Microsoft Corporation India and Hewlett Packard India have announced a new partnership to address the needs of the emerging SMB segment of the Indian subcontinent. Through this joint venture the two companies intend to roll out a 'Smart Office' initiative to offer SMBs/ SMEs integrated IT solutions, tailor-made to suit their needs.

More specifically, under the initiative the two companies plan to create powerful, easy-to-use desktop solutions by pre-loading versions of Microsoft Office on a range of hardware options from Hewlett-Packard.

Microsoft launched a business version of its Windows Desktop Search application.
Microsoft Corp. recently released a business version of software that aims to help people more quickly find documents, e-mail and other data stored on Windows-based computers.

Similar to the present version designed for consumers, Microsoft's new tool will allow businesses to decide just what gets indexed and searched on their corporate networks, as well as make it easier for IT managers to deploy the tool.

The Microsoft Network lately announced that it will be teaming up with the Associated Press to develop the AP Online Video Network, slated to launch in the first quarter of next year. Based on an advertising-supported model, the network will provide AP members with news videos for their Web sites.

The service will be available at no charge to the AP's 3,500 newspaper and broadcast members. Based on how much traffic they generate, members will share in the revenues generated by the network.

Contrary to popular opinion, Windows is not the only operating system in which Microsoft is investing.

Microsoft Research has developed a 300,000-line microkernel-based prototype called Singularity, the product of the largest cross-group project inside of Microsoft Research, involving about 35 researchers from the systems, networking, compiler, and testing teams, and the company has posted a 44-page white paper about it.