Microsoft has promoted Steven Sinofsky, an executive lauded for his role in leading the engineering groups behind the development of the company’s next operating system, to president of the company’s Windows division. In that role, he will also oversee the company’s group of Windows Live-branded online services, as well Internet…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) still hasn’t commented on Google’s plans to introduce an operating system of its own. An official statement is coming later today and we’ll post it here when it comes out. (Update: Microsoft now says it will in fact not comment). But there are lots of reasons why…

Update: Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has officially announced it. And they are open sourcing it, as I suspected below: “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will…

Citigroup tested 200 of the most common queries to determine which major search engine delivers what it considers to be the most relevant results and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) won by a wide margin. From the report released Tuesday: 71 percent of the time a Google search brought up the most…

Despite the rhetoric, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and the European Commission may actually be on speaking terms. The two parties are in early talks to settle both the Commission’s investigation into whether the company has stifled competition by bundling Internet Explorer and Windows together, as well as a second investigation looking…

Newsweek.com and MSNBC.com will continue to throw traffic to each other for another two years, in a deal that execs tell paidContent includes expanded editorial collaboration but no money—yet. It’s the latest evolution of a partnership that stretches back to the launch of Newsweek.MSNBC.com in 2000 and a major deal…

While the Jerry Seinfeld ads represented the nadir of Microsoft’s attempts to create a popular ad campaign, the software company seemed to hit its stride recently with the generally positive notices for its I’m A PC spots. But now the latest in a series of ads promoting Microsoft’s Internet Explorer…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said Wednesday that its relaunched Bing search engine would begin to index some Tweets in real-time—becoming the first major search engine to do so. In a post on the Bing community blog, Microsoft’s Sean Suchter said that starting later today the company would highlight new Tweets from…

»  Kindle pricing is getting a run for it money from eReader. [NY Times] »  College Humor has a new video out about Bing’s challenge to Google (NSDQ: GOOG). [CNET] »  In the latest numbers from SoundScan due out this week, Michael Jackson will have claimed eight out of the…

The latest evidence that Microsoft’s Bing is off to a successful start: Web analytics firm StatCounter says Microsoft’s share of the search market was up 0.5 percentage points to 8.23 percent last month. Google’s meanwhile actually dropped slightly from 79.07 percent to 78.48 percent. “Steady if not spectacular might be…

Not your typical targets for a music copyright infringement lawsuit: The big companies that run paid online music subscription services. But MCS Music America, which says it administers almost 45,000 tracks, is suing Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), basically saying that they left some seemingly…

While Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is beefing up Xbox Live with social networking tools and more video content for gamers, it’s also adding a plethora of new ways for advertisers to reach them. The newest option will be IAB-standard rich media ads, which the company plans to roll out later this…

The Mozilla Foundation put out Firefox 3.5 this morning—the latest version of its blockbuster browser, which has steadily chipped away at Microsoft’s lead, although it still only commands about a quarter of the browser market in the U.S. For all Mozilla’s progress, a big challenge remains reminding users that they…

Forget the international date line. I crossed the international tennis line when I flew to the UK this weekend, leaving behind a place where I could follow most of Wimbledon live online at no charge on NBC, which even will stream the finals live, and ESPN (NYSE: DIS)  for one…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer apparently don’t share the same view about the near-term prospects for the economy. Here’s what each said at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival earlier this week: —Schmidt (via Reuters, AdWeek): “Reasonable to be optimistic for 2010”;…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is selling a chunk of online surveys operator Greenfield Online to Paris-based online research panel provider Toluna for $40 million. Zelnick Media had planned to buy last September, but the deal collapsed. Microsoft acquired the group for $486 million last year, but mainly wanted its European shopping…

By Mark Sweney: Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Publicis Groupe, owner of ad networks including Saatchi & Saatchi, have struck a deal to tap into data from TV set-top boxes to deliver highly targeted TV ads. The deal, which will also create new digital advertising formats, was struck with Publicis Groupe’s…

A seemingly rare departure from Microsoft’s search team, which has stepped up its efforts to recruit top engineers from rivals: Hugh Williams, a Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) search development manager, is heading to eBay (NSDQ: EBAY). Williams tells us via e-mail that he will be leading the e-commerce company’s search development…

Travel search engine Kayak is accusing Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) of basically ripping off some of its features in its revamped search engine, which puts a heavy emphasis on travel search. And, indeed a quick look at Kayak and the Microsoft travel search offering—dubbed Bing Travel—shows that the two sites look…