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Microsoft wins patent war over Open Source

Microsoft has struck a heavy blow in its fight against the Open Source software movement, when the US Patent and Trademark office approved its claim on the FAT file system. FAT, short for File Allocation Table, is a system used by Windows computers to store and index files in partitions of the hard disks. The latest Windows versions support FAT but uses NTFS as its recommended system. That will not however stop Microsoft in going against the OS movement, led by Linux.

Many Linux distributions contain code for supporting FAT, and this patent claim gives Microsoft legal muscle to force the removal of such code or demand royalty for licensing the technology. Microsoft has been serious attack from the movement, especially from Linux which has been touted as the operating system for the future. Linux, however, still remains a spot in the Microsoft dominated PC market, although it has made significant strides in the server business.

Broadband surges ahead worldwide

Broadband Internet access is on the rise worldwide, with the count expected to reach 205 million lines by the close of 2005. Broadband media like cable Internet, DSL and others have all shown significant growth in the year. However, it is to be noted that there still remains a major portion of the Net citizens who have access to only dial-up at miserably low connection speeds in many countries. Broadband continues to surge ahead in many countries with Morocco, Romania and India leading the pack. (See figure)