One of Microsoft’s popular licensing programs ended Wednesday, and the question now is what its customers will do next. Upgrade Advantage, a licensing program that allowed companies to upgrade Windows and Microsoft applications fairly infrequently, came to an end Wednesday, according to Cori Hartje, director of marketing and readiness in the worldwide licensing and pricing program at Microsoft.

IT support companies are recommending users look for alternatives to Internet Explorer, the most popular web browser, used by over 90% of Internet users. While popular, it has been plagued by security problems ranging from viruses to spyware.

BorderWare announced the Japanese debut of its flagship MXtreme Mail Firewall, which is exhibiting at NetWorld+Interop 2004 Japan with the IT Solutions division of Marubeni Solutions Corporation.

Massachusetts consumers could receive as much as $34 million worth of computer products under a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit accusing Microsoft Corp. of violating the state’s antitrust laws. Under a settlement announced Tuesday by Microsoft and the law firms that filed the complaint, Massachusetts would become the 12th state with which the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant has reached such an agreement.

Customers who use a number of the top online banking sites are at risk of falling prey to a new Web-based attack that snatches user IDs and passwords for Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Barclays Bank, among others. The attack is rather complex and appears to use a known flaw in Internet Explorer (IE) to drop a Trojan horse program through a malicious pop-up ad that loads a file called "img1big.gif" onto the machine.

Microsoft is reaching out to nonprofessional programmers with a revamped line of developer tools, including a free version of its forthcoming SQL Server database. The company launched the new Express line of developer tools at its TechEd Europe conference in Amsterdam, expanding Microsoft’s presence among students and hobbyists.

Microsoft fans got an update from Bill Gates on Monday about the company’s antispam efforts. In an "executive email" to international subscribers, Gates highlighted several steps the software maker is taking to thwart spam, which by some accounts now eclipses legitimate email 3-to-1.

Microsoft is offering almost $105 million in product vouchers to settle an Arizona class-action lawsuit accusing it of using its monopoly power to overcharge for software.

Almost 95 percent of email fraud and "phishing" reported in May emanated from forged addresses, according to new research from the Anti-Phishing Working Group, which argued that emerging email authentication standards could take the sting out of such nasty attacks.

Microsoft and Fujitsu will collaborate to develop servers for the next-generation Windows operating system, the companies said Monday.