Microsoft will be offering a free stripped down version of its Windows Live OneCare PC security tool, code-named "Morro," in the second half of 2009. Microsoft will also discontinue retail sales of its Windows Live OneCare subscription service effective June 30, 2009.

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Until today, only large companies could get SharePoint or Exchange as an online service available directly from Microsoft. Smaller customers could get hosted Exchange from numerous other suppliers (Intermedia, for example) and hosted SharePoint from numerous others (Apptix, for example) but not from Microsoft.

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The controversial ISO vote that accepted Microsoft's Office Open XML as a standard continues to have fallout effects. Norway's government today announced it was setting aside 2 million kroner -- about $285,000 -- to encourage its public sector to adopt OpenOffice to reduce dependency on Microsoft Office, the AP reports.

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Can IPv6 change the world? Reduce excessive energy consumption? Spend a little time chatting with IPv6 champion extraordinaire Geof Lambert and you will soon be convinced it can. Lambert, an executive recruiter by trade, has always had a love of technology. He combined that with his philanthropic leanings to become one of the best–known advocates of IPv6 as a tool for ending the digital divide.

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If Microsoft could create a social networking site that would be the grandaddy of all social networking sites, it might convince more users to join. Of course, all of this has been tried before. Facebook wants to be your main stop. FriendFeed wants to be your main stop. Twitter applications like Twhirl want to help you link to multiple networks. And on and on it goes. Social networking mania is prevailing.

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When credit is unavailable logic would say that interest rates rise. But there's a growing trend in the IT world where the vendors themselves are willing to become the bank at very favorable rates to book business from their credit crunched customers. If there's an upside to an economic stumble this could be it.

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Microsoft today committed to spending $1 billion in research and development in China over the next three years and finaly named a replacement of its chief executive of greater China. Former Motorola executive Simon Leung has been hired to replace the top China slot, left vacant for over a year, reports the Wall Street Journal.

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Now here's a fact to both amaze and annoy you. As we all suspected, the power to stop the tidal wave of spam rests squarely in the hands of ISPs, if they ever chose to act on it. The point is proven by the following graphic sent to Microsoft Subnet from anti-spam vendor MessageLabs (a company acquired by Symantec in October). Yesterday spam kingpin McColo Corp. was at least partially taken offline. McColo is a Web hosting service that has been credited with enabling 75 percent of the world's e-mail spam and scams.

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Today, Nov.

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Enterprise IT pros might be breathing a sign of relief. Some Patch Tuesdays are loaded with critical and important fixes, but today's consists only of two patches (although there was an emergency patch issued mid-cycle, MS08-067, on October 23.) The strange news in this set of patches is that one of them seems to be from a problem first reported seven years ago.

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Combine a desperate need to build a search business with a desperate need to just plain build business and you have a situation where ancient rivals cozy up. So it is with Microsoft and Sun on their joint agreement announced today to add a Live Search task bar to U.S.-based IE users when they download the Java Runtime Environment.

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Microsoft is bragging in this press release that SQL Server is being used to create some of the largest databases ever. Actually, they are taking it a little over the top saying that database software (theirs) may have what it takes to "Cure Alzheimer’s and Save the Earth."

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Please congratulate the following sixteen readers, all winners in October. Our grand-prize winner is Doug Woznicki, senior systems engineer for international executive recruiting company CTPartners. Woznicki won a free training course from Global Knowledge worth up to $2,995.

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It must be tremendously satisfying to Steve Ballmer to hear Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang publicly plea for Microsoft to buy Yahoo -- at a bargain basement price. The only one that can be surprised at Yahoo's downward spiral since it pushed Microsoft away can be Yang. The now-failed deal with Google was never the kind of shoo-in that would have seriously revived Yahoo anyway. Google has already won the market.

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While the world has focused with hand-wringing angst about the fate of XP, it has paid no heed to the fact that this month, Microsoft finally retired its most popular desktop OS ever, the 29-year-old Windows 3.x, reports the BBC. On Nov. 1, Microsoft officially stopped issuing licenses for Windows 3.x.

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The battle lines between device makers are already starting to be drawn. Motorola's congratulatory statement also included some marketing positioning. Motorola has declared itself a leader in some of the technology that will be used by the devices:

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Microsoft's joint coverage of the election with NBC on MSN gives Microsoft Subnet an excuse to blog about the election. So here goes ... MSNBC includes an "election dashboard" with links to live video, news stories, bloggers, etc. It also includes a nifty map (built with Flash, not Silverlight) that has all you ever wanted to know.

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Phones based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile have a reputation for being strictly business. Phones from LG have a reputation of being strictly consumer. But as Cool Tools blogger Keith Shaw writes in his recent "Smartphone smackdown 2008" guide, the lines between the two are blurring.

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An interesting and hot discussion is happening right now in reaction to a news story about Microsoft Vista. Microsoft released data that shows Vista more secure than XP. The company's latest security report shows that fewer new vulnerabilities were found in its software in first half of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007 and that exploits for Vista are less than those for XP.

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Microsoft engineers are pounding the streets giving briefings to channel partners about Release 2 of Windows Server 2008, and with those briefings come more details on what R2 will be like. Last week we reported on how R2, slated for release sometime in 2010, will integrate secure wireless networking to potentially eliminate the need for VPNs. We also discussed the starring role Terminal Services will play as a desktop virtualization component.

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