Afterinitial reportshad IE9 heading to the world via Windows Update in March,Microsoft backtrackedand pushed the date back to June. However, according tobreaking reports, IE9 is leaking out via Windows Update now, months ahead of schedule. The update is being marked as “Important,” raising the chances of a user installing it. While for regular consumers this is nothing short of a boon, for enterprises it could be a problem. Many large corporations maintain very close tabs on their upgrade cycles, keeping users on specific editions of Internet Explorer to ensure that legacy software continues to operate as intended....

In the middle of March this year, Microsoft effectively killed the Rustock botnet. But the company is not content with that, and wants to dig deeper into how it came about. To that end, the company isputting up a $250,000 prizeto anyone who can bring it fresh information. The company, in typical corporate speak, claims that the bounty “stems from Microsoft’s recognition that the Rustock botnet is responsible for a number of criminal activities and serves to underscore our commitment to tracking down those behind it....

While Apple might seem to be the crown prince of cash lately, Microsoft’s latest earnings call has once again solidified its position as a massive earner, even besting Apple. The numbers from Microsoft break down like this: Earnings – $6.63 billionRevenue – $19.95 billonEPS – $.77, up from $.74 one year prior Of course these numbers make Microsoft happy. CFO Peter Klein is quoted as saying that “We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday lineup of products, including the launch of Kinect....

Microsoft has today responded to a minor outcry in the Windows Phone development community over a set of emails that had been sent out, informing developers that their accounts on App Hub (the WP7 developer back-end) were set to soon expire. The problem that cropped up was that when a developer went to renew, the system would not let him. Obviously, with Mango still rolling out, and developer interest near peak levels, this was a problem large enough that it required direct action from Microsoft....

Today the Bing team released anew Maps SDK for iOSdevelopers that contains an expanded feature set, and a new tool to help boost application performance. The new SDK is designed to be attractive to the currently active iOS developer, and does so by providing Objective C classes that can be used within Xcode to develop for both the iPad and iPhone. Included in the SDK are examples alongside new documentation to aid developers who might be new to using Bing....