Microsoft is just another contributor to the OXML (formerly OOXML) community now, and today the work it has been doing to build developer tools for what's now an international standard, has been changed to reflect that new status.

Work at Microsoft on the system developer's kit for the OXML format suite continues mostly on schedule, with a Community Technology Preview released today in advance of a final 1.0 release now moved back a few weeks to June. But it's no longer the Microsoft SDK for Office Open XML Formats. Instead, it's just another effort (assuming there could be others) to build programmable access to Open XML formats, as Microsoft is now referring to it as just the Open XML Format SDK.

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An IBM spokesperson today denied published reports of what he termed "mass migration" to Apple Macs at his company, claiming the only point of the test is to try to make IBM software products run well on Mac OS.

Although an IBM spokesperson did confirm to BetaNews this afternoon that Macs are now being piloted at IBM Research, he added, "A lot of the blogs out there are suggesting that we're planning some sort of internal mass migration to Macintoshes. But that simply isn't true."

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If an AOL + Yahoo deal were to be effectively brokered, then Google would be perceived as the ultimate victor. But is that really part of the company's plan, to replace Microsoft in the public conscience...and does it really want that role?

It is Yahoo that has skillfully advanced the name of Google as the possible spoiler for Microsoft's takeover bid, without Google ever having to lift a finger. It need not even be the alternative corporate parent: AOL is now being seen as the speculative alternative, in a deal that Google would presumably facilitate.

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Although IBM's PC servers fell flat last quarter, its software business soared, especially in "branded middleware." IBM's Cognos BI tools, WebSphere middleware, and Lotus collaboration software all displayed double-digit increases.

IBM's latest quarterly financial results, announced yesterday, showed revenue growth of 11% to $24.5 million for the first quarter of 2008, with gains across most categories, including software, services, vertical markets and most of IBM hardware systems, but weak spots in IBM's System x PC hardware and System i midrange servers.

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Following its announcement of a $399 Mac clone earlier this week, problems contacting the company, a sudden failure of its online store, and changes to its Web site have raised some eyebrows.

A simple search of Florida's registered business listings indicate that the company filed with the state on July 6 of last year. The registered address is 10645 SW 122nd Street in Miami, with the apparent contacts Rodolfo and Roberto Pedraza.

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April 17, 2008 3:00 pm EDT - Despite Take-Two's attempts to rebuff Electronic Arts over its proposed takeover bid, EA is still taking the necessary procedural steps to get the merger approved. On Thursday, it disclosed the Federal Trade Commission had contacted it for more information its on its proposal.

The FTC has not come to a decision on whether a merger would be anti-competitive, although EA obviously asserts that it is not. It said that the press release was neither an offer to purchase, nor a solicitation for proxies to be considered at Take-Two's shareholder meeting to take place this evening.

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LA-based social media site Buzznet, which provides audio, video, blogs and editorial content about the popular music scene, has just received an equity investment from major label Universal Music Group.

Terms and conditions of the deal were not disclosed, but some are estimating the value of the transaction to be as high as $25 million, with both companies equally sharing revenue drawn from UMG's content on the site.

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There may have been a little extra cash flow in Yahoo's direction from its beta test of Google's AdSense in its own search pages. But whether you take that as a sign of a deal in the works depends on how you read the carefully phrased speculation.

In the mergers and acquisitions game, the key players typically establish back channels in the major media in order to give them reliable outlets for bluster. Yahoo's choice of late is one of the best, The Wall Street Journal; and this morning, the word from that publication is that Yahoo's initial beta test of Google's AdSense for Search, announced just last week, was apparently successful.

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Universal said Thursday that it will begin releasing all of its newest titles in Blu-ray on the same day and date as its standard DVD counterpart.

While the studio was a staunch supporter of HD DVD, after Toshiba exited the business it was one of the first to announce its switch to Blu-ray.

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Beginning today, five AT&T stores nationwide will be showing off Microsoft Surface, the innovative technology where a sensitive tabletop interacts with the user in ways he never considered.

Though early reports mentioned T-Mobile's participation in the program, it's AT&T that will be first letting customers play with Microsoft's touch interface system. Atlanta, San Antonio, San Francisco and two stores in New York City are scheduled to unveil surface displays today.

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The business model for MySQL is that someone, at some time, must pay for something. In this case, Enterprise users are Sun's paying customers; and at a conference this week, free users wondered again whether the other group is entitled to exclusive new features.

The debate over what paying MySQL customers should be entitled to that non-paying ones should not, re-ignited after comments made during a simple roadmap presentation at a MySQL conference in Santa Clara ruminated in attendees' minds for awhile, and then pointed to an otherwise obvious point: The features new MySQL parent Sun Microsystems intends to include in the commercial MySQL Enterprise edition will only be tested by paying customers, under what is probably a more common commercial beta testing system.

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While there is no evidence of an exploit as of yet, Mozilla is taking a proactive measure to fix the issue before it could be.

A problem with stability which resulted in crashes and evidence of memory corruption was remedied in Firefox 2.0.0.13, however apparently the fix did not completely close any holes.

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Corel today rolled out WordPerfect X4, a suite designed to remain feature compatible with Microsoft Office while adding more interoperability with Adobe Acrobat. Added to the suite is a new spreadsheet in addition to Quattro Pro.

Among the new features of Corel's principal office suite, announced today, is a business intelligence (BI)-enabled spreadsheet called Visual Intelligence.

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Firefox is the single most prevalent open source software package, and Ubuntu 7.10 leads the way among Linux distributions. Those are some of the very early findings of a new project called the Open Source Census, which went live today.

First unveiled in December, the Open Source Census is a collaborative undertaking to find out how much open software enterprises are using these days, and what kinds of organizations are using it. It's spearheaded by open source software vendor OpenLogic.

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TrafficLand, a site providing free access to a network of over 6,000 cameras, is now offering its live highway feeds as embeddable widgets. How much closer will this widget make users feel to their Facebook buddies?

Whether it's for travel or event-planning purposes or simply for the morbid possibility of witnessing a live car accident, TrafficLand's cameras, which are in place in over 60 worldwide markets, can now be placed in Facebook and other sites.

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