Calling Linux and Windows the "two platforms of the future," Novell this morning hailed the entry of Dell as the first systems vendor to join the Microsoft + Novell pact, as a reseller of Microsoft's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates. The deal effectively makes Microsoft a real Linux distributor for the world's #2 supplier of servers.

As for Dell, already a Linux reseller for its server customers, the deal helps tilt its marketing bias somewhat more toward Novell and away from Red Hat, for which Dell is also a supplier. Dell committed this morning to a new marketing campaign that will target existing Linux customers who have not already purchased a Dell-branded distribution.

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Amid the announcement that Windows Live Hotmail is launching globally on Monday, Microsoft said that it plans to release a beta of its desktop client called Windows Live Mail "within weeks." The application replaces both Outlook Express and Windows Mail as the company's signature e-mail client. Sources indicate that Windows Live Mail would be similar to the Windows Live Desktop Mail client currently being tested.

That application provides desktop access to POP and IMAP e-mail accounts, as well as the Hotmail service. It also integrates with other Live services, including Contacts, Messenger, Spaces. Users of the free client are shown advertising, while subscribers to Hotmail premium services did not. It was not immediately clear whether or not ads will be displayed in the updated version.

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Engineers in India are looking into ways to create a laptop that would cost a mere $10. The effort came in response to the increasing price of the so-called '$100 laptop.'

The Indian government has taken a pass on the device, opting instead for two homegrown designs. One is from a student in one of the country's technology schools, while the other was produced by the Institute of Science, a graduate school in Bangalore.

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In its first public comments since the now-mostly-useless 32-hex-digit media processing key was posted to hundreds of thousands of pages, in defiance of a decision by popular commenting site Digg, later rescinded, to remove references to the key, the head of the AACS Licensing Authority's business group told the BBC it is tracking down those responsible for all those posts, and reserves the right to take legal action against any or all of them.

"There is no intent from us to interfere with people's right to discuss copy protection," the AACS LA's Michael Ayers told BBC technology editor Darren Waters. "We respect free speech... But a line is crossed when we start seeing keys being distributed and tools for circumvention. You step outside of the realm of protected free speech then."

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Facing increasing criticism over its commitment to the environment, Apple CEO Steve Jobs shot back saying that in many cases the company will soon be ahead -- if not already -- of its competitors.

Jobs pointed out that it is generally not the policy of Apple to talk about its future plans, but he said this policy had left its shareholders, employees, and the industry "in the dark" over its commitment to the environment.

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As first reported by BetaNews in mid-April, Microsoft is on track to launch Windows Live Hotmail in the United States on Monday, sources are now confirming. The exit of the revamped service from beta is also being confirmed by an e-mail sent to testers of the service thanking them for their support and saying the product was now ready for public release. It is not yet clear whether the company is allowing the registration of live.com e-mails.

Windows Live Hotmail will offer several enhancements over the current user interface and is built upon Microsoft's AJAX platform. It includes right click menus, a paneled interface, and updated search bar. The UI is very similar to that of Outlook, the company's desktop e-mail application.

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Yahoo is planning to shut down its photos site in favor of Flickr, the popular photo sharing site the company bought in March 2005, News.com and Techcrunch reported on Friday. The move is likely aimed at consolidating the Internet company's web properties, something senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse has made a priority for the company to address after he clamed Yahoo was "spread too thin last year."

Users of the original site will gradually be migrated to Flickr over the next several months, and will have the option to transfer their pictures to that site or choose to export them to either Shutterfly or the Kodak Gallery. Yahoo Photos is the largest photo-sharing site on the net, with about 2 billion photos. This is four times the size of Flickr, although the social photo site has been growing much faster than Yahoo Photos in recent months.

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A story in this morning's New York Post - published by the would-be owner of the Wall Street Journal, which followed up on the story - has speculators buzzing yet again, stating #3 search provider Microsoft may be willing to pony up as much as $50 billion to buy out #2 Yahoo.

