Microsoft

This week is beginning to shape up to be the big one in Microsoft’s almost 3-month effort to gain Yahoo. Microsoft software maker has set a Saturday deadline for Yahoo to come to the bargaining table or else other actions will take place. Yahoo reported it’s numbers on Tuesday and Microsoft is set to releases their numbers on Thursday. Those reports are said to be more important in that Microsoft’s bid is half stock. A large earnings report from Yahoo will likely put pressure on Microsoft to up its bid; meanwhile a negative one might increase the strength on Yahoo to sell. Yet other players are discussing that there is still talk of Yahoo partnering with AOL. And they are still continuing an advertising test with Google.
Microsoft is beginning an automatic distribution of Windows Vista Service Pack 1; this is the first major update to the year-and-a-half-old operating system. The company will start sending it to Vista users who have Windows’ automatic update feature turned on. The company has cautioned that not everyone will get SP1 immediately. Vista SP1 was made available to customers last month. Service Pack 1 doesn't add much in the way of new features, but rather is a collection of changes designed to fix bugs and improve performance, as well as address competitive concerns raised by Google over Vista's desktop search system.