Another lawsuit has been filed in the increasingly litigious VOIP industry. Vonage acknowledged Monday that it had been served with a suit by Verizon and Verizon Laboratories alleging infringement of seven patents related to VOIP technologies. The company said that before the suit, it had not been informed by Verizon that it was infringing upon the technologies, and had hired outside counsel to investigate Verizon's claims.

"As a leading developer of VoIP technology, Vonage respects the valid intellectual property rights of others," Vonage said in a statement. "Vonage believes that its services have been developed with its own proprietary technology and technology licensed from third parties and intends to vigorously defend the lawsuit." Verizon had no further comment as of press time.

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Nokia and Siemens said Monday that they would form a joint venture called Nokia Siemens Networks, merging the communications services divisions of both companies. The new entity is expected to immediately become a leader in the industry with strong positions in both the network infrastructure and services businesses.

Current Nokia executive vice president and general manager of Networks Simon Beresford-Wylie would serve as the combined company's CEO. Peter Schonhofer, member of the Siemens AG Austria executive board, would become the chief financial officer.

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Microsoft this week provided greater detail on hardware requirements for its Windows Vista Basic and Premium logo programs. The Redmond company said that in order to be certified as "Vista Ready," a device must meet all of the requirements.

"To qualify for a basic system logo, the devices of a basic system that includes embedded or add-in devices must comply with the basic requirements (if a logo program exists for the device categories)," Microsoft explained.

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On Thursday, Microsoft chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates made the surprise announcement that he was passing on the reins to Ray Ozzie in 2008. While Gates will stay on board as chairman, his new focus would be on philanthropic work.

We have gathered below snippets of Gates' and Ballmer's missives to their employees, as well as the reactions from many of the Web's opinion makers. Some say the writing was on the wall and that a change in the company was sorely needed. What do you think?

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McAfee on Friday released betas of two software suites based on its new security service platform code-named "Falcon," first announced last month and intended to compete with Windows Live OneCare and Symantec's upcoming "Genesis" platform.

Under development for the past year, Falcon combines the company's antivirus, anti-spyware, and "threat watch" technologies. It includes SystemGuard to look for certain behaviors that may indicate virus, spyware or hacker activity, and alert the consumer before the issue does damage. Additionally, X-Ray detects and kills rootkits, as well as malicious programs that attempt to hide themselves.

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A security flaw within the PayPal Web site is posing a serious threat to its users, security firm Netcraft said Friday. The credit card numbers and personal information of those duped by attackers is at risk through a cross-site scripting attack.

A fraudster tricks the user into divulging information by asking them to visit an actual PayPal URL. Since this is hosted by the company, it would appear as if information is encrypted through the company's own SSL certificates. However, through cross-site scripting, some of the information on the accessed page has been modified.

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Google confirmed Thursday that it was working on and beginning to test an online payment system, but said it was nothing like PayPal and would not compete with the market-leading service. Instead, Google is looking to solve "new problems in the payments space," says CEO Eric Schmidt.

Analysts had long suspected that Google was developing a payment service, but most had seen it as a competitor to PayPal. Thursday's comments are the first public indication of the company's plans, although several questions still linger. Google still is staying mum on specifics.

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Just two days after releasing 12 patches to correct 21 security issues in its products, including a critical flaw in Word, Microsoft says it is investigating a report of a new vulnerability affecting Excel, the company's spreadsheet software. So far only one Microsoft customer has been hit by the attack.

"Here's what we know: In order for this attack to be carried out, a user must first open a malicious Excel document that is sent as an email attachment or otherwise provided to them by an attacker," explained Mike Reavey from the Microsoft Security Response Center. Microsoft has updated the Windows Live Safety Center to remove the malware that exploits the security flaw, and says it is sharing information with partners so their software can detect attacks as well.

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Following a news conference announcing that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates would be leaving his role as chief software architect in two years to focus on his Foundation, both Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent company-wide e-mails to employees. The memos provide a look into what the future will bring when the software era of Bill Gates comes to an end.

E-mail from Steve Ballmer on June 15, 2006:

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Six mobile companies said Thursday that they were joining together to work towards an open source Linux-based platform for mobile devices. The group said the effort would benefit the industry overall through lower development costs, increased flexibility, and a richer mobile ecosystem.

It will also push for the use of Linux as a platform on phones. Founding members include Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone. The new organization would be tasked with marketing and development of the product.

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Microsoft chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced in a press conference Thursday afternoon that he would be shifting priorities, leaving his full-time position at Microsoft in two years to focus his efforts on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie will take over Gates' role as Chief Software Architect starting immediately. "Over the next two years, Ray and I will work side by side to ensure a smooth transition," Gates said. "Over time, he'll take on the central role for architectual leadership at Microsoft.'

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Upset with the Federal Trade Commission's settlement with Take-Two Interactive over "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and took a tough stand against violent video games on Wednesday.

While this particular effort is coming from the right, regulation of violent video games is a bipartisan issue. Senator Hillary Clinton has led the charge on the Democratic side, introducing legislation in the Senate late last year.

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The legality of hosting a BitTorrent tracker may be a gray area, but not for Microsoft when it comes to Windows Vista. The company on Wednesday handed down a cease-and-desist order to VistaTorrent.com, which was setup to help users download Vista Beta 2 without waiting on Microsoft's overloaded servers.

Those eager to try out the first public release of Microsoft's next generation operating system have struggled with slow download speeds and timeouts. The company has even recommended that users place an order for a $6 DVD copy rather than wait for the downloads, which have been intentionally capped.

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Google on Thursday rolled out a special U.S. government search built using the company's customized homepage platform. The site lets users quickly search for IRS forms, locate a DMV Web site and find phone numbers to local government offices. The latest Government-related news is also displayed.

"It's a site on which you can 1) search across a huge index of U.S. Federal, state and local government websites via a single search box, and 2) stay up to date through personalized content feeds from government agencies and press outlets," said Google product manager Kevin Gough. "Off you go."

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C2 Communications Technologies, a subsidiary of C2 Global Technologies, said Thursday that it had filed suit in Texas federal court against seven telecommunications companies alleging patent infringement. C2's claims surround a patent that covers a "method and apparatus for implementing a computer network and Internet telephone system" according to the complaint.

Law firms Susman Godfrey, LLP and Monts & Ware, LLP, are representing the company in the suit. Named as defendants are AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Bellsouth, Sprint Nextel, Global Crossing Limited, and Level 3 Communications. C2 is a patent licensing company, according to its profile. As of press time, none of the seven named defendants had commented on the suit.

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