The Journal ran with the story this morning, crediting the Post with the revelation, and perhaps in so doing testing out the new pecking order in the business press, as Post publisher and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch continues his efforts to lure shareholders of WSJ publisher Dow Jones into a takeover deal. Earlier this week, Murdoch offered Dow a premium well above its market price for shares.

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OpenOffice has seen much success on Windows following the release of version 2.0, but its Macintosh brethren has remained stuck in the past without a native port. Engineers at Sun are hoping to change that, lending their support to building an Aqua version of the free Microsoft Office alternative.

While an X11 version of OpenOffice has been available for Mac users, that release required first launching the X Window system - something few consumers even had installed. The OpenOffice development team put the full Aqua port on hold in 2003 with a goal to have it ready during 2006.

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With Apple's iPod becoming nearly ubiquitous, a serious #2 competitor in the same market has to strike out and make bold moves if it is to distinguish itself. That's what Creative Technology (the former Creative Labs) has been trying to do with its Zen series of MP3 players - look for the niches where buyers who would reject the iPod would flee, and then attack those niches with stylish designs and gusto.

Creative's already done this on the high side of the market with the Zen Vision:W, an attractive portable media player that makes a case for itself with a larger screen and more flexible support for video standards like DivX and XviD.

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Microsoft on Tuesday will issue seven security bulletins that correct vulnerabilities in products ranging from Windows to Office and Exchange Server to BizTalk. One of these fixes will be for a highly-publicized DNS flaw affecting Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.

Specifically, two bulletins will affect Windows, with at least one rated critical. Three will affect Office, also with at least one rated critical. One critical bulletin each will be released for Exchange Server and Microsoft CAPICOM and BizTalk. In addition, six high-priority non-security updates will be issued through Microsoft Update. Per its standard practices, Microsoft does not disclose specifics of upcoming patches before they are released.

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Following in the footsteps of IM rivals AOL and Microsoft, Yahoo on Thursday launched a Web-based version of its instant messaging client, which runs across platforms in IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Users can message their Yahoo and Windows Live contacts from a Web browser, as well as access chat history.

Yahoo Messenger for the Web includes a feature the downloadable versions does not yet have: a tabbed message window. Currently in beta, the service is available in English, Portuguese, Vietnamese and traditional Chinese. AOL has offered its own AIM Express on the Web since 2000, while both Microsoft and Google also offer browser-based versions of their IM clients.

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A long-standing dispute between Google and the Belgian Association of Newspaper Editors (Copiepresse) over Google's right to store archives of Belgian papers' content appears to have either subsided or been settled today, after publishers finally took Google's suggestions and embedded a tag in their pages that prevents archiving.

Perhaps for several years, Google's corporate Web site gave instructions to publishers about how to include tags in their pages instructing Google's crawlers not to archive their content. A Web site in a foreign country - for which, under Belgian law, Google qualifies - is prohibited from making archived copies of newspaper content without a valid license.

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Last Monday, the US Supreme Court issued two landmark rulings, whose importance lay in the legal foundation of their final judgments. On the surface, the justices ruled that exported installation files are exempt from US patent law protection, and that it's okay for someone to make and market a better gas pedal.

But the foundation of the AT&T v. Microsoft ruling was that abstract renderings of software, such as source code, don't count as the software itself - thus, you can't patent source code. (You can copyright it, but that's another matter.) And in the equally important KSR v. Teleflex ruling, if someone sees an obvious way to improve a patented device, it can't be considered patent infringement if he markets that improvement. Thus conceivably, software that improves the operating efficiency of some other patented software - for example, a third-party filter for a codec - can't be considered an infringement of the patent holder's rights.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has denied Vonage's request that a patent infringement ruling against it be vacated and the case sent back to the lower court for a retrial. The company can, however, reference the matter in its appeal brief, due next Wednesday.

Vonage's request followed a ruling Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court that called into question the patentability of "obvious" inventions. Verizon sued the company for infringing on its voice over IP patents, but Vonage claims the patents should not be considered valid.

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