Microsoft is making an accommodation through a flexible inventory program that will allow distributors to place their final orders by January 31, 2009 and take delivery against those orders through May 30, 2009.

This is not an extension of sales, according to the Microsoft spokesperson who issued the statement above. Semantics? Depends on where you reside in the food chain, but mainly, the decision is about giving the put-upon guys in the middle some breathing room.

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With its new Chrome browser, Google is already doing "interesting things" around multiprocessing and multithreading support, according to the director of strategy at IBM Lotus -- a company that's taking more of an interest in Chrome.

As the economy drives the Internet cloud to become more all enveloping, Web browsers till take on greater sophistication in 2009 and beyond, predicted Doug Heintzman, director of strategy at IBM Lotus, in an interview with BetaNews. While consumers and businesses figure out how to cope with sudden economic changes, they're trying to find ways to "get more" while spending less.

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Those bells you hear aren't all just about the holidays. They're signals that BetaNews is publishing a positive story about Blu-ray. Mark the date in your calendars.

In an effort to restore consumers' enthusiasm in the high-definition disc format that, after all, won the format war, the Blu-ray Disc Association is emphasizing some positive statistics from recent weeks' sales worldwide: Some 462,500 BDs were sold in the UK during the month of November, which the Association claims is a 165% jump from just the previous month.

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Social network MySpace pulled down all of the Project Playlist widgets reportedly at the behest of unspecified "major music companies." Meanwhile, major label Sony BMG gave the service its stamp of approval.

Last week, MySpace issued a statement announcing the immediate removal of Project Playlist widgets from its site. They have received complaints at several different times that Project Playlist was engaging in copyright infringement.

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Just when mobile device maker Palm could really use a lift, Elevation Partners -- a VC firm that includes U2 singer Bono -- is coming through with a $100 million investment.

With the launch of a new mobile platform and smartphone slated for next month's CES show, financially beleaguered Palm, Inc. has nailed down a highly needed $100 million equity investment from Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm that includes Bono, lead singer for the rock band U2.

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After a two-year relationship, major label Warner Music Group has moved to temporarily terminate its partnership with video sharing site YouTube.

A statement from the record company said, "We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide."

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Let's make a list of the features we really need in a 2010-generation notebook. We'll start with solid-state storage at 500 GB. From there...You know, we might be satisfied with just that.

It's one more indication that PC manufacturers could very well be ready to implement a breakthrough that changes the nature and profile of typical laptop computers: Over the weekend, a giveaway promotion on Sony's New Zealand Web site clearly states the company plans to unveil new, and probably vastly improved, Vaio notebook computers during CES week next month.

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At CES next month, a new organization formed to promote interoperability across media devices will get off the ground -- and by that, they mean a way to get podcasts and streaming content to work on multiple device platforms.

CES 2009 will provide the setting for the first meeting of the Internet Media Device Alliance (IMDA), a new association established to improve device interoperability across music, podcasts, on-demand content and other applications used in Internet radio and other media services.

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Seeking the means to shrink a nasty budget deficit, legislators in Albany have floated the idea of slapping a 4% tax on entertainment services delivered via the net, including streaming movies, e-books, and music downloads.

The move, though perhaps among the least disruptive of the suggested changes to the state's $121 billion budget, could prove painful for legitimate services and provide additional motivation for those who lean toward getting their music and movies off the file-sharing services.

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This just in, the format war is over. The 18-month honeymoon analysts had given Blu-ray has prematurely ended, and while sales have risen from nothing to something barely eclipsing okay, its successor may already be over the horizon.

In paleontology, there is a concept known as the Alvarez Hypothesis. This hypothesis originally suggested that a giant asteroid impacting the Earth's surface triggered the subsequent extinction of the dinosaurs.

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Gee, what do you suppose Dell's super-secret new Adamo brand, due to premiere at the next CES, could be? We could ask a slew of analysts for their best advance speculation...Or we could just Google it.

About one hundred percent of the media speculation today over the identity of a curious new Dell brand device called Adamo centered around the possibility that it is an ultralight computer, probably an offshoot of its existing XPS series, designed to compete with Apple's super-thin MacBook Air.

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Pending updates to the Android mobile operating system were made public this week as a part of the Google's "Cupcake" roadmap, revealing new functionality that will endow future Android devices with abilities beyond those in the G1 now.

According to the roadmap, development taking place privately will soon be made available to the public source code via a single large development branch update. It will be followed by a series of smaller, incremental updates as time passes. Among the numerous bug fixes listed on the roadmap are some serious functionality upgrades that promise to add some highly desirable features previously absent from Android 1.0.

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Internet and voice traffic to much of the Middle East and south Asia has been disrupted by the overnight loss of three major cables spanning the Mediterranean.

According to a notice from France Telecom, the three provisioning cables linking Sicily to Egypt were lost within about 40 minutes of one another Friday morning (local time). A France Telecom-owned maintenance ship will be dispatched to inspect the site within a few hours. Until then, it's not known what might have caused the cuts.

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Brazilian PC maker Positivo has confirmed in a regulatory filing that it has rejected a buyout offer from Lenovo, estimated in the Brazilian press as worth up to $800 million.

In a regulatory filing now posted on its Web site, Positivo Informatica has corroborated an earlier statement by Lenovo that the Brazilian PC manufacturer turned back an acquisition bid earlier this week.

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The makers of one of the Internet's first and most respected anti-adware products are on schedule to release their 2009 edition next month, though they need some help from registered testers to make it happen.

A Lavasoft representative asked BetaNews today to spread the word about Beta 3 of its 2009 edition of Ad-Aware, which was released last December 8 along with the company's latest adware signatures.

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