Consumer demand 'skyrocketed' Windows - Microsoft

Computer manufacturers overwhelmingly chose Microsoft products because they were 'innovative, affordably priced and in high demand by consumers', the company's attorney argued yesterday as he continued his opening statement in the Iowa antitrust court case. David Tulchin spent the second full day of Microsoft's opening statement showing the jury documents and depositions from customers and competitors that he said showed that it was the high quality and low prices of the company's software that drove consumer demand. Among those quoted in Microsoft's evidence was an unnamed executive at WordPerfect who said his company was 'scared to death' by Microsoft's Office suite and a former executive who described Microsoft's prices as 'an unbelievable deal'. ...more

Microsoft makes ten new patches

Microsoft has released ten new security patches, six of which it identifies as critical. The patches cover flaws in Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 for 32 And 64 bit processors, as well as Office applications for both PC and Apple systems and XML core services. In total the patch pack fixes 26 vulnerabilities, the most Microsoft have ever released in a single month. ...more

Digital music download sales stall

Apple may be in the process of selling over 10 million iPods each month but a development that is bound to be worrying record company executives is that sales of digital music downloads have stalled. Since May the number of tracks sold, most of which are downloaded from Apple's iTunes Music Store, has remained almost static at around 6.5 million per week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. ...more

Fetch 4 released

The Mac-based FTP management program Fetch has been upgraded and carbonized for OS X. The upgrade incorporates a 'long list' of new features including: compatibility with the Mac OS from System 7 to OS X; one-click website updating; drag and drop transfers between servers; remote text and image file origination and editing with BBEdit and Graphic Converter; extended proxy server and security support; image, sound and movie preview; resume-able downloads; and folder size calculation. Fetch is the most popular file transfer application on the Mac, but remains cheap - just $25 for a single-user licence and free for charities and education. ...more

Europe 'underachieving'in ICT claims Commissioner

Europe is 'underachieving'in the areas of growth and innovation in ICT according to the Commissioner responsible for Information Society and Media. In a speech given to Microsoft's Government Leaders'Forum, the new Commissioner Viviane Reding said that Europe would fail to meet the objectives set in Lisbon in 2000. At that meeting, European leaders set out an ambitious programme to catch up and compete with the United States and Asia in the development of ICT infrastructure, R&D and ICT-related jobs. ...more