Microsoft Sues Dentist for Cybersquatting

McDougall, Paul. "Microsoft Sues Dentist For Cybersquatting." InformationWeek. 14 Nov 2007.

Microsoft filed a trademark infringement against Dr. Saed Said, a California dentist, who has registered over 40 Internet domains with similar names to Microsoft's products and brands. Some of the domain names registered by Said include aMicrosoftShop.com, aMicrosoftStore.com, XboxOutlet.info, and XboxMarket.mobi. Microsoft claims that Said uses the domains to deliberately attempt to confuse people looking for Microsoft's products. Microsoft also claims that Said profits from the misdirection because his Web site contains advertising for non-Microsoft products. Microsoft has asked the court to order Said to pay up to $100,000 per infringing domain, plus additional charges. Microsoft also wants control of the domain names. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act was passed by Congress in 1999. The law makes those who register infringing domain names liable to civil suits from the trademark holder. Microsoft's lawsuit against Said is part of a larger campaign to combat cybersquatting.

Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework 3.5

Havenstein, Heather. "Microsoft says it will ship Visual Studio 2008 this month." ComputerWorld. 5 Nov 2007.

Microsoft says it will release Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 by the end of the month. Soma Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft's developer division, says developers will be able to use their existing skills to build more compelling applications for end users. VS 2008 will allow users to create "smart client" applications that offer the same kind of rich user experiences that are found on the Web. This tool can be used to develop applications for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Office 2007, and the Web. VS 2008 provides performance and scalability upgrades. VS 2008 also includes built-in syncronization support. Sync Framework, a tool that was released in a Community Technology Preview version for beta-testing, works with the built-in syncronization support. It allows you to take Web services and databases offline, and offers peer-to-peer collaboration. VS 2008 also allows developers to target older versions of the .NET Framework, instead of just the newest version. The main new feature of the .NET 3.5 Framework is that it is integrated with Language Integration Query (LINQ) that allows developers to refer to and interact with databases. Microsoft also announced changes to the licensing terms for its Visual Studio business partners. Partners will no longer be limited to building technology only on top of Visual Studio for Windows and other Microsoft systems.