ANKUR JAIN

Microsoft will omit anti-virus protection in Vista, the next version of Windows, which it plans to ship late this year. As with previous versions of Windows dating back to Windows 2000 at least, Redmond is promoting Vista as a landmark improvement in Windows security.

For unspecified business (not technical) reasons, Microsoft will sell anti-virus protection to consumers through its OneCare online backup and security service.

Symantec, though its assisted enquiries from investigators, has said it would rather take on Microsoft in the marketplace than cry foul to regulators over Microsoft’s entry into the consumer anti-virus marketplace. McAfee has made no suggestion it’s about to object to Redmond’s encroachment on it traditional turf, either. So it seems Microsoft has either decided anti-virus technology is better delivered as a service or else figured out that’s a better business model to pursue.

Google is releasing new beta versions of its Google Toolbar for consumers and corporations. After Google Toolbar 4.0 is released publicly on Monday, new custom buttons will let people run search queries directly on any Web site from their toolbar.

People can easily create their own buttons from Web sites, and developers will be able to use a new XML application-programming interface to create more advanced buttons. Bookmarks can be saved to a user’s Google account so they can be accessed from any computer.

The enhanced search offers query suggestions and spelling corrections. Users can send Web pages via Gmail or mobile text messaging or to a blog with the click of a button. The new enterprise edition lets administrators control which features to enable. Google Toolbar 4.0 beta for Internet Explorer will initially be available in English, and in more than 16 languages by the end of March. It runs on Windows XP.

At Google’s Official Blog: googleblog.blogspot.con, Google expresses its helplessness at removing sensitive information from the search results.

Excerpts from the blog:

“Google users in China today struggle with a service that, to be blunt, isn’t very good. Google.com appears to be down around 10% of the time. Even when users can reach it, the website is slow, and sometimes produces results that when clicked on, stall out the user’s browser. Our Google News service is never available; Google Images is accessible only half the time. At Google we work hard to create a great experience for our users, and the level of service we’ve been able to provide in China is not something we’re proud of.

This problem could only be resolved by creating a local presence, and this week we did so, by launching Google.cn, our website for the People’s Republic of China. In order to do so, we have agreed to remove certain sensitive information from our search results. We know that many people are upset about this decision, and frankly, we understand their point of view. This wasn’t an easy choice, but in the end, we believe the course of action we’ve chosen will prove to be the right one.”

Linus Torvalds, the developer of the Linux kernel, has publicly stated his opposition to the digital-rights management (DRM) provisions that have been proposed for the new version of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL is used by many open-source software developers.

The new draft for version three of the GPL prohibits the use of GPL-licensed software from implementing DRM copy-protection systems. Torvalds wrote in a posting for the Linux kernel mailing list that he does not expect the kernel to adopt the new license. His position, while not a total surprise, represents a significant rejection of the proposed draft.

The Walt Disney Co on Tuesday said it would buy Pixar Animation Studios in a $7.4 billion deal that gives Pixar animators creative control over the world’s most famous cartoon studio and make Pixar CEO Steve Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder.

Under the agreement, expected to close this summer, Jobs, who also heads Apple Computer Inc, will join Disney’s board of directors.

Pixar’s six films with Disney, including “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo” and “The Incredibles,” have grossed more than $3.2 billion.

“As I considered the possibility of returning Disney animation to greatness, it was clear to me that maintaining a relationship with Pixar was essential,” Iger told analysts on a conference call on Tuesday.

Pixar has over $1 billion in cash on its balance sheet, making the net value of the transaction about $6.3 billion, Staggs said.

Both boards of directors have approved the deal, which calls for 2.3 Disney shares to be issued for each Pixar share.

Jobs owns a 50.6 percent stake in Pixar shares, which would translate into about 6 percent of Disney shares after the deal. After the deal, Disney shares fell 9 cents to $25.90 and shares of Pixar rose $1.53 or 2.7 percent to $59.10 on Inet following the announcement.

IBM, whose secure messaging system is used within many of the biggest companies, on Monday said its customers would soon be able to chat with instant messaging users from America Online, Yahoo and Google.

International Business Machines Corp. said it plans by midyear to allow its Lotus Sametime corporate instant messaging system to work with the three consumer platforms, marking the latest move to break down barriers that have separated instant messaging audiences from one another.

Lotus Sametime counts 20 million users inside companies worldwide, including more than 25 companies with over 100,000 users apiece. IBM said 60 percent of the world’s 100 largest companies use Sametime.

By allowing corporate messaging systems to work with consumer versions of IM, office workers will be able to communicate instantly with friends or family outside of work.

Google has announced that its Google Talk service is now fully interoperable with other communications services that support the server-to-server XMPP protocol.

This open interoperability, also known as federation, enables any communications service provider to connect to Google Talk, so respective users can talk to each other.

Many service providers world-wide support XMPP federation today, as also thousands of active XMPP-based communications services run by major corporations, ISPs, universities, and individual users. Some of these service providers supporting XMPP federation include Jabber.org, Earthlink, Sipphone’s Gizmo Project, Chikka (Philippines), MediaRing (Singapore), Tiscali (Italy), and Netease (China).

Both Microsoft and IBM are vying for supremacy in the $2.8 billion corporate messaging market which includes collaboration tools such as e-mail, Web publishing, electronic calendars and project management systems.

To encourage customers to switch from their existing Lotus applications to Microsoft’s platform, Microsoft said it would offer a tool to allow potential customers to identify and organize its most-used shared software.

In market share terms, Microsoft had 32 percent of the 389 million users of e-mail and collaboration software, while IBM had around 24 percent, Radicati estimated.

By 2009, Radicati estimates that the number of Microsoft Exchange users will rise to 200 million users, or 37 percent of the corporate market.

IBM Domino/Notes users will sink to 68 million, or 13 percent of the market, while IBM’s new Workplace software will grow to 35 million users, or 6.5 percent of the market, meaning IBM’s total share will amount to around 20 percent of the global market.

Google is great at getting Web users access to information, and great at getting advertisers access to its Web users. So, what is it doing getting into the radio business?

Tuesday’s purchase of radio advertising company dMarc Broadcasting for $102 million (and up to $1.1 billion more over the next three years) is just another step toward making the company a one-stop shop for advertisers.

It’s not clear how much the dMarc deal will do for Google, which may be why the company isn’t betting that much, comparatively speaking, on the acquisition. The reason: DMarc only gives Google access to a small slice of a contracting market.

Up until now, dMarc’s chief product has been a tool that lets radio outlets automate their operations, a tool used by some 5,000 of the 13,000 stations in the U.S. Of those customers, about 500 use another dMarc product, one that allows them to automatically sell leftover air time–”remnant” time, in industry-speak–to advertisers at a steep discount. “If you’re buying that unsold inventory, you’re expecting to get a pretty good price,” says radio sales consultant Eric Ronning.

IBM said Tuesday that net profits rose 13 percent, although revenue was unimpressive in many areas and missed analysts’ consensus estimate. Cost cuts and the sell-off of IBM’s personal-computer business boosted profit margins, while positive trends in chips and mainframes helped the hardware division.

In the last three months of 2005, IBM earned $3.19 billion, or $1.99 per share, on revenue of $24.4 billion.

The results were pulled down 10 cents per share by a $267 million charge stemming from IBM’s recent decision to freeze its pension plan for U.S. workers in 2008, and by 2 cents per share because of an accounting change.

Leaving those figures out, the $2.11 in earnings per share easily beat the $1.94 consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. The revenue forecast was $25.5 billion.

In the same period of 2004, IBM registered a net profit of $2.83 billion, $1.67 per share, with revenue of $27.7 billion. However, subtracting the performance of IBM’s personal-computer division, which has been sold to China’s Lenovo Group Ltd., earnings would have been $2.77 billion, $1.64 per share, on $24.7 billion in revenue.

The results and outlook seemed to have a mixed message for investors, who bid IBM shares 15 cents lower in extended trading after the earnings report was released.

In all of 2005, IBM earned $7.93 billion, $4.87 per share, on revenue of $91.1 billion. In 2004, profits were $7.48 billion, $4.38 per share, on revenue of $96.3 billion.