Google’s (GOOG) Android platform clearly dominates the mobile landscape in terms of market share, and though Samsung (005930) continues to close in, Apple (AAPL) leads the pack in profitability by a wide margin. According to one industry watcher, however, they should all be watching out for Microsoft (MSFT). Sizemore Capital’s Charles Sizemore writes in a contribution to NASDAQ that “Microsoft will ultimately muscle-out Apple as the leader in smartphones and tablets.” He says the war will be long and grueling, but Microsoft will ultimately pull ahead because Apple has no ”durable long-term advantages” to keep customers loyal. He also contends that “Apple’s insistence on controlling every aspect of both its software and hardware puts it at a disadvantage to a more flexible Microsoft.”

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BELLEVUE, Washington (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended his company's record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders' meeting, but conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by Apple Inc's iPad. Bill Gates, co-founder and now chairman of the world's largest software company, was one of the first to champion tablet-sized devices more than 10 years ago, but Microsoft failed to come up with a product that worked as well as the iPad. ...

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Microsoft released a Fix-It tool to temporarily fix the zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer today, and promised an emergency patch on Friday. A security researcher stumbled upon attack code on a compromised server over the weekend targeting a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The drive-by download attack was triggered by a use-after-free flaw which was present in all versions of Internet Explorer, except IE 10. Security researchers recommended users stop using IE entirely unti

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(Reuters) - Microsoft and Google's Motorola Mobility unit are set to square off on Tuesday at a trial with strategic implications for the smartphone patent wars and which could reveal financial information the two companies usually keep under wraps. The proceeding in a Seattle federal court will determine how much of a royalty Microsoft Corp should pay Google Inc for a license to some of Motorola's patents. Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion, partly for its library of communications patents. If U.S. ...

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Two weeks before a high-stakes trial pitting Google's Motorola Mobility unit against Microsoft, Google made what has become a common request for a technology company fighting for billions of dollars: A public court proceeding, conducted largely in secret. Google and Microsoft, like rivals embroiled in smartphone patent wars, are eager to keep sensitive business information under wraps - in this case, the royalty deals they cut with other companies on patented technology. Microsoft asked for similar protections in a court filing late on Thursday. ...

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Microsoft is building its own smartphone, a new report suggests. It's currently in the testing phase with Asian component suppliers, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites "people familiar with the situation."

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Microsoft has been teasing us with Surface, its upcoming iPad equivalent, for months. The tablet has a 10.6 inch screen, larger than the new iPad's but not Retina-sharp, and has a kickstand to prop it up so you can type with its unique Touch Cover accessory. Now Microsoft has revealed that it costs only $499 ... and that for the same price as the 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad, you get twice as much storage space. Preorders have already begun, and will be delivered on Oct. 26.

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Microsoft (MSFT) is giving consumers two more reasons to buy an Xbox 360 this holiday season. First, all Xbox 360 consoles except the standalone 4GB model without Kinect will receive a $50 price cut for a limited time at all major retailers including Amazon (AMZN), (BBY), GameStop, Target, Toys ‘R Us and Walmart. Second, there are three new holiday bundles that come with some of the best-selling games of the year. The first holiday bundle costs $399.99 and includes a 250GB Xbox 360 and Kinect, Dance Central 2, Kinect Sports 2, Kinect Adventure and a month of Xbox Live Gold. The second is a 4GB Xbox 360, Kinect, Kinect Disneyland Adventures, Kinect Adventures and one month of Xbox Live Gold for

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NEW YORK/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp put its Surface tablet center stage at its Windows 8 launch event, hoping the sleek new device will spark a fightback against Apple Inc and Google Inc in the exploding mobile computing market. With interest in traditional computers waning, the world's largest software company is attempting to reinvent the Windows PC in a new format and directly challenge Apple's all-conquering iPad. ...

