Such debacles received the lion’s share of press. But in reality the software giant had several successes. Most every other iteration of Windows had a strong year, either with good execution (Windows Server 2008, Windows XP) or good buzz (Windows 7, Windows Azure). And from the ashes of the Yahoo failure emerged some smart hires for Microsoft that could boost the company’s search business and set the tone for a possible future deal with Yahoo.

Here are four areas where Microsoft executed well in 2008, areas that will help set up the company for success in ’09.

Source: edge.networkworld.com

During an appearance Friday afternoon at the University of Washington, the Microsoft chairman at one point referred to his company as if it were second in Internet search. In reality, Microsoft is in third place in search market share — although it would move into second place, still well behind Google, if it’s able to bring Yahoo into its fold.

“Often if you’re No. 2 — and in this case, a distant No. 2 — you can try harder, so to speak, and try out new things that are quite different,” Gates said when discussing Microsoft’s technological ambitions in Internet search.

Source: Seattle PI

At a conference at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash., its general counsel, Bradford L. Smith, said no meetings had been scheduled between the two companies.

Now all eyes are focused on Microsoft’s next move. The company warned this month that if its April 26 deadline was not met, it would seek to oust Yahoo’s board and take its offer directly to shareholders, perhaps at a lower price. The deadline passed Saturday with no sign that the two sides were negotiating.

Last Wednesday, Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, raised the possibility that his company would walk away from its offer. A day later, Christopher P. Liddell, the chief financial officer, said Microsoft was not inclined to increase its offer for Yahoo and would decide this week how to proceed. A Microsoft spokesman said Monday evening that no decision had been made.

Source: New York Times

When Microsoft acquired aQuantive last May, it also bought an element of controversy: a small part of aQuantive’s business helps clients get high placement in the search results and paid search advertising offered by Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Some in the search industry say that could mean a conflict of interest–if the search marketing arm of aQuantive’s subsidiary Avenue A/Razorfish gained special access to Microsoft’s search algorithm and advertising platform, MSN’s search results and ad placement could be biased towards aQuantive’s clients. And that problem, they say, would only grow if Microsoft manages to acquire Yahoo!’s 20 or so percent of the search market

Read the full story at Forbes

In a letter to be delivered on Monday, Yahoo’s board is also expected to reject Microsoft’s suggestion that its business is deteriorating, the person said.

Yahoo is responding to a three-week deadline issued by Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in a letter to Yahoo on Saturday for Yahoo to agree to Microsoft’s $31 a share cash-and-stock offer or risk seeing the bid lowered.

“This is a hardball tactic to turn up the heat on Yahoo’s management to start negotiating immediately,” Jeffries and Co analyst Youssef Squali said. He still predicts the Microsoft deal will be done at $31.

Read the rest at Reuters UK

According to the lawsuit, Yahoo has “failed” in their duties to shareholders by rejecting the offer, putting the investments of everyone in the company at risk.

The lawsuit also mentions that by trying to circumvent the acquisition, the company board members are looking into “value-destructive” third-party deals, thus reinforcing their claim. They also assert that Yahoo board members are refusing the offer solely because they dislike Microsoft and seek to make the company unattractive to them. And while that may seem laughable from the standpoint of an outsider, Yahoo is just one of the many relatively young, web-based companies that strive for an integral.

Story found at Techspot.
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Anyone who’s been following this story will know why. Microsoft’s half-cash, half-stock offer was for $31 per Yahoo share, a 26% premium over Yahoo’s share price of $19 at the time the deal was announced. However, Yahoo’s share price quickly climbed to over $29, and Microsoft’s share price dipped as shareholders responded to the offer. As a result, not only did Yahoo’s value increase, but the value of Microsoft’s offer shrank, as well. An estimate posted last week pegged the updated value of the offer at $29.50 per Yahoo share—a premium of less than 2%.

What’s next? As we reported last week, analysts believe Microsoft is bound to up its bid. The AP says Microsoft will likely offer to pay $35 to $40 per share next, bumping up the value of the deal by $5 to $12 billion. Microsoft could also choose to be more aggressive by offering its takeover deal directly to shareholders and trying to oust Yahoo’s board members.

News source TechReport.

Quoting “a person familiar with the situation” the publication states that after a series of meetings over this weekend, the board feels that the software giant’s bid “massively undervalues” Yahoo.

When it was made, Microsoft’s $31 a share offer was 62% above the level at which Yahoo’s shares were trading. Yahoo’s shares closed on Friday at $29.20, suggesting doubt among traders that the offer would be successful or that a higher price would be offered.

Fearful that Microsoft plans to “steal” the company by taking advantage of Yahoo’s recent low share price, the source suggests that Yahoo’s board is digging in for what could be a long battle.

The company is unlikely to consider any offer below $40 per share, the person said.

Found at TheRegister

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The attack, which was first observed in the last few hours, is not widespread at present. Symantec Security Response Director Oliver Friedrichs said today that the company had identified just three Web sites that were hosting the attack code, all of which seem to be linked to the same criminals.

But he believes that more attacks are inevitable as the bad guys work the code into their malicious toolkits of software. “Given the fact that the proof of concept is available and works, it’s not exactly rocket science for someone to plug this into [a toolkit],” he said. “That’s likely to happen in short order.”

Security researchers Elazar Broad and Krystian Kloskowski have disclosed a slew of ActiveX bugs affecting MySpace and Facebook over the past few days, but the attack reported by Symantec takes advantage of a flaw in an ActiveX control used by Yahoo’s Music Jukebox. After the attackers are able to install software on the victim’s machine, they then begin installing a number of malicious files on the victim’s computer, Symantec said.
Read the rest at PC World

Researcher Elazar Broad has disclosed a Boundary Condition vulnerability within mediagrid.dll, version 2.2.2 56. Researchers Krystian Kloskowski and Broad have disclosed a second Boundary Condition vulnerability within datagrid.dll, version 2.2.2 56c. And Kloskowski alone has disclosed a buffer overflow within datagrid.dll 2.2.2 56, which affects the AddImage function.

The three vulnerabilities are present within Yahoo Instant Messenger version 3.5 and Yahoo Messenger versions 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5, and could allow an attacker to compromise affected systems.

There are no known public exploits for these at this time. There is no patch available.

The existing workaround includes enabling the ActiveX control for each. Microsoft provides more details here . The specific CLSIDs for the ActiveX controls involved are:

Yahoo! MediaGrid: CLSID 22FD7C0A-850C-4A53-9821-0B0915C96139
Yahoo! DataGrid: CLSID 5F810AFC-BB5F-4416-BE63-E01DD117BD6C2

News source: cNet