Big brother China eyes Microsoft
By Martin J Young


HUA HIN, Thailand - A new Chinese anti-monopoly law due to take effect in August could become the thorn in Microsoft's side should it be successful in its takeover bid for Yahoo!. The law will allow Chinese regulators the power to examine foreign mergers when they involve acquisitions of Chinese companies or foreign investment in Chinese companies.

Since Yahoo invested about US$1 billion in 2005 in China's largest e-commerce business, Alibaba.com, it will fall under scrutiny of the new law. Alibaba officials claim a buyback provision would be set in motion enabling them to get independence from Microsoft should the takeover proceed.

There are many more such jurisdictions that would be affected by the deal, which could potentially transform the Internet into two



mega-portals. Beijing's economic influence could also extend far beyond its own borders and even contend for influence with Brussels and Washington as another regulatory capital.

Microsoft emerged victorious this week in the long-running battle of the official standardization of its Open Document Format. By reversing an initial preliminary vote, the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization, known as ISO, stated that enough countries had changed their votes to approve the format. This decision will make it easier for Microsoft to sell its Office suite to government clients.

The interchangeable web documents format called Open XML was finally approved by 24 of 32 countries on Wednesday. Some of the hottest emerging tech markets including Brazil, India and China, which account for over a third of the world's population, voted against the format. Microsoft usually keeps the bones of its software and formats highly secretive to prevent competitors developing rival software. In this instance it made the specifications open source as it aimed for official standardization and ISO validation.

Gaming
Rockstar, the company responsible for the high-hitting Grand Theft Auto (GTA)game series, have announced plans to launch a website called "Social Club" on which members can interact and share experiences on the latest release of the cult game.

Forums have always been a good medium for gamers to get together and share stories and hints, but it seems that GTA IV aficionados will be offered much more on the new site. The long-awaited game is slated for release on April 29 and is tipped to be the year's best seller.

Plenty of controversy has surrounded its adult themes and content following a series of promotional trailers leading up to its release. A number of official bodies, including the British Board of Film Classification, have classified the game as rated 18 rather than banning it completely in Britain, a move feared by many.

Internet
The introduction of a new media site for women has been making the headlines this week as Yahoo prepares to launch into another venture. The new site called "Shine" is the latest in a string of offerings from the California-based Internet giant aimed at a more-focused demographic. Content will be targeted towards women aged 25 to 54 and will include nine categories ranging from parenting to fashion.

Over the past few years, Yahoo has been developing a "tailored homepage" approach whereby its users can get all the information they want and access all of their features, such as email and news feeds, from the one source. An editorial team has been employed to publish original stories daily and select user blogs to feature on the new site, which can be found at shine.yahoo.com.

The launch of the latest iteration of the popular Firefox web browser is rapidly approaching. Firefox 3 is now in its 5th beta edition and promises to be the "fastest Firefox ever", according to creators Mozilla. Improvements and optimizations include far better and faster interaction with other software, such as Google Mail, Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, and an advanced Javascript engine.

It will also have better connectivity to the Internet by supporting six connections per host (up from two) which brings the browser on a par with Internet Explorer 8. The final release date has yet to be officially announced.

Security
A security contest held last week in Vancouver pitched "hackers" and security experts against each other on the latest laptops running the latest operating systems. CanSecWest 2008 lined up Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, Mac OS X and Linux on three laptops for the contenders to attempt to break into. Prizes included the latest Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810 and Macbook Air, and various cash sums, all there for the taking to the successful hacker.

All systems held out on day one, which probed remotely exploitable vulnerabilities; day two was relaxed a little with default-installed client side applications under the spotlight. The first to fall was Safari, which led to a compromised Macbook Air.

The two remaining systems were challenged on day three, when popular third-party client applications were added to the mix. Second to fall was the Vista laptop through an exploit in Adobe's Flash software, which left the only operating system standing and the winner Linux distribution, Ubuntu, running on the Sony. All contenders had to sign a nondisclosure agreement so that the vendors could address the security fixes.

Hardware
Intel is rolling out its Atom chips this week at the spring IDF conference in Shanghai. The five new low-power microprocessors designed for mobile Internet devices will run at clock speeds ranging from 800MHz to 1.86GHz. Intel claims that the central processing unit's will deliver "the best Internet experience in your pocket". The tiny chips measure less than 25 square millimeters making them the ideal brains for portable gadgets.

Martin J Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.

Never underestimate the resourcefulness of Bill Gates. He has defeated such notable entities as IBM, Netscape, Apple & the US Government so if this Chinese ruling comes into effect, he will eventually find a way around it.