UPDATED: EU threatens Microsoft with new antitrust penalties

Microsoft may face a new kind of antitrust punishment from the European Union if the company, already hit by multi-million-dollar fines, continues to defy it, the organisation's top competition official has hinted. The EU's executive Commission has said Microsoft set unreasonably high prices to discourage would-be competitors from making server software. The company responded on Monday that it would request no oral hearing on the allegation, which could result in daily fines of up to €3 million. ...more

Apple reports $45 million loss

Apple lost $45 million during the last quarter, but recorded a $65m profit for the financial year. Revenues for the quarter of $1,443m were only slightly down on the same quarter last year, when the company recorded a $66m profit. However the last three months saw increased operating costs and $65m losses on investments. ...more

Yahoo! reports online advertising boom

Yahoo has reported record third-quarter revenues, with a growth in online advertising of 46 per cent from last year. The Internet giant's financial results beat Wall Street analysts' estimates by $14 million dollars, giving the company a revenue of $932 million. Their predictions were based on revenue after the deduction of fees to sites like Microsoft's MSN that display Yahoo's search ads. ...more

MSN to roll out Microsoft's new search engine

MSN is on the brink of rolling out a beta of its long awaited search engine tomorrow according to reports. Microsoft is preparing to launch two new products - a search engine capable of competing with Yahoo! and Google - and a desktop search tool. The desktop search product is slated to be released later this year. ...more

IE rivals stride ahead in browser stakes

Safari and Firefox both doubled their share of global browser usage during 2005, although Internet Explorer remains overwhelmingly dominant. According to the December 2005 figures from NetApplications, Safari accounted for three per cent of Web usage compared to 1.56 per cent a year earlier. ...more