Software market experts and Microsoft’s own customers are wondering if Microsoft really does want to get into the enterprise resource planning business after all. The company had previously said it would not enter the high-end applications market for at least two years, but that was before they discovered Microsoft and SAP had briefly discussed a merger.

A patent granted to Microsoft covers the use of a "task list" in a software development environment. The patented technology essentially integrates certain comments left in the source code of an application under development with an accompanying checklist.

Four-fifths of spam now emanates from computers contaminated with Trojan horse infections, according to a study by network management firm Sandvine out this week. Trojans and worms with backdoor components such as Migmaf and SoBig have turned infected Windows PCs into drones in vast networks of compromised zombie PCs.

In a comparison with Web conferencing products from WebEx and Microsoft, IBM’s Lotus Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing offers a feature-rich set of tools that can be integrated into most government agencies, but according to one reviewer the integration with Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook is also useful.

IBM announced that its IBM Tivoli Access Manager identity management software now supports Microsoft .NET environments. Users can now manage access control for Microsoft ASP.NET applications via Tivoli Access Manager, which already supports Java and Windows development platforms.

Microsoft has been cleared of anti-competitive charges in a Brazilian case that dates to 1998. Brazil’s Economic Defense Administration Board ruled that a Microsoft financial application did not have an unfair advantage over similar software produced by a Brazilian software maker.

Microsoft’s decision to hold off on its next major refresh of Exchange could be a boon to IT administrators struggling to keep current with major software platform releases. At the recent TechEd conference, Microsoft outlined some changes to its messaging strategy. The key change is that for the foreseeable future, there will be no more big application releases as we know them, only incremental ones.

Microsoft’s plans for a common set of services that promise its server platform products will work better together are being met with skepticism. The company next year will begin rolling out products for the Windows Server System family based on Microsoft’s Common Engineering Roadmap.

The European Union’s antitrust chief expressed confidence Monday that his landmark decision against Microsoft would withstand a court challenge due this week, even as his U.S. counterpart renewed criticism of the order.

Better Network Services Group has created software that allows text, pictures, audio and video to be sent from Outlook via Exchange and Active Directory controls to SMS- and MMS-capable mobile phones.