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(Reuters) - Tech bloggers and other reviewers praised Microsoft Corp's new Surface RT tablet for beautiful design but said a shortage of applications and a slow operating system meant the result was heartbreak for users. Microsoft begins selling the Surface on Friday, joining the fight in a tablet market dominated by Apple Inc's iPads and devices using Google Inc's Android system. Reviewers given the product early to play with it said its first version paled in comparison with the iPad. ...

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REUTERS - Tech bloggers and other reviewers praised Microsoft Corp's new Surface RT tablet for beautiful design but said a shortage of applications and a slow operating system meant the result was heartbreak for users. Microsoft begins selling the Surface on Friday, joining the fight in a tablet market dominated by Apple Inc's iPads and devices using Google Inc's Android system. Reviewers given the product early to play with it said its first version paled in comparison with the iPad. ...

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Today Microsoft will have the official coming out party for its maybe-too-different Surface tablet and the baffling Windows 8 operating system that goes along with it. Since its first over-hyped Surface related event in June, we've learned all the things about the gadget Microsoft didn't tell us the first time around. Like: the $500 price tag for the 32 GB model, the availability: tomorrow, and the not-as-good-as-the-iPad 7-hour battery life. At this point, reviewers and some customers have played with both tablets, giving us the impressions we'd need to make a purchase. ...

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El viernes comienza una nueva era para Microsoft. Dejará de ser el rey de la computación personal tradicional y abandonará su histórica guerra bilateral con Apple (más la competencia con Linux en el terreno corporativo). ...

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Just when you thought Google and Microsoft would have a puncher’s chance to carve out meaningful market share in the tablet space, now comes word that Apple plans to come out with a smaller and cheaper version of its industry-defining iPad.

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Microsoft is buying Internet startup Yammer for $1.2 billion in an attempt to bring Facebook-like sharing features to its widely used suite of business software applications.

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Microsoft has announced a mystery event in Los Angeles Monday afternoon, June 18 and we'll cover the play-by-play on site. Will this involve Windows RT tablets, as some have speculated? Or perhaps Microsoft will shed light on its plans for a content store in Windows 8? Maybe it's a bit of both.

Here’s what we don't know: Anything. As of this writing, Microsoft hasn't even told journalists where the event will be held. But it'll be at 3:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Monday, and our Melissa Perenson be here with live coverage and analysis, in cooperation with our pals at PCWorld.

Update: The event is being held at Milk Studios in Hollywood. Now you know. We'll still be there!

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Microsoft just announced its own tablet, named Surface. If you want a play-by-play account of the announcement, you can read our liveblog, but here are the basics...

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How many times can a company abandon its users and still retain their loyalty? Microsoft may be about to find out.

Microsoft has a history of abandoning its mobile users. It happened when the Windows Phone 7 transition occurred, with Windows Mobile users. Based on the Windows CE kernel, Windows Mobile evolved from the PocketPC OS into a full fledged, if clunky, mobile phone operating system. When Microsoft shipped Windows Phone 7, the company essentially abandoned Windows Mobile users.

There were some very good technical reasons for this, but the upshot was this: Both users and developers had to start over.

Similar abandonment happened with digital music players. Microsoft presented a standard called PlaysForSure, which created interoperability standards between digital music players. Later, Microsoft abruptly dumped support for the standard, abandoning its OEMs for Zune. Zune adhered to the iTunes model, with player and software locked to each other.

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Microsoft is planning to release both iOS and Android variants of its Office suite of products this fall, a new report says. The date matches closely to when the company is expected to release Windows 8 and the new version of Office.

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A German regional court ruled in a hearing on Thursday that Motorola Mobility infringed Microsoft patents by offering the option on its mobile phones to send a longer text in a batch of several messages. "We're pleased the court agreed today that Motorola has infringed Microsoft's intellectual property, and we hope Motorola will be willing to join other Android device makers by taking a license to our patents," Microsoft said in a statement, referring to Google's Android operating system for mobile phones. ...

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