The Microsoft money machine keeps on turning

Microsoft has turned in its results for the quarter ended 30 September and they are powered by increased server sales. Strong performers for the quarter have been a 20 per cent growth in sales for Microsoft's Windows 2000 Servers, in particular the Windows 2000 Advanced Server, which doubled in sales, and a 30 per cent increase for the .NET Enterprise Server family. ...more

Microsoft boss receives knighthood

Bill Gates received his honourary knighthood yesterday for his business skills and his charitable work. He will not be able to use the title 'Sir', as he is not British, but will suffix the letters KBE after his name. He arrived in London yesterday with his wife Melinda to receive an insignia, making him a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. ...more

Microsoft and Google fight heats up

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is alleged to have thrown a chair across the room when he heard that a key Windows engineer was going to work with Google. The engineer, Mark Lucovsky, made the claim in a sworn statement to the court that is investigating whether another former Microsoft employee, Kai-Fu Lee, can take up a post at the search engine firm. Currently an injunction prevents Lee from moving to Google. ...more

Logica establishes ?370m foothold in Germany

Logica yesterday strengthened its presence in Germany - Europe's biggest and fastest growing IT market - with the ?370m purchase of German computer services firm, pdv Unternehmensberatung GmbH. The deal will be funded by Logica through a share issue (a 1 for 10 rights issue at ?11.50 per new Logica share). ...more

Micro Flash

Flash embeds itself in lots of small places. Flash is familiar to most Web users as Macromedia's system for delivering 'rich content' and now a new Flash Player 5 Source Code SDK (software development kit) has been made available. This is designed to enable more device manufacturers and embedded-platform developers to implement the Flash Player. ...more