With its plans to set up its own music store online, Microsoft is leaving some partners feeling betrayed, and with MSN Newsbot, it’s marching deeper into Google territory. But it makes nice with Office customers. Microsoft confirms plans that it will launch its own music download store, putting it on the path to direct competition with Apple’s iTunes and a …

Microsoft has at last confirmed plans that it will launch its own music-download store next year, putting it on the path to direct competition with Apple Computer’s iTunes and a growing list of rival digital song stores. With unequaled software reach, Microsoft’s entry into the market will almost necessarily create a splash larger than that of virtually any other company, …

Sharman Networks, distributor of the popular Kazaa file-sharing software, previewed its first-ever set of print ads Monday that will run in major newspapers and Rolling Stone magazine beginning this week. In separate ads aimed respectively at entertainment moguls and at consumers, Sharman exhorted executives to stop treating file swappers as pirates and asked computer users to lobby record labels and …