Microsoft: No Plans To Raise Yahoo Bid (Yet)

Microsoft (MSFT) plans to continue to stand firm on its Yahoo (YHOO) bid, the WSJ says --a report that will likely come as a disappointment to those hoping for a pre-emptive hike. We still expect Microsoft to raise its bid at the eleventh hour, when the companies are already deep in negotiation, but there is no reason to do it before then.

Any time information like this appears in the press, one has to ask why the sources wanted it there, and in this case, Microsoft is obviously using the WSJ to tell Yahoo shareholders that they're not going to get rewarded for playing hard to get. Yahoo shareholders have been pretty patient on the whole, and Microsoft is probably hoping they will now tell Yahoo to get on with it.

According to the WSJ, the two companies have had only one face-to-face meeting (and, presumably, many backchannel phone-calls). Although the WSJ's Microsoft sources are quick to point out that time is working against Yahoo--deteriorating economy, Yahoo exhausting all other options, etc.--time is working against Microsoft, too. Every day that it waits is another day before the deal closes and the combined company gets down to business.

Kara Swisher says major Yahoo investors are increasingly dismayed by Yahoo's intransigence, which some chalk up to Jerry Yang's "Founderitis." We think Jerry's actually handling a tough situation well, and in any other industry, we'd have no problem with his waiting another couple of months to try to bore Microsoft to death. In this industry, though, the competition is just moving way too fast.

Sony BMG Sued For Using Pirated Software

You read that headline right -- Sony BMG, ardent foe of music piracy, is in trouble for using pirated software .

The company is being sued by PointDev , a French software company that makes Windows administration tools, after an IT worker at Sony BMG called and supplied the company with a pirated license number for one of its products.

A subsequent raid of Sony BMG offices in France turned up pirated PointDev software on four servers, and quite a bit more suspect software. The Business Software Alliance thinks that up to 47% of the software installed on French business computers could be pirated. For its part, PointDev is claiming $475,000 in damages. Sony BMG declined to comment.

The CEO of tiny PointDev (six employees), Agustoni Paul-Henry, doesn't think it was an oversight, or the work of one person. "I think piracy is linked to the policy of a company," he said. But who cares if it is? We can almost hear everybody who's been sued by Sony BMG for dowloading music laughing.

Apple Sued For Saying New iMac Is Cool When It Isn't

Or something like that:

For Immediate Release
March 31, 2008
Contact: Yusef K. Robb
323-384-1789

Los Angeles - Apple deceptively marketed its new 20-inch iMac in a way that grossly inflated the capabilities of its monitor, which is vastly inferior to the previous generation it replaced, according to a federal class action lawsuit filed today by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP.

According to the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose, Apple is deceiving consumers by concealing that the new 20-inch iMac monitors are inferior to the previous generation's and those of the new 24-inch iMac. In addition, the monitors are incapable of displaying 'millions of colors,' despite Apple's marketing claims.

Apple's newest iMac - an 'all-in-one' desktop computer that combines the monitor into the same case as the CPU - was unveiled in August 2007.

'Apple is duping its customers into thinking they're buying new and improved' when in fact they're getting stuck with new and inferior,'' said Brian Kabateck, Managing Partner of Kabateck Brown Kellner. 'Beneath Apple's good guy' image is a corporation that takes advantage of its customers. Our goal is to help those customers who were deceived and make sure Apple tells the truth in the future.'

Apple told consumers that both the 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs displayed 'millions of colors at all resolutions.' Indeed, the new 24-inch iMacs display 16,777,216 colors on 8-bit, in-plane switching (IPS) screens, as did the previous generation of 20-inch iMacs. But the new 20-inch iMac monitors do not even come close, displaying 98% fewer colors (262,144).

While Apple describes the display of both the 24-inch and 20-inch iMacs as though they were interchangeable, the monitors in each are of radically different technology. The 20-inch iMacs feature 6-bit twisted nematic film (TN) LCD screens, the least expensive of its type.

The 20-inch iMac's TN screens have a narrower viewing angle, less color depth, less color accuracy and are more susceptible to washout across the screen.

Apple's Web site tells consumers that 'No matter what you like to do on your computer - watch movies, edit photos, play games, even just view a screen saver - it's going to look stunning on an iMac.'

In fact, the inferior technology of the 20-inch iMac is particularly ill-suited to editing photographs because of the display's limited color potential and the distorting effect of the color simulation processes.

'Apple is squeezing more profits for itself by using cheap screens

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