As I wrote yesterday, Microsoft on Wednesday released an emergency patch for the zero-day* vulnerability, KB960714, that affects all versions of Internet Explorer since 5.01.

Microsoft Corp. and HP today announced a joint initiative that will enable value-added resellers (VARs) to benefit from a software-plus-services business model by providing new revenue streams and helping them become strategic advisors to their clients.

Microsoft Corp. and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) have agreed to launch discussions on strategic collaboration aimed at creating services that integrate networks with applications.

As promised, Microsoft late Thursday released the first public beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 2(SP2) from both its website and via Windows Update. On Tuesday Microsoft released the beta to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and made the aforementioned promise.

Microsoft Corp. and BSkyB announce that Microsoft Silverlight and PlayReady technologies are enabling Sky Player TV, Sky’s online TV service.

Attendees at Microsoft's MSDN Developer Conferences (MDC) will receive a Windows 7 Beta 1 DVD, according to information about the conferences posted by Microsoft on Tuesday. Those attending December conferences will receive the DVD via mail once it is ready.

In our yesterday's report we sited Times Online story that Microsoft and Yahoo! are again talking about a possible merge that would give Microsoft Yahoo's Search. We remember that a month ago Microsoft's Steve Ballmer said that he is not interested in Yahoo! anymore, or at least now. New reports about Microsoft Yahoo! possible search deal are also raising question based on Carl Icahn's recent moves.

A little over a month ago Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said a Yahoo! deal still "makes sense," but that same afternoon, a Microsoft press release quashed any speculation by saying there were "no discussions between the companies."

A tough economy is casting a shadow over many people’s gift-giving list right now, providing a question mark as to how they will spend their hard-earned cash this holiday season. To better understand how America’s shopping and entertainment habits are evolving this year, Microsoft Corp. collaborated with Ipsos1and StrategyOne2 to produce the Xbox 360 Holiday Entertainment Survey.

Microsoft has done a deal with Sun where its search toolbar is distributed with the Java runtime. The deal only applies to US Internet Explorer users who download the JRE. Previously Sun distributed the Google toolbar with Java.

Zune, Microsoft Corp.’s end-to-end music and entertainment service, today added 46 new designs from leading artists to its customization Web site www.ZuneOriginals.net, for the holiday season.

Just three months after Microsoft Corp. released its data management and business intelligence platform, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, several large customers are using the database software to scale new heights in data warehousing and transaction processing.