cancelling its planned announcement.

Microsoft officials were preparing to announce officially on June 20 that Microsoft had a change of heart and would allow users to run all versions of Windows Vista in a virtualized environment. Microsoft prebriefed a number of news and blogging outlets, including me, about the planned change under non-disclosure.

Tempe's McFarlane Toys has signed a licensing deal with Microsoft Inc. to make action figures based on the popular video game series Halo.

Microsoft Corp. today officially launched the new MSN® Mobile, a completely redesigned and reengineered portal offering an exceptional experience when accessing the Internet and Web services on mobile phones. Now available in the United States at http://mobile.msn.com from mobile phone browsers, MSN Mobile provides customers with one-stop access to e-mail, news, sports, entertainment, local movie listings, maps and directions, as well as Windows Live™ services such as Windows Live Hotmail®, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Spaces, and Live Search. MSN Mobile gives consumers a quick and easy way to find the content and services they need while on the go and features new technologies that customize the experience for each consumer’s device.

Of the more than 230 million U.S. mobile subscribers, roughly 180 million have Web-enabled phones, according to Local Mobile Search (LMS), a joint advisory service of Opus Research and Sterling Market Intelligence. MSN Mobile will deliver to this vast number of customers the following advantages when accessing their world of relationships, information and interests from their mobile device:

• Easy navigation and access. To enable mobile customers to quickly and easily access their favorite Windows Live services and Web content, MSN Mobile has been designed for one-stop access with easy navigation, quick links and shortcuts. When customers open http://mobile.msn.com on their mobile phone, one click takes them to their Hotmail inbox, where they can read, reply to or compose messages, or to other Windows Live services such as Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces to stay in touch.

• Optimized rendering. Many Web pages don’t display well on mobile phones and are hard to navigate, but MSN Mobile is designed to deliver a high-quality experience on mobile phones. Sophisticated engineering and extensive testing that was invested in MSN Mobile helps ensure that the MSN platform detects the user’s device and delivers a page optimized for that mobile phone each time a user requests a Web page.

• The familiarity of MSN. MSN Mobile keeps customers informed in an entertaining and engaging way on their phone. It’s the mobile Web that’s much like the Web on the PC. Customers can browse the latest headlines from MSNBC or FOX Sports or click on a story for more information. MSN Mobile includes vivid photos with news and sports, financial charts that help bring news and information to life, local information with movie listings and reviews, local weather, and Live Search to easily find phone numbers, addresses, maps and directions — right on the mobile phone.

• Extensive availability. Designed to work on all devices with Internet browsers