Microsoft News - Zune comes out, Internet Explorer 7, Novell & Linux deal with Microsoft, and Vista release date.

Goodness, Microsoft's in the headlines this holiday season.

Let's start with the Novell deal. Seems Microsoft and Novell have formed a union between the two longtime antagonists who want to make it easier for the still-dominant Windows operating system and the increasingly popular Linux system to work together.

Here's more details:

• "The agreement announced Thursday between the world's largest seller of patent-protected software and a leader in the open-source software movement has potentially important business, technical and legal implications."
• "This builds a very important intellectual-property bridge between the open source and proprietary sides of software," Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said shortly before the companies formally announced their alliance in San Francisco."
• "The alliance is primarily aimed at the growing number of major companies and government agencies that rely on elements of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft's Windows and Linux to run their computers."

More on the Linux situation from the AP here.

Microsoft gets ready for Zune, launches Zune.net

It's time for Microsoft to go after iPods huge digital music market. With Apple's iPod getting around 80% of the digital download market, you can see why companies like Microsoft are getting excited about new products. However, a few have tried and failed already. Anyone remember Sony's Music store about a year back? Didn't think so. But, Microsoft has built in advantages, namely creating the computers and browsers for most anyone that uses the internet. The Microsoft Internet Explorer released the newest version of its web browser, version 7 which is available for downloads. New features include tab browsing and built in search engine.

And, with the Microsoft XBox comes the soon to be released Playstation 3, which is brazen enough to command a price tag of around $500-600. Jeez!

Now, it's official. The new Windows program, VISTA, has an official release date!

"Microsoft announced that they will begin to ships their Windows Vista to corporate customer starting 30th November 2006 and the commercial release will be 30th January 2007. The big launch event will be held on 30th November at the NASDAQ Stock Market in midtown Manhattan and the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. The Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will reported be there."