Microsoft granted stay in Word patent case

In today's podcast: Microsoft granted stay in Word patent case; EC takes closer look at Oracle-Sun; and Intel to put desktop chips in servers.

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An appeals court has granted Microsoft's request to put off an injunction that could have forced it to stop selling its Microsoft Word software next month. Microsoft had appealed a court decision from mid-August that gave it 60 days to stop selling Word products that allow users to create custom XML documents. The ruling, which also includes additional damages Microsoft must pay, stemmed from a patent infringement suit filed in 2007 by i4i. The court has ordered Microsoft to pay more than US$290 million in damages in total. If the appeals court ultimately upholds the injunction, Microsoft could potentially develop a workaround that avoids using the disputed technology or strip the capability from the products.

The European Commission opened an in-depth investigation into Oracle's planned $7.4 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems Thursday, citing "serious concerns" about the deal's effect on competition in the market for databases. Europe's top competition authority called for a closer look at the deal after conducting a routine month-long examination. The Commission now has 90 working days, or until Jan. 19, 2010, to reach a decision. The Commission "has to examine very carefully the effects on competition in Europe when the world's leading proprietary database company proposes to take over the world's leading open source database company," said Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a statement. Sun competes against Oracle, among others, with its open source database, MySQL.

Intel has tweaked its chip road map, with plans to extend its upcoming Westmere mainstream desktop dual-core chips with integrated graphics processors to entry-level servers. The chips, code-named Clarkdale and built on the Westmere architecture, will come under the Core i3 and Core i5 brands, and integrate a graphics processor and a CPU in one chip package. The updated road map was offered earlier this week during a discussion of Intel's collaboration with Microsoft on the Windows 7 OS. While the Clarkdale chips will be mainly for mainstream PCs, there are plans for versions that could go into single-socket servers, said George Alfs, an Intel spokesman.

Oracle database administrators who are worried they might have to skip Oracle's user conference next month to fiddle with security updates can relax. Oracle is cutting them a break and releasing its next set of patches a week later than planned. The updates, which are released on a set schedule every three months, had been due for release on Oct. 13, slap in the middle of Oracle's OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. But after thinking things over, Oracle has decided to delay the patches. They're now due on Oct. 20. Oracle announced the change Thursday on its Web site, saying it was moving the patches back because "many Oracle customers with responsibility for deploying the Critical Patch Update within their respective organizations will be attending Oracle OpenWorld."

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.