Mere days after announcing a delay in the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft has massively reorganized its Platforms & Services Division (PSD), which will now be made up of eight groups. The idea, the company says, is to better align its Windows and MSN efforts with its new "Live strategy."

As part of the shakeup, Microsoft Office head Steven Sinofsky will now lead the Redmond company's Windows and Windows Live efforts, taking over development of future Windows releases. That effort was previously headed by Jim Allchin, who will be retiring next year.

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Microsoft has confirmed the existence of a critical Internet Explorer flaw that could put millions of IE users at risk of code execution just by visiting a malicious Web site. The flaw was first reported this week by Danish security firm Secunia.

According to the firm's advisory, the flaw exists in how Internet Explorer interprets the "createTextRange()" method used for radio button controls in HTML forms. From there, the flaw can be exploited to allow program flow to be redirected to the heap.

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Following news that Warner Home Video has delayed the release of its initial batch of HD DVD movie titles by three weeks, Toshiba said Thursday it will hold off on launching the first HD DVD players until next month. The company initially targeted a March debut of the high-definition DVD format.

Blaming the delay on technical issues, Warner said its HD DVD discs would not appear until April 18, rather than March 28 as previously announced. Also, its list of launch titles has been scaled back as well to three: "Million Dollar Baby," "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Last Samurai."

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In an effort to attract new viewers and target a younger demographic for its 39 year-old newsmagazine show, CBS announced Thursday that it had struck a deal to broadcast video content from "60 Minutes" on Yahoo's media properties. The service would begin this fall, with a special preview of the programming available March 26 featuring an interview with Tiger Woods.

Upon launch, "60 Minutes" content would be available across Yahoo's news, sports and entertainment sites, as well as a special site dedicated to the show. That site would be updated following each broadcast with two packages: one expanding on a segment aired on television and the other based on a topical news theme.

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Sling Media on Thursday released a public beta of its SlingPlayer Mobile application, allowing Slingbox owners with Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs to access television content while on the road.

The application is available for both Windows Mobile 5.0 and Pocket PC 2003 Second Edition, with a version for non-touch screen smartphones due in April. While the beta is currently free, Sling Media said it would begin charging $29.99 USD on April 26.

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Microsoft made a statement on Thursday that is sure to rile its detractors: the Windows Server operating system is being chosen in greater numbers by corporations over UNIX and Linux for its reliability.

To support the claim, Microsoft said companies such as Altera, Rayovac, and CompUSA cited that fact in their decisions to choose the Windows platform.

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Popular online payment site PayPal is set to offer its customers methods to pay or receive money via text messages on their cell phones, the company confirmed Thursday. The service, called PayPal Mobile, would initially launch in the United States, Canada and Britain in the coming weeks.

Rumors of the new feature first began to circulate the Internet after bloggers discovered links to the service on Wednesday. No official press release has yet been issued, however pages describing the service have already appeared on the PayPal Web site.

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Fidelity Investments disclosed Wednesday that a laptop carrying personal information on 196,000 current and former employees of Hewlett Packard was stolen last week. The incident apparently occurred while Fidelity employees were working at an off-site location.

Information on the laptop included names, addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, and employment information. PINs for the employees' Fidelity accounts were not part of this data. However, the amount of information lost is likely more than enough to pose a potential identity theft threat.

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Not even hours out of the gate, Sun's public Grid service has already been hit by a denial of service attack. According to the company, its text-to-speech service became the target of attackers that caused the application to crash.

To stop the attack, Sun moved the application to the standard protected portion of the grid. The company said that users of the regular Grid noticed no degradation in service quality as a result of Wednesday's incident.

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Dell confirmed on Wednesday what had been rumored on blogs for nearly a week: it has purchased trendy gaming PC manufacturer Alienware. The company said the buy was aimed at strengthening its position among computer enthusiasts.

Alienware fans should not fear that their favorite PCs will soon bear the Dell logo -- the company would be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dell, yet operate separately. The move is merely mainly aimed at bettering the company's supply chain, says Dell and Alienware.

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According to a BenQ executive Apple's plan for its own mobile phone with iPod functionality, being called the "iPhone," is no secret among manufacturers in Taiwan. The comments came as part of an interview with Australian technology publication Smart House magazine Tuesday.

"An iPod phone is definitely coming. BenQ will not be making it as we are in competition with Apple however several of our suppliers have been approached to manufacture parts," the executive was quoted as saying. "Among manufacturers in Taiwan it is common knowledge."

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Claria, best known for its Gator adware program, said Tuesday that it would exit the adware business in order to focus on personalized search. According to a statement announcing the move, Claria has a number of interested buyers.

There are conditions to a sale, however. Claria said it would only sell if the purchaser agrees to abide by industry standards set by TRUSTe and other groups to govern adware. A sale is expected by mid-year.

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Microsoft delivered some not-so-shocking news Tuesday: there will be no Vista until 2007. While many had expected this, the company had been steadfast in its assurance that the next generation operating system would ship this year, even up until days before the announcement.

Here's what pundits and bloggers alike had to say about Vista's seemingly neverending delays. What do you think?

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Mozilla late Tuesday began the push towards Firefox 2.0 with the release of Bon Echo Alpha 1, designed to give a preview of the company's upcoming revision to its popular alternative web browser. One of the most notable new features of Firefox 2 will be its improved bookmark functionality, called Places.

Changes have also been made to tabbed browsing, support for SVG, and numerous bug fixes. While the release is not recommended for daily use, Mozilla is asking users to download, test, and provide feedback on the build. "The BonEcho Alpha 1 milestone is the first of many developer milestones on the path to Firefox 2," Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering for Mozilla, said in a statement.

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Microsoft will offer free and unlimited technical support to its rivals who are interested in making their products work with the company's server products, it said Wednesday. The proposal is Microsoft's latest effort to comply with a European Union antitrust ruling.

Previously, the company was only offering 500 hours of support free of charge to rivals as part of a possible deal.